What inspiration

I can't believe I'm making my fourth blog entry for the year already, and it's still January. Last year just really sucked, I suppose, so much that what little inspiration I ever had to write anything just slipped away behind an iron wall. Maybe in 2009, Obama has given me hope to write again. It is to laugh.

(He actually has inspired hope in me, hope that we as normal, hard-working Americans don't get screwed too badly in whatever grandiose schemes he comes up with to "save America".)

Anyway, posting every day is not one of my resolutions for the year. One of my goals, however (remember, semantic games and all), is to write more often on this here blog, at least one post per week on average. I guess I'm all caught up for January now. ;-)

Another of my goals is to write 20 mini-reviews of movies I see throughout the year. One down, nineteen more to go. (I'll write more if so inspired, but this goal is my minimum.)

I also plan to update my list of movies I've never seen (to the actual list, not just a sampling), watch more Netflix movies (three movies Sep-Dec last year!), and post more of whatever I see, at least just a listing and maybe a brief comment. One day, I want to do a live-blogging experiment. I experimented with the mechanics of it in 2007 sometime, but never did anything with it (I also deleted the post since it was just testing). Kind of like the BD-Live thing Warner Bros did with The Dark Knight on Dec 18 (maybe — I didn't participate, so I'm just guessing).

[A few years ago, one of my online friends had never seen Edward Scissorhands. He told me he rented it one night, and we hit on the idea of starting it at the same time, and then he would tell me what he thought afterward. Of course, he loved it. It's a great movie! Too bad we couldn't discuss as we were watching it.]

Tonight, I'm watching Cat Ballou on Netflix watch instantly. The picture's a little blurry, but I get the gist enough. Yeah, downloads, while cool in theory, will still leave a lot to be desired to try to replace hard media like DVD and Blu-Ray. The demise of Blu-Ray is greatly exaggerated.

Oh, I did aerobics tonight. I thought I would die. Some of the steps I couldn't figure out; I know what the people were doing, but somehow the steps didn't make sense to me or seem to fit into a rhythm I could do. My lack of physical coordination strikes again. The next ten pounds are going to be kind of difficult. With God's help, though, I can do it.

Welcome, 2009!

I officially welcome 2009 to the world. Not first, not splashy, just ... welcome. 2008 turned out to be a pretty horrific year for me personally. With my father's brain tumors returning leading to his ultimate death, my mom's nearly fatal collapse, and work becoming more and more stressful with little hope economically of being able to change jobs, my apartment being an overwhelming mess, and my own personal health failureschallenges (the onset of high blood pressure and diabetes), I have been truly ready for a new year to come along, accompanied hopefully by new attitudes (my own and others, too), new determination to change what I can, and a hint of an idea of being more selfish and less so at the same time.

I'm neverI've never been good at keeping resolutions in the past, so why set myself up for failure? I can and do fail miserably easily enough on a daily basis. A couple of years ago I came up with the idea of setting goals, but that turned out to be merely a semantic game I did not win.

But, I have to change. Apparently, I've suffered insanity the past few years: I've done the same things I always do, yet nothing seems to be different. And it's frustrating now to the point that I lash out in anger at the silliest of things (and bigger things, too, like apartment management changing the gate entry system to a new code-based rather than apartment-based keypad entry, and failing to put my apartment into the list — along with a friend's — and did I mention that they failed to notify me that they had changed the system? par for their course).

So, anyway, if you think about it, say a prayer for me as I plan subtle changes (because big ones will never be successful at this point) that will add some variety and more importantly improvements to my life.

Thanks, and may 2009 be your Best! Year! Ever!