"'Cause I'm a 21st century digital boy
I don't know how to live but I've got a lot of toys..."

- Bad Religion, "21st Century"

But seriously, I do sometimes enjoy stuff outside this hobby. I swear! This is one of those boring "crap I'm into" blogs, so if you're not in the mood, I won't blame you for running away.

If you're still here, though...

Books

Like a lot of geeks, I read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game in high school and it turned me towards SERIOUS SCI-FI. Strangely, I can't stand Card anymore, between his relentless sequelitis and odious politics, but I have to give credit where it is due: Ender's Game and Speaker For The Dead are stone-cold legends. I was also a big Tolkien fan, although not to the degree where I can read Elvish or tell you the name of Boromir's great-great uncle or whatever.

My current favorites are Cormac McCarthy - The Road is an unbelievably good post-apocalyptic novel if you have the stomach; ideal for Fallout fans - and Terry Pratchett, who went from "kinda funny fantasy author" to "brilliant satirist" over the years. Sadly, Pratchett has early-onset Alzheimer's, so both his family and the world will lose him soon. Still, he leaves behind one hell of a legacy: one of the most richly-detailed fictional worlds ever created.

Strangely, I am one of the seven people left that has never read a Twilight, Hunger Games, or Dragon Tattoo novel. I DID read most of the Harry Poter series. And the first two Game Of Thrones books, I think. I don't like to stand on the snob pedestal too often, but it would feel semi-criminal to read Twilight when there are still holes in, say, my Faulkner collection.

T.V.

Archer is currently my favorite show on T.V., so that should cancel my snob card right there. Actually, the show has a lot of obscure literary/film references for a raunchy animated spy comedy, but most of the humor is firmly rooted in sexual antics and people being the biggest douches possible. It's the ultimate evolution of Adam Reed's brand of humor, which first took root with SeaLab and Frisky Dingo - two hit-or-miss shows that screamed "potential!" but never could be consistently hilarious. Archer is a home run, though, and a big cult hit for FX... odds are the show will get a 7-8 year deal and another production gig afterwards for Reed, meaning he's probably set for life. Good on ya, Adam.

I always liked Reed's method of writing because it breaks a lot of the boring rules of television. Characters sometimes talk over each other, stammer, use filler words, and engage in the sort of Buffy Speak regular people often use. It makes the dialog much more organic - which, admittedly, is a strange adjective for an animated show made on what appears to be a $400 budget. It's one of those DVR/DVD essentials because there's so many funny background events and non sequiturs during the "everybody arguing at once" segments.

I also enjoy 30 Rock (although it's starting to show its age) and Parks and Recreation. Oh, and Mad Men, although I prefer it as a DVD "watch a few at once" thing since the plot is so glacial. I don't really watch much television, though - it's generally a conduit I use to watch Mario jump on Koopas.

Music

I really don't know anything about music after, I dunno, 2002. Like a lot of people, I LOVED music when I was younger, hit Year X, and just didn't care as much. I still love music in general - note my blog format - but it'll be stuff from my college days. The odds of me going out to a concert these days are microscopic, yet I practically lived at the Roseland Ballroom during college. The last show I went to was... um... Fiona Apple, at the end of the Extraordinary Machine tour, which was many years ago. My pal Kris is a semi-big-shot at MTV and we hung out with her after the show, and I had one of my better zingers:

Apple: "Do you work at MTV as well?"

Me: "Nah. They make you take a rigorous intelligence and knowledge test during the hiring process, and unfortunately, I scored too high."

Kris: "YOO ARE SUCH A JERK!" (Imagine that with a thick Long Island accent, which trust me, makes it way better.)

I do check Amazon's MP3 page every day and if the $3.99 album is something that intrigues me or sounds good, I buy it - what the hell, it's four bucks. I've gotten some duds, but on the whole, it's done wonders to expand my collection and at least keep me somewhat connected to the musical world at large. I've discovered a few artists that way, like St. Vincent and Quantic, that have become favorites of mine.

Oh, and I am also an epic Ultimate Frisbee player and Wiffle Ball pitcher. (You know you're from New England when you're down with the Wiffle.) I'm a two-sport threat.