I'm going to put all the media in one blog this time. I'll mention a favorite I experienced at the time and then one I'd like to experience now.
Music:
Fish - Raingods With Zippos. I saw Fish's stage show touring on this album before I heard the CD at home. I feel like this is one of his best solo albums full of drama and sensitivity and anger: the 24 minute Plague of Ghosts for drama, Rites of Passage for a broken heart, and Faith Healer for anger. He put out a lilve album of the tour I saw called Candlelight in Fog a year later. I've really seen very few rock shows, so the ones I have, I remember very clearly. I went to the Q and A with Fish before the show but had to leave early because my friend had forgotten the tickets and I had to run home for them. Fish was a little sick that night and apologized for his occasional raspy voice on some songs. It didn't bother me though because he put on a great show. Someone in the crowd yelled out for him to play the Marillion song Incubus. He said, "Oh we have an idiot in the audience tonight." and then sung the first "ooooo wah" of the song. I don't think he could've sung a Marillion song if he wanted to as the band was still active at the time.
Most want to hear next? Well, a lot of things, but maybe Ozric Tentacles' Waterfall Cities. I like that title and I'm sure the album cover is wildly fantastic like a good prog rock album should be.
Games:
Sega Bass Fishing. It's a hard choice but I may have gotten more enjoyment out of this Dreamcast game than Toy Commander, Quake III Arena or NBA Showtime that year. The game had a fishing rod periferal with a hand crank and motion sensor. Dreamcast was ahead of its time in so many ways. I still quote the announcer in this game commenting on the size of your fish, "This one's huge!" or "Keeper size."
Most want to play next? It's a tie between Puchi Carat on Game Boy Color, a puzzle game like Tetris Attack or Puzzle Fighter, and Ready 2 Rumble Boxing on Dreamcast or Playstation. I like the arcady boxing games with a lot of humor in them like Punch Out or Facebreaker and I've never played the Ready 2 Rumble games.
Books:
Didn't read much that year but I should've read the third Harry Potter book Prisoner of Azkaban. I'll probably read that one next because I'm reading book two right now.
Most want to read after Harry Potter? I'm curious about Freeman Dyson's nonfiction book The Sun, The Genome and the Internet. It might be interesting to hear his preditions now knowing how it turned out sixteen years later. I wonder, is Half-Life's Gordon Freeman somewhat named after Freeman Dyson? They're both physicists.
Film/TV:
Galaxy Quest. It was tough choice with the second Austin Powers movie and the South Park movie on the list, but Galaxy Quest is the best because it spoofs Star Trek so well and still has a surprisingly good scifi adventure thrown in. it's all about aliens coming to earth thinking the actors of a scifi tv show are real space explorers. The aliens ask them to help in their war and silliness ensues. This movie was such a pleasant surprise.
For TV it was Tenacious D on HBO. This was Jack Black's TV show where his character performs accoustic open mics but it's clear he wants to do the rock star thing. It's funny.
Most want to see? Probably The Thirteenth Floor. A scifi flick that kind of went under the radar but has become a cult classic.
And that be 1999, yar.
Well, most of the stuff you posted this time flew under my 9-year-old radar. lol
Never even heard of Fish until now, only Phish. Marillion's existence is also news to me ... as well as Orzic Tenatcles. I looked up Plague of Ghosts and it's pretty relaxing. Incubus sounds bombastic and theatric, which isn't a bad thing. Orzic Tentacles' Waterfall Cities sounds like it belongs in a futuristic racing game from the 90s.
Everyone raves about Sega Bass Fishing. Such an interesting game for a console to be known for. I've heard of Ready 2 Rumble, but haven't seen it in action. The opening Dreamcast song and video is so catchy.
My aunt read to me the first chapter of Harry Potter trying to get me into it. She's send the first two books to us, which I thought were ok. But Prisoner got me into the series. It felt much darker to me and I loved the Sirius Black character and backstory.
Yes, Gordon Freeman's name is a reference to Dyson Freeman. He was almost called Dyson Poincare after both Dyson Freeman and Henri Poincare. The More You Wikipedia ...
Galaxy Quest with Tim Allen? Never saw it as a kid, but wanted to so badly. Thought it looked so cool.
Tenacious D has some of my favorite songs. Would love to see them live.
Might have to see Thirteenth Floor myself. Never heard of it, but from the trailer it looks like a Matrix-type premise with 1930s gangsterism and the guy from Law & Order who now plays Kingpin.
It was a touch choice because we played a ton of Quake III Arena and NBA Showtime too.
My music choices are pretty obscure. Not exactly hipster picks.
I remember Puchi Carat! It was like a cross between Arkanoid and Puzzle Bobble. Taito rocks!
1999 was the start of a great time for me reviewing games. I was high on the hog at The Dallas Morning News and was picking out artwork as well as writing the articles, and many of them got a splash feature on the front page of the technology section. It was a great time.
Wow that's cool about your journalism. Are your articles archived anywhere?
I have newspaper clippings of all my articles at The Dallas Morning News. Some of them you can still find online if you dig around. I think my really old GamerDad articles are/were archived at "WhatTheyPlay."
The Dreamcast was such a cool console. I almost went with the Dreamcast over the Playstation in college because the DC offered a 6 game disc and I think it was around $110 or something like that at Best Buy. I eventually got one years later. I need to start playing Sega Bass Fishing especially since I bought the controller a year ago and playing Ultimate Angler on the 3DS is so much fun.
That fishing rod controller made all the difference with those fishing games on Dreamcast. There was Sega Bass Fishing 1 and 2, Sega Marine Fishing, and Reel Fishing: Wild. They brought back Sega Bass Fishing as a downloadable for last gen systems and PC.
I keep wanting to use my 3DS like the DC rod controller when I play Ultimate Angler.
uh oh, you're getting close to 2000. Better watch out that Y2k bug doesn't explode your blog! 
I'm ridding high on the promise of the internet, spending like crazy, and getting mad money to build my web sites and start my business online. This is going to be great! Aint' nothin' gonna stop this. Right?
That listing of movies is honestly the very point of the tip of the iceberg. That year was shocked filled with many acclaimed movies and modern classics. Helping matters is the fact that it the year of my favorite movie so far: Fight Club.
Yea, I stopped listing everything I saw in a particular year because I saw too many movies in the late ninties and early 2000s. It's so hard to pick just one though.