1 day down, 364 to go. 

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!

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.

I'm off to Modesto tomorrow to visit my brother and his girlfriend. Here's hoping for safe travels and open roads. I wish all of you a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and a happy Festivus. As a holiday gift, enjoy this Flash version of Doom. Doom turned 15 a few weeks ago, which is really nuts. More on that later hopefully.

Phil Vecchio is 30 today! My first night at Biola over ten years ago I was wandering around the dorm with my roommate Steve since our other roommate went to bed at 7 PM (!) and we ran into Phil and his friends watching Ferris Beuller's Day Off in the lobby. They invited us over and we've pretty much been best friends since then. Phil is pretty much the older brother I never had and, as those who know him can testify, an amazing guy. I know he reads this blog every now and then so here's to you, man!

I was informed on Monday that as of January 1st I will be out of a job. The temp agency also doesn't have any positions available right now due to the horrible economy. So I'm now scrambling to find a job. If anyone in the LA/OC area knows of anything or has any work available, please let me know. Thanks.

That just happened.

Danny posed this a discussion topic in my previous post so I thought I'd give it a whirl and see what you guys thought. After doing some research Googling I discovered scientists at Penn State University are attempting to do this, as are a group of scientists in Japan. I don't really have any problems with this except I could see how animal rights activists could be upset with them potentially using elephants for research and to act as surrogates for the mammoth eggs if they can be produced.

I think the most facinating thing about the Japanese research is the ability to extract DNA from frozen tissue. This could lead to some amazing possibilities in regards to humans but as with most of these things it will take a lot of time to reach a conclusion.

I think if scientists are able to successfully clone a Wooly Mammoth it could lead to other extinct species being cloned and that could be pretty cool. The question of where it stops and what to clone is obviously a big one. I mean, we've all seen Jurassic Park and while I know that most of that stuff is totally not possible, the idea that something could go horribly wrong is a very real possibility and should be considered.

So, what do you guys think?

As Cheech and Chong once said, things are tough all over. I'm feeling the pressure as I'm still technically a temp and our company is looking to trim down a bit. Nothing is for certain but it's been rather stressful. So I guess I've been a little pre-occupied. In addition to that we had our Blue Christmas show on Saturday which went really well, so that's great. Then there's all the usual holiday craziness. Also, I just seem to not have a lot of ideas these days.

I was going to blog about how I re-watched Six Feet Under but I really don't have anything new to say about the show. I love it just as much as I did the last time I saw it. That's about it. I'm about 80% finished with Oblivion. I finished the main quest and now just have to finish one more guild line and the expansion stuff.

If you have any ideas for me or would like to write something, feel free to contact me. I'm all ears. These days I spend most of my internet time reading web comics and on social media sites. Yeah, I've become one of those folks. But this is still home base and I'd really like to do more here.

If you live in the OC/LA area, we're doing our 11th annual Blue Christmas show at Biola tomorrow night in Sutherland auditorium. It's free and starts at 7 PM. Joy Electric is heading up the bill. Also playing are Map, The Foxglove Hunt, Ohm's Law, Paravell, and The Bittersweet Way. If you want to find out more about the bands or the show itself, head over here.

If you can't come to the show you can still enjoy our pop.vox.christmas volume 2 compilation. It can be purchased here or on iTunes. You can also listen to clips and buy mp3s at CD Baby. It also makes a great holiday gift!

Finally, I'd like to give a warm and hearty welcome home to Gringo, who has returned from his tour of duty in Iraq. He was visiting Danny for a couple days and the three of us chatted on Skype for a few hours. Sadly we didn't have the means to record but it was great catching up. We're all proud of you Gringo and glad you are back home.

The Dragonball trailer had been set to debut on December 12 in front of IMAX screenings of Keanu Reeves' The Day the Earth Stood Still remake, but news emerged early this morning on dragonballmovieblog.net that it will not be ready in time for the deadline.

First off, that remake of TDTESS is going to be hilarious.

Secondly, I. AM. DEVASTATED.

sauce

Oh man, I wish it was June 2009.

Just hearing their voices kind of gave me goosebumps.

If Sarah and John Connor successfully prevented Judgment Day in T2, wouldn't that mean that John Connor would be erased from existence since Kyle Reese would never have gone back in time to meet Sarah Connor?

I guess you can't really think too hard about time travel in movies because this kind of thing comes up all the time. It's Monday and I'm a little bored. Hope you guys all had a great holiday weekend.

Even though the Rickroll is fading in the meme world, this is still awesome. Props to Astley for having a sense of humor about the whole thing. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I'm off to San Diego for my ten year reunion tonight!

Hey folks. My Mom is in the final 2 for the female team. The upside is she's lost the most weight percentage wise and hasn't been on the chopping block since she started competing. The downside is the other lady has a ton of votes. That said, please vote and vote often. Pass it to your friends and family if you feel so inclined.

Here's the link: http://www.11alive.com/life/contests/atlantas_biggest_loser/

And the read the following from my Mom:

Hi everyone,

As many of you know, I've been a contestant in Atlanta's version of The Biggest Loser. Thus far, I've lost over 30 lbs and have retained the lead (percentage) in weight loss among the Blue Team (the women's team). Now that we're down to the top two women, I need your online vote to remain in the competition and compete with the last standing member of the men's team.

