Mark Bernstein's got a post commenting on his movie-going habits--both in theatre and at home. He says "This year, I've seen about 29 movies. I'll probably add two more on New Years Eve. Only three seem to have been in theaters; that surprises me."
This year, my movie-going shot up when I started subscribing to Netflix--we probably watch 6 movies a month from said source, plus 1-2 DVDs from family and friends, plus 2-3 movies a week on cable.
The big shifts in my world are

• I watch almost no TV and less and less non-movie cable
• The concept of having a DVD library of movies has finally taken hold
• Going to the theatre is a more considered proposition, but the big screen delivers a value my little SONY system doesn't have.

My 2004 movie tally: 60 movies, many of them forgettable, but many memorable. Some highlights: Wattstax, In the Realm of the Senses, Amelie, 28 Days Later (this is one of my favorite movies ever--I watch it every few months), Sideways.

BP: What bloggers link to most-- BoingBoing #1-- Orcinus #100.
And more stats of this ilk. A lot more.
With charts.

NYTimes has a piece for Wednesday on the quick responses and postings across the blogosphere around the devastation and death caused by Monday's earthquake and taunami. BoingBoing is credited for their good work pointing to relevant blogs, and Howard Rheingold, SmartMobs author, is quoted saying that using blogs to muster support for aid was a natural next step from using blogs to build political coalitions.

Update: New Tsunami aid blog is sorta like a bulletin board for efforts and places to give.

Mediapost may think the list a tad curious, but it's a thing of joy to moi that Shop Etc's their #1 magazine pick for 2004.
Hearst's new title, cousin to Cargo and score of other filtered shopping books, gets the following gusher:
"Combining the bold and beautiful graphics of an upmarket catalog with the eye candy of your favorite store and the service of a personal shopper, Shop Etc. is as close to the perfect shopping experience as you can get without leaving your home."

Nice. Congrats, folks!
More Amazon 2004 picks here.

(Via ClickZ): Peter Zollman's Classified Intelligence group has a new report that says Craigslist is responsible for Bay area newspapers losing $50-65 million in employment classifieds revenue alone.
Written by former San Francisco Chronicle/ SFGate digital media VP Bob Cauthorn, inventor of the highly-effective " Hot Jobs" box running on various online newspapers, the report estimates that at the $700 charged by a paper, with 12,200 active job listings on CL's San Francisco site the week of November 21, 2004, CL is taking " north of $7 million to $8 million dollars, and probably closer to $10" out of the Chron alone.
Cauthorn reportedly includes tips on how to get this money back in the package.
Susan says: It's a coup for Zollman to have Cauthorn author this report--he's a keen observer of the online classifieds market--but-- Is it kosher for him to write so closely about his former employer?
Under fair trade laws, I'm sure it is--and yet I wouldn't be surprised if the paper feels it's a little too close for comfort--even as they plunk down the bucks to read the report.

Update: Have a preview of the report and take back my comment on 'is this kosher?'It clearly is. --Cauthorn is not a "author" but the writer of a think piece--a very different scenario.

12/29--More clarifications: Got a note from Cauthorn worth sharing re the math in the ClickZ article.
He says:
* "the report estimates that at the $700 charged by a paper..."
Actually, the report doesn't make a $700 estimate. That was a reporter's
line in the ClickZnews piece based on an interview with me... I wasn't
prepared to go into the nitty gritty of how that number was derived, but
I told her she can do a rough calculation this way: a typical classified
advertiser in the metro area will pay between between $400 and $700 to
advertis for a job, Craiglist has more than 3X the listings of all the
newspapers combined, ergo even if 30% are so price sensitive they
wouldn't advertise if it cost more, you still easily get to the $65
million figure. (In point of fact, in the week I used for comparison, CL
only had about 2.4X the total listings that the newspapers had, but
generally -- from endless tallies I've done -- it's more like 3.3X.)
Anyhow, there was no mention of an average price in the report, as it
suggests in the blog.

