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I've always believed you can find absolute magic in the most mundane of situations. I'm not exactly the guy from American Beauty watching a plastic bag fly in the wind, but I feel there's greatness often overlooked in the idiotic. 

Which logically brings us to the film New Years Eve. 

Post-Tilt, I've been going back and forth whether to search for a conventional job or pursue some sort of independent venture. During this period, there are those days where you genuinely believe you can motivate yourself, strike out on your own, and take over the world. Then there are those days where you find yourself in a theater at 1pm watching New Years Eve.

I'm not going to get into how I ended up there, but the only other people in the theater were some high school girls who shrieked every time The Efron came on screen, an elderly, Woody Allen-worthy "New Yorky" couple, and a solo middle-aged guy whose story I'd really like to know (or maybe wouldn't). 

Yes, the movie was as absolutely atrocious and my hathos quota was more than fulfilled. I'm genuinely curious what Hollywood agent is such a salesman that they convinced Robert DeNiro, "Trust me...THIS is gonna be a hit!" 

(Spoiler Alert!!!)

All that being said, the meathead in me that's a sucker for climactic movie speeches from Al Pacino to even Bill Pullman, somehow found myself weirdly non-ironic (or perhaps "reflective" as normal people might say) as Hilary Swank delivered the crescendo. As the Times Sq ball is stuck, she tells us that:

It's suspended there to remind us before we pop the champagne and celebrate the new year, to stop and reflect on the year that has gone by. To  remember both our triumphs and  our missteps, our promises made and broken. The times we opened ourselves up to great adventures or closed ourselves down for fear of getting hurt because that is what new years is all about- getting another chance. A chance to forgive, to do better, to do more, to give more, to love more. And stop worrying about what if and start embracing what will be. So when that ball drops at midnight and it will drop, let's remember to be nice to each other, kind to each other, and not just tonight but all year long.

Trust me, as I re-read this, I cringe. Yet, I'll admit for that brief moment, I managed to forgive even yet another horrific Ashton Kutcher romantic closing line (rivaling that of No Strings Attached). Somehow this awful movie made me remember what I love about New Years Eve.

It's easy to forget this in New York City. There's a graveyard of $150 "open bar" tickets where you waited in line for hours and missed midnight. There's an endless roster of friends who visited with impossible expectations placed squarely on your shoulders.

I forgot that I love New Years Eve simply because I love the idea of a fresh start.

Maybe I value fresh starts because I know I'm not perfect (understatement of 2011?). Some may wipe the slate clean by with religion and being born again (George W.) but that's not happening. Some may move on by literally moving on across the world, but I'm pretty tired of visa offices (and I guess already did that). I just love that we all agree that an arbitrary event on the Gregorian calendar gives us all the chance to try to be just a little better. 

You just survived another 365 days, you must've learned something. Even if you don't keep your resolutions, at least you're making them. You may have lost touch with people you care about, and you're given an excuse to get in contact (though please don't send out on of those mass text messages). How often does the entire world have a chance to collectively reflect and try to improve?

….or maybe I just love the fact that there's globally more drunken revelry on New Years Eve than any other night? 

Either way, I can't believe at this time last year I was on a plane from India to Singapore, getting ready to travel Vietnam. Tilt had not yet even officially launched. If 2011 was that kinda ride, I'm a bit excited for what 2012 has in store.

Emoting with Kindle Highlights

I'm a technophile. I probably shouldn't be allowed within 100 yards of an Apple store. I could be wrong and the last vestiges of our privacy will soon be usurped and the robots will win. I accept Facebook has forever changed the definition of 'friend' and texting just isn't a phone call. However, there are moments where technology facilitates the basest of human emotion, in wonderful, undeniable way.

One battle in the technophilic war where I occasionally retreat is the printed book. I do get it when people say "there's just something about holding a printed book." But, I also remember when friends argued there is just something about opening a CD case and reading the liner notes or putting an LP onto a record player. I argued that at a certain point, convenience outweighs that limited emotional attachment. Having your entire music collection in your pocket is just better.

After last night's discovery, I have to warn my friends who define themselves by what sits on their bookshelf and love the smell of paper: It's time to accept the world has changed.

I bought the Kindle 2 in Feb 2009, right before leaving NYC and moving to Asia. After one look, I donated most of my book collection to the public library (saving a few for the same reason I save concert tickets). The idea that while wandering Asia, I could have dozens of books in my backpack was too good to be true.

When I read, I highlight. I used to do it physically, and began using the somewhat clunky Kindle 2 highlighting functionality right away. I rarely went back and actually reviewed the highlights and notes, but felt someday it could be worth the effort.

It's happened.

I'm not even sure how long this has been available, but if you go to kindle.amazon.com and click on 'Your Highlights' it's right there: every highlight and note I have taken since Feb 2009. Reading The Man Who Loved China while fresh in Beijing. Nervously reading Shantaram on my Kindle in Dhaka, worried someone might steal it. Waiting to read Growing up in the People's Republic, about the Cultural Revolution, til I got to Thailand because I was afraid somehow "they" would know. Reading The Vietnam War: A Concise History but being too spoiled an American and not visiting because I had to get a visa. Bedridden with a bad back and reading Too Big to Fail, vividly being brought back to September 2008. It goes on and on. Not only did every book and the related setting come back to me, every quote I loved is right there (I'll hold off on getting into the potential for the social elements they've already began building).

Imagine every book since you were a little kid, every inspiration you jotted down on a notepad, every lesson, every character...all on one scrollable page.

I'll take my chances on the robots.

(a few favorites)

"This set the pattern of the next decade: Europe struggling with the legacies and burdens of the past, the United States wrestling with the excess bonuses of its good fortune." - Too Big to Fail (referring to 1919)

“You were born in a shirt” (a Russian expression meaning that someone has very good luck) - Darkness at Dawn

"It was big enough to be useful, small enough to be possible" - Bloomberg by Bloomberg (on the first terminal)

"“But it wasn’t just a nice car,” I said. “It was a Lexus. A Lexus. That’s a specific kind of nice car. Everyone knows what owning a Lexus means. To Cobain, a lavender limousine would have been preferable to a Lexus, because at least that would have been gratuitous and silly. The limousine is aware of its excess; a Lexus is at ease with it. A Lexus is a car for a serious rich person. There are no ironic Lexus drivers, or even post-ironic Lexus drivers.” - Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman

"Econometrics is essentially the art of finding statistical methods to extract information from data—or, as a lawyer friend of Stefan’s likes to put it, taking the data down into the basement and torturing them until they confess." - Soccernomics by Stefan Szymanski

"I told him once he’s so shallow that the best he can manage is a single entendre" - Shantaram

"Sometimes, in India, you have to surrender before you win." - Shantaram

"'It’s funny you say that. A girlfriend of mine once told me, a long time ago, that she was attracted to me because I was interested in everything. She said she left me for the same reason.’" - Shantaram

"The sign, simply and starkly, states: “Without Haste. Without Fear. We Conquer the World.” - The Man Who Loved China, Simon Winchester

“There is no such thing as becoming German. You either are or you are not.” - How to Win a Cosmic War, Reza Aslan