Mad Times

“To be sane in a mad time is bad for the brain, worse for the heart.” – Wendell Berry

February 1st, 2016 at 10:09 pm

Three words

I’ve been lurking in the Tiny Challenges community.

They’ve spent January on a variation of resolution setting where instead of spelling out a specific habit they select three words to serve as a kind of theme for the year.

After obsessing about how to pick and whether to use nouns or verbs or adjectives I came up with these.

clear

As in “clear the decks”. Focus on getting rid of stuff, eliminating unfulfilling activities, bad value expenses, worries, obsessions. It makes me happy that it’s both an adjective and a verb.

quiet

This one is similar, but more focused on things like meditation, getting outdoors, turning off podcasts once in a while, feeding my introvert self. Adjective, noun, verb trifecta!

next

Think President Bartlet’s “What’s next?” Stop faffing about and do the next thing. If it’s not clear what the next thing is then figuring out what the next thing is is the next thing.

All of which leads to my challenge for February: Clear the desk! I’ll be spending at least 15 minutes a day for all of February working through the piles of paper and non-paper open loops that make it hard to make progress on anything but maintenance. I’m going to tweet (@jeffy) my progress and see if that kickstarts a habit of writing on twitter (rather than just reading and retweeting). That’s not another challenge, just part of the same one.

January 1st, 2009 at 10:45 pm

2008 media review

In 2008 I read about 52 books which is pretty good compared to the last few years. There are a couple of reviews I haven’t posted yet. I’ll try to get those up soon.

We also watched a bunch of movies (about 80). Here’s a list of what we saw and what we thought of them.

The notes are about where we saw the movie and who saw it. “T” indicates we saw it in the theater (only 3 for me plus 1 more for Becky). Other letters indicate who attended. The default is Becky and me. If just “J” or “B” appear then only the one of us saw it.

rating Title Notes
**** Juno T
**** Young At Heart
***+ Away From Her
***+ Broadcast News
***+ Charlie Wilson’s War
***+ Enchanted
***+ Iron Man T
***+ Lars and the Real Girl
***+ Margo at the Wedding
***+ Me and You and Everyone We Know
***+ Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
***+ Nine Lives
***+ Women, The (Cukor) B
*** 10 Items Or Less
*** Appaloosa T B w/ Lorna
*** Atonement
*** Better Than Sex
*** Blades of Glory
*** Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
*** Bourne Ultimatum
*** Croupier, The
*** Dan in Real Life
*** Double Happiness repeat
*** Eagle vs. Shark
*** Grace Is Gone
*** How to Steal a Million B
*** Ira & Abby
*** Kamikaze Girls
*** Michael Clayton
*** Savages, The
*** Two Days In Paris
*** Visitor, The T w/ L&A
*** Wilby Wonderful
*** Yes
*** Zodiac
**+ Across the Universe
**+ Becoming Jane
**+ Blue State B
**+ Broken English
**+ Cake
**+ Control
**+ Darjeeling Limited
**+ Dying Gaul, The
**+ Gone Baby Gone
**+ Gotcha!
**+ How To Save A Marriage (and ruin your life) B
**+ I’m Not There
**+ Inside Man
**+ Jane Austen Book Club B
**+ Legend (dir cut) J
**+ Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, The
**+ Long Life, Happiness, and Prosperity
**+ Nancy Drew
**+ Ocean’s Thirteen
**+ Outing Reilly
**+ Recount
**+ Ruby in the Smoke, the bbc
**+ Somersault
**+ Strange Bedfellows B
**+ Transformers
**+ Tropic Thunder
**+ Trust the Man
**+ Who Killed the Electric Car
**+ Who Was That Lady? B
** Be Kind Rewind
** Bubble Boy
** Charlie Bartlett
** Cypher
** Happy Endings
** I Could Never Be Your Woman B
** I’m With Lucy B
** Italian Job, The
** Mr Magorium’s Magic Emporium
** My Blueberry Nights B: okay J: pretty good
** Sex and the City
** Sunshine
** Two Brothers and a Bride B
*+ Golden Compass, The
*+ Purple Violets
*+ Year of the Dog
* Jabberwocky J

That doesn’t include everything we watched that we’d seen before (a few repeats are included as noted). We don’t actually use stars when we rate movies, we use words. I’ve translated our “Don’t Miss” to ****, “Pretty Good” to ***, “Okay” to **, and “Don’t Bother” to * if that helps you make sense of this.

