Shane Life

Haven’t had many hours in the day to visit the old bloggy blog lately, but I’m working on some totally sweet posts that are pretty long.

While I sort those out, check out my twitter feed. Twitter is a short-entry blog-type post that limits your number of characters allowed to about 140 characters. I originally heard about the site from well-known blogger Jason Kottke and others I read have joined in the fun (see travis or rachel).

Until I get my posts done, you can check me out on Twitter. Feel free to join and add me as a friend.

UPDATE: I have canceled my Twitter account. I just couldn’t get into it.

OK, so I got this link from kottke and I had to share it. This website has a audio demonstration of how Nickelback essentially recorded the EXACT SAME song TWICE and managed to make MTV hits out of both songs.

You need speakers or headphones for the link because the site plays both songs at the same time, one through one speaker and one through the other. You’ll notice the words are different but that’s about it.

Last year, I posted a list of my year in cities, an idea I got from uber-blogger, Jason Kottke (who just posted his 2006 list). So, without further adieu, here is the official 2006 Shane Adams Year in Cities (not super exciting, but it’s fine by me).

Seattle, Washington
Long Beach, California 1 2
Las Vegas, Nevada* 1 2
Islamorada, Florida
Kirtland, OH
San Francisco, CA
Council Bluffs, IA *
Olathe, KS

One or more nights spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.

Next year, we will be going to Italy sometime in late summer. It should be awesome. I can’t wait for the trip.

What was your year in cities?

I saw this meme on kottke.org (who saw it on River Damp), but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Go here and look through random quotes until you find five that you think reflect who you are or what you believe.

Here are mine:

• If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. (Rene Descartes)
• Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. (Abraham Lincoln)
• The secret of happiness is not in what one likes to do, but what in one has to do. (James M. Barrie)
• Last words are for people who haven’t said anything in life. (Karl Marx)
• Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get–only what you are expecting to give–which is everything. (Katharine Hepburn)

What are yours?

OK, so I’m just flat-out STEALING post ideas from Jason Kottke these days. But they are good ideas. Today, he put up an article about film critic Jim Emerson’s list of 102 movies you should see before you consider yourself movie literate.

I love the movies. But I am not even CLOSE to what would be considered movie literate. I’m going to reproduce the list here, designating the ones I have seen with bold type. Enjoy. And try not to laugh at me too hard.

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• The 400 Blows
• 8 1/2
• Aguirre, the Wrath of God
• Alien
• All About Eve
• Annie Hall
• Apocalypse Now
• Bambi
• The Battleship Potemkin
• The Best Years of Our Lives
• The Big Red One
• The Bicycle Thief
• The Big Sleep
• Blade Runner
• Blowup
• Blue Velvet
• Bonnie and Clyde
• Breathless
• Bringing Up Baby
• Carrie
• Casablanca
• Un Chien Andalou
• Children of Paradise / Les Enfants du Paradis
• Chinatown
• Citizen Kane
• A Clockwork Orange
• The Crying Game
• The Day the Earth Stood Still
• Days of Heaven
• Dirty Harry
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
• Do the Right Thing
• La Dolce Vita
• Double Indemnity
• Dr. Strangelove
• Duck Soup
• E.T. — The Extra-Terrestrial
• Easy Rider
• The Empire Strikes Back
• The Exorcist
• Fargo
• Fight Club
• Frankenstein
• The General
• The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II
• Gone With the Wind
• GoodFellas
• The Graduate
• Halloween
• A Hard Day’s Night
• Intolerance
• It’s a Gift
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Jaws
• The Lady Eve
• Lawrence of Arabia
• M
• Mad Max 2 / The Road Warrior
• The Maltese Falcon
• The Manchurian Candidate
• Metropolis
• Modern Times
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• Nashville
• The Night of the Hunter
• Night of the Living Dead
• North by Northwest
• Nosferatu
• On the Waterfront
• Once Upon a Time in the West
• Out of the Past
• Persona
• Pink Flamingos
• Psycho
• Pulp Fiction
• Rashomon
• Rear Window
• Rebel Without a Cause
• Red River
• Repulsion
• The Rules of the Game
• Scarface
• The Scarlet Empress
• Schindler’s List
• The Searchers
• The Seven Samurai
• Singin’ in the Rain
• Some Like It Hot
• A Star Is Born
• A Streetcar Named Desire
• Sunset Boulevard
• Taxi Driver
• The Third Man
• Tokyo Story
• Touch of Evil
• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
• Trouble in Paradise
• Vertigo
• West Side Story
• The Wild Bunch
• The Wizard of Oz

