Stolen from Pixie:
Meme - A Year in Reflection
1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
Wrote a role-playing game
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Yes, actually. I've been regularly at kung fu this entire year. I've occaisionally backslid on working out at home, but by and large I kept it.
Not planning on any new ones this year.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
That would be my wife. Yes.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Not this year.
5. What countries did you visit?
The Republic of George Bush
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
Two children that can talk.
7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Not a specific date per se, but the conversation Raven and I had when we first admitted Connor has problems.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Meeting my son
9. What was your biggest failure?
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
not to any great degree
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Eye surgery
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Connor.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
America.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Bills. Mortage, power, heat, that sort of thing. Food. A lot of it went into food.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Connor's progress, my new eyes
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder?
Both.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Putting time into friends
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
dithering
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Last night with my family, tonight with Raven's, tomorrow with ourselves, boxing day fondu with the rest of Raven's extended
21. How will you be spending New Years?
Quietly at home, perhaps with a glass of wine. Mostly cleaning for the Wake.
22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
Yes. I also stayed in the loves I'd previously fallen into.
23. How many one-night stands?
None, I'm afraid. I must be slipping.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
Dead Again
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No. I make it a practise not to hate people: it's wasted energy that could go towards loving them instead.
26. What was the best book you read?
No idea, I read a lot. Mythago Wood or Passion Play are the two most recent good books I read.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
CKUA, again and still.
28. What did you want and get?
A happy family
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Nothing particularly, and I turned 32.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Connor not being autistic
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Business casual. The dresscode at work. Yay.
34. What kept you sane?
Raven
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Stoopid americans.
37. Who did you miss?
A lot of people at different times. (yes Pixie, I stole your answer)
38. Who was the best new person you met?
Jasen, my liddle Jasenator. None of the other people I met were new at the time.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004.
Better this happened to me that someone who couldn't handle it.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Accept responsibility/Don't forget humility/At every opportunity/Serve your artistry.
(Mavis Staples - Pop's Recipe, from Have a Little Faith)
James
On Saturday when we went to get our tree, I had three people come up and ask me things while I was wandering through the lot. Things like "Could you show us that tree there?" or "Are all of these trees around $85?" Each time I gently explained that I didn't work there, and was just another guy looking for a tree, and they apologized and looked embarrassed.
It wasn't until a bit later that I realized why people kept mistaking me for a tree lot employee. It was the toque. I looked around the lot, and despite the approximately 15 below plus noticable wind, the only people with toques were me and the lot attendants.
Idjits. Hello? You live in CANADA!
James
Since just about everyone who reads my blog reads my wife's first, you've no doubt heard about the spontaneous migration of Friends and Fiends Christmas.
ACK! I've had my prep time hacked in half! This is me taking a short break in between putting kids to bed, experimenting with gluten free SysAdmin buns, dipping candy, sorting Lego and cleaning the house.
Fortunately for my sanity, I do not HAVE to do any of this. Christmas will still be without buns and candy, and no one will really care if there are still pine needles in the carpet or a mess in the laundry room. But something about this time of the year turns these chores and obligations into an excuse to spend time at home with kids, work with music on, bake because I can, and clean because I don't have to hate doing it.
So, ACK! But it's a good ACK.
James
Busy busy little James, lately.
Made more SysAdmin buns on Friday, then Cam and Fox came over for Death's Door, but due to his Foxiness' lateness from work-related complications, we didn't play, just did some Munchkin and hung out.
Saturday was the move-o-rama for Davyd and Myrna, and Sunday was Myrna's No More Chemo anniversary so I went out there to watch movies and steal TV series. I now have another season of Angel to go through and stole Dark Angel from them as well. We watched Much Ado About Nothing, and I can't recall which wit said "It's like Seinfeld - it's about nothing!" but we all laughed at the image of Shakespeare going to the theatre owner and saying (complete with Seinfeldesque hand movements) "Picture this. It's a play.... about nothing."
Maybe you had to be there.
Monday I did house stuff and Tuesday was back at kung fu after two weeks off. Ow ow ow. Then off to Eric and Stars for roleplaying goodness. Mmmmm story. And I will have you know that, unlike certain other swordsmen I could name, I managed to refrain from killing anyone. Not that I blame her - I would have killed the sanctimonious bastard she had to deal with too. Or more acurately, I would have tried. Lacking the co-firing SA's to take on a master swordsman, I suspect I would have had my ass handed to me.
Tonight, I start Christmas candy (yay!) and maybe experiment with gluten free SysAdmin buns, though maybe not. It depends on how ambitious I'm feeling compared to how tired I am (ugh - got home well past 3 am). However: people I live with, be warned. I'm in a White Christmas mood.
James
The following contains a certain degree of profanity unusual for me. Normally I consider myself sufficiently articulate to refrain from base profanity, but the topic at hand really has my blood boiling.
<rant>
A
while ago, I mocked PETA for their "Neither of us is meat" billboard.
They've had a couple others on the yellowhead in the last few months I haven't bothered mentioning as they were/are too obviously inane to even be worth mocking ("Meat causes cancer" and "Milk causes impotence" - whoa, somebody better tell my kids they don't exist!)
But the latest one I saw really fucking steamed me:
"Feeding kids meat is child abuse."
Where the hell do they get off? Equating the single most common and self-supporting source of proteins known with the systematic physical and mental degredation of children is fucking whacked. I mean, I knew PETA were complete nutbars, but this is beyond all reason. Child abuse is a real, and serious problem that damages and scars and kills hundreds of children with far too much regularity. Feeding kids meat is
normal. Societies around the globe have had animals and animal products as part of their diets for all of recorded history at least, and I've never seen any compelling evidence otherwise. Societies around the globe have also had plants and plant products as part of their diets for all of recorded history.
That's because we're fucking OMNIVORES, people!As best I understand it, nowhere in the world does EITHER a natural vegetarian OR a natural carnivorous diet occur - something has to be imported from elsewhere to support either extreme.
Yes, PETA, I get it. You think animals deserve to be treated exactly like people. Well, that's a laudable attitude, but you're fucking off your nut by a mile and a half. You need to be reminded, forcibly, with a no-expenses paid one-way trip to the third world that an affordable, rounded vegetarian diet is a luxury made possible only by the high standard of living in the western world.
Grow the fuck up and put that passion into solving human problems - like child abuse - before getting all prissy about the animals. Bluntly, there's a hell of a lot of things that matter way the fuck more than whether or not a pig is suffering when it gets slaughtered.
</rant>
James
And now, courtesy of a few free minutes this morning, and the CKUA Radio playlists, I present my Silly Season wishlist:
Deep Peace - Bill Douglas
Sogo - Baka Beyond
Outlaws and Dreamers - Dick Gaughan
Get Rythm - Ry Cooder
Between the Breaks - Stan Rogers
Unchained - Johnny Cash
The Revolution Starts Now - Steve Earl
We Were Good People - Maria Dunn
Outbound - Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
Songs from the Southland - Hans Theessink
Funeral for a Friend - Dirty Dozen Brass Band
In All Things - Leahy
Coincidence and Likely Stories - Buffy Sainte-Marie
Anything from the Duke Ellington Orchestra
Shining Thing - Garnet Rogers
Dynamite and Dozers - John Wort Hannam
All Around My Hat - Steeleye Span
It's in no particular order; I'd be quite pleased with anything off this list, although I've been wanting the Bill Douglas for a while now