Persevere/Cease

Here is a list of things I think should persevere into 2005, and a few that should cease to be--

PERSEVERE

• The TV show "Lost" on ABC
• Cartoon Network's Samurai Jack--we need new episodes
• Pitch Black Mountain Dew--savory
• The bands Modest Mouse and Franz Ferdinand
• The four or five programmers worldwide who are still writing programs for the Sega Dreamcast--The Dreamcast Lives!
• Classic videogame emulators for PC
• Pixar Studios--keep surprising and delighting audiences
• Ame Agaru and The Blog That Goes Ping!
• Superior sequels such as Spider-Man 2 and Shrek 2
• Good news
• The Truth

CEASE

• "Reality" TV shows
• Hybrid soft drinks--except for Pitch Black Mountain Dew
• The use of the phrase "ATM machine"
• The use of the suffixes "-gate" and "-aholic"
• Knee-jerk reactions
• Influx of spam on the Net
• Rising gas prices
• Throwing away ice cubes into trash cans
• The release of four or five versions of the same movie on DVD
• Road construction in Michigan
• Bad news
• Misinformation

Plecostomus Of Society

During this gift-worshipping time of year, I would like to reflect on the humble Thrift Stores/Goodwill shops. These places are cool, because you can find "economical" deals.

I've checked eBay, and that system seems so bogged down and unrealistically priced.

Some recent good "thrifty" finds:

• A Hi-Fi 4 Head VCR for $10.00
• An Atari 2600 system/games/controllers for $10.00
• Cool "alterna-80's" music on cassette for 49 cents each! (my car just has a tape deck)
• Games that people have tired of--Pictionary, Boggle, Scrabble--may be missing pieces, but many of the big companies will send you replacement items through the mail.
• Groovy old record albums--a working record player is also needed, unfortunately.
• Old movie cameras--do they work? I'll have to get some film cartridges someday.
• Wooden hangers--they're sturdy!
• File cabinets

These items defy society's notion of what is cool and hip (trendy and expensive), yet have an inherent "nostalgic" appeal. Plus the money is supposed to go to needy folks. How can you go wrong?

Most of the stuff on eBay seems like it was found at garage sales/flea markets/thrift stores anyway.

AICN Moment

I was going over some info on upcoming movie releases, and wanted to share some release dates:

Electra--starring Jennifer Garner January 14, 2005

Constantine--starring Keanu Reeves February 11, 2005

The Ring 2 March 17, 2005

Sin City--directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller April 1, 2005

Star Wars Episode III--Revenge Of The Sith May 19, 2005
"PLEASE BE GOOD!"

Batman Begins--starring Christian Bale June 17, 2005

The Fantastic Four July 1, 2005

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory July 15, 2005

Wallace and Grommet October 7, 2005

Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire November 18, 2005

King Kong--directed by Peter Jackson December 14, 2005

I may eventually hyper-link these films to their "official" websites.
But I have found the studio generated URLs to be overly fancy and dense, and may contain elements too intense for my system's CPU. They may also contain spinning and prancing graphical doo-dads, which may provoke a BSOD on computers like mine.