My Favorite Pop Culture of 2013!

Movies
Of the 32 movies I watched this year, only six were 2013 releases: Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me, Don Jon, Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa, This Is the End, Sound City and Star Trek Into Darkness. The Big Star documentary was great; the others ranged from pretty good to meh... I still wanna see Anchorman 2, Frances Ha, Inside Llewyn Davis, Nebraska, The Punk Singer and some others... As for older movies, I rediscovered Blade Runner, and watched its myriad versions multiple times.

TV
Bob's Burgers became a new favorite. I plowed through all five seasons of Parks and Recreation in a few weeks, and kept current with the latest seasons of Louie and Mad Men. I watched Breaking Bad all the way up through its finale, and while I saw some of the final-season episodes of Eastbound & Down, I haven't yet caught the end. I still watch Saturday Night Live fairly religiously, as I have for the last 25-odd years, mostly out of habit. It's still topical and unpredictable, if not consistently funny.

Rock 'n' Roll
The only 2013 album I regularly played start to finish was David Bowie's The Next Day (unless you count Best Coast's seven-song EP/mini-album thing Fade Away). This led me to revisit all of Bowie's back catalog, which I listened to pretty extensively for much of the year (I played "Station to Station" dozens of times in the car)... Disappointing were new releases by the Pixies, the Strokes, the Replacements and Iggy & the Stooges... However, the 'Mats and the Stooges kicked ass at the Toronto Riot Fest; the only other show I went to this year was a Mudhoney in-store on April Fool's Day... As for older stuff, I sprang for Bob Dylan's 47-disc Complete Album Collection: Vol. One ($197 on Amazon -- that's $4.19 per disc!)... The one album I listened to far more than any other was 1980's Pleasure by Girls at Our Best!. Since I couldn't find the lyrics anyplace, I took a shot at transcribing them here... Other 2013 albums/songs I like:
Camera Obscura -- "Do It Again"
Neko Case -- "Madonna of the Wasps"
Dead Ghosts -- "B.A.D."
Grant Hart -- "Morningstar"
Melvins -- Everybody Loves Sausages, Tres Cabrones
Mudhoney -- Vanishing Point
Thee Oh Sees -- Floating Coffin
Those Darlins -- "Optimist"
Wooden Shjips -- "Ruins"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- Mosquito

Books
Jeez, did I only read two books this year? Yep. Those would be Bebe Day by Day by Pamela Druckerman and Jim Gaffigan's Dad is Fat. Both are related to parenting, which makes sense -- in January I became a first-time dad to twin girls (which also explains why I've been even further out of the pop-culture loop this year)... The Replacements: Waxed-Up Hair and Painted Shoes: The Photographic History looks terrific, though I haven't actually read the text yet. Same with Fan Interference, which is also gathering dust on my nightstand.

Comics
Didn't read many comics either, other than Peter Bagge's Reset, Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half, and A Matter of Life by Jeffrey Brown. All good.

For those keeping score, here are my favorites from 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, and 2006 (movies and music).
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My 2013 New York Times Crossword Stats

Of the 365 New York Times crossword puzzles published in 2013, I solved 232 of them, or 64%. By “solved” I mean I correctly filled in all the blank squares without any outside assistance, whether by asking for help or looking things up or anything else like that. And I only do 'em with pen on paper -- that's today's puzzle, above. I also kept semi-detailed records on my progress, as broken down in the sabermetric-like stats below...

Percentage Solved by Month
January: 13/31 -- 42% (year-to-date: 13/31-- 42%)
February: 16/28 -- 57% (year-to-date: 29/59 -- 49%)
March: 15/31 -- 48% (year-to-date: 44/90 -- 49%)
April: 19/30 -- 63% (year-to-date: 63/120 -- 53%)
May: 13/31 -- 42% (year-to-date: 76/151 -- 50%)
June: 20/30 -- 67% (year-to-date: 96/181 -- 53%)
July: 23/31 -- 74% (year-to-date: 119/212 -- 56%)
August: 25/31 -- 81% (year-to-date: 144/243 -- 59%)
September: 24/30 -- 80% (year-to-date: 168/273 -- 62%)
October: 23/31 -- 74% (year-to-date: 191/304 -- 63%)
November: 21/30 -- 70% (year-to-date: 212/334 -- 63%)
December: 20/31 -- 65% (year-to-date: 232/365 -- 64%)
After starting the year relatively slowly, I solved the greatest number (and percentage) of puzzles in August -- don’t know if they were easier then, or if I was in the proverbial zone, or what. My longest solving streak was 25, from Sunday August 18 to Wednesday September 11. (On the other hand, my worst unsolved streaks were a couple of five-day runs early in the year.) But the general trend is that I got better as the year went on, having solved just 53% in the first six months of the year, followed by 74% in the second six months.