Seeing them sorted by rating like this always causes us to rethink some of our decisions, but what’s here is what we thought of them shortly after seeing them.

In other anal-retentive data mining, we returned 113 disks to Netflix this year. In July we bought a set-top box that lets us watch Netflix stuff on demand over the internet. Looks like we’ve used that for 160 items since then which seems like a lot until you know that it counts individual tv show episodes. Here’s a summary of the TV shows we watched (we still don’t do cable or anything, so these were all on dvd or on-demand):

  • That 70′s Show (season 5)
  • Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
  • The Wire (still working on season 1)
  • Pushing Daisies (season 1) Love this show!
  • Criminal Minds (still working on season 1)
  • Heroes (season 2)
  • Coupling (season 1, 2, 3, & 4) LOVE this show!
  • 30 Rock (season 1 & 2)
December 31st, 2007 at 8:16 pm

2007 media review

In 2007 I read a whopping 40 books (actually a few more than that since I’m counting reviews and a few of the year’s reviews encompassed multiple books) which is up about 20% from last year’s total. Not that it matters.

We also watched a bunch of movies (105 compared to 75 last year). The increase may be due to our each watching quite a few flicks solo that the other wouldn’t have cared about. Here’s a list of what we saw and what we thought of them.

The notes are about where we saw the movie and who saw it. “T” indicates we saw it in the theater (only 7). Other letters indicate who attended. The default is Becky and me. If only R appears then Rachel saw it with us. If just “J” or “B” appear then only the one of us saw it. “B, R” means I skipped that one, etc. I realize that all of this nonsense is really only of interest to Becky and me, but whose blog is it anyway?

rating Title Notes
**** Children of Men  
**** Exotica J repeat
**** Howl’s Moving Castle  
**** The Lives of Others T, L&A
***+ American Masters: Andy Warhol  
***+ Factotum  
***+ Henry and June  
***+ In Her Shoes J
***+ Once  
***+ Rattatouille  
***+ Short Film About John Bolton, A  
***+ Shortbus  
***+ Stranger Than Fiction  
***+ Venus  
***+ Volver L&A
***+ Waitress  
*** Adam & Steve  
*** Aeon Flux J
*** Barefooot In the Park B
*** Bee Movie T B w/ Rosalind
*** Bourne Ultimatum, The T B w/ Lorna
*** Casino Royale  
*** Chuck & Buck B
*** Claudia Beard 24wpm  
*** Eastern Promises T B w/ Lorna
*** Fantastic Four J
*** Fountain, The  
*** Fur  
*** I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing  
*** I, Robot J
*** In Her Shoes B
*** Kinky Boots  
*** Libeled Lady B
*** Libertine, The  
*** Lie With Me  
*** Lonesome Jim  
*** Lost In La Mancha J
*** Marie Antoinette  
*** Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School  
*** Motorcycle Diaries, The  
*** Mysterious Skin  
*** Oh in Ohio, The  
*** Open Your Eyes  
*** Painted Veil, The  
*** Platinum Blonde B
*** Porco Rosso  
*** Prestige, The  
*** Price of Milk, The  
*** Prime  
*** Queen, The  
*** Rocky Horror Picture Show  
*** Running With Scissors  
*** Scanner Darkly, A  
*** Science of Sleep, The  
*** Shut Up and Sing  
*** State of the Union B
*** Strange Love of Martha Ivers, The B
*** This Film Is Not Yet Rated  
*** Three of Hearts J
*** Whole New Thing  
*** You Can’t Take It With You B
**+ 2010: The Year We Make Contact J
**+ After the Wedding  
**+ American Dreamz  
**+ Barbarella  
**+ Can’t Buy Me Love repeat
**+ Constantine J
**+ Everything Is Illuminated  
**+ Illusionist, The  
**+ Knocked Up  
**+ Last Kiss, The  
**+ League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The J
**+ Little Children  
**+ Mad Hot Ballroom  
**+ Meet John Doe B
**+ Millions  
**+ Mirrormask  
**+ Music and Lyrics  
**+ Notes on a Scandal  
**+ Pan’s Labyrinth  
**+ Pizza  
**+ Puccini for Beginners  
**+ Slither w/ K&E
**+ Stardust T w/ L&A
**+ Valmont  
**+ Van Helsing J
**+ Wedding Crashers repeat for B
**+ Where the Truth Lies  
** Arthur and the Invisibles  
** Bubble J
** CQ J
** Driving Lessons  
** East Is East  
** Groomsmen, The  
** Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix T
** King Arthur  
** Lake House, The B
** No Such Thing J
** Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End T w/ R
** Rumor Has It B
** Strangers With Candy  
** With Honor  
*+ A Good Woman  
*+ Lady In the Water s&h, j&s
*+ Ultraviolet J

