The first thing I do when I receive a copy of Wired is to tear out the ever-growing stack of useless ads and business replies they put in.  Here’s a photo of the latest stack:

This waste of paper makes it all the easier to cancel the magazine.  I’ve noticed its covers have gotten less and less tech-oriented, and way more Hollywood - you can browse their covers here.

The worst was the Pam Beesley “Get naked and…” cover - not necessarily because of the photo, but because the cover was describing an article on a modern “transparent business” (where the business reveals its internal workings) which had absolutely nothing to do with The Office.  The last issue (with an expose on “Manga in America”) seemed a bit light on content and heavy on graphics as well.

One less piece of reading material in my backpack.

Superhero Hype links to Empire Online, which is slowly revealing their new cover with the Joker from the new Batman movie.

P.S. Empire Online has a pretty sweet web site. I would definitely subscribe if they offered subscriptions in the US.

P.P.S. UPDATE - the cover leaked early, so now all is revealed.  Interesting that the Internet is starting to get ahead of this excellent viral campaign.

Saw American Gangster the other day.

It dragged a lot - although a cardinal rule of moviemaking is “show, don’t tell” I thought the movie should have explained the process of drug laundering much more briefly and given more time to character development.  It made me appreciate Casino all the more, since Casino sometimes had lengthy dialogue explaining the various processes that happen at a casino without slowing down the movie.  In this movie, there are whole scenes devoted to nothing more than cutting powder, putting it in bags, and selling it on the street.

The movie also had a bit too much of Denzel being Denzel - he didn’t seem to be acting so much as doing the usual silent, intense, sometimes furious character that he’s done so many times before.  Russell Crowe did a good job, but his character wasn’t developed beyond his ability to pass up bribes, a custody battle, and some weight lifting.  (Carla Gugino plays the wife, and gives an oversimplified argument of “You think you’re better than the crooked cops you fight”).

Overall, probably not worth the price of admission.  Rent Casino or the Godfather instead.

This past Halloween I sold my Freddy Krueger costume, which had served me well over three years of Halloween festivities.

The costume consisted of an “authentic” frayed Freddy sweater purchased on eBay, a Freddy glove with plastic blades, and a felt Fedora purchased at a local costume shop. I ended up selling it on eBay.

It was the kind of costume I liked: distinct enough to realize who I was dressed as, portable, and easily hidden while I rode on the subway or drove to a party. Take off the hat and glove and I was just some guy in a sweater.

But, the costume was getting old - I had worn it to parties 3 years in a row, since it was easy enough to take out of the closet at Halloween, and store again when I was done.

I was glad to sell it. In a lot of ways I’m not sure it fit me anymore - dressing as a demonic janitor who attacks teens in their sleep is not what I’m about.

In a lot of ways that’s what the past year has been about - getting rid of the stuff that’s not “really me,” and bringing in new stuff that reflects my changing tastes.

I deleted the ELGG and Facebook feeds.

My little experiment in customized publishing channels wasn’t really worth it - I don’t blog often enough to justify the feeds, and I think they’re cluttering up the category listing on the right.  It’s also a bit of a pain to check off “Facebook” whenever I want to send a note to my Facebook account.

From now on, all blog posts go to Facebook, and the category list should look way cleaner.