Once I got home after midnight in 2009, I reflected on how we're all getting older, and how I actually didn't mind that I wasn't at a party for the new year. And then I sort of wished I had gone somewhere and decided to make fun of myself by taking a photo of my exciting New Year's celebration (above).

I know a lot of people are into New Year's resolutions, but I'm really not one of those people. But, if there were one thing, it would be to try and be better about leaving work on time. I have been letting myself stay later more often as of late. I keep telling myself that I'm balancing out the time I spend checking Facebook or blogs each day, but the scale probably tips towards working rather than playing, and as a result, I spend less time working out. And I need as much time as I can for my walks, because I need to walk as much as possible since I can't run. If possible, I also want to get a Wii for my sister so we can stop sharing the Wii we have now, which would give me more opportunities for using the Wii Fit. So, in a sense, it's a fitness resolution, but really, I just need the me time as well. The walks are really relaxing for my brain.

I also look to 2009 as one with some big possibilities. Will I have back surgery, or will we start a family? Who knows?! All I know is that it won't be a dull year.

I'm back! Did you miss me?! Ever since our trip in the fall, I've been trying to restrict my internet usage. I hopped onto my blog reader and Facebook while on break, but decided to take a Christmas vacation from writing blogs. It was nice!

I thought I'd kick off the new year with a re-cap of what I've been up to for the past couple of weeks. First off, a few photos (full sets will be added to FB):

After a full night of wrapping gifts on Christmas Eve's Eve, I headed out to the regional park to join in on another family's tradition - the Andersons were launching rockets! They let them loose, and we tried to run and catch them. It was a crisp day, the mountains in the background were covered with snow, and it was a fun afternoon. I was so proud of the above photo, because I was actually able to catch the launch in action.

That evening Ric and I headed over to my parents' house for a Mexican dinner. Afterward, my grandma told us the Christmas story; she recited it from the Bible, but told it as if having a conversation. It was a neat way to hear the story. After we all opened gifts, we chowed down on homemade cookies and candies, then the girls played games until 10:45. We went to the 11 o'clock church service, where we sang songs and reflected on Christ's birth, and we all celebrated Christmas by candlelight at midnight.

Ric and I got to sleep in on Christmas day. We exchanged a few gifts with each other. Our highlights this year: I gave Ric another mini-season of Kings tickets (6 games), and Ric got me an iPod big enough to store anything I'll ever need to store! We decided to spruce up Pip with some items I found at the dollar store - a little cap and a collar with bells on it. Doesn't he look excited?

This was our first Christmas in our new home. Last year wasn't much fun because we had boxes everywhere in our old rental house and we only bought a tiny tree because there wasn't room for a real one. This year I was so happy to have vaulted ceilings and room for a nice, big Douglas fir! We're so blessed. We spent the afternoon at my folk's house for a traditional Christmas dinner, then went over to Ric's parents' in the evening since they canceled their flight out of town due to weather.

The Saturday after Christmas, we drove out to Palmdale to visit Ric's grandparents for the day, along with Ric's aunt and uncle. We chatted about family and life in general, Ric helped Grandpa set some programs to record on the VCR, and I managed to get a few videos of Grandpa singing songs and poems his mom used to sing for him when he was a child. They were so happy to see us (we're the delinquent grandchildren).

Christmas this year was especially enjoyable for me because we actually had some colder weather. I loved the downpour of rain we had the week prior to Christmas, and was glad the clouds hung around straight through Christmas Day. I also loved the eerie fog that crept into our neck of the woods. It was so dense I actually got to use my fog lights and brights!

On New Year's Eve, we had our Christmas celebration with Ric's side of the family at his parents' house. We had a lovely turkey dinner, opened gifts and watched the kids play, and enjoyed having some social times together. It was so nice to hang out that we skipped heading out for any big festivities, and we rang in the new year together at home. Ric's brother's family was in for three days, so we spent every night hanging out. I love the nights where Ric's mom, sister-in-law, and I all get to chat together, and we had some good talks every night!

