I'm still not even halfway through this behemoth (it's about 1,000 pages), but I started reading it as part of the Infinite Summer effort that's currently underway. One of my coworkers got excited about reading it, several of us ordered copies...and so far I'm the only one reading it.

It's good, just sometimes belabored. There are 10-page-long descriptions of scenes in which NOTHING HAPPENS, intricate explanations of technology, politics and tennis, and occasional punctuation-less first-person accounts from drug addicts.

In addition, David Foster Wallace likes using footnotes. Normally not that much of a problem, but these are at the end of the book instead of the bottom of the page, requiring much back-and-forth flipping (I use two bookmarks).

That said, I am enjoying it. I'm following Jason Kottke's advice to just read, enjoy, and not sweat all the big words. As he said, after enough time, things become clear and you get the overall gist.

Let's just hope I finish before next summer.

It was July of 2007. One day, I'd been listening to one of my all-time favorite bands, Superdrag, thinking, "I wonder if they'll ever reunite. I sure hope so." Not a week later, I got an email from the band's mailing list saying, "The rumors you may have seen online are absolutely true. The original Superdrag line-up are reuniting to play 6 limited tour dates in October and November!"

Of course, none of the tour dates were near me, but the band was going to play in their hometown of Knoxville, Tenn. and in nearby Nashville. Jokingly, I sent Heather an email saying, "Wanna fly to Nashville for our anniversary? You can nap during the set." (See her answer for the explanation of that one.) After going back and forth and me finding $445 round-trip airfare for both of us, we decided to book it. So we flew 2,000 miles to see one of my favorite bands reunite.

And then I drove 40 miles to see them when they came to San Francisco 9 months later.

swim
I think swimming is the only sport-ish thing I really enjoy (no sweating!), and I rarely do it. My brother has access to a pool, and I plan to exploit him for this.

go to camp
As a child, I was never given the opportunity that, if Hollywood is to be believed, was a rite of passage for so many kids: spending a week at summer camp. Next month, some friends and I are going on a vacation at a summer camp that promises to provide all the things I missed out on, except maybe the crush and first kiss, what with being married and 27 and all.

master the grill
I got a classic Coleman grill last year, and used it twice with questionable results. Now armed with a great BBQ book and a few lessons learned from my results, I will make sweet, sweet barbecue.

Made just a couple of years before I joined the world of the living, this film has influenced my sense of humor in a way that I could never (and would never want to) shake. It's ridiculous.

From the opening line about Steve Martin's character being born a poor black child to the many misadventures he gets himself into, this movie will crack you up. But maybe not your wife.

a video game system
I like to be entertained.

a good stereo
For parties, duh.

some good stuff in the fridge
In case I get hungry.

a Costco membership
I'm not going to pay $45 a year to go buy a jumbo pack of toilet paper when I can just go along with you.

there's no food or snacks out
Maybe this is the 1/4 Italian in me talking, but social events = snack time in my mind. No snacks, no party.

someone asks if you have a razor blade and/or mirror
Yikes.

the TV comes on
There's nothing quite as party-killing as turning the music down, the lights up, and shifting focus from socializing to staring at a box.

no one is shotgunning Tecate Light
Well, this one isn't always true, but it's why I leave family parties pretty early most of the time.

When I was in elementary school, I had a number of friends move away from the Bay Area. I believe the farthest move was to Hong Kong, where my friend Michael lived for a few years. During that time we were honest-to-goodness pen pals.

Before the days of email and IM and Facebook and whatnot, Michael and I wrote each other letters, and boy was it exciting to receive fancy international mail. I don't know if I still have those letters, but if so I'm sure the correspondence between two male 5th-graders would be riveting to read now. I believe at some point he also sent me a tea pot shaped like a leaf, with a (ceramic) caterpillar for a handle.

Molly Ringwald pines
John Hughes wastes 90 minutes
Somewhere, a leaf falls

Why? Well, for one, people will often ask a handlebar-wearer, "Are you serious?" which actually gives the opportunity to say, "Yes. Yes I am."

Secondly, it's like there's a party on your upper lip and down the sides of your mouth, but you had the good sense not to include your chin and jaw, who are known troublemakers. This is a tasteful party.

Finally, anyone with the dedication to properly groom a handlebar day in and day out must be trustworthy and dedicated. I know I certainly am.

• Larger size
• Opposeable thumbs
• A larger brain (I'm assuming. I've never measured either brain.)
• Incredible strength

My first girlfriend and I had been dating for about 5 months and still hadn't kissed. Being 14, I had no prior experience with ladies and/or what to do with them. I was terrified of kissing her, fearing that I would somehow do it wrong and be dumped, labeled as a bad kisser and left with no choice but to become a monk.

I remember a mutual female friend talking to me about my hesitation.

"She wants you to, you know," she said.

"I know. I just don't think I would be happy wearing that robe and taking a vow of silence."

