A review of my 2004 life.
It turns out that these three are pretty closely related. I heard The Postal Service in the movie trailer for Garden State trailer (more on this below). As far as I can tell, The Postal Service had a lot to do with the soundtrack. I heard about KEXP through a review of the soundtrack (it was described as being “KEXP-compliant”). KEXP has introduced me to a bunch of other music which should make 2005 exciting.
In summary I’ll remember 2004 as the year I looked beyond my lounge obsession.
With the exception of the amazing Eternal Sunshine, the first half of the year was a little dull for movies. However, the second half really improved the average with Hero, The Incredibles, Huckabees and The Motorcycle Diaries.
The best trailers I saw all year were for Garden State and Ocean’s Twelve. It’s such a pity that Ocean’s Twelve didn’t reach the quality of the trailer and was much worse than the first film.
The worst movie I saw all year was Catwoman.
Although I travelled a lot this year, I didn’t visit many new places. First time destinations include:
A pretty horrible year for reading. I bought a lot of books but didn’t read very many. The highlights include:
I bought lots of DVDs this year.
I took 67 flights this year with a total of 378 hours in a plane. That equates to 15.75 real days, 47.25 equivalent work days and 4.3% of the total year. Sick.
The average flight was 5.6 hours (equivalent to LAX/BOS or Sydney/Perth). However, 24 of the flights were “long haul”, which I count as more than 9 hours long (and I mean long).
I’m pretty tall (about 194cm). I spent 378 hours of my life crammed into a space smaller than my body, being subjected to a loud droning noise and being exposed to a bunch of germs in a closed environment. I’m guessing that this would be considered torture by any legal definition (apart from the fact that I could choose not to fly - ie. quit my job).
The really really scary thing: that despite all this it looks like I’m going to lose my premium frequent flyer status with Qantas (since none of these were business class fares).
I had the same job through 2004, but it certainly was an interesting year. I organised a workshop (which unfortunately resulted in a lot of negative criticism) and helped start a new W3C Activity and Working Group.
Here is a small list of things I’d like to add to this page. What’s the bet that this list will be unchanged by the time I write 2005 in review?