GENERAL

McSweeney's Recommends
(I erased things they recommended that I hate)

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Written as letters from a woman to her estranged husband after their teenaged child has committed a Columbine-like act of violence, this novel makes your breath short.

Austin City Limits
The coolest music-performance television show, and it's on PBS, and they don't just feature country music. Beck w/ the Flaming Lips, Gillian Welch, Neko Case, and the Jayhawks are all recent guests.

Funhouse
This is a pinball game from the early eighties. You try to shoot balls into the mouth of a ventriloquist dummy, who taunts you when you miss. When you get three balls in there, his eyes roll back and he vomits it all up and multiball madness ensues.

The Wall-Rebound Counterattack in Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time.
It's the most effective way to deal with the Blue Ogres. You can't jump over their heads, so don't even try. Also, stick next to the woman. There is safety in numbers.

Made beds
Heidi never thought it mattered, but now she knows: it really brings a room together. 2004 is the year of made beds.

SamSloan.com
Hands down the best personal home page ever created. From the bumping MIDI tracks to the photos of Sam with his "wild Icelandic girls" at an after-party for the 1972 Fischer - Spassky chess match in Reykjavik, this is why the Internet was invented. Sam Sloan is more fun to follow than sports and more fun to watch than television.

Zach Randolph
Power forward for the Portland Trailblazers. Already the best player on the team (hear that, Rasheed?), and he's only 22.

A-1 Sauce, Tabasco, and vegan Parmasean on aglio olio
Make some standard aglio olio pasta. Set it aside. In an empty pasta bowl, combine the A-1 Sauce, the Tabasco, and the vegan Parmasean cheese. Pour in the pasta. Stir, adding more A-1 and Tabasco, depending how mad at your stepdad you are. Enjoy. SERVES 1.

Hey Ya, Andre3000
We say this only for the six of you who don't already know: this is the song of the year, if not the decade.

www.discountmagazinesolutions.com
Hard-hitting solutions for all your discount magazine needs. "Beauty may be only in the eye of the beholder. But magazine print can be read by nearly everyone's eyes!"

Storm Stories on The Weather Channel
These are prime-time, predictable, chilling, and a tad underproduced. But that's just right. Oftentimes someone dies, but always a lot of people get rescued. T4 tornadoes from the sixties? Floods in Appalachia from the nineties? Runs the gamut, and never patronizing or disrespectful.

The Master of Go, by Yasunari Kawabata
We're ubernovice Go players ourselves, but this book transcends the mere game it describes. A sort of report on a classic six-month match, it has the changing of the guard between old and new, patience, austerity, suspense, all the elements of twentieth-century tension.

These Are the Vistas by The Bad Plus
Yes, once again we are recommending contemporary jazz (see Brad Mehldau below). Frankly, we'd been closed-minded about this stuff, but no more.

Hot Chocolate
It really is the season for this timeless treat.

Brad Mehldau
We suspect we're late to the game on this guy, but for those who don't know, he's a contemporary jazz pianist who makes very interesting and engaging music. He even covers Radiohead!