* "....CL is taking " north of $7 million to $8 million dollars, and
probably closer to $10" out of the Chron alone..." again, this is from
the ClickZnews piece. Actually, what I said was CL is taking $7 million
to $8 million, probably closer to $10 million out of this *market*.
Craigslist revenues Bay area revenues can be inferred by keeping count
of the number of paid listings and multiplying by $75. While there's
some month-to-month variation, naturally, I keep a number of sample
months handy and hence the estimate. In any event, that figure is not
out of the Chron alone -- it's Craigslist total revenue."

Doc Searls talking about Chris Nolan's view of MoveOn.
Fortune: "The blog, short for weblog, can indeed be, as Scoble and Gates say, fabulous for relationships. But it can also be much more: a company's worst PR nightmare, its best chance to talk with new and old customers, an ideal way to send out information, and the hardest way to control it. Blogs are challenging the media and changing how people in advertising, marketing, and public relations do their jobs." And ""If you fudge or lie on a blog, you are biting the karmic weenie." (Via Jarvis)

Black Table: The cult of diet Coke. Are you addicted?

Looking for ways to help?
We're checking out suggestions at The Command Post and Paid Content.
Update: More avenues via blogger Dina Mehta, in India.

So last night, before we went out for our traditional Christmas Chinese food dinner, we decided to set up our new tent in the backyard and spend the night inside. A three-room Coleman camping tent, it is far more expansive than anything we've owned in the backpacking category.
Post-dinner, stuffed with black bean sauce and green beans, we retired to the tent for the night. After we had set out the air mattress, the sleeping bags, and little camp table, the lantern and the heater--all new, except for the 20-year old sleeping bags--my husband said,"Should we bring in the dog bed in for Winston? He's gonna be lonely in the house."
No, forget him, I said, but of course we then put the dog bed in the tent, and soon after, we brought out the dog--all 115 pounds of him.
And that was when our plan began to go terribly wrong.
First, we put the dog in a"down" on his bed, but then the dog got the idea he would be warmer if he came onto the air mattress with us. So Winston took a flying leap into the middle of the air mattress, curled up against my legs, and went to sleep.
Except my husband couldn't sleep, cause the dog had pinned down his sleeping bag.
So we all had to make some adjustments.
From that point on it was

• moving the dog back to his mattress
• the dog sneaking back onto the bed when we were both asleep
• me waking up in some contorted shape with my hands killing me
• the dog crying at 1 am when i went into the house to get my wrist braces and go to sleep
• my husband taking him inside to me at 1:45
  
• and finally, the sprinkler system waking my husband when it watered the tent at 3 am

At 6:30, when I awoke this morning, my husband and the dog were both asleep in the bedroom with me, and the empty tent was out on the lawn with puddles of water on the doorsteps.
And when we all woke up, we started laughing.

So what if Tom Watson's clever Xmas poem has a hat-tip to yours-truly, I'd read it to see the amusing rhymes with all the other bloggers' names-- even if I wasn't included.
Thanks, Tom--this is neat.

hit Asia on Sunday, killing more than 7,000 people in 6 countries. Update: Almost 10,000
Google news stories are here; NYTimes/AP is here.

"All the planet is vibrating'' from the quake, said Enzo Boschi, the head of Italy's National Geophysics Institute. Speaking on SKY TG24 TV, Boschi said the quake even disturbed the Earth's rotation. The U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 8.9. Geophysicist Julie Martinez said it was the world's fifth-largest since 1900 and the largest since a 9.2 temblor hit Prince William Sound Alaska in 1964.

Wow.

Blog accounts closer to the scene from 2Bankok.com ; Indstapundit links to Malaysian bloggers Rajan Rishyakaran and Peter Tan, as well as Indian blogger Nitin Pai.

A discussion thread on Slashdot has tons of info.

Update: Jon Lebowsky points out "this is the second 8+ quake in a matter of days, the first being an 8.1 quake 305 miles north of Macquarie Island near Antarctica on December 23."