This is my favorite story of the day. Who honestly says they went to Buger King expecting coffee in a white porcelain cup? Sometimes I fondly miss New Zealand more than mere blog posts can express.

dreams

Occasionally I have dreams in which a simple task is frustratingly impossible to do. I try to run, and find I can barely push off the ground, as if my body were mired in molasses (I tried to think of a better high-viscosity liquid to use as metaphor, but molasses still works best, although I'm not sure how many people have actually personally dealt with molasses these days). I'm in a car and try to stop, but the brake pedal feels like a sponge, and the car's deceleration is much too slow to avoid an obstacle. I try to look at something, but find I can't force my eyelids to stay open.

Last night, I had a dream with a new variation on the theme. I was writing a story and trying to find some information on Google, but I either kept misspelling the term or my connection was stalled. I kept trying over and over, but couldn't get the result I wanted.

I'm not sure if I should be disturbed by this new development in my dream world.

in praise of the things I've liked lately

For no good reason, but perhaps it'll send some traffic their way:

I became a podcast addict while in New Zealand (every time I hear the theme music for a Slate or NPR podcast, my mind flashes back to the streets of Wellington. When I started listening to them, I'd listen to my iPod on the streets as I walked to work.) I attempt to try out new ones every few weeks, although not in a regimented way.

The best I've found lately is from the Australian radio station Triple J. Their New Music Podcast is exactly what I was hoping to find when I stumbled across it. It's a sampling of brand-new music, most from Australian acts and all from bands you've likely never heard of. It beats the hell out of Indiefeed's alt-rock podcast, which is what I used to use to listen to Indie bands I'd never heard of, for two reasons. One, and most importantly, the Triple J podcast is simply an mp3 of the song. Straight up. None of the talking before and after that Indiefeed has - introducing the track, reading the liner notes for a bio of the band - and which is often laid over the opening bars of the track. Triple J just gives you a song to listen to. Perfect. Two, personally I have liked a far higher proportion the songs played on Triple J than on Indiefeed. Oz has some good music, and it's stuff I'll never hear otherwise.

One I've been listening to for a while, but need to list here, is Radio Lab from NPR station WYNC. It's closely related to This American Life, in that they use various sorts of radio storytelling to explore a theme. Unlike This American Life, Radio Lab is less about personal experience and more about abstract scientific concepts talked about in innovative ways. It feels like the hosts are telling you a story about Time, or Sleep, or the possibility of Life in the Universe. There are interviews, there are stories, it all feels very casual - but if you listen very much, you can tell just how much work they put into it to make sure everything sounds just so. They play with noise to create some cool effects, many of which you don't notice on a first listen. I also make sure to get everything Radio Lab co-host Robert Krulwich does for NPR - he's their science correspondent, and his segments are always a little bit off-kilter but in an excellently informative way.


On the Netflix queue, the most interesting thing I've seen lately is a short film, also from Australia, called Harvie Krumpet. The 22-minute film (which you can watch online through the link) follows a man throughout a life of hard luck and a few bright spots. There are a few great dead-pan black humor moments in the writing and the visuals. But what really makes this film great is the tone of it. It follows Harvie through his life, a life which is mostly filled with pain but which Harvie generally gets through by tolerating his situation and occasionally finding joy, such as through his wife an daughter. That's the simplistic summary. The tone, however, doesn't move too far into the tragic senselessness of his pain or the utter hopelessness of a life filled with problems. Neither does it veer the other way, pointing out the bright side and bringing a message of hope. Like life itself, it's filled with bits of both extremes, but mostly it just is. Harvie doesn't always look on the bright side, he doesn't always accept what's happened to him with grace. Neither does he always dwell on his problems. He reacts to both, then generally, sometimes reluctantly, just gets on with life. Very rarely does any work of art balance grimness and light so deftly, without going overboard on either one. Just watch it.

the tradition continues

Mizzou managed to hold onto its second-ever No. 1 ranking just as long as its first No. 1 ranking - a week. We went to the official MU alumni watch party out in Virginia, and got there about an hour and a half early - just in time to snag one of the last seats. A few friends who showed up right before game time had to wait in line outside the bar. When people packed in, there were probably 100-150 people there to watch the Big 12 Championship in the Mizzou section, including a table of Ohio State fans and a pair of Oklahoma fans who were obviously cheering opposite everyone else.

The crowd was loud through the first half, but started to thin out as the second half wore on. By the end of the game, enough pitchers of beer had passed across my table I wasn't perfectly attuned to everything happening around me, but long before the game ended I was having debates about who would be in the Championship.

I haven't been particularly impressed by either Ohio State or LSU most of this season, but I think it's the right match up - there's no one else I can reasonably say should be ahead of either of them.

I'm also amused by the people who are fuming at Kansas getting picked ahead of Missouri for the Orange Bowl. The BCS keeps giving people the impression it's supposed to put the best teams in the big-money bowls. It's not. It's supposed to put the best two teams in the National Championship game (which it has done with only a small amount of success) and then give the other BCS bowls a pool of eligible teams to choose from, with several restrictions. Bowls pick teams who are likely to sell tickets, fill seats and make money. In every case but the top one. I'm not sure Kansas would travel better than Missouri, but apparently the Orange Bowl was.