Reading: game manuals
Music: The Donnas
TV/Movie: SNL season two box set
Link o' the Day: Nodwick.com

Two phrases that I am blissfully thankful I've not heard o'ermuch this past holiday season:

1. See you next year! - This cringe-inducing phrase is often uttered December 31st or thereabouts to signify that the next day is New Year's Day. Yes. We get it. Tomrrow marks the beginning of another year. It's not a really troublesome phrase--but it's something we said when I was in elementary school. It was cute--or so we thought. Then again, we thought Donny & Marie were cool.

2. War on Christmas - I'm so very glad that this phrase has been blessedly rare this year. It seems like we were focused on more important things--like taking the shaky state the world is in right now and trying to fix it. First things first, yes?

As far as a war on Christmas goes, oh if only this were true. But the sad fact is that there is no war, nor has there ever been. Christmas works out just fine as both a secular and religious holiday. Those who want to practice the religious version are free to do so. No, you can't put your creche in front of City Hall any more than you'd be OK with a big-ass Buddha, or a Kali or Ganesh, or bust of L. Ron Hubbard. Get over it. We won't (and don't) squawk over half the radio stations being hijacked by "Come All Ye Faithful" and the like for a month. We even acknowledge that they're pleasant-sounding songs. We don't squawk about all the TV shows that suddenly appear with religious themes. We just ignore them. So you don't squawk when we focus on the present-delivering Santa and peace on Earth and good will towards all. I love Christmas. Always have. But this war thing? Pure fantasy on the part of hardcore zealots whose faith isn't as unshakable as they'd hoped.

We're entering a great year to test our resolve to make this world a better place, or to have more of the same and watch it all slide down into the sewer. War in the middle east. Collapsing economies. Joblessness. Depression (not recession...sorry, deniers). Crime. Corruption. This is where we have to work together and place our faith in each other and act on it.

Okay... this soapbox is starting to creak. I better hop down before I--CRASH!!!

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The snowstorm wasn't as bad as the last one. Yeah, there was a lot of shoveling, but it was quick, and it paid off. Light, dry snow--very little ice on my sidewalk. I even feel relatively sure-fotted when walking down the hill. It put a slight snag on our New Years Eve plans as some of the restaurants we had planned on doing takeout from closed early, but we found a place and had a very nice time with friends until the ball dropped.

And Pretty Maggie and I spent a large portion of yesterday watching Lost.

Yeah, Lost. We've never really watched it. Oh, we tried once to catch a few episodes during the second season, but neither of us are very good at watching scheduled TV programming. We usually have other things going on. We don't TiVo. but we do invest in DVD collections when a series strikes us. Amazon apparently had some great deals on boxed sets and I got quite a few season ones for Christmas to series that have been on my list for a while: Lost, Heroes, and Smallville to name a few. I hate watching shows that I've not watched from the beginning, so if I don't hop on right at the outset, I often don't hop on ever until I find season one on On Demand (like with Big Love) or get the boxed set (like House. From there we're likely to keep buying the sets until we're caught up. Then we ignore the current season because we know we won't be able to keep up. We just wait for the next boxed set.

What a world.

But Lost man...what a great show! Yeah, yeah...you've known this for years. Just color me very impressed with the writing and the plotting and the direction and the characters and yeesh. So much to love. My favorite characters are Hurley and John Locke, but they're all exceedingly intriguing. I know a couple of spoilers from the two or three episodes I saw of season two, but there is so much I don't know.

No spoilers, please. I have a bat...and it has nails in it. And with the internet and enough time, I can find out where you live.

We'll all be happier if there are no spoilers.

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Today's link goes to a fun little webcomic that some of you may already be familiar with. I hench you to: Nodwick.com, the site of the Aaron Williams' popular gaming comics: Nodwick, Full Frontal Nerdity, PS238, and Backward Compatible. The website has a number of interesting goodies if you look around a bit. It's well worth the visit, and well worth a romp through the archives.

Enjoy!