Well, just when I thought it was a quiet night that night, around 2:30 in the morning, Ric and I were still up playing video games and such, and all of a sudden we heard a crash and our lights went out. Luckily, we had lit the fire for the first time that night, and we lit candles and headed out to see what happened. Apparently that thick fog (and perhaps a little drinking) had confused a driver who had crashed into the power box outside our complex. We were all without power, and the panicked driver had run off. We stayed until the cops showed up and I called the property management company for our HOA to let them know about the accident (since none of the cars were able to enter or leave because we have electric gates), and hung out for a little while before going to bed. Pip took the whole night in stride and relaxed by the fire.

Finally, my good friend Erika was in town, and on Saturday, we met up and drove out to some friends' house out in Eagle Rock. We went to a cool old Italian restaurant that had great food and an entertaining pianist. It was a fun night.

Well, those are the photographable highlights. How about the rest?

I had some doctor appointments. One was a dentist appt, and now I have a lot of gold in my mouth. The other was with a spine doctor. I'm not sure if I mentioned it here, but I finally gave up on Bright Medical because none of them ever treated me as if they really cared about my health. I spent seven years getting nowhere with them and being treated like I was stupid. I switched to St. Jude, and with my first appointment I knew things were different - I got directly referred to a spine surgeon. So I met with him the day after Christmas and he listened to my history and told me I basically have two options. I can continue like I am, doing exercises and taking medication whenever my back troubles me, or I can get an elective surgery (anterior lumbar interbody fusion). Whoah. I didn't expect that. So right now, I'm having some conversations and weighing my options, trying to decide what to do.

I also went to see a few movies, including Doubt, The Curious case of Benjamin Button, Gran Torino, and The Reader (reviews to come). I watched all of Twin Peaks, a few Christmas flicks, and continued watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (which I started watching at work on Hulu this fall - and now I'm halfway through season four). DVDs I received for Christmas include more News Radio, Roseanne, The Sword in the Stone, Disney's Silly Symphonies Vol. 2, Loony Toons' volume 5, and the complete collection of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire movies. I'm sure I'm forgetting others, but you get the idea: I'll be busy watching a lot of DVDs in my near future.

Besides my iPod, I also received a cheap little 2G mp3 player, which is going to be great for workouts. I found all sorts of mp3 audio books online, and thought I could also borrow CD audio books from the library and download them temporarily on my computer until I'm done with them. It's so great - the little player is about the size of my thumb, but it holds 6-8 novels on it! I finished listening to Nicholas Nickelby, which was a thoroughly enjoyable novel (maybe a review will come later), and started up straight away on A Tale of Two Cities, which I have somehow managed to avoid until now despite having completed a college degree (isn't it usually mandatory reading at some point or another?).

Okay, this post is long enough. I'll talk about the new year in the next one.

Dan in Real Life

Baby Mama

The Complete Far Side 1980-1994 by Gary Larson

I recently ran across a book that played a significant role in one phase of my life, so I've updated my religious autobiography by adding this paragraph:

Over the next few years I had many discussions with family and friends about my shift in beliefs. For some of them, my decision to go to a church that worshiped with instruments was almost as bad as abandoning God altogether. (This fact would prepare me and them for the bigger shift that I would go through a few years later.) One of the books that helped me cope with this situation was Free In Christ by Cecil Hook. The book is available for free online or you can order a print copy. Hook never left the coC, but he spoke persuasively against the legalism and division that is so prevalent in many churches of Christ. I recommend the book to anyone in the church who wants to see things from another prospective and anyone outside the church who wants to see what makes this little non-denominational denomination tick.

Tri-Danielson!!! (Alpha) by Danielson

Tri-Danielson!!! (Omega) by Danielson

The Nightmare Before Christmas (2-Disc Collector's Edition + Digital Copy)

Plain View #97 - Dec 23, 2008

Will visits

French Film: Dinner Game & Rififi

The Changeling

Maly Story

Books

Scrapbooking party - music

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Chalk

1 day down, 364 to go. 

Railroad Tycoon

This is like the list below, but with games played with the game group.

Magdar

At boardgamegeek.com I created a list of my most played games this year. You can find it here.

Click on the image for a larger version.

