Friday 31 December 2010

Resolute?


Are we all going to make resolutions that will likely fail? I think we might...

1. Lose at least 10 pounds (shouldn't be hard in a whole year. I'm 185 now. What will I be at the end of 2011?)
2. Make a more significant effort to free myself of debt (minimum payments are not enough!)
3. Write more (at least get 2 blogs a month in)
4. Learn some more difficult songs on guitar (sometimes 3 chords is NOT enough!)
5. Be more adventurous. (I'm going to NYC this September. With or without company.)

All right that's enough for now. It's good to have goals, even if they don't amount to much in the end.

Happy New Year's everybody!!

Thursday 30 December 2010

Get thee behind me, 2010!!


Seriously...for reasons too numerous to really divulge, this year has been one of the suckiest (personally) in a terribly sucky decade. You know how you sit around with your friends and go "Remember the 90's? Those were great times!" That ain't gonna happen with this stupid decade. Well, unless things get much much worse. And I guess that's a possibility.

Anyway some good stuff happened too, I suppose. It's been a great year for Transformers toys...with a lot of really interesting figures, including Masterpiece Grimlock and the just released (I got it in the mail yesterday!) Fansproject Protector Armour, as well as many others. Movies have been hit and miss...some terrible (Robin Hood, The Human Centipede) and some amazing (Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Toy Story 3). Music has been pretty bad but there were some great albums (I'm looking at you Slash!) .

Of note in a (hopefully) positive way, I finally got off my butt and bought an Xbox 360, and have experienced some great games! Batman: Arkham Asylum (which probably didn't actually come out in 2010) was amazing, as were Red Dead: Redemption and Transformers: War For Cybertron. Not to mention the cool downloads of the year, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Pacman Championship Edition! There's lots more games...suffice to say my acheivment points are ever on the rise. And unlike my previous gaming experiences, I find more often than not I actually WIN Xbox games. Are they easy or am I finally getting good at this??

So why so glum? Well, a few things. First off, something that profoudly affects me and which no-one else in the world will give a crap about, but 2010 is the worst dry spell of my life...haven't been this unlovable since 1993, and well, I was a 16 year old virgin back then with bad skin and silly sideburns. Clearly I'm doing something wrong....it's amazing how repeated failure to connect with any other human being on a romantic level can chip away at your self esteem and make you feel worthless as a person. I'm not designed to be alone...it's my biggest fear to die alone and undiscovered and my biggest complaint when I can't find anyone to love...(of course online experts say that I am not emotionally equipped to deal with a relationship at this point...that's actually probably true. Perhaps next year...)

The second thing is that despite gaining another year of seniority at work, my schedules have been worse than ever this year...too many people transferred in ahead of me...and it's taking more of a toll on me this year than in the past...I guess cause I thought I saw the light for a bit last year. I shouldn't have got my hopes up...I'm only in year 7 now and I know it's gonna be year 10 or 12 before I see any really significant, long lasting change...c'est la vie

Finally, my parents have been going through a terrible patch over the last 6 months due to my dad having some health problems and the future of all of that is up in the air. They're the only family that I've really got handy and it's caused me no end of stress this year...of course not nearly as much as it's caused them. Sucks. Well, there may be some good news about that as recently as this morning, so we won't get discouraged, but it's been a bad year for them and that certainly reflects itself on me.

Anyway there are more reasons but there's the big 3. Fresh start? Lets. 2010...don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Oh, well happy new year's baby
We could probably fix it if we clean it up all day
Or we could simply pack our bags
And catch a plane to Barcelona 'cause this city's a drag

Monday 6 December 2010

Another Long December


First snow day and I can already tell it's gonna be one of those months. Luckily I'm on vacation next week so I can hibernate for a little while at least...

You can really learn something about people by watching their reactions to snowfall and delay and whatnot on the first big snowy day of the year...how they react to obstacles, how patient they are, and whether there is any perception of magic in their lives...I always find it interesting to see. Sadly, although I typically enjoy this time of year, people tend to ruin it for me with their impatience and negativity. Well, certain types of people. Overall though it's nice to see. There's something really surreal and trippy about the constant, snow-globe type snow we're getting today. Wish I could just sit and stare at it for a few hours. I can settle, however, for the few minutes throughout the day that I get. If you can tune out of whatever you happen to be doing, even for five minutes, it's peaceful.

Of course reading Douglas Coupland and running a small fever in between watching snow fall may help mold my perceptions...who can say?