Percentage Solved by Day
Mondays: 48/52 -- 92%
Tuesdays: 45/53 -- 85%
Wednesdays: 38/52 -- 73%
Thursdays: 32/52 -- 62%
Fridays: 33/52 -- 64%
Saturdays: 15/52 -- 29%
Sundays: 21/52 -- 40%
The puzzles generally get tougher as the week progresses, with Saturdays being by far the hardest. I’d say Sundays are about as difficult as Wednesdays or Thursdays, but the 21x21 Sunday grids are almost twice as large as the 15x15 Monday-Saturday grids, so there are nearly double the opportunities to goof up.

Errors Per Month
January: 108
Errors per day: 108/31 -- 3.5
Year-to-date errors per day: 108/31 -- 3.5
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 108/18 -- 6.0
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 108/18 -- 6.0

February: 101
Errors per day: 101/28 -- 3.6
Year-to-date errors per day: 209/59 -- 3.5
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 101/12 -- 8.4
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 209/30 -- 7.0

March: 206
Errors per day: 206/31 -- 6.6
Year-to-date errors per day: 415/90 -- 4.6
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 206/16 -- 12.9
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 415/46 -- 9.0

April: 34
Errors per day: 34/30 -- 1.1
Year-to-date errors per day: 449/120 -- 3.7
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 34/11 -- 3.1
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 449/57 -- 7.9

May: 203
Errors per day: 203/31 -- 6.5
Year-to-date errors per day: 652/151 -- 4.3
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 203/18 -- 11.3
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 652/75 -- 8.7

June: 26
Errors per day: 26/30 -- 0.9
Year-to-date errors per day: 678/181 -- 3.7
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 26/10 -- 2.6
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 678/85 -- 8.0

July: 15
Errors per day: 15/31 -- 0.5
Year-to-date errors per day: 693/212 -- 3.3
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 15/8 -- 1.9
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 693/93 -- 7.5

August: 140
Errors per day: 140/31 -- 4.5
Year-to-date errors per day: 833/243 -- 3.4
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 140/6 -- 23
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 833/99 -- 8.4

September: 49
Errors per day: 49/30 -- 1.6
Year-to-date errors per day: 882/273 -- 3.2
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 49/6 -- 8.2
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 882/105 -- 8.4

October: 31
Errors per day: 31/31 -- 1
Year-to-date errors per day: 913/304 -- 3.0
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 31/8 -- 3.9
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 913/113 -- 8.1

November: 143
Errors per day: 143/30 -- 4.8
Year-to-date errors per day: 1,056/334 -- 3.2
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 143/9 -- 15.9
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle:- 1,056/122 -- 8.7

December: 235
Errors per day: 235/31 -- 7.6
Year-to-date errors per day: 1,291/365 – 3.5
Errors per unsolved puzzle: 235/11 -- 21.4
Year-to-date errors per unsolved puzzle: 1291/133 -- 9.7
These numbers show how badly I did on the puzzles I didn’t solve, with an “error” being any square in a puzzle that is left blank or contains an incorrect entry. I basically kicked ass in July, making only 15 errors during the entire month, while December was the worst, with 235 errors (it was the end of the year, so I was just playing out the season). I got totally blown out on a few Fridays and Saturdays, leaving dozens of blank squares ‘cause I couldn’t make any headway on those puzzles to begin with. The worst was Saturday May 18, when I made 150 errors -- oof.

Errors Per Day
Mondays: 4
Tuesdays: 12
Wednesdays: 21
Thursdays: 54
Fridays: 192
Saturdays: 863
Sundays: 145
Meaning that in the course of the year, I made only four errors in 52 Monday puzzles, and 863 in as many Saturday puzzles. Starting next year I’m also gonna keep track of how many squares there are per puzzle, so I can calculate what percentage of each puzzle I solve.

My 2014 goal is solving 75% of all puzzles -- 274 out of 365... How will I do? Watch this space on January 1, 2015.
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Happy 100th, Crosswords!

The crossword puzzle hits the big one-oh-oh today.

On December 21, 1913, Arthur Wynne's "Word-Cross" (above) was published in the New York World. The rest, as they say, is fucking history.

Stay tuned for my 2013 New York Times word-cross crossword stats, in ten days or so.
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We Hardly Knew Ye: Billy Jack

Tom Laughlin is dead at 82.

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We Hardly Knew Ye: Paul Crouch

President and founder of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, which has provided me with countless hours of guilty television pleasure for the last 27-odd years, is dead at 79.

He is survived by his wife Jan Crouch, and Jan's cotton-candy hair.
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