MediumBrow's 2011 Reading List

I may think it's silly to dwell on arbitrary markers of the passage of time, but everyone's doing it, and that's a good enough reason to get me back on the blog (with a vengeance - this post turned out long) with a look back at 2011. 

Alright.

The most popular new years' resolutions have to be exercise/weight loss, travel or reading.  (Hmmm, it appears I missed saving money and spending time with family.)  For the bibliophiles, now is the time to assess how much of their ambitious goals were met in 2011.  Based on my own lists and notes, my tally worked out to more than one book a month, which came as a pleasant surprise.  Sure, there were a couple page-turners and even some that were mostly pictures...  But some weighty stuff too.  To wit:

Breaking the ice on mobile payments

Somewhat ironically for CI's mobile payments expert, I'm pretty conservative, even bearish, about the technology.  P2P seems needlessly complicated, designed just to show off your fancy gadgets for your friends.  And point-of-sale purchases?  Are that many shops going to buy into an entirely new payment network?  I don't see smartphones, much less payment apps, becoming more ubiquitous than cash or plastic.  And aside from that skepticism, I'm naturally reluctant to link my own cards or accounts to a mobile device to actually start using any of the pilot programs.

So what would it take to get me to just try out mobile payments?  Yeah, $10 of free food sounds about right.

This guy better not cost us the NBA season

This guy:

Sons of Rock

In the immortal crooning of Neil Young, "Rock and roll will never die."  Yes, in one sense, the groups that have carried the torch may linger past their primes, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers or U2.  The next generation has been disappointingly sparse, as I've noted in earlier attempts at reviews.  Friends of rock keep the tradition alive in the underground world, but there are bands that show that rock can still be at least somewhat mainstream.  One such group to check out: Rival Sons.

Motivator or Demotivator?

I came across this gem recently courtesy of CrossFitNYC:

I like it, made me smile.  And want to work out.  But my own reaction aside, what I couldn't figure out was if it really qualifies as a motivational poster, or demotivational.  Is it the genuine article, or another spoof with a more subversive message?

On the one hand, it's easy to take the sentiment at face value.  Get out there and train!  Whoo!  But there's the underlying implication nagging at the back of your mind that, no matter how much or how hard you train, you'll still end up in a situation like that poor zebra.  I still can't quite tell what to make of it.

The CrossFit difference, after just a month...

As of tomorrow, I'll have spent a month doing serious, regular CrossFit workouts.  It's part Tough Mudder training, part challenge, and part experiment.  My story won't ever be as dramatic as some.  But I have already hit some accomplishments I'm pretty proud of.

The Modern (Gentle)Man

For someone who doesn't buy into TV shows until they've proven to be worthwhile, I was uncharacteristically intrigued by How to Be a Gentleman.  Maybe it was partly a residual affection for Johnny Drama.  But mostly, I was drawn by the promise (well, possibility) of a new look at classic questions of what makes a man -- something I've pondered far before it became a fad with this television season.