Re-reading all of the Harry Potter series and doing number five right now; recently finished Stones From the River, by Ursula Hegi, a novel set in Germany in World War II. I like novels because they take you places you would never be able to go on your own, usually -- like inside peoples' heads.
Recommendation: My favorite book is Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee

I don't watch much television but I do like movies -- at present, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman is in the house, and Bob the Builder is pretty popular with my three-year old.
Recommendation: Memento, Blade Runner, and Netflix. It's very convenient.

Cat Power, Beth Orton, Belle & Sebastian.
Recommendation: Lamb -- drum and bass people who wrote the most romantic song of all time -- "Gorecki."

Struggling through a book right now called 1491, by Charles C. Mann. It's a description of what it was like in pre-Columbian Americas. It tries to erase the idea of America as a pristine, pastoral place before Columbus arrived in 1492. For example, how many people were actually in the Americas before Columbus? Turns out it was close to 100 million people, and that would mean it more here, in the Americas, than in Europe at the time. It's a slow read because it's filled with facts and I'm not very familiar with a lot of them, but I haven't given up because it is fascinating.
Recommendation: Anybody who is looking for something new to read should pick up Nancy Pearl's Booklust and More Booklust. She was a librarian in the Seattle Public Library and many people have probably heard her on NPR. She picks stuff you wouldn't ordinarily check out, and not necessarily things on bestseller lists, really a wide variety of very good advice.

...the world go by!
Recommendation: March of the Penguins. In the winter, I felt so much better when it was really cold here because I knew is was summer for those penguins.

XM satellite radio: Frank's Place, Bluesville. I also like the XM station Deep Tracks, a station that plays kind of the B-side/lost tracks/ obscure recordings of well known musicians, and another is Fine Tuning, an eclectic mix of classical, jazz, rock, everything really. XM forces me to listen to different things. Before I had it I would listen to classical or NPR and that was it.
Recommendation: Satellite radio -- I think it's great.