Wow, I'm feeling great – have renewed energy and my core has strengthened considerably. At the beginning of this competition, I couldn't run two minutes – now I'm running 20 and then working out for an hour followed by classes.

You can vote online once per day per computer (beginning this afternoon) at: http://www.11alive.com/life/contests/atlantas_biggest_loser/

The best news of all this Thanksgiving is that my son, Brian, who has been in Iraq since March is now back in the states and is on his way here from Mississippi to spend the Thanksgiving weekend with me. This will be the best Thanksgiving ever!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sorry I've been so quiet on here. Here is a picture of me and my Goddaughter when she was a few days old.

She is now almost four weeks old and is already able to move around using her legs. Seriously. Not much going on, really. Still addicted to Oblivion. I'm headed down to San Diego for my 10 year reunion this weekend. Thanksgiving I'm hanging out with some other refugees in L.A.. I've got some other cool stuff on the horizon that I hopefully will be able to share with you soon.

Hundie Jo [dot] Com » Blog Archive » I am not sure what to expect?

Henry announced today that Meredith is 9 weeks pregnant! Congrats guys! I guess this really is the age where this sort of thing becomes a pandemic but it's still kind of nuts.

Last night I got home to find that I could download the New Xbox Experience, Microsoft's new dasbhoard program for the 360. One of the prominent new features is the ability to create avatars. They are similar to miis, but actually much more customizable. Here is mine:

I also tried out the integrated Netflix streaming and I really dug it. While you can't browse the Netflix catalog and add new titles like you can from the Media Center app, I really dug the way you flip through the titles in your Instant Queue and the fact that you can stop and resume watching the movie at a later time. I'm really happy with the NXE so far and am looking forward to what Microsoft has in store with it.

A Cat Rides A Roomba and Achewood Again Predicts The Future

That's pretty awesome. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, start here.

So Twitter is the latest victim of the Popularity Contest Syndrome. This is a common ailment of many social media sites. Actually, I think it's just a part of the human condition. It really bothers me though. Half the tweets I read now are about twitter grades, twitter rankings, how popular the person is, or them trying to get new followers. It's like the blogs about blogging and the digg posts about how to get more diggs. It's stupid. It's ruining a once great web service. It's kind of like what happened to StumbleUpon and countless other sites where in order to still use them you have to wade through tons of marketing crap and spam messages. I've been blocking users like crazy but even folks I enjoy following still occasionally get bit by the popularity bug.

The bottom line is this: It's turning the internet into a bunch of Amway salesmen. You have some friends you used to talk to about everything and suddenly they only want to talk about one thing and it's annoying as hell. Is that what you really want? Wow, you're the most popular person on Twitter or MySpace or whatever but no one wants to talk to you. Just like the most successful person at Amway. Just my two cents here.

Assembler. Enjoy. The last level (18) is a bitch.

So something I forgot to mention when I wrote my review of Zack & Miri Make a Porno is that it also continued the streak of having someone in the theater be a jerk. This time it was a woman who thought it necessary to talk back to the screen, repeating jokes and guessing what would happen next. I gave her the stare, then the shush, but to no avail. She was immune to my powers. I was enjoying the movie too much to make more of a scene so I just let it be. But this is why I hadn't seen a movie in the theater since The Dark Knight and don't plan to head back anytime soon.

I don't know when it started. I'd been going to the movies for years and years and never really had any problems. Maybe it started in Moberly, Missouri. The infamous Panic Room altercation. It was my first real incident of nearly wounding a man in a movie theater. That was the first time I was actively aware of people talking in a theater. Perhaps I lost my magical zoning out abilities that day. Perhaps it happens with age. I'm not sure.

So my proposal is this: I will come back to the movie theater in the name of science. With funding from some kind organization, I will find the source of this menace. I will find out the reason for this vile behavior. Is it genetic? Is it learned over the years? Is it society's fault for letting it continue? Clipboard in hand, the next time someone talks in a theater I will not shush them, I will ask them a series of questions to figure out just what the hell is going on.

Seriously though, I am very curious as to why these people do what they do. I was taught at a very young age that silence is golden. My first real memory of the movies was when my dad took me to see Return of the Jedi on opening night when I was three. In particular, I remember being very frightened during the scene where they are powering up the Death Star to blow up Endor. I was very distraught because that meant they were going to blow up the Ewoks. I could care less about Han and Leia, but I was in love with those furry guys. I remember yelling out something like "No! They'll blow it up!" or something like that. My dad quietly told me that it was not okay to talk during the movie. I obliged and continue to do so to this day. End of story. So what is their story? I'd really like to know.

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Batman to Sue Warner Bros. - ComicMix news

Batman, the small subdistrict of Ankara, Turkey announced on Wednesday their attention to sue Warner Bros. for its Batman movie franchise. According to the story at India?s Top News, Batman mayor Huseyin Kalkan feels permission should have been obtained prior to filming. The very first filmed Batman was the 1943 serial with the first full-length feature being the 1966 movie with the television cast. More recently, The Dark Knight amassed $992,764,009 in global box office receipts according to Box Office Mojo.

Mind = Blown

It's still very early but you can just keep refreshing this: