Andrew at Songs to Wear Pants to writes songs according to your instructions. I like the hip-hop remix on the Tetris theme.

As I write this, there's only about 9 hours left in 2006. I thought it might be a little too gauche if I let this post slip over to 2007. To start, I've reviewed about 30 books here over the past 5 months. I think that works out to a review for every 2 or 3 that I read. Trolling my memory for things I liked from the entire year1, I come up with... A Few of the Books I Really Liked This Year:

• The Batman In: Nine Lives - I love Motter & Lark's noir-ish rendition of the Gotham world. The limited, careful color palette is really cool.
• Economics for Real People - Gene Callahan's introduction to economic thinking is a nice refresher for nerds like myself, and a friendly welcome for those who wouldn't read something like Man, Economy, & State. There's also a PDF version of the book.
• Beautiful Evidence - Edward Tufte makes a nice contribution to "forever knowledge" about visual communication here. Lovely work in a lovely container.
• Getting Things Done - David Allen's book didn't convert me completely, but I haven't found other personal development books that were so concrete and actually worth exploring in depth.
• Understanding Comics - Scott McCloud's book helped to revive my love for the form.
• The Ghost Map - Steven Johnson's compelling take on Sickness and the City. Though I think some of his other books are more tightly written, I like the bigger, broader ideas here.
• The Broker - I don't read a lot of pop fiction, so I wasn't expecting John Grisham to be such a good writer. Besides being a fun read, he also has some well-crafted moments.

Worst Book:

• Mary, Mary - I made sure not to set the bar too high for James Patterson, but this was still really awful. Ugh.

Best-Loved Music:

• Feist: Let It Die - So much tasteful variety here. Aside from Leslie Feist's great, great voice, the orchestration and instrument colors in this album are pretty incredible. There's also a killer cover of the Bee Gees tune "Love You Inside Out".
• Joanna Newsom: Ys - At first listen, I wasn't too sure. 30 seconds later, I was in heaven. Folksy wailing over tricky harp riffs. Trust me on this one.

Worst Music Surprise:

• Modest Mouse: The Moon & Antarctica - Borrowed this from a friend who thought I might like it. We're still on good terms.

Personal Technology:

• Samsung SGH T-509 - To the elation of all my friends, I broke down and got a cellphone this year. And I rather like it. What it really does best is stay unobtrusively in my pocket.
• Apple 24" iMac - Still drooling over this one. I'm a little ashamed that I still don't feel like I have enough workspace.
• Pen & Paper - Nothing beats this combo. I try to always keep them around.

Best-Loved Blogs:

• Jason Kottke does a great job. After my brief time blogging, I appreciate his work even more. The quality is so consistently high. Great editing, and he's willing to be patient to give better context or a personal contribution. Love it.
• Shaun Inman's redesign is really cool.
• Joshua Blankenship's blog is awesome. So much energy and optimism there. He makes me want to be more creative.
• The Mises economics blog has a consistently great mix of high-brow academics and low-brow insight into everyday life.

--- 1. Disclaimer: All memories are subject to change. If I remember something really good, I'll add it to the list.

From Bob Becker's classic article on the paradoxes of percussion: "Substantial preparation time is often required for only a few seconds of actual performance... A performer who resigned his position as a percussionist with a major symphony orchestra once explained that, 'Ninety percent of the time I was bored to death, and the other ten percent of the time I was scared to death.'"

I never was that interested in skateboarding, but damn, freebording looks cool--check out the videos. Justin Blanton talks about his first experience on a freebord.

The Early Comics Archive offers samples of comics work dating from around 300AD up to the early 1900s.

The best photos of 2006 from the world of construction/ engineering. [via bldgblog]

"We again asked the Princeton University community to submit images—and, for the first time, videos and sounds—produced in the course of research or incorporating tools and concepts from science. Out of nearly 150 entries from 16 departments, we selected 56 works to appear in the 2006 Art of Science exhibition."

The Saints Row videogame for Xbox 360 has some pretty severe bugs. Cabel Sasser filmed some of the more egregious ones... and set them to an original musical score. Absolutely incredible! I really hope he does more of these. [via daring fireball]

A stick figure rebels against his animator.

An interview with SNL writer Bryan Tucker.

One thing people still don't seem to get is that the show is actually live and on Saturdays - just like the title says (when I got the job my mom asked me what night the show came on), Things are literally being rewritten and changed until minutes before they get on the air - usually not radically changed, but definitely tweaked. The whole show is put together in about four days, and it's frustrating when people compare SNL to other comedy shows that have the tremendous advantage of pre-taping things and controlling every aspect of what ultimately gets produced.

And here is part two.

I really like this map of Manhattan.

A big collection of free movies & documentaries, ranging from Dick Tracy to Phantom of the Opera to Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock to a couple hours worth of Tom & Jerry cartoons.

"In these songs, bricks, squares, pies, stones, and yams are coke, and the cooking, mixing, and weighing required to prepare the drug for clients becomes the inspiration for often inscrutable wordplay." New Yorker on cocaine and rap. (so... why is this cool?)

Comics legend Stan Lee talks with NPR about superheroes.

If I got a superpower, I wouldn't say, 'Oh, I gotta get a costume and put on a mask.' I would say, 'Hey, I can do something better than other people. How can I turn it into a buck?'

The creator of Marvel Comics mainstays like Spiderman, the Hulk, and the Fantastic Four celebrated his 84th birthday yesterday.

Google Video has some good old-school cartoons by Winsor McKay.

I just learned about Open Culture yesterday. Their mission, as they describe it:

To explore the best of contemporary intellectual life. To connect users with free, high-quality online media -- podcasts, videos, online courses, etc. -- that makes learning dynamic, convenient and fun. To keep users apprised of new cultural developments and resources worth their limited time.

Looks like a lot of good brainy media there.

And then there's this guy, who chose his Top 2006 Songs from 2006. I don't know how you could maintain any kind of accurate order with that kind of group, but I suppose it's the gestalt of the whole thing that really matters.

Excellent. A video featuring every finishing move from Mortal Kombat 3. Fatalities, babalities, friendships, etc. I can't believe the first Mortal Kombat game came out way back in 1992!

These are some great panels from the Little Nemo comic strips by Winsor McKay. The Virginia Quarterly has a nice article on McKay's influence.

A collection of 191 versions of the Wham! holiday tune, Last Christmas. This is truly a triumph of international pop culture.