Level World Articles and Reviews

I had breakfast this morning with my friend Paolo from Milan Italy. Paolo teaches screen writing and the business of television in Milan and we had a wonderful conversation about the state of television both here in America and over in Europe.

What was perhaps even more interesting, however, was to discuss the state of politics in Europe. One of my biggest concerns in this country is how divided we’ve become. It scares me that my republican friends hate the democrats so much and my democratic friends hate the republicans so much.

There’s a chill in the air and almost all the leaves have dropped off of the tree outside the door to my apartment building. Winter is arriving.

And with the change in season, it’s time for a change in cocktail. Last winter was all about bourbon, but while bourbon should retain a place in your holiday season’s imbibing (mix a couple fingers of Maker’s Mark in with your ‘nog as you sit by the tree this Christmas Eve), it is the martini that will get you through the office holiday party this year.

I really like Allen-Edmonds dress shoes. They are amazingly comfortable, cut in a sort-of timeless style and they are built to last. They are traditional leather dress shoes with leather soles and yet I frequently walk home from work in them (about 4 1/2 miles) and they’re totally comfortable. So, ok, they’re incredibly expensive. But unlike some shoes, they really will last a long, long time and do I’d argue that over the long run they’re not much more expensive (maybe even cheaper) than buying several pairs of cheaper dress shoes.

Maybe it was the walking 4 miles a day on concrete in them, but after a couple years I finally wore through the soles. I was crushed, but I had heard that you could have them “recrafted” by Allen-Edmonds, so I dropped them off at the store to try out this service.

I just got server activity logs for the last couple of weeks for this website and, I’ve got to say, you are an impressive bunch. Because I am a statistics geek, I thought I’d share some:

Tuesday is the most popular day. What’s up with that?

8AM is the busiest hour of the day – almost twice as busy as any other time.

People from at least 11 different countries read this blog.

Almost 20% of people spend over 30 minutes on the site at a time.

A surprisingly high percentage of people who found this site via a search engine searched for “pepsi holiday spice”.

Including that last statement in this entry will probably increase that percentage.

Mozilla has released Firefox 1.0, the first formal release of their next-generation web browser. I downloaded it Friday to use on my PC at work and downloaded the Mac version at home over the weekend.

I really like it. It combines some of the best features of Safari with the stability and rendering accuracy of the Mozilla engine. Plus, like Safari, it’s fast and incorporates tabbed browsing. It has some nice features of it’s own, which I’m still learning. Right now I’m loving the really cool real-time “find” feature. Oh, and Firefox is free free.

I’ll probably still use Safari for most things at home, if for no other reason than I’m comfortable with it and it’s so nicely incorporated into OS X, but at work I’m switching to Firefox. In fact, I’m using Firefox to post this right now.

So I’m sitting on my couch and it’s a beautiful morning. The sun is shining and Yahoo weather tells me it’s 32 degrees out, which gives the morning a crisp feeling.

I’ve got a fire going in the fireplace, the first one of the year. I made myself a latte this morning, complete with homemade vanilla syrup. I’m eating a bowl of Fruity Pebbles cereal because I am five and because it is my favorite no-redeeming-value cereal. There’s some jazz playing softly on the stereo.

And in this pleasant environment, I’m getting a lot of quality writing done. Life is good.

Hope your morning is going just as well.

I went to Starbucks for coffee yesterday and I went to Caribou for coffee this morning. Both have their holiday cups out in force, which is just wrong. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet and I am not ok with this premature holiday celebration. Don’t get me wrong. I love the Christmas season. I love everything about it. But I’m not ready for it yet. Can’t we enjoy Thanksgiving first?

In any case, I have to say I hate the Starbucks holiday cups. Way, way too red. So Caribou, with cups in several pleasantly muted colors, wins on cups. Also in Caribou’s favor: at least in Chicago, they have pastries from Deerfield’s bakery which are very, very yummy.

Every strong, quality relationship, from time to time, is beset with arguments. So it was last night with one of my closest relationships.

I had a fight with my TiVo.

I know, I know. Everyone who knows me knows that I usually have nothing but praise for my TiVo. We’re such a great couple. How could we be fighting? After all, TiVo changed my life. I no longer watch commercials and now look at the rest of the world and wonder how they can bear to watch television without TiVo.

Some people were thrilled with the results of last week’s election and others were horrified. I can sympathize with both points of view and have friends of both political persuasions. So I was fascinated by the election. I think it is amazing and more than a little scary that our country is so polarized right now. I mean, my Republican friends hated Kerry and the Democrats. My Democratic friends had a similar hatred, an almost visceral dislike, of George Bush and the Republicans.

Anyway, This American Life, one of my favorite shows in NPR, did this fascinating story on the Republican Party. They go beyond the basics and really dive into why more and more people in the country have been voting Republican, even when in some cases it seems to be at odds with the interests and beliefs of these very people. It’s really quite fascinating from an almost psychological perspective.

So I guess we still don’t have a president.

I was watching the election result last night and it occurred to me that they are unique in that they are simultaneously thrilling and quite boring at the same time.

Anyway, I’m ready for this all to be over.