After 74 years of publishing, England’s Melody Maker music paper published its last issue ever this past Monday, citing a steep recent decline in newsstand sales. I’ll miss it; in my teens, I gave up comic books and turned to the British music tabloids, reading every issue I could get my hands on of both the Maker and its rival, the NME.

Flew west for the holidays yesterday. The weather here in California is a world away from New York. Most people give me a strange look when I say this, but I prefer the holiday season with holiday weather. Oh well. At least I get to listen to KCRW, probably the best radio station in the States. And thank goodness for the Web, which finally allows for some radio meta data.

The world needs another Web site. So I registered greendestiny.org yesterday. “This is coming soon.” In the meantime, have a look at kubrick.org.  I’m thinking of something along those lines.

Tomorrow morning at 07a, Continental Flight 145 takes me to Los Angeles, and a week later I’m off to Singapore. So it’s my last day in New York City. I’ve put a Herculean effort into avoiding another overly sentimental goodbye, but in the end, I’m only human, you know?

As a parting gesture, here’s my semi-secret tip for making metropolitan life a little bit more bearable: With each and every encounter with sales help (deli cashiers, sales clerks, cart vendors, anyone and everyone), I made it a rule to smile when I said “Thank you.” Regardless of how miserable or inattentive or outright rude they might have been to me, I would always, always smile. I know this sounds absurdly Pollyannaish, but it makes a difference. Give it a try, it’s free. :)

A free copy of Imagine Media’s new Fuse Magazine arrived with my most recent issue of Business 2.0. Once I got over the awful title and tagline (“Work. Life. Style.” Blech.), I realized the design and photography are excellent, some of the best magazine work I’ve seen all year. Its balance of transitional serif typography and top-notch, new school photography is striking in its simple elegance. As for content, well, the jury’s still out…

“My belief is that the period between when you know you’re going to get together with somebody and when you actually get together with them is the most electric — we know it’s going to happen, and then we have to wait for it to actually happen.”
– Steven Soderbergh

A picture of me that I took late last night. Shot quickly in the mirror with my digital camera.

Aside from the fact that it’s a little pokey, the ultra-compact go-anywhereness of my four month old Sony PCG-SR7K VAIO Notebook makes it the best computer I’ve ever owned. The robustness of Windows 2000 has even won me over. It’s sad, but the Macintosh loyalist in me has nearly dwindled away. Hopefully, Apple will refresh their currently moribund product line with dramatically improved hardware that evidences some truly different thinking at Macworld Expo in January. If they don’t, then that’ll likely be the end of my long-running association with the Mac OS.

How depressed are you now, and how depressed are you likely to be in the next four years? I just wonder how angry I should remain. Especially after this pundit’s take on what really happened.

The first entry to my journal in two months. It’s January and I’m finally going to be leaving New York and heading back to Singapore. No, really, I’m serious this time. Read all about it in “You Can Never Go Home Again…Again.”

Way back in September, I wrote somewhat cheekily, “All of my Asia plans may as well be on indefinite hiatus if I find myself still here, handing out mini-sized candy bars to costumed trick-or-treaters at Halloween.” Ugh.

It’s early December now, and not only did I see Halloween go by, I also had turkey for Thanksgiving and I’ve even nearly finished my holiday shopping. All of this from the cozy confines of the borough of Manhattan, fifteen thousand miles away from my sock drawer in Singapore. Which is not to say that it’s been misery for me since I left Singapore. I’ve actually had quite a bit of fun, and I feel fortunate for the opportunities to do the work I’ve done and to spend more time with the friends I thought I’d left behind in July.

Now that the conservative wing of the Supreme Court has clearly demonstrated it cares not a whit for the voting rights of African Americans, it’s virtually certain that George W. Bush will be our forty-third President. How we ever got to this miserable nadir, I can’t say.

Last Friday, Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” finally premiered Stateside, after much hand-wringing and excitability among most everyone I know. Though I saw it in Singapore back in August, seeing it a second time on Friday reaffirmed to me that it’s the best film anyone is likely to see all year. Here’s hoping that the American moviegoing public will give their stamp of approval the way Americans best know how.

Back in October, I had a brainstorm to create a Web log sort of venue for my ramblings, which I called List(n). Er, well, it wasn’t a brainstorm that lasted all that long, but the idea was to structure a forum that would allow me to post concise, simple ideas at brief intervals, without developing elaborate essays and presentations for them.

Here’s another reason I like Blogger so much. They make judicious use of the color orange in their quite-well-designed logo. In fact, it’s one of the few free Webmaster tools whose badge I’m not embarassed to display. Happily, it nicely matches the Subtraction decor.

My friend Chris, who runs Graphpaper.com and AskROM, turned me onto Blogger a few weeks ago. It took me a while to get my act in gear and learn how to use it. I’m impressed. Blogger has greatly simplified the entire process of updating Web sites regularly.