That doesn’t include everything we watched that we’d seen before (a few repeats are included as noted). We don’t actually use stars when we rate movies, we use words. I’ve translated our “Don’t Miss” to ****, “Pretty Good” to ***, “Okay” to **, and “Don’t Bother” to * if that helps you make sense of this. If you’re wondering whether you’d like something on here, leave a comment or send email and I’ll expand.

In other anal-retentive data mining, we returned 126 disks to Netflix this year after switching to the three-disk plan in February. That includes most of the TV we watched this year:

  • The Book of Daniel (complete series (cancelled in first season))
  • Heroes (season 1)
  • Joan of Arcadia (season 2 (last))
  • Once and Again (season 2 (just Becky))
  • Scrubs (first season)
  • That 70′s Show (season 1, 2, 3, 4)
  • Veronica Mars (season 3 (last))
  • Weeds (both of us watched season 1 and Becky toughed it out through season 2)
  • Wonderfalls (complete series (cancelled in first season) ended up buying our own copy)

Plus the series we sampled and didn’t continue past the first disk:

  • Babylon 5
  • Big Love
  • Commander in Chief
  • Dead Like Me
  • Eureka
  • How I Met Your Mother
  • Star Trek: Enterprise (just Jeff)
September 10th, 2007 at 9:31 pm

No more gloves

It just occurred to me that I never announced here that I had decided not to photograph lost gloves any more. I think I said something on Flickr and forgot to bring the message back here to the blog.

I was starting to groan when I saw them instead of being amused and excited by the challenge of getting a new picture. I let a few go by and didn’t feel any remorse, so I’m done. Not saying I won’t shoot if I see something extraordinary, but the series is over.

One of my rules when I was photographing them was that I didn’t move or take the gloves. So now that I don’t have to hew to that constraint I’ve started collecting them. Not sure what might come of that. Maybe nothing. I pick up all kinds of stuff on the side of the road from nails to lost credit cards to a Jaguar hood ornament, so picking up the gloves is just another thing. Maybe when I’ve got a big enough pile of stuff inspiration will strike.

September 10th, 2007 at 9:22 pm

Running behind

I’ve got a stack of eight books here that need reviewing. I’m going to try to buzz through them this week.

Sorry the blog has devolved into just cats and books, but for a domain called TomeCat, I guess that’s no surprise. I expect it will get more diverse again at some point. Thanks for staying with me.

July 21st, 2007 at 11:38 am

Moved

If you see this post then you’re seeing our shiny new server. I need to replace all the recently uploaded images (I have them, just haven’t returned them to their rightful places). Otherwise things look pretty normal.

Email to tomecat addresses may be delayed for as much as a day due to systems caching the old address. If you feel you’re not getting through, try me at my gmail address jeff.youngstrom@gmail.com.

Now to figure out what to do with all this space.

July 9th, 2007 at 10:26 pm

Still not moved

The server move has been delayed so I’m going to post some stuff…

June 26th, 2007 at 10:25 pm

on the move

Mad Times is moving to a new server sometime in the next week or so (probably over the weekend). Hopefully everything will go smoothly, but if the site suddenly appears in safety orange type on a lemon yellow background or (more likely) fails to appear at all in the next week, take it as a sign that you need to spend more time outdoors and I’ll get things back to normal as soon as possible.