Embarrassing, isn’t it. 19 out of 102. I almost didn’t post this because I’m THAT embarrassed.

Jason Kottke posted a link to a Guardian Story about the 50 (or is it 51?) greatest film adaptations from books of all time and then was inspired by another blogger, Michael Hanscom, to create a list of what he had seen and what he had read…Below is the list of the movies/books listed by the Guardian as the 50 greatest film adaptations of all-time. In the brackets next to the ones I’ve seen or read is a B or an M. Those letters indicate whether I’ve read the book [B] or seen the movie [M]:

1. 1984
2. [BM] Alice in Wonderland
3. American Psycho
4. [M] Breakfast at Tiffany’s
5. Brighton Rock
6. [BM] Catch 22
7. [BM] Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
8. A Clockwork Orange
9. [M] Close Range (inc Brokeback Mountain)
10. The Day of the Triffids
11. Devil in a Blue Dress
12. [M] Different Seasons (inc The Shawshank Redemption)
13. [BM] Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (aka Bladerunner)
14. Doctor Zhivago
15. [M] Empire of the Sun
16. [BM] The English Patient
17. [M] Fight Club
18. The French Lieutenant’s Woman
19. [M] Get Shorty
20. The Godfather (I know…I know…I haven’t seen the Godfather)
21. [M] Goldfinger
22. [M] Goodfellas
23. Heart of Darkness (aka Apocalypse Now)
24. The Hound of the Baskervilles
25. [M] Jaws
26. [M] The Jungle Book
27. A Kestrel for a Knave (aka Kes)
28. LA Confidential
29. [M] Les Liaisons Dangereuses
30. Lolita
31. [BM] Lord of the Flies
32. The Maltese Falcon
33. Oliver Twist
34. [BM] One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Thanks, Rich and Sarah!)
35. Orlando
36. [M] The Outsiders
37. [M] Pride and Prejudice
38. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
39. The Railway Children
40. Rebecca
41. The Remains of the Day
42. [M] Schindler’s Ark (aka Schindler’s List)
43. [M] Sin City
44. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
45. The Talented Mr Ripley
46. Tess of the D’Urbervilles
47. Through a Glass Darkly
48. [BM] To Kill a Mockingbird
49. [M] Trainspotting
50. [M] The Vanishing
51. Watership Down

Some good stuff left off the list that I’ve seen or read:

• The Lords of Discipline [BM]
• Being There [BM]
• The Princess Bride [BM]
• Silence of the Lambs [M]
• About a Boy [BM]
• High Fidelity [BM]
• Lord of the Rings [M]
• The Chronicles of Narnia [BM]
• Great Expectations [M]
• Fletch [BM] (it’s a travesty that this didn’t make the list)
• Jurassic Park [BM]
• ALL the Bond books/movies
• Robin Hood [M]
• Romeo & Juliet [BM]

That’s all I can think of right now…can you think of any others that I’m forgetting?

I got this idea from Kottke (who has been to way more cities than I have). Anywho…here’s the deal:

One or more nights spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days.

Santa Fe, NM
Chicago, IL
Colby, KS
Council Bluffs, IA*
Troy, MI*
Olathe, KS (does where you live count?)*

Not exactly a stellar list of cities, but I already have trips to Vegas, Seattle and Islamorada, Florida on the docket for this year and we would like to get out to see my family in California. And I know that Alli would like to get up to see her grandparents in Ohio this year too.

Anyway, that’s my list.

Blog your list of cities and get your friends to do the same. It’ll be fun.