1. AVI-MPG Movies with digital cameras. You don't need an actual movie
camera; many new digital cameras will take 30 seconds of movie,
including sound, more conveniently.

2. Web-logs, including mine. I read WSJ-Taranto, Brian Leiter,
Christianity Today, Instapundit, and the Volokh Conspiracy.

3. Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff, Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity
to Solve Problems Big and Small,  2003.  An ingenious idea--
collect everyone's neat ideas for small improvements, and then let
someone else put them into practice. The old Forbes columns are here and
the website is Whynot.net.

4. Tablet PC's. Mine is an Acer 100 series, perhaps not the best.
Wireless internet connection and a pen-mouse are good. I've added a
cordless mouse.

5. Ucluelet on Vancouver Island is a wonderful place-- clams and sea
cucumbers, rain forest and seals. We stayed at The Cabins.

6. Adam Nicholson, God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James
Bible, 2003.   Nicholson does an amazing job of making the
religious politics of 1605 fascinating.

7. Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe war novels vary in quality, but the best
are Waterloo,   2001, and Sharpe's Tiger: Richard Sharpe
& the Siege of Seringapatam, 1799,   1999.

8. Electric toothbrushes are really a great idea. I have the Crest
Spinbrush Pro.

9. We replaced our old 1990 Protege with the 2003 Mazdaspeed Protege,
very similar but with an MP3 player, big tires, and a turbocharger to
add horsepower to the nimbleness.   The internet forum is a
good place to look for complaints and add-ons.

10. David Frum, The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George Bush,
2003. Frum's best work yet.

11. Riccardo Orizio had the good idea of interviewing ex-dictators, and
wrote it up in Talk of the Devil: Encounters With Seven Dictators, 2003.
He also wrote Lost White Tribes: The End of Privilege and the Last
Colonials in Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Brazil, Haiti, Namibia, and Guadeloupe,
2001.

12. The cartoon movie, Spirited Away, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, has
great charm and spookiness, though it begins better than it ends. 2001.
 

Other good things: Terra Yukon Gold Yogurt and Green Onion potato chips.
Luther, movie. Contact cement. Don Van Natta, FIRST OFF THE TEE, 2003.
James Hogg: Confessions of a justified sinner. Greaves: Cancer the
Evolutionary Legacy. Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers, Patrick
Kavanaugh. The Bitter End. Pale Ale. Two Brothers Brewing. Really
exceptional.