December 31st, 2006 at 10:46 pm

2006 in review

In 2006 I read only 31 books (a couple of reviews aren’t up yet). This is even worse than the 36 I thought was so scandalously low last year. All the same reasons apply.

We did do some pretty cool things this year that might have eaten some of my reading time.

We also watched a bunch of movies, so like I posted last year, here’s what we saw and what we thought of them.

The notes are about where we saw the movie and who saw it. “T” indicates we saw it in the theater. Other letters indicate who attended. The default is Becky and me. If only R appears then Rachel saw it with us. If just “J” or “B” appear then only the one of us saw it. “B, R” means I skipped that one, etc.

rating Title Notes
**** Capote
**** The Fifth Element repeat
**** The Ice Storm repeat
**** An Inconvenient Truth T Karen, Erik
***+ Breakfast On Pluto
***+ Brick
***+ Broken Flowers
***+ Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
***+ Match Point
***+ Wordplay
*** The Aristocrats
*** Batman Begins
*** Brokeback Mountain
*** Cars T B
*** Charlie and the Chocolate Factory R
*** Clerks 2
*** Donnie Darko
*** Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
*** Friends With Money
*** Hard Candy
*** Iron and Silk
*** King Kong T R
*** Little Miss Sunshine T Steve, Hazel
*** The Matador T
*** My Neighbor Totoro
*** The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio
*** Proof
*** Reefer Madness
*** Saved!
*** Shadow Voices: Finding hope with mental illness
*** Shopgirl
*** Sin City J
*** Slacker repeat
*** The Squid and the Whale
**+ The Bishop’s Wife B
**+ Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) repeat
**+ Calendar Girls
**+ Casanova T B
**+ Code 46
**+ Connie and Carla
**+ Corpse Bride R
**+ Dickie Roberts B
**+ Duck Season
**+ Elizabethtown
**+ The Family Stone B R
**+ Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle
**+ I Am Trying To Break Your Heart Rod
**+ I’ll Take You There
**+ In the Realms of the Unreal
**+ Junebug
**+ Memoirs of a Geisha
**+ Monster House T Steve, Hazel, Rosalind, R
**+ Night And Day B
**+ Prairie Home Companion T
**+ Sketches of Frank Gehry
**+ Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
**+ Something New B
**+ Super Size Me
**+ Thank You For Smoking
** The 40 Year Old Virgin
** Art School Confidential
** For Your Consideration T Larry, Ann
** Freeway
** Fun With Dick and Jane
** People Will Talk B
** Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest T R
** Reefer Madness 1936
** Scotland, PA
** Stage Beauty
** Superman Returns
** Topper Returns B
** Topper B
** The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
** X3: The Last Stand
* The Brothers Grimm R

That’s 75 movies (only 10 in the theater) and doesn’t include everything we watched that we’d seen before. We don’t actually use stars when we rate movies, we use words. I’ve translated our “Don’t Miss” to ****, “Pretty Good” to ***, “Okay” to **, and “Don’t Bother” to * if that helps you make sense of this. If you’re wondering whether you’d like something on here, leave a comment or send email and I’ll blather on.

December 9th, 2006 at 5:00 pm

Housekeeping and Indexing

Okay, I’ve tweaked the blog template into a semblance of the old color scheme and layout. I’ve made a sort of peace with wordpress’s annoyingly nanny-like html editor. And I think I’m done mucking with the look and feel for the moment.

Let me know if you have any remaining problems with presentation or usability here at Mad Times.

Now I’d like to draw your attention to the unassuming link in the upper left corner of the page that says “book review index“. The page lists every book I’ve read since I started keeping track back in 1992 (835 titles at the time of this posting) sorted by author (431 authors) and includes links to the individual reviews (712 links) or completion notes (another 161) (total of 873 book readings).

Faithful reader Dan requested this feature back in the 1990s. I had big plans to build a database and allow dynamic search result generation and all that kind of good stuff. Obsessed about that for ten years, then spent a few evenings hacking up this completely static implementation that seamlessly accesses all three book review systems I have here on the site. There’s probably a lesson for me to learn here somewhere. I’ll have to think about it for a while and see if I can come up with an unambiguous statement of what that lesson is and then move towards implementing a full system to work around it.

output here