William's Stuff 2004...

... is below the fold.

(Hmmm, the formatting is kind of poopy... a problem for later).

Okay, here's a start. I'm going to separate this into "consumed" and "to do" sections.

Done!
This section is for experiences that have been successfully consumed.
Books
For some reason, these are listed most recently read first, while everything else in this section is listed with the most recent entries last. Kooky! Yet attractive.

• The Politics of American Individualism: Herbert Hoover in Transition, 1918-1929 -- Gary Dean Best
  
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time -- Mark Haddon
  
• Woodrow Wilson -- Louis Auchincloss
  
• Murder in the White House -- Margaret Truman
  
• Maigret At The Crossroads -- Georges Simenon
  
• The Best of Father Brown -- G. K. Chesterton, selected and introduced by H. R. F. Keating
  
• The Face of War -- John Keegan
  
• The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s -- Paula Fass (actually, I haven't finished this yet, so this is cheating)
  
• Thomas Woodrow Wilson: A Psychological Study -- Sigmund Freud (yes, that Sigmund Freud) and William C. Bullitt
  
• The Dante Club -- Matthew Pearl
  
• The Da Vinci Code -- Dan Brown
  
• Triangle -- the Fire that Changed America -- David von Drehle
  
• The Restraint of Beasts -- Magnus Mills
  
• The Memory Wars -- Frederick Crews
  
• The Commercialization of Intimate Life -- Arlie Russell Hochschild
  

Music
These are albums that I've listened to enough to have an opinion on them, not necessarily all the albums I've bought. I'm giving "+" ratings, where "+" is understood to be on a logarithmic scale, and no-one need feel ashamed of getting any rating at all, unless they're ashamed of getting rated below Scissor Sisters, which I may well grow out of doing by June.

Er... by "logarithmic" I mean that each "+" is worth half as much as the previous "+", or else twice as much. No "+" = bottom half; "+" = 50-75%; "++" = 75-87%; and so on. But even that isn't it, because it implies I should be way stingier with the "++"s than with the -s, and something tells me I'm not going to be. Bollocks to it all. I was just trying to come up with a ratings system that didn't boil down to me giving everything four stars, and now Christmas is ruined for everyone.

• mu-Ziq, Lunatic Harness: + -- by the way, the title track of this is so like "Adnan" off In Sides that it's just not funny. Someone's cheating here, and checking the album dates I think it's Mr. Ziq.
  
• Scissor Sisters, Scissor Sisters: ++
  
• Fennez, Endless Summer:
  
• The Strokes, Is This It?: ++
  
• Morrissey, You are the Quarry: +
  
• The Shins, Chutes Too Narrow: may grow on me
  
• The Streets, A Grand Don't Come for Free: +
  
• Sonic Youth, Murray Street: ++, maybe even +++
  
• Love, Forever Changes
  
• Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation:
  
• Mull Historical Society, Loss: +
  
• Badly Drawn Boy, About a Boy (Soundtrack): +
  

• Mansun, Attack of the Grey Lantern (G)
  
• Chocolate Aeros (G)
  
• Dawn Smith, Dawnraiding (G)
  

Bike Rides

• Sunday March 7th: South Shore -- Squantum, City Point. 42 miles.
  
• Saturday March 13th: Worcester-home by the northern route, with Nick. Stow, Acton. 51 miles + 7 to South Station.
  
• Saturday March 20th: Franklin-home past Dana Hall. 50 miles again, + 7 to South Station again. Very tough this time...
  
• Tuesday April 6th: Otane - Havelock North via the road south of Te Mata, back along the main road (route 2). 65 miles, gorgeous, enormously slow, was sick the next day, hmm. Three other 15ish mile routes that week.
  
• Saturday May 1st: That 75-miler I was talking about.
  
• Saturday May 8th: Kodak moments in Saratoga. Meant to do Exploding thighs on Sunday, just so I could say I'd done it, but it was raining too hard. Oh well. 54 miles, 15.6 mph, averaged 15.2 for the first two and a bit hours and well over 16 for the last. Need more hill training. (In general, btw, this is one of the best pages of its kind that I've found.)
  
• Friday May 21st: Just the standard out-to-work-and-the-long-way back, along 62 and Hancock St into the center of Lexington. But I averaged 17.1 for the 26 miles, which is the best this year.
  
• Saturday May 22nd: 53 miles, round the edge of Boston through Dover, Dedham and Stony Brook. Average, er, 15.1. I deliberately front-loaded the ride with hills to see what it'd do to me, and it did that.

Wikipedia Entries

• The Old Men At The Zoo
  
• Woodrow Wilson
  

Books I've Started
Yeah yeah yeah, this is the embarassing part.

• Herbert Hoover, Memoirs part 1
  
• Angus Wilson, The Old Men At The Zoo
  
• Sinclair Lewis, Main Street
  
• T. Coraghessan Boyle, World's End -- currently in New Zealand
  
• Fiona Buckley, Queen of Ambition -- currently in a hotel in Anaheim, or maybe a rental car.
  
• Emil Gaboriau, Monsieur Lecoq -- may not finish
  

• The Strokes, Room on Fire
  
• Kanye West, The College Dropout