It reached a really awkward point where we both knew what we weren't doing, but neither of us necessarily wanted to make the big move. Finally, one day after school I worked up the courage – I was going to plant one on my special lady. We were standing on the steps to the N wing of Mission San Jose High School, me looking up at her, her looking down at me, when I finally did it. And immediately afterward, like a real man, I turned around briskly and walked home as quickly as humanly possible.

It turned out okay, thankfully. Terrible kisser or not, she married me 10 years later.

UPDATE: Heather has pointed out that I have conflated this story with a different one in my head. As she expertly describes, she was the kisser, as well as the runner. I was confusing this moment with the time when, almost exactly three years later, we were hanging out again after a yearlong breakup, and I kissed her when dropping her off at her house. That time, I ran away.

write a book
It will be a book of dirty jokes, but they will be insightful, high-class dirty jokes.

make a full-length record with an engineer and/or producer who's worked on a record I love
I thought my band might do this soon (with Scott Solter at Tiny Telephone) but we recently decided that would be a waste of money at the moment. So we'll record an EP at a cheaper studio with a cheaper (but still capable) engineer.

get in a bar fight
Not a punching, shoving fight, but a tiff at least. Maybe even a slap fight.

travel to all 50 states
I'm up to 15 so far, and making my way through the rest. Not looking forward to Nebraska.

Michael Ian Black has been one of my favorite professional funny people since he was on "The State," and later "Ed." My awesome wife purchased this book for me as a birthday present last year, and I finally read through it a month or two ago. It's fairly ridiculous, but that's its charm.

My favorite chapter is perhaps the first, titled, "What I Would Be Thinking If I Were Billy Joel Driving to a Holiday Party Where I Knew There Was Going to Be a Piano." An excerpt:

"Who am I kidding? Of course I'm going to play it. I always play it. Probably the only reason half the people at that party even show up is to hear me play 'Piano Man.' They probably don't even like me. Not really. They just want to tell all their friends that Billy came and played 'Piano Man.' Again. Like I'm the loser who's dying to play it. Whatever."

Genius.

leverage
As pointed out by the wise and insightful Matthew Levine, users of this word probably just mean "use" or "take advantage of." No need to get fancy.

synergy
This just means "similarity" or "place where our work lines up" or "I'm insecure so I use big words."

random
There are times when it is appropriate to use this word, but in the last few years I've noticed people using it when they really just mean "strange" or sometimes even "coincidental."

ask (as a noun)
This one kills me. There's already a word for "request." It's "request." Use it.

space
When people say that something is the "best in its space" or the "first in this space" or whatever, I want to escort them to a ship and send them to "space."

Key ring
Keys are necessary to access my car, house, office, studio, etc. There's also a Swiss Army knife in case I get into a Swiss battle.

Rental car keys
Funny story! So I was in San Francisco in a parking garage, and all of a sudden WHAM! this giant concrete support beam sneaks up on me and runs into the side of my car door, scratching it and taking off the driver's-side mirror. At least that's what I told the insurance company.

Jimi wallet
This thing is the best wallet I've ever owned. It's $15, slim and hip.

ChapStick
Dry lips don't get the ladies.

Extra peppermint gum
I've written about my love for Extra peppermint gum before, but I've chewed this same gum for at least 10 years. Hope it doesn't have anything awful in it.

Hipster PDA (& Pilot G-2 pen)
Merlin's simple little invention has been a godsend for me. I've found it invaluable to have something on hand to catch all the little ideas that pop into my brain or are put there by other people.

Guitar picks
Because you never know when there's a guitar to be played.

iPhone
Duh.

The only time I've been there, someone walked in with a pet bird on her shoulder, someone else was sharing chicken wings with everyone sitting at the bar (the place does not serve food), and the bartender asked one of our friends if she could speak for herself after her boyfriend ordered for her. Needless to say, I would take ANY visiting friend here for a drink to get a taste of Pleasanton's seedy underbelly.

Cookie, Anyone

The other day, Jason and I were brainstorming some ideas in the office, and at one point he asked if I wanted a delicious beverage (which probably meant vanilla-flavored or vitamin-enhanced Coke) from the kitchen. Not sharing his enthusiasm for themed sodas, I instead suggested that we go get cookies.

Jason's eyes lit up and we were out the door before you could say "cholesterol." To be fair, we earned our little tasty treats by walking around Lafayette in search of the best cookie options (turned out Chow was the winner that day).

The only other thing I do when I'm stressed is drink. Not a lot, mind you, but there's something classically American to me about coming home after a taxing day, pouring a drink and relaxing with Lucille Ball.

My family never took long road trips. In fact, we rarely traveled for vacations, instead usually sticking closer to home for weekend trips to Santa Cruz. (One exception is the memorable Disneyland/Arizona trip during which I believe Jason quit the family several times.)

Heather's family, on the other hand, made at least one annual road trip to her aunt's in-laws' cabin in Long Beach, Wash. Long Beach is a quaint little seaside town just above the mouth of the Columbia River at the Washington-Oregon border. In 2000, after we'd been dating a couple of years, I went along on what turned out to be the family's last trip there (the cabin was sold two or three years ago.)

