Sidebar Update, '09 Style!

It's the first Sidebar Update of '09, on the cusp of a new and brighter era. Love it!

The current Object of My Affection is Rosario Dawson. That's right: Rosario Dawson! I'm calling her my own! As she is apparently the official Object of Affection of every hetero male on the internet (and a significant number of females as well), I fully expect war over this declaration. Bring it, bitches! She's mine!!

I am now Reading David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster, having finished David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. I sense a pattern. If you are curious about DFW and are a bit intimidated by a 1,000+ page novel, you should probably take a shot at Lobster. It's a fantastic collection of essays, featuring the full array of DFW's literary quirks (primarily multiple footnotes). And the first essay is all about the Adult Video News Awards, which is awesome.

Watching the second season of Venture Bros. on DVD, having recently completed the first season. This is one of the smartest, weirdest, funniest cartoons ever created. Even if you don't like cartoons, I suspect you might like this one, if only for its clever references to a vast array of pop culture (for example, David Bowie and Iggy Pop are significant characters in the final two episodes).

Listening to R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People. Aside from it being a flat-out incredible album, I will always have a particular personal fondness for Automatic due to its serving as my European soundtrack. Over Christmas/New Year's 1992-93, I spent a month in Europe, visiting my sister (who was spending a year studying abroad in Barcelona). I went to Ireland, Geneva, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin, and much more, with Automatic as almost the only music I listened to on my Walkman; it eventually became inextricably linked to Europe in my mind. (Though the night club in Brussels, in which the entire bar sang along to Ice-T's "Cop Killer" on the radio, was another peculiar musical highlight.) I haven't owned the CD for ages now, and when Amazon offered the album as an mp3 download for only $1.99 yesterday, I jumped at the chance to own it again. It makes me very happy (even while listening to "Everybody Hurts").

Hating: Dubya. Still. Less than 48 hours left!

And the Lyric of the Moment is one final illustration of the failure of the Bush years, from "Everybody Wants To Rule the World," by Tears for Fears. Don't let the door hit you in the ass, 43.