July 2008

Highlights: Great family vacation in Mexico. Otherwise, more of the same. GRE prep for Kari, writing for me. E's Martini Lounge and eBay on the fringe.



July Films:

Tell No One - 9/10

Step Brothers - 4/10

The Wackness - 7/10

The Dark Knight - 6/10

Hancock - 4/10

July Reading:

The Trial - 4/10 - Kafka

Fargo Rock City - 5/10 - Klosterman

July Exercise:

164.3 miles or 6.8 mpd

July Mileage:

298 Total Miles Driven By Car (we car share with the Bills)

Nonrequired Reading: 006: Fargo Rock City

"Try to look at it like this: I love Radiohead. I've slowly come to the conclusion that Radiohead is the best working band I've experienced since I started listening to music 18 years ago. Sometimes, Thom Yorke is perfect. We are watching a band that's as good as The Who. But you know what? I could never love Radiohead as much as Motley Crue because I'll never be 15 again. I can certainly appreciate Radiohead, but they're not an extension of my life. For 99 percent of the populace, that kind of mystical connection can only happen during those terrible, magical years when you somehow convince yourself that a guy like Nikki Sixx understands you. It's all about timing, you know?"

-- Chuck Klosterman, Fargo Rock City

I generally agree with this sentiment, as far as music is concerned. Even as my play count for Coldplay's Death and All His Friends hits triple digits, it will never compare to the time Jeremy Reddy and I blasted out Pearl Jam while driving through a snowstorm. Even to this day, I still feel sudden pangs of nostalgia every time I hear a song from Throwing Copper or Sixteen Stone. Some things will never be the same as High School. Everything else, like love and non-pimple skin and peers that don't pressure, is completely different and I think we're all better off for it.

What's Your Walk Score?

I haven't fully checked this out, but from the few minutes I have, it's totally worth your time. The website is called walkscore.com and it offers your neighborhood "walk score" based on several walkable factors (post offices, restaurants, banks, etc). It even breaks down fourty major cities, neighborhood by neighborhood, and allows you to compare the walkability of each one. The surburban turned urban families have already begun migrating towards diversity, tight spaces and mixed zoning here in LA, creating a vacuum in suburbia. Could walkscore be another sign of things to come? Could the suburbs become the next slum? Or will more walkable neighborhoods become more prevelent in urban planning? Or both? Interesting...

Nonrequired Reading: 005: Should You Drink With Your Kids?

"At first it sounds a little nutty, but you might consider drinking with your kids. Incongruously, the way to produce fewer problem drinkers is to create more drinkers overall - that is, to begin to create a culture in which alcohol is not an alluring risk but part of quotidian family life."

- John Cloud, from his piece in Time Magazine, "Should You Drink with Your Kids?"