Happy new year.

2002 has been a good year for me, in small details and large ones, and I'll be sad to see it go. But happy to welcome in 2003, The Year I Get Married. Also The Year I Go to the Carribean and Drink A Lot.

Over the holidays (which were very good, by the way, and very snowy) I had my first real extended break since I started working. I took advantage of my relaxation to write for the first time since I left school. I wrote an episode of the excellent sitcom Andy Richter Controls the Universe. Let me know if you'd like to read it, or you're a TV producer and you want to hire me. Not that I don't like my job, but damned if I wouldn't do some freelance TV writing.

Tonight there will be much eating and drinking and dancing. I hope your New Year is much the same. Have a good one, everybody, and a great 2003! Yeah! Woo! (Sorry, it was getting too earnest there for a second)

Our upstair neighbor in the new apartment watches porn. With the volume turned up very loud. Loud enough that we can hear it through the floor. Loud enough that, when we're outside his door getting our mail, we can make out exactly what's going on. Sometimes he watches weird porn, featuring Odysseus and slapsticky comedy. He mostly listens late at night and early in the morning, so I'm treated to it as I eat breakfast. It doesn't bother me, but Brooke's worried about people coming over and hearing it. We'll just have to rent our own porn and turn it up louder, I guess.

Anyways, happy holidays. If you're going to be home this week, please give me a call. My new phone # is my old phone #, but with 6719 in place of the last four digits. I hope that helps. Everyone be safe and happy, or else.

Go see Adaptation. Go see it if possible without knowing anything but this:

1) Charlie Kaufman is a real person and he wrote Adaptation.

2) Susan Orlean is a real person and she wrote The Orchid Thief about real person Jon Laroche.

Then just sit back and prepare for the ride. Not everybody's cup of tea, and it's rarely laugh out loud funny, but I found it amazing and incredibly satisfying.

How do you convince parents around the world to advertise in the Boston University Yearbook? You show them that Justin Aclin did it, bitches. Thus, this from a mailing that the "Bostonian" sent out, image courtesy of the irrepressible Casey Schreiner.

It's the first annual movie year in review, which is accomplished by rooting through my ticket stubs from the past 5 years, finding the ones from this year and commenting on them. Let's hurry, because Andy Richter comes on in 20 minutes! These will be in the order that I find them.

The Time Machine - Crap. Crap machine in a hat. Terrible. Boring.

Signs - Holy cow this movie scared the crap out of me. It's one of those ones that starts to fall apart if you think about it too much (Water?!?) but it was great while it was happening, and suspenseful as hell. See it.

In the Bedroom - Some good performances, but I didn't like it as much as a lot of people seemed to.

Lilo and Stitch - Funny, but a little heavy for a kid's movie. Worth seeing for Ving Raimes alone.

About a Boy - To say it's surprisingly good is an understatement. One of my top movies of the year. Touching and funny without being heavy-handed, and a breathtaking Badly Drawn Boy soundtrack. Buy the soundtrack, buy the DVD in January. It's worth it.

Eight Legged Freaks - I saw this movie with Matt, whom I go see bad movies with. On the scale of bad movies, it wasn't that bad. However, I wouldn't see it again.

The Importance of Being Earnest - A good cast in a good play, but you'd have to screw up pretty badly to make a bad movie out of it.

Spider-Man - Thank God! Despite some clunky dialouge and Olympic scenery chewing by Willem Dafoe, a great comic book movie is made, redeeming comic books in the eyes of the public and, most of all, entertaining people. I own the DVD, which is, ultimately, the deciding factor on whether or not I like a movie. Also, I saw it twice in the theatres.

XXX - Another Matt movie. It was really as stupid as it looked.

Minority Report - I liked this one a hell of a lot more than I thought I would. It was actually pretty well done, interesting and exciting. I don't know if I'd buy it, but I'd definitely watch it again.

Amelie - One of the best movies I've seen in years, never mind this year. A treasure that I wouldn't have enjoyed nearly as much if I hadn't seen it with Brooke. Everyone should see it.

Panic Room - Not too bad. Not terribly great. But what is it with David Fincher and fucking up Jared Leto?

A Beautiful Mind - Meh.

Star Wars Episode II - I saw it the same day I saw "About a Boy." Five years from now, guess which one I'll be talking about. As far as I'm concerned, the original trilogy is the only trilogy.

Red Dragon - Tense and suspenseful. Maybe a little too much so. Who would have though that Brett "Rush Hour" Ratner could make a better movie than Ridley Scott?

The Ring - Along with Signs, possibly the scariest movie I've ever seen.

Analyze That - Note to the makers of Analyze That: Comedy comes in threes. You cannot use a running gag SIX TIMES or it becomes stupid.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Better than the first, still not as good as the books, but pretty good indeed.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding - As enjoyable as it was made out to be, and Andrea Martin always rocks.

Spirited Away - Considering my indifference to anime (and my indifference to when I saw a fan-subitled version of this), the dubbed version blew me away. Definitely worth seeing.

I'm sure I saw more movies than that, and if I think of any more I'll let you know. Furthermore, there's at least a baker's dozen movies I still want to see before the year is out. Stay tuned for my thoughts on them if you care for that sort of thing. Until then, save me the aisle seat, or I will spill scalding hot popcorn on you.

It's true...I do get more hits when I don't post than when I post.

Can't you people tell I'm starved for attention?!?

:) <-- The dreaded emoticon.

The following situation is both hypothetical and rhetorical, so pay it no credence except to submit advice.

