Other interests not noted below include an unhealthy obsession with the Grand Theft Auto game series for my PC (I'm not much of a gamer, but GTA is on another level altogether).Yet another interest is exploring the notion in theoretical physics that string theory will provide a solution to the quantum gravity problem.Okay, I'm just lying about that last part.
Sorry, I don't eat meat.
My favorite band is The Beatles, but I dig something in just about every genre. The bands or artists I've seen most in concerts have to be Elvis Costello, The Replacements/Paul Westerberg, King Missile, Tori Amos, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billy Bragg, and Robyn Hitchcock.The currents change weekly--these are just some of the perennials.
Pulp Fiction, any Alfred Hitchcock movie with the possible exception of Jamaica Inn, Brazil, John Woo's Hard-Boiled, This is Spinal Tap (and all of Christopher Guest's mockumentaries), Fail-Safe (or most any Sidney Lumet film), Citizen Kane, The Bridge on the River Kwai, most Woody Allen movies until about 1995 (especially Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters), the Coen Brothers' films, The Seven Year Itch, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Lasse Hallström's What's Eating Gilbert Grape and especially My Life as a Dog, On the Town, The Godfather (+ Part II), Blade Runner, Kevin Smith's Askewniverse movies, JFK, The Third Man, all 3 of the Rock Hudson/Doris Day/Tony Randall movies, Heat, anything written by Ben Hecht, and anything with Peter Sellers except for that godawful Pink Panther movie stitched together after his death.
The only show I watch with any regularity any more is The Simpsons, and not only do I watch that one regularly, I take notes. Really.I would watch The Daily Show as well, but I don't have cable (although I do see clips online). I catch The Sopranos when there's a new DVD release.As for past favorites: Twin Peaks (have them all on video!), The Prisoner, Hill Street Blues, The Odd Couple, Homicide: Life on the Street, Seinfeld, Soap, and the first two Star Trek series.
Fiction:
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, all Nero Wolfe mystery novels by Rex Stout, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, In Watermelon Sugar or Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan, the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein, Kurt Vonnegut's Cats Cradle, the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, anything by Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, and "The Dead" from James Joyce's Dubliners Non-fiction:
Radio Waves by Jim Ladd, dot.con by John Cassidy, All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster by Joseph Menn, The Turk by Tom Standage, all The Beatles-related bios/autobios/memoirs available, Which Reminds Me by Tony Randall and Michael Mindlin, Altered State by Matthew Colin, Millennium by Jacques Attali
John Lennon, Ben Hecht, and that guy at the Chinese take-out who always remembers my usual.