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I posted the movie poster to the new Indiana Jones movie last month, but now I've got something even better.

LEGO Indiana Jones.

Oh yeah. Four sets. And yes, there's a LEGO Ark of the Covenant.

But wait—it gets even better:

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Video Game.

Holy. Crap.

Want.

I finally broke down and have been checking out a couple of Web 2.0 apps the past few days. Sooner or later I'll catch up and be trendy. Maybe.

twitter

Okay, so what's the big deal exactly? I guess it's kind of like micro-blogging, which seems interesting. You can use the service on your cell phone, via SMS, if you're into that kind of thing (I'm not). And I have yet to "follow" enough people to make it compelling. But hey, you never know. My profile is here, so you can check it out, follow me, whatever.

Anywhere.FM

This sounded interesting when I read about it: they host your music library for you, and it's available, er, anywhere via a browser with an internet connection. Basically, like iTunes only hosted on the web and accessible from any computer. I'm not a die-hard music guy, but if nothing else this is a good service to put my MP3s on, and so far it's free and unlimited.

(Oh yeah, it also has friend lists and free music and that whole social networking aspect... maybe you can listen to friends' music? Not sure yet.)

Only, it's basically one big Flash app and seems buggy yet; one day last week the thing kept restarting itself for "updates" in the middle of the day, so was basically unusable. Beta software, I guess, but it seems to work well (when it works) and the music sounds fine. It has promise, but I can't help but wonder what's going to happen when the other shoe drops and it's no longer free and unlimited. Which we all know is inevitable, right? Right?

This is another of the (few) completed stories I've written. It goes way back... to the first creative writing course I took in college... about 16 years ago or so. It's been ages since I've looked at it, but I can tell you it's rough, not very polished. I remember being inspired by Stephen King while writing this, too.

It's about 3215 words in length.

As usual, this is freely available and copyrighted under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.

I

I stand on the edge of the rock, overlooking the ocean. It is windy, sand blowing in my eyes; I convince myself that's what's causing the tears to stream down my face. I look at my hands, and I wonder at the past four days.

I am high up.

The ocean looks so inviting.

II

I slung the duffel bag over the rail and onto the deck of the boat. Around me, people, some scruffy-looking, some well-dressed, traveled to and fro along the dock, working at their respective trades or enjoying the sights and smells of the fishing fleet in port. The day was relatively mild, with a clear blue sky and a light breeze coming in from the ocean. Out to sea there was a thin gray line of fog, about five to eight miles out — it would be in the bay by nightfall, with the wind. The air tasted of brine and was heavy, but not oppressive, with moisture, and the sounds of the tourism and fish packing plants carried over the water of the bay with eerie clarity.

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As seen on Slashdot: Dreams Actually Virtual Reality Threat Simulation? (Follow through; it's trippy.)

I knew there was a reason I was dreaming about [insert sufficiently goofy dream topic here]!

This past year I kept track of all the books I read. Why, I'm not entirely sure, other than curiosity. All in all, not counting the large number of comics and comic trade paperbacks, I read 35½ books in 2007. (The "half" book was a book of short stories by H.P. Lovecraft; I'd read the first half ages ago.)

The ratio of fiction to non-fiction was about 2-to-1. And even though most of these books weren't actually published in 2007, that's irrelevant since that's when I read them and this list is simply based on my opinion anyway... just use it as a starting point for some really good reads.

(And while all the books I read were pretty good, these were the standouts.)

Best fiction books (no particular order)

• Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson. I haven't yet read Gibson's latest (Spook Country), but Pattern Recognition was so amazingly well-done that it (finally) toppled Neuromancer as Gibson's best work.
• Halting State, by Charles Stross. This was the year I picked up and started reading Stross' work (four novels) and Halting State, the newest, is the best so far. Way fun and full of irritatingly thought-provoking ideas. In a good way, of course.
• Cell, by Stephen King. I already extolled the virtues of Cell here. Great book, tightly plotted, gripping and satisfying.
• The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx. Didn't see this one coming, but I was totally engrossed.

Best nonfiction books (no particular order)

• Collapse, by Jared Diamond. Like his last book, Diamond takes mountains of information and evidence and seemingly unconnected facts and weaves them all together effortlessly so as to make them seem completely obvious.
• The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson. Historical medical detectives. Or "CSI: Victorian London." Whichever, it's really good. A little squicky, too.
• Listening for Coyote, by William Sullivan. Sullivan hiked across Oregon, from Port Orford (I think) to Hells Canyon, and kept a fantastically detailed diary along the way. Super readable and enjoyable.

I just flipped the switch on the new design for the site, and very surprisingly, things mostly went off without a hitch.

There's still some unfinished things I need to, uh, finish, and I haven't ported the design over to all the pages in the site yet... so you'll still see the old green layout pop up from time to time, depending on where you go. And I'll be fine tuning over the next couple of days too. A good rule of thumb is, expect it to be broken... til I fix it.

The main point of the redesign is to focus on the primary experience: reading the stuff I write. Without all the unnecessary crap elements getting in the way. There's some of the advertising stuff going on too, because I'm not that pure.

Assuming you're not just reading this in your favorite RSS reader, and are actually visiting the site, tell me what you think.

The first post of 2008! Hope everyone's having a good holiday and stayed safe last night. Not much going on today, just a relaxing day off... aside from some blogging (and playing around with the new design for this site), I'll just kick back with a book and maybe some video games.

New Year's resolutions? Anyone got 'em? (I'm thinking about it. Nothing yet.)

2008. Possibilities.