Out With a Bang

It's the end of the year so why not end it with a Top Ten list? These are ten fun ideas, theories, or terms that have entered the Jon lexicon in 2008. Without further ado, the list:(1) The Persistence TheoryWe've determined that persistence and proximity is the way to a girl's heart. I hope you'll agree.(2) Intervention TeamsEveryone makes bad decisions in life, here's what needs to happen when your friends make one. Or fifty.(3) My So-Called LifeAre the days slipping on by? Forget what you're doing year by year? Everything blending together?...

Crazy Love

From EW's 2004 review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, possibly my most romantic movie of all time:"[Jim] Carrey has often played timid, stammering nerds, but this is the first time he has eradicated any hint of stylization. He makes Joel a deeply vulnerable ordinary man, too 'nice' for his own good, haunted by dreams of romance he's scarcely bold enough to voice to himself. We can see why he's attracted to Clementine -- she's the sort of highly eroticized, let's-try-anything girl who's a geek's idea of romantic danger -- and, more mysteriously,...

Eros

Earlier this year I introduced the the world to the life timeline. Its purpose was for remembering, analyzing, and just using the power of Excel to get some perspective on your life. Well, it's nearing the end of 2008 and I'm ready to drop another life spreadsheet on you. Introducing the Relationship Worksheet. The idea behind it is dead simple. By now, if you are around my age, you've probably had a few relationships under your belt. If you're...

Bolt (2008)

I can't quite figure out if Pixar did the animation for this movie. I don't think so since everything I can find out about it only indicates that John Lasseter helped produce Bolt. We waltzed into the movie past the previews but just in time to catch a Cars remake of Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, which was probably better than the actual Cars.While Bolt is definitely geared toward younger audiences, it's got enough entertaining elements to...

The Secret

"There are few things humans are more dedicated to than unhappiness. Had we been placed on earth by a malign creator for the exclusive purpose of suffering, we would have good reason to congratulate ourselves on our enthusiastic response to the task. Reasons to be inconsolable abound: the frailty of our bodies, the fickleness of love, the insincerities of social life, the compromises of friendship, the deadening effects of habit. In the face of such...

The Beautiful Game

And from a recent Secret Santa (we used this site, which was awesome, Elfster.com), I received this book, "The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac" written by the great team behind freedarko.com. Basically the book celebrates and profiles some of the NBA's more interesting stars. Their manifesto focuses on the beauty of the game, the game beyond wins, losses, and stats. It's beautifully illustrated and a must-read for every basketball fan....

Gang Green

The Celtics are 23-2, have won their past fifteen games in a row, and are approaching a record setting start. There's even talk that they might be the best Celtic team ever. Now I know that's hyperbole, especially considering they've only won one championship, but they are really good and a joy to watch. I'm still childishly giddy about how successful they are.I mean, last year the team was thrown together, happened to gel and coalesced into championship...

And Justice 4 All

Listening to: Betty Everett, "It's in His Kiss (The Shoop Shoop Song)." But only on Youtube as performed by Aretha.A few weeks ago, there was a Yelp holiday party. You had to email a special address and ask to be invited. I'm not really a yelper (although I was onto it way early thanks to Ameer) but I thought I'd be a shoo-in. When the time came for George and Dann's excited "We got in!" announcements, I had to hang my head in shame because I...

Stuff I've Been Reading 12

BOOKS READ:Evil Genius - Catherine JinksTop of the World: 2008 Boston Celtics - Peter May24 Girls in 7 Days - Alex BradleySex and the Single Girl - Helen Gurley BrownA Step From Heaven - An NaGood Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil GaimanShenzhen: A Travelogue From China - Guy DelisleSpeak - Laurie Halse AndersonSo I've been keeping this column for a year now. It's proven to be useful in remembering what I've been reading but beyond that I'm not sure it's served much purpose. I do enjoy writing it though and it's been fun to go looking through...

Looking Glass

"It is easier to read a book than to write one; easier to listen to a song than to compose one; easier to attend a play than to produce one. But movies in particular suffer from this user asymmetry. The intensely collaborative work needed to coddle chemically treated film and paste together its strips into movies meant that it was vastly easier to watch a movie than to make one.A Hollywood blockbuster can take a million person-hours to produce and only two hours to consume. But now, cheap and universal tools of creation (megapixel phone cameras,...

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Stop right here if you plan on seeing the movie. I'm going to spoil a few things, if not plot details, at least the emotional ride that is best experienced first hand. To begin with, the film is incredibly engulfing. It's almost impossible not to get drawn in as you experience the childhood scenes of young vagrant Jamal and his brother, Salim. The story is structured around Jamal's amazing success at the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a...

The Air Up There

"The rap on [Brett] Favre over the years has been his lack of impulse control, his confident conviction that he can 'make something happen' by dint of his will and a strong right arm. That's what accounts for the interceptions: forcing passes into bad situations.But it also accounts for his success. It's what makes him exciting, what his fans most admire in him -- and most often cringe at. Like any mythological hero, he is thus undone by the very...

Our Space

Listening to: Janelle Monae, maybe the next big thing? Like Andre 3000 plus Lauryn Hill. Can't decide if I actually dig her music yet but her fusion of punk rock soul is interesting.I'm fighting a gradual slide into being a nocturnal person again, which is a bit disappointing because I've been waking up at ten-ish (or earlier) for the past three weeks. I suppose I shouldn't fight it too hard because the time nears when I'll soon have to start...

Hi Eliza

I've been thinking about starting a podcast (topic: unknown) but I haven't decided if it's a good idea to have another frivolous online habit. My ideal podcast would just be me sticking a microphone in my friends' faces and asking them ten questions. It would be short in length but long in effort. So while I have that idea swimming in my head, I found out about Odiogo, which takes words and translates them into computerized speech. That allows...