#227. Against the Day, Finnegan, Decade Favorites in Films, Books, TV, & Music

#227

Funny, but when I made the Reading List entry last month, Amazon wasn't loading properly, so I wasn't able to give Pynchon the same deal I've been doing for about half the year here at Scouring Monk. Also, not so funny, but I haven't actually gotten to read much of Against the Day, though I am quite enjoying it. Haven't gotten past a hundred pages yet. Chumps of Chance!

(A few days later, I was able to do my Christmas shopping pretty easily at Amazon, so my buggy computer stopped bugging out for a while.)

Part of the reason is that I've been battling Finnegan. I was forced to abandon the strict NaNo pace after twenty days, but have been rallying and gotten to 43 chapters of roughly 1667 words. The current goal is to complete the remaining ones by Christmas, so I can spend the rest of the year completing the QBs for Lower Decks and my weekly HYGOTS column. By 2010, I'll have a week vacation I hope to in part spend fishing out an agent to get the book into some publishing waters. Should be fun...

Here's the "literay mathematics" (originally posted at Facebook) of Finnegan: Twilight + Mary Shelley's Frankenstein + Calvin & Hobbes + the Bible + Grant Morrison + Robert Pirsig / Tony Laplume

Lots of people are marking the end of the decade with lists. I've been compiling some ideas myself:

Ten Favorite Films of the 00s
Alexander
Munich
The Dark Knight
Memento
Gladiator
The Departed
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Inglourious Basterds
Watchmen
The Da Vinci Code

Ten Favorite TV Shows of the 00s
Futurama
Boomtown
Star Trek: Enterprise
Lost
Alias
How I Met Your Mother
Prison Break
Survivor
Heroes
Grey's Anatomy

Ten Favorite CDs of the 00s
Coldplay - X & Y
Coldplay - Viva La Vida
Oasis - Don't Believe the Truth
Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul
Jet - Shine On
U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind
Great Big Sea - *Something Beautiful
Hootie and the Blowfish - Looking for Lucky
Guster - Ganging Up On the Sun
Thrice - The Alchemy Index (Vols. i-iv, especially iv)

Ten Favorite Books of the 00s
J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Roberto Bolano - 2666
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Peter Ackroyd - The Plato Papers
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
The Patron Saints - T.M. Wells
The Execution - Hugo Wilcken
Bone (One Volume Edition) - Jeff Smith
52 - Various

(revised lists as of 12/19/09)