According to the people making the film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel, I am a study in contradictions. How can I be both proud and modest? Or shy and assertive? Please clean up this mess with your perceptions of me by clicking the above movie and answering a couple of questions.

I hope I don’t end up with a gibbon.

UPDATE: Ooh, my daemon has changed! The name and description are the same, but where I had a big tiger before, now I have an ocelot or some other middle-sized cat.

UPDATE 2: And now it’s a mouse. Are people really convinced that I’m shy? Or in the PUllman novel are the bossy daemons the mice and other small critters?

(Title of this post and link blatantly stolen from Radosh.net.)

Received this missive on the mailing list of Mike Doughty today, announcing what would surely be my dream band:

Mike Doughty is involved in a new project called PASS THE MIKE with Mike Campbell (The Heartbreakers) on guitar; Mike Mills (R.E.M.) on bass, guitar and keys; Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater) on drums; and Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE) on bass and backing vocals.

The band is currently talking with labels about a possible fall 2007 release.

String arranger Mike Narr described it from the studio last week: “If you took the kind of jazz they play on the Weather Channel out to the alley and beat the hell out of it with a whiskey bottle, and it got really mad and vengeful and vowed to tease puppies, Pass The Mike sounds like the ensuing restraining order. Except with better hooks.”

The album also includes guest appearances by Mike D (Beastie Boys) and Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom). The group is recording now with producer Mike Chapman, who helmed breakthrough albums by Blondie and The Knack.

For now, stay tuned to http://www.myspace.com/passthemikeband for updates on Pass The Mike.

Did you think I’d be able to stick to my “I’ll add only 15 books to LibraryThing each day” promise? If you did, I hope you didn’t put money on it, because you’ll have to pay up.

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I added a few more books — about a hundred. I think I’m about a quarter of the way done, but I haven’t taken a hard look at the shelves in my office. Also, there are the cookbooks in the hall.

But at this point it’s amusing to look at the Author Cloud that’s forming:

I’m mildly concerned that J.K. Rowling is so prominent. Should I go buy a second copy of A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again to even out the balance? At the least, I may pull Men and Cartoons out of my “ready to sell on Amazon” pile and put it back on the keeper shelf.

I am incredibly busy, as evidenced by my lack of recent posting here and here and here. And so when Syntax of Things described the time-consuming diversion that’s slowing his packing for an impending move, I seized on it like a drowning swimmer.

And so now I’ve started cataloguing my collection of booksin LibraryThing. Check out the new random library snapshot to my sidebar to the right. I’ve listed only 15 books in my library so far, so there’s not a lot of randomness going on. I’m going to limit myself to listing only 15 new books per day — my library isn’t massive, but the project will still extend over a few weeks. It will be interesting to discover which authors are most represented and how many of the “most owned” books I have.

Actually, Tea Leaves had previous blogged about a similar tool for cataloguing one’s library, with the added benefit of connecting with others to lend or give away extra books. But LibraryThing makes it easy to create an author cloud to show which authors dominate and which are just sneaking in, and that’s exactly the kind of geeky, pseudo-statistical, competitive widget that I adore.

I’ll wait until I have more books listed before publishing an author cloud here. In fact, It’s probably going to be the site element that forces me at last to complete the Big Redesign that I started and abandoned months ago.

All this to keep from working on my taxes. Procrastination is a wondrous thing.

So much hipper than a mix tape: Click to listen to my iTunes signature. (NB: It’s large — 5.8MB.)

An iTunes signature is a smear of bits of tracks from one’s iTunes library. You make it with this application.

[The iTunes Signature Maker] selects a small number of your “favorite” tracks based on some simple selection criteria, such as the number of times you have played them or the rating you have assigned them. Then it analyzes the audio content of these files, combining a small bit of each of them to create the signature.

Notably, the Signature Maker skips tracks purchased from the iTunes store, so it can’t create a true sample of my library. But for what it can do, it’s neat.

I’m not super enthused with the way this signature of mine starts. (Sheryl Crow? So embarrassing.) But I like the end very much. There are 50 songs represented in all. How many can you identify?

(Link thanks to Jeff/Syntax of Things.)

I like New Year’s resolutions. I like the feeling of resolving to be better in some way. “From now on, I will [insert resolution here] and thus be a better person.” Resolving to do something feels like a strong and positive step toward good; and it’s much easier than actually being good.

In fact, I like resolutions so much I make them all year round: I don’t want to wait until January 1 to feel I’m making progress.

But still, when each new year arrives I make a few extra resolutions. When everyone’s making new commitments there’s resolve in the air.

But not everyone values New Year’s resolutions. Inner Bitch recently pointed out a random resolution generator. It combines the progressive feeling of resolutions with the optimistic randomness of fortune cookie messages. Here’s what it suggested for me:

As it happens, some years back I did have a habit of slapping people on the head. They were not stupid people though — they were friends who had somehow made me annoyed. I never meant to hurt anyone; my slaps were like those of the stereotypical mom knocking her son upside the head for making a snide remark at the dinner table. Or rather, I thought they were. Apparently I hit people hard and there were complaints.

I managed to switch to punching shoulders instead, thinking it was a buddy-buddy move that would be perceived better. But then one day I hit my roommate Sharon hard enough to bruise. This was shortly before a swanky party; the bruise blossomed into a purple and green splotch, which Sharon’s sleeveless dress seemed almost to display. I resolved then to stop hitting friends altogether.

Maybe I went too far though. My random resolution seems to be saying it’s OK to hit non-friends, if they’re stupid. It’s beyond OK: It’s required.

I like it. It’s a much more interesting to-do than losing weight, don’t you think?

I’m recovering slowly from the writerly exertions of November. Extra slowly because with December have come a slew of social events — more than usual even — and the attendent buying of gifts and figuring out of outfits and general fussing with hair. And there’s still the regular work and so forth.

I have had a tiny bit of time to check other sites though, and thus discovered at Creating Text(iles) the suggestion to take a very brief quiz to discover my temperment. The results are startlingly accurate:

You Have a Choleric Temperament

You are a person of great enthusiasm – easily excited by many things. Unsatisfied by the ordinary, you are reaching for an epic, extraordinary life. You want the best. The best life. The best love. The best reputation. You posses a sharp and keen intellect. Your mind is your primary weapon. Strong willed, nothing can keep you down. Your energy can break down any wall. You’re an instantly passionate person – and this passion gives you an intoxicating power over others. At your worst, you are a narcissist. Full of yourself and even proud of your faults. Stubborn and opinionated, you know what you think is right. End of discussion. A bit of a misanthrope, you often see others as weak, ignorant, and inferior.

Note the picture. I have red hair even! Although it’s not quite as bright as that, nor as long. And maybe I should get a big butterfly to perch on my arm while I dance with abandon. This is going to be a very busy month indeed.

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