PixlBit

Yes it's year 2000 this week in my little game of revisiting the years. So what happened? Armageddon of course. Y2K fears became a reality and civilization as we know it collapsed. Mayhem ensued and only a few survived in special bunkers created by various governments of the world. Luckily, I was able to use my prodigious survival skills to discover the location of one and get in. Now I write these blogs across the sole remaining network that links to the other bunkers, but you all know that part. 

Ok, Y2K didn't happen. Life went on as usual and I watched a bunch of movies, read some books, played some games, and listened to some music. Here are a few selections. 

A favorite music I heard was King Crimson's album,The ConstruKction of Light. Guitarist, founding member, and stiff-upper-lip Brit, Robert Fripp, was now fully surrounded by Americans in this incarnation of the band. It's at turns ambient, electronic, heavy metal, and progressive rock. A year before I had seen a splinter cell (ha! like that one?) of this band called ProjeKct Two with Fripp, Trey Gunn and Adrian Belew in a small venue in Philly. It was really kind of avant guarde kind of stuff - strange and beautiful. 

A music I'd like to hear now from 2000 is the first Explosions in the Sky album How Strange, Innocence. I just picked up the album and hope to listen to it soon. 

A favorite game I played was Skies of Arcadia on Dreamcast. This was a fun turn-based RPG with airships. I didn't finish it but I liked it a lot. There was also Sega Marine Fishing, MDK2 (this came with the first major PC I bought in 2000), and Seaman (oh the things I taught Seaman to say. Bad bad stuff). 

A game I'd like to play now from that year is Red Dog: Superior Firepower for Dreamcast. It looks like a 3D Moon Patrol. 

The book I read like it was my bible that year was Joel Whitburn's Pop Annual: 1955-1999. This listed all the songs that made it to Billboard's Hot 100 chart every year from '55 to '99. I was obsessed with this book, and when Napster came out (don't tell anyone), I got to listen to a lot of this stuff. I became a kind of music knowlege geek where I could tell you what was in the top ten any year. 

What I'll probably read next from this year is J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, her fourth Harry Potter book. I'm reading Prinsoner of Azkaban (book three) right now, so I guess I'll keep going. She wrote a book a year up until this point, and by now, was hugely popular. My neice and nephew were born around this time, and as a result, grew up rabid Harry Potter fans. I watched all the movies, but am only now getting around to the books. The first two were great and I was excited to start book three today. 

Finally movies. My favorite movie I saw in 2000 was Shadow of the Vampire staring John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe. It's a fictionalized story of the making of silent horror film Nosferatu. Apparently the vampire played by Max Schrek in the original was so well acted that the cast began thinking he was actually a vampire. The 2000 movie plays on this with some humor and some real horror. So great. Willem Dafoe as Nosferatu is amazing, as always. 

And that's 2000. Now, onward 21st centurians!