Catching up on the podcasts I missed while on Christmas vacation, I recently listened to Terry Gross's discussion with TV critic David Bianculli. Toward the end of their conversation they talked about the problems facing the television industry, including the issue of how to make Internet distribution of TV shows profitable.

Basically, with people either watching shows on TiVo, watching clips online, or downloading illegally, it is getting harder and harder for the networks to generate ad revenue for their content. Bianculli rightly believes that the future of TV entertainment is in the Internet, but he says that nobody has yet found a way for it to pay off financially.

Though I am a public school teacher with no experience in the television industry or in advertising, I think I may have a solution.

First, we have to assume that TV as we know it will soon be history, and that's okay. Television is merely a means of transmitting audio and video information into people's homes. The Internet now does the same thing, only far better. But with Internet distribution comes the same problem that the music industry has been dealing with: when a product is in a digital format it's impossible to keep people from downloading it without paying for it.

Many attempts have been made to cope with this problem, but they have not been very effective.

One solution is to create technology that prevents illegal copying. This is futile. No matter what steps a company may take to encode their product someone will find a way to decode and copy it.

Another solution is to sue or prosecute the illegal copiers. This has also failed: Internet filesharing is so widespread it's impossible to catch everybody, and the risk of getting caught is obviously so low that people continue to do it without fear or reservation. The sue-the-consumer approach has been so ineffective, in fact, that the RIAA has recently announced that it will cease lawsuits against individuals.

The final attempt to curb unauthorized filesharing has been to appeal to people's consciences. You've probably seen those ads that compare copying a movie to stealing a car or some such nonsense. Most people, though, are bright enough to spot the difference between those two very different types of stealing, and I doubt those ads have done anything to stop people from downloading.

So the reality we're faced with is a population of consumers who don't think they ought to pay for entertainment and can easily obtain it through illegal means. I think that over time the percentage of consumers who do this will only grow: the generation that has come of age post-Napster will be even less willing to pay for music and television than those of us who once had to pay for every CD we owned.

Some people think this is just fine, that information wants to be free. That's all well and good, but it still leaves a very big question of who is going to pay for it. After all, television shows aren't produced for nothing, and if advertising money is dwindling and consumers refuse to pay, then the money will run out. In the context of our private advertisement-drive television industry, this may seem like an impossible problem, but I believe the solution is something that has been practiced by our cousins across the Atlantic for decades.

Throughout its history the BBC has been funded by television licensing: Any household that wishes to receive TV or radio broadcasts must pay a flat fee, which is used to pay for all programming expenses. It would be very easy to enforce because anybody who uses the Internet must have an account with an Internet Service Provider. The government could simply require a fee for every account in the nation to be distributed among the television and music industries.

I think that such a system would reap many benefits in terms of quality of programming. I wrote once about the problem of ratings-driven media. I've often heard TV critics lament the fact that the best shows are often canceled due to poor ratings, or that the most popular programs are the ones that appeal to the lowest common denominator. If TV were freed from ratings demands, opportunities would open up for lots of great shows that otherwise would not stand a chance. The scenario starts to look even better when you consider the other remaining revenue source for TV shows: DVD sales. What is likely to make more money: the complete series of Freaks and Geeks or a DVD set of Dancing With The Stars? (Okay, I realize that DVDs are probably on their way out as we inevitably approach download-only distribution, but this would at least help in the short term)

And since we're talking about all media here, what about music? Wouldn't it be unfair for musicians to not be compensated for high album sales? As you have no doubt heard, major-label musicians actually see very little of the profits from their albums (it's only the Metallicas of the world that are able to get really wealthy). Most musicians, in fact, support downloading because they know it broadens their fan base and increases attendance at their concerts, where they really make their money. Their situation would actually change little if what I propose were to happen. The record labels, instead of drawing their income from album sales, would instead be compensated with more of a guaranteed income from the ISP fee I've suggested, which may not be a bad thing for them, considering how music sales have been going the last several years. And again, if high album sales no longer mattered, consider the defunct system that would go with it: top 40 radio, payola, pop divas. Record companies would have no incentive to engage in such sales-boosters, leaving the field even more open for lesser-known artists to get a start.

