30 december 1999
top ten lists
it works for every other pundit in this country.

In the absence of actual things to write about (short of "The baby moved some today, and I laughed 'cause it tickled!" over and over again), here are my first ever Annual Top Ten Lists, in which Diane mentions some of the highlights of the year.

Diane's Top Ten Movies

  1. Three Kings
  2. Being John Malkovich
  3. Toy Story 2
  4. Election
  5. The Sixth Sense
  6. American Beauty
  7. Run Lola Run
  8. The Insider
  9. An Ideal Husband
  10. The Iron Giant

I did see Shakespeare in Love this year, but I don't think that counts.

I know there were lots of other really good or stunning movies that came out this year, but I probably didn't see them.

The Top Ten TV Shows Darin and Diane Watch

  1. Buffy The Vampire Slayer
  2. Sports Night
  3. The West Wing
  4. The Sopranos
  5. E.R.
  6. Iron Chef
  7. Friends
  8. Jacques and Julia Cook Together
  9. The Simpsons
  10. Futurama

I watch The X-Files simply out of habit. I watch 60 Minutes for story ideas. Angel benefits mightily from its lead-in show.

Honorary cooking show runners-up: Desserts with Jacques Torres (the French frat boy) and Hot off the Grill with Bobby Flay (the New York frat boy).

Darin also vastly enjoyed the documentary on New York that ran for several nights on PBS (catch it if you can) and David Attenborough's series on Birds.

The Top Ten Things I Learned From All Those Damn Regency Romance Novels

  1. Everyone quivered like a blancmange.
  2. The Regency suffered a plague of lady cat burglars.
  3. Nobody liked the Prince Regent; everyone thought he was fat.
  4. Nobody much liked Napoleon either, but that may be the British bias.
  5. Ladies were forever saying, "La!"
  6. A lady and gentleman had to be chaperoned because everyone suspected the worst should happen were they left together. Usually the worst did happen, but it was for the best because they were destined to marry anyhow.
  7. The big transportation seller of the period was "the high-perch phaeton," whatever that is.
  8. Everyone either read or despised (or both) the novels of Mrs. Radcliffe.
  9. Everyone, including pregnant women, drank either port or brandy frequently.
  10. The more dashing and dangerous the gentleman, the more likely he was to find out he's coming into a title he didn't know about.

I also learned quite a bit about the Napoleonic wars, English social conditions, and the conquest of Ireland and Scotland by the amazingly rapacious British. I'm quite sure Darin would prefer that I learned this sort of thing from the Aubrey/Maturin novels, but he has his genre guilty pleasures and I have mine.

The Top Ten Journals I Check Regularly

  1. Bad Hair Days by Xeney -- actually, I really like her page of links so I have fresh reading every morning.
  2. Visions and Revisions by Tamar
  3. plaintive wail by stee
  4. If I Wrote You by Katie Did
  5. Thought Experiment by Karen
  6. Aries Moon by Lucy
  7. Scherzi and Sospiri by Columbine
  8. Inside by Patrick
  9. Whatever by John Scalzi -- I've highly enjoyed his Best of the Millenium series.
  10. Pamie -- 'cause, you know, it's required.

Note to Ceej: you still have the top spot in my list of journal bookmarks, but you don't update very regularly! (Of course, today she updates twice. How typical.)

My friend Toni also started her journal Lagniappe this year, and I'd include it on the above list if she updated more regularly. (Hint.)

By the way, for those of you out there who want to achieve Journal Greatness, or at least Journal Popularity, here is the secret: update every day. People want fresh stuff every day. If you are in the slightest bit entertaining, you will soon be more popular than you can stand.

The Top Ten Websites Diane Checks Regularly

  1. Jon Carroll's newspaper column
  2. Salon on-line magazine
  3. Molly Ivins's newspaper column.
  4. The New York Times
  5. Humor: The Onion humor magazine
  6. Screenwriting: The Wordplay site, particularly the Forums
  7. Gossip: Ted Casablancas's column
  8. Film: Dark Horizons and Coming Attractions
  9. Astrology: Real Astrology
  10. Books: Amazon.com. Of course.

Rob Tsuk has recommended Slashdot to me. Xeney turned me onto APB News. And your gossip jones cannot possibly be fulfilled without checking the LA Times's Hot Property column every Thursday and Sunday.

