My cadre of close friends left for university this September, while I stayed and held down the fort. Hmm...strange days.

I think life is pretty funny. And scary. But mostly funny, and altogether a fortunate occurence.

I've been listening to a little jazz lately, mostly John Coltrane. I'm beginning to warm up to it. For a long time, the genre has been one of those things that I'd really thought I should be a fan of. Maybe it's mostly image-appeal, but there's also the fact that a lot of the music I've been into in the past few years has been inspired quite a bit by jazz (e.g. trip hop, downtempo, and more recently IDM), so I figure I should expose myself to it.

Things I suggest...
Activities:

• Playing Final Fantasy 5 on a SNES emulator with Squarepusher playing instead of the game sound. The underlying rythm of the game really shines through.
• Biking around when there's snow on the ground. I just tried this the other day...it's so much more fun than I thought it would be! Wheee! It's like some sort of magical fun-world where bikes are all slippy-slidey! Just don't fall....
• Operating a bulldozer or backhoe. It's like a video game, but real! I've gotten to do this a couple times, and it's fantastic. I can only imagine the ecstasy of wielding a wrecking ball.
• Throwing around a frisbee. Flying a kite. Sledding down a hill. Don't let the kids bully you into thinking they have a monopoly on these things!
• Seeing such things as video games, economics, art, and other such human creations as natural patterns unfolding from terrestrial life, just like honeycombs and birds' nests. Do this especially while playing Final Fantasy 5 with Squarepusher on the speakers.

• www.madreal.com
  
• www.threebrain.com
  
• www.wildbrain.com (look for Joe Paradise especially)
  
• www.manbeef.com
  
• www.plastination.com
• www.pot-tv.net

Movies:

• Baraka
  
• Alice
  
• The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb (Simply wonderful stop-motion/pixelation animation complete with Christ-figure Tom)
  
• The Emperor's New Groove (I'm not joking)
  
• The Adventures of Mark Twain
  
• Pi
  
• Eraserhead

Music:

• Bjork (I didn't listen to her all that much until I heard her latest album, Vespertine, which is a fine piece of work)
  
• Amon Tobin
  
• Radiohead
  
• Thievery Corporation
  
• Squarepusher
  
• Portishead
  
• Sarah Harmer
  
• Talvin Singh