god knows that none of you will read this, except maybe dock, who now and then drops hints in his blog that he wants me to start this one back up. so, well, dock currie, this is for you.

anyways, the picture here is of raleigh. raleigh doesn't have a last name. raleigh is me, or at least as close to me as i've ever identified with a character in any medium (although this may not be true because after reading murakami books, it feels like he's writing about me, just 40 years old and japanese). anyways, raleigh is from a bryan lee o'malley graphic novel called 'lost at sea,' which is 9 different kinds of fantastic. bryan lee o'malley also does the 'scott pilgrim' books, which if you haven't read, please do, 'cos they are pop culture heroin.

further recommendations reach into the aforementioned haruki murakami books (or the ones i've read: "norwegian wood" "south of the border, west of the sun" and most importantly "the wind-up bird chronicle") and warren ellis' "fell."

for music, the walkmen's three albums have been on non-stop repeat. along with scott weiland's solo album, bjork's five albums, thom yorke's "the eraser," and smashing pumpkins' middle couple of records.

for movies, i'd say go see "superman returns" but it seems like everyone hated it. but i don't care what those bitches say. also "match point" has some of the best shotgun death scenes in recent memory. it also features scarlett johanssen's fantastic (albeit constantly covered) breasts.