The Top Ten Non-fiction Books Darin Read This Year

  1. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. An analysis of why Northern Europeans conquered the world, whereas other, older civilizations did not.
  2. Refactoring by Martin Fowler. After reading this, Darin immediately changed some of his programming habits. Computer books don't usually have that much impact after one read-through.
  3. Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 to May 7, 1945 by Stephen Ambrose. A history of the US invasion of Europe, with something that we didn't learn in history class on every page.
  4. Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language by Steven Pinker. Another amazing investigation into human language and what it tells us about how the brain works.
  5. The Code Book: The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh. A great followup to Singh's book and documentary about Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. It's only Darin's second favorite book about codes this year though, the favorite being Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.
  6. Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Gleick. Gleick's famous for his book on chaos. This book explains how many things are getting faster, not just the ones you might think about, like pizza delivery.
  7. The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time by Jonathan Weiner. There are two fascinating levels to this book: 1)the way these scientists took 20 years to measure evolution in action when everyone assumed it was too slow to be measured in a lifetime, and 2)the dedication and sacrifice required to live on an island (a small one in the Galapagos) to get these measurements.
  8. Protecting the Gift: Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (And Parents Sane) by Gavin De Becker. The sequel to his excellent The Gift of Fear. Read these books and realize you have some control over protecting yourself and your loved ones.
  9. Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder by Richard Dawkins. This is Darin's favorite science writer, who wrote The Selfish Gene ten years ago and immediately roused the ire of both biologists and creationists.
  10. Exceptional C++: 47 Engineering Puzzles, Programming Problems, and Exception-Safety Solutions by Herb Sutter. Darin reads a lot of books about C++; he said that this one was exceptional.

Mind you, I haven't read any of these (except for the de Becker books), so I have no idea if he's pulling the wool over our eyes or not. But considering how much he loves discussing tidbits he found in these, I suspect he means it.

Also highly recommended, if only for your own damn sanity: Questioning the Millennium: A Rationalist's Guide to a Precisely Arbitrary Countdown by Stephen Jay Gould. Enough with these goddamn discussions on whether this is the start of the millenium or next year is. This year has all the good parties.

By far and away the funniest book of the year is Our Dumb Century by The Onion. Buy this book. You will find something in there to reduce you to tears, whether it's the headline for the sinking of the Titanic ("World's Largest Metaphor Hits Iceberg") or the excruciatingly funny headline for America's entry into WWII (you have to look it up yourself, I can't possibly explain it). The stories they've concocted to go along with the headlines are pretty damn funny as well.

The Top Ten Restaurants Darin and Diane Recommend

  1. Mesa Grill in NYC (Southwestern).
  2. Bone's in Atlanta (steak).
  3. K-Paul's in New Orleans (the first time we went, at least -- Cajun).
  4. Wiltz's Cajun Kitchen in San Jose, CA (I wonder if it's still open -- it has better boudin than any I had in New Orleans).
  5. Mandarin Gourmet in Cupertino, CA (Chinese).
  6. Hunan Gardens in Palo Alto, CA (Chinese).
  7. Osteria in Palo Alto, CA (Italian).
  8. Ron of Japan in Chicago, IL (Japanese).
  9. The Oyster Bar at Grand Central Station in NYC (seafood).
  10. Empress of India in Santa Clara, CA (Indian).

I fully admit that this list is Bay Area/Peninsula-specific. What can I say? That's where we've found the good restaurants. And so far we haven't found anywhere in LA that even comes close to the best places we've found up north. We've found one good Chinese restaurant (that isn't even that close) and no good Indian. Hey, even good Mexican is hard to come by down here, if you can believe that. (Best Mexican: La Fiesta, Mountain View, CA.)

* * *

I ran into my gynecologist at the drugstore today. Do you know how weird that is? Especially as I just saw him yesterday, when he had to take various swabs from various portions of my anatomy best not discussed.

I discovered at yesterday's appointment that I now weigh as much as I did when I started the liquid diet two years ago. I know, I have the excuse that I have

  • a baby,
  • baby support devices, and
  • a baby swim pool

in there currently, but it still was kind of disconcerting.

* * *

The latest thing Diane just does not understand: Darin and I drove to Chick-Fil-A for lunch yesterday after the OB-Gyn appointment, and the traffic on northbound 405 was awful. (It's always awful--I don't understand why, but that's not my question.) We found ourselves behind an SUV that had a cartoon of a young boy, sort of Calvin-esque, giving the finger plastered on the back door.

I found myself asking, Why? Why do people put these ugly drawings on their cars? I must see 100 of those urinating Calvin stickers every time I go out in the car. Why are people trying to be antagonistic and mean-spirited? Honestly, does it make them feel better being rude to the world in general? It's not pleasant and it's meaningless unpleasance.

If you have one of these stickers, please explain your reasons.


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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com