This seems like a very unlikely scenario. After all, I'm talking about a total reconfiguring of our entertainment industry, but I really see this as the only way to finance television and music in the future. One day television sets will be totally obselete, as will CDs and even DVDs. When all media is downloaded (which it someday will be) and when even more people think they are no obligated to pay for their downloads (also inevitable), I don't see any other option.

I always enjoy reading Kyle's year end Top Ten posts and his Top Ten of 2008 is no exception. I would especially agree about Portishead's "Third," Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, and The Dark Knight. I'm going to have to go over this years musical releases in order to really give my best of 2008 but I can definitely say that The Graveyard Book was my favorite book I read this year. It's such a lovely story. I laughed, I cried, I just loved it. Gaiman paints such a vivid picture and is truly a master storyteller. One of my highlights of 2008 was definitely watching Gaiman read one of the chapters in person at New York Comic Con.

On the movie front I am severely lacking, as I've said before. I'm sure I will absolutely love The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which sounds right up my alley. I guess one of my resolutions this year is to try and get over my hatred of movie theaters and enjoy watching something on the big screen again. I knew all along I was going to love The Dark Knight so I'm going to have say the biggest surprise for me this year was In Bruges. I'm not a big Colin Farrell fan and he absolutely blew me away in this. After watching the trailer I thought it looked like a Guy Ritchie rip-off. I couldn't have been more wrong. While there was definitely a comedic element, this film was also touching and poignant. Add the always great Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes to the mix and you have one of my picks for best of 2008. Definitely check it out if you missed it.

I started a conversation in the Geek Group about my Geek Resolutions for 2009. I figured I would share them here as well:

1) Play a game of D&D, finally.
2) Catch up on Battlestar Galactica.
3) Make the Geek Group as awesome as it can possibly be.
4) Play more games online with friends instead of just solo.
5) Blog more and beyond just "Here's what I've been doing this week..."

That's all I got. If I had to come up with a sixth it would probably be don't get too upset over this Watchmen lawsuit business.

My only other real resolution for 2009 is to find a job that will actually stick this time. I wish all you guys a very happy new year and thanks for making 2008 great. I know my blogging has been quite lax this year but I think we're still a pretty awesome community and that makes it all worthwhile. Here's to an even better 2009!

"Irreverence is another person's disrespect to your god; there isn't any word that tells what your disrespect to his god is."

-- Mark Twain

Each year I join in the sacred blogging tradition of creating year-end lists of favorite entertainment. I never seem to be able to expose myself to enough new movies, books, or music to devote separate lists to each one (a problem that has only grown worse since I've had kids), so I opt instead to create one master list of all my favorite things from the year. This is not supposed to be a definitive list of the best entertainment, yadda yadda yadda... It's just my own personal, emotional reaction to some of the things I took in this year.

10. Christmas on Mars

I actually didn't expect this one to make the list, but when I was ranking things I found myself moving it up past several other things I saw or heard this year. I guess that despite my disappointment with the ending, the Flaming Lips' amateur film still brought me a great deal of joy. For one thing, it was nice to finally see it after so many years. Besides, it's the Flaming Lips! How could I not love it in spite of its flaws? Plus it gave us a whole new CD of original music, which is always welcome.

9. Keanoshow

This is one of many releases I never got around to blogging about. Keanoshow is a collection of short films, music videos, and other miscellanea by Dave McKean, artist, illustrator, photographer, director, and frequent collaborator with Neil Gaiman. If that doesn't mean anything to you, go ahead and skip to the next item. This DVD is another release I have anticipated for a long time, and it did not disappoint. Keanoshow collects mostly experimental film pieces, and some of them don't work so well, but others are terrific. In addition to the films themselves, there is a new retrospective documentary, directed and narrated by McKean himself, that contains even more of his earliest work. It's about the most comprehensive collection of the man's short film works that one could ask for, and must-have for an obsessive fan like me.

8. Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!

