beginning of the end of the year

LISTS

Every year, I put together a massive collection of Best Of lists. (Previously: 2003 and 2001 -- okay, almost every year). A few of you have emailed me recently to ask if I'll be doing it this year again -- and of course I will be. Today is officially the start of the season, as NYT Circuits published their Top 10 Games of the Year and Rolling Stone has The Year's Best DVDs. Let the lists begin...

ONLINE

Seen this one yet? A website outta Texas that lets you do target practice online: Live-shot.com. Gotta love those red states.

Ask.Metafilter.com answers What are some good pop culture blogs?

TV

The final season of Buffy came out on DVD this week.

FILM BUT NOT FILM

High Tension looks like another mediocre horror movie, but ya gotta love the song playing in the trailer -- Sonic Youth doing The Carpenter's "Superstar," which is one of the best covers of all time.

Pulp Fiction writer Roger Avery sues Microsoft over a video game about yoga. (Only Microsoft would steal the worst game idea ever.) And he has a blog chronicling his lawsuit.

PUBLISHING

Whoa, talk about future-dating a story. Frank Rich's Sunday column is already online with a dateline of November 21.

MUSIC

If you missed it, Vanity Fair launched a website this week. Check out the oh-so-1995 list of links. There's a long profile of kindler, gentler Eminem.

SEARCH

Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah, Google launched an academic search engine.

TORTURE

New Scientist has a very interesting interview with chief interrogator in Israel's security service.

COMEDY

Decent Chris Rock interview in The Onion.

FOOD

Cooking With Cum (Dot Com). Uh-huh.

TECH

Whoa, Mel Karmazin has jumped to... you never would guessed this... Sirius Radio.

LOCAL

The Rake started a blog.

Lindsey wrote a funny piece about the Minnesota RollerGirls and Peter has some great pics.