Someday I'm sure I'll write about Long Beach itself, but what was remarkable was that my now-father-in-law always preferred making the 14-hour trek in a single day. We left at something like 4 a.m., stopped in Tracy for breakfast, somewhere in Oregon for lunch, and were in Long Beach by dinner.

There were six of us in the van: me, Heather, her parents, her sister, and her sister's friend. Other than the time I rode from Santa Monica to Anaheim in a rented Dodge Caravan (Or Equivalent) with six other adults at rush hour, this is the most uncomfortable I've ever been inside a vehicle in my life. I've never really been able to sleep any place that isn't a bed, especially a moving thing that isn't a bed and happens to have other humans in it all competing for a limited amount of fresh air. Thus, I wasn't able to sleep, but I don't really know that I was awake. I think I was actually in purgatory for a little while there.

Thankfully, we split the ride home into two legs, making it slightly more bearable. And the time spent in Long Beach itself made it all worthwhile. But just barely.

I hope it doesn't say too much about me that my favorite book is about a pervert who takes a liking to a little girl. But hopefully you'll understand that I was struck by this book for the same reason it has been critically lauded: the beautiful writing of Vladimir Nabokov, starkly contrasted with the disgusting premise of the novel.

Around this time, I was discovering that I enjoyed writing, and was inspired by Nabokov's ability to describe a simple scene with such grace and illustrative prose. While Nabokov was Russian, he wrote Lolita in English. It seems like he was just borrowing the language, playing with it for a little while and effortlessly composing one of the greatest works of literature just by happenstance before handing it back to native speakers. Jerk.

Anyway, I had never read something so beautifully written about something so ugly, and that outright contrast illuminated something I realized about my appreciation of all art: I like it a little messy. I can appreciate beauty for beauty's sake, but if it's a little rough around the edges (a distorted recording of drums, a portrait painted with broad, imperfect strokes, a hazy photograph), I'll probably appreciate it a bit more.

Esquire
I'd always thought Esquire was another "lad mag" like Maxim or FHM (lots of pretty ladies on the cover) until my colleagues at Paste magazine recommended checking out the writing. The first issue I picked up had a pantsless Britney Spears on the cover, which didn't help its image much in my eyes. Then, as I read through the magazine, I discovered its smart, funny writing, much-needed fashion advice, and, sure, lots of pretty ladies.

Ready Made
I don't know why I started reading Ready Made, but I can't stop. The magazine's focus is largely on craft projects based on reusing materials for decorations, furniture, clothing, gifts, etc. There's also interviews with designers, reviews and roundups of cool products.

Tape Op
Tape Op is a recording magazine run by reputable, respectable recording engineers. While I haven't done much recording lately, I appreciate their interviews with other musicians and engineers I admire.

Paste
I interned with Paste at the end of 2003, and still occasionally freelance for the magazine. Paste is one of the smartest music magazines around, taking a genreless view of what's great in the world of not only songs, but film, books, games and culture. Plus they send me checks every now and then.

Wise Eyes

1. "Look where you're driving, and drive where you're looking." - crazy old driving instructor, c. 1999

It's fairly self-explanatory in the car, right? But in life, it's important to be aware where you're headed, and head in a direction that you've made a conscious decision to take. This doesn't mean you can't make sudden turns on occasion, or even stop for a snack (either a literal or figurative snack), but it helps to have at least a little bit of a plan.

2. "If you've got to be somewhere on time, leave early." - guitar instructor, c. 2000

During my yearlong attempt to learn jazz guitar (result: mostly failure), my very wise and respected instructor would occasionally say this when trying to get me to make chord changes more quickly. It works. Being the son parents who are habitually late, too, I occasionally tell myself this advice when I have, say, a 2 p.m. appointment that's 15 minutes away. The old me might have left at 1:45, but the new me will allow at least an additional 30 seconds for traffic.

3. "Don't screw up, and if you screw up, screw it." - Steve Slater, my drummer, c. 2008

Right before a Farewell Typewriter show last year, Steve issued this directive in a backstage band huddle. It's a beautiful encapsulation of our band ethos, which is that we should strive for perfection but never be disappointed when we don't achieve it. I think one of our strengths as a band is our ability to blow through sets without getting derailed by things like missed notes, broken strings, dropped sticks, etc. (Another strength: our collective washboard abs.) In more of a general sense, this is the equivalent of the "hope for the best, be prepared for the worst" platitude you might have heard from your mother or something, except it has the word "screw" in it.

"Wayne's World" might win the trophy for film I've viewed the most times. It doesn't require a lot of brain power to understand, so you can still appreciate the classic comedy even if your brain is melting from a severe fever (though you should probably see a doctor if you feel a melting sensation.)

Some of my favorite moments include Garth's Nuprin and Reebok product placements, the TV camera operator skillfully hitting on Mrs. Vanderhoff ("Do I frighten you?" "No." "Do you want me to?") and Wayne's dramatic speech at Crucial Taunt's video shoot ("But both you and I know that there is no film in this camera!")

Laughter truly is the best medicine. Laughter and Vicodin.