Say in your professional life you're a stock broker. One of the companies you deal with makes sweaters, that are designed to coordinate with a line of neckties that they do not produce. Your contact at this company sends you a necktie. Not to curry favor or as any form of payment, but because he's the kind of guy who sends out neckties. Now, this necktie wasn't even made by the guy who sent it to you; they just have them because they're tangentially related to what the guy does. You don't look good in this necktie. Is it morally wrong to take the necktie, which is perfectly resellable, to a department store and trade it in for something you actually like? The deparment store gets merchandise, you get something, and the guy had nothing to gain or lose by sending you the necktie in the first place. What do you think?

My mom got a new computer that's much better than mine, and I'm jealous. She also has a scanner, so here's a picture for you: It's Brooke and I in our new apartment. For those of you who haven't yet seen our new apartment, or my new haircut, or whatever, here they are. Uh...peace in the Middle East.

So, today's the office holiday party. What that means is I get to leave work early and I get a free meal. The holidays rule!

I'm not a terribly organized person. I need to start keeping notes on who I'm falling out of contact with so I don't forget anybody.

We're this close to booking our honeymoon. We're going to an island resort. I can't freakin' wait.

To everybody who's in school, good luck on finals.

Unfortunately, I have nothing else to say right now.

In an effort to make my website more interesting (I'm severely lagging behind in the bigwhoop family alone) I'm initiating a new feature: The Moratorium List. How it will work is thusly: I will start listing things I'd like to declare a moratorium on, and you, the reader, will add on to it, and eventually we'll have a list. It's interactivity at its best. Let me show you how it works -

I'm declaring a moratorium on bands opening up their albums with several minutes of vague, ambient sounds. Either rock my ass right away or don't bother. I'm looking at you, Dandy Warhols!

See how that goes? Now you try? What else would you like to declare a moratorium on?

In unrelated news, I'm digging this new zwan song to death. It's very much bringing me back to the salad days of the early '90s. Just when you thought '80s nostalgia was overstaying its welcome, '90s nostalgia rears its bald, "Zero" T-shirted head. If only Kurt Cobain weren't dead, or he was still making music from beyond the grave like dead rappers (You Know You're Right doesn't count, because we're reasonably assured he made it while he was alive. I'm talking about volumes of new material.)

Hey, how was that Slow Kids show last night?

Yesterday I signed my name to Christmas cards going out to C-3PO and Boba Fett. What an odd sensation.

I don't know why my updates lately have read like Larry King columns, but I like it.

I'm not usually one to yell at the screen during movies or TV shows, but 24 makes me do it. A lot.

Love me.

Hot damn if that White Stripes album isn't the catchiest damn thing.

I really like living with Brooke. It's beating the hell out of living with my mom, nothing against my mom, of course. Even though the apartment's still a mess and we have a mouse and the gerbils got loose last night, it's still incredibly homey.

I played Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for about 5 hours yesterday, until I got to a point I couldn't progress past. Then, when I was getting ready to go to bed, I saw a little Grand Theft Auto guy running around in my head, stealing cars and getting them repainted. For some reason, this only happens with games. I've had this happen to me before after I've played a lot of Snood and Tetris, and also with this non-electronic thingie called the Rubick's Puzzle (anyone have one of those? Not the cube). Something about the act of gaming makes the images stick in your mind and get played around bedtime, I guess. Weird.

Good for you, Carmella Soprano.

I should really own the DVD for Wet Hot American Summer. Perhaps this will soon be rectified.

Pavement are a great band, and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is a perfect album. And I'd like to hang out with Bob Nastanovitch. He's like a real-life Jeff Daniels character.

Back to work.

Before you get too nervous about that statement, it's only because I just through some Squeeze in the CD player here at work. It's a line from one of their songs. Squeeze are one of those bands I like because my Dad listened to them while I was growing up. I think everyone has a band like that, that doesn't really jibe with the rest of their musical tastes but that they have a sentimental attachment to because of their parents. Another example for me would be Genesis. Yes, with Phil Collins. The difference is that I own a Squeeze album. I don't own any Genesis albums.

I hope everyone had a really good holiday weekend. For me it was great. Apart from the aforementioned three feasts (more latkes than you can shake a stick at!) I also spent some nice quality time with the fams (three of them) and got a couple cool Hannukah gifts (Pavement DVD, LOTR DVD and GTA: Vice City from Dad) and useful gifts (a beard trimmer from Mom. No more mountain man look!). Most of all though, I had a very relaxing few days off from work, including a wonderful Friday with Brooke that ranks among the best days in recent memory. And really, that's the only kind of memory I have.

You may think I was being flippant with that last statement, but it's true. My memory, once acute enough to cause me to wonder whether or not it was photographic, has now, for lack of a better term, gone to shit. I have a hard time remembering what I had for breakfast yesterday, let alone something that happened to me 5 years ago. High school is pretty much a blur to me at this point. I find it extremely distressing.

Speaking of high school, I had a close encounter with Matt "Now is the Time for Pants" Jankowski this weekend. Not only did I find out both his parents were also born in the building I'm living in, but I got caught up on people I once knew and also got the latest on Matt's personal life (one word - convoluted). We also discussed web boards, starting out when I tried to relate an anecdote only to find out that he had read it on here. Some day I hope to be as good a web journalist as Matt, but I think it might require a level of commitment I'm not sure I'm willing to give right now.

The apartment is great, but a freakin' mess.

If you're out there and I haven't talked to you in a while. I want to talk to you. Email me now. I'm looking in your direction, Lee and Melissa and other people. Seriously. I'm not going to make it out to Boston this semester, so email is as good as you're going to get. Please do.

Man, this entry started out with such momentum. Now it's started to peter out and it's time to end it. See, I have such high aspirations. I'm practicing though. At least once a week!