Speaking of collections of previously unavailable early works, Art Spiegelman released a collection that requires some explanation. It's actually two separate works, beginning with the most recent, "Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!", an autobiographical comic strip that was originally published in the Virgininia Quarterly Review. Here it serves as a lengthy introduction to the primary content of the book, a facsimile reproduction of Breakdowns, a long out of print collection of his earliest experiments with comics art. I've long known these existed because Scott McCloud makes reference to them in Understanding Comics, but they have been unavailable to most readers until now. Finally, the book closes with an afterword that does much to illuminate what, exactly, he was going for in his early work. It also goes a long way to explain how such an idiosyncratic underground artist went on to create Maus, one of the most influential and successful graphic novels of all time.

7. Modern Guilt

I have to remind myself to listen to Beck's new album once in a while. It just seems to get lost among the other music I bought this year, even though it's a pretty solid album.

6. Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

I'm glad this is a blog and not a podcast, so I don't have to attempt to pronounce that album title. Sigur Rós makes beautiful music that I can only vaguely describe as orchestral rock. This new release was hyped as a change in sound for the Icelandic band, I think mostly because of the upbeat opening track, but it still sounds to me very much like the band I've grown to love for their previous five albums. This new release also features the band's first song sung in English, which, it turns out, is about as easy to understand as the rest of their songs.

[update] Hmm... Photobucket says the album art violates their terms of use. I'm guessing it's the naked buttocks. I replaced it with a link to Wikipedia's file.

5. Third

In case you haven't heard, influential trip-hop group Portishead came out with a new album this year, which was a big deal, seeing how it's their first studio album in 11 years. It's just as great as everybody says.

4. WALL·E

I didn't get out to the theater much this year, and I missed seeing Pixar's latest film when it was released, but I did finally catch it on video last week. From all that I had heard about WALL·E, I was really expecting something extraordinary. As expected, the first third of the movie is delightful. The latter part, which I had heard so much about, proved to be neither as controversial, unusual, or disappointing as I had been led to believe. Actually I think it turned out to be a pretty standard Pixar movie, which is to say, excellent.

3. Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!

I'm a rather casual Nick Cave fan: I really like his music, but I haven't yet reached that fanatical point where I buy every release. So when I heard on various music podcasts this new album described as a huge comeback for Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, and perhaps the greatest of their career, I had to check it out. It's rough, nasty, and wonderful. The title track, which is the one I always heard promoted in interviews and reviews, is actually one of my least favorite songs on the album. We Call Upon the Author, which takes the Creator to task for the state of the world, is a lot of fun to listen to, and Hold On To Yourself is the most achingly beautiful song I've heard this year.

2. The Graveyard Book

I can't believe I haven't mentioned this once yet. That just shows how much I've let the blog go. So Neil Gaiman came out with a new book this year, and I think it may be his best new work since American Gods. Iit's that good. The Graveyard Book is a take off of The Jungle Book, and is about a living boy whose parents are murdered and who is raised by ghosts in a graveyard. It was written for children or young adults, but there's nothing to keep us fully-fledged adults from enjoying it too. It's a simple concept and the story doesn't really hold any surprises, but it's filled with such delightful characters and is so well-plotted that you just may want to read it all in a single day.

1. The Dark Knight

Could this movie possibly be anything other than number 1? I've already said pretty much all that I can about it. As soon as the movie was over I was already looking forward to when I could see it again.

Step Brothers

Grandma's Boy

I had a wonderful Christmas in Modesto with my brother and his girlfriend Courtney's family. They were really nice and even bought me some stuff. No movies this year, which is probably the first time in ages. We were too busy to go on Christmas day and then when I got home I decided that from a financial standpoint it would probably be a bad idea. So that's sort of a bummer since there are a bunch of movies I want to see but then again my disdain for movie theaters has only grown in the past year. I guess my Christmas wish this year is that they would open an ArcLight down here.

Now I have my last three days of work to get done then I will be celebrating the new year with Justin. After that I will be filing for unemployment and continuing the job search. Thankfully I have a couple freelance gigs lined up and some money in the bank so I'll be fine. It's not exactly how I thought I'd be kicking of 2009 but it could be worse so I'm not going to whine about it. I hope all you readers out there had a great holiday and have a wonderful new year.

The Shepherd's Dog by Iron & Wine

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

Plain View #96 - Nov 5, 2008

Election Decision & Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Pan's Labyrinth an Violence

Whatever happened to Tuck Everlasting

Never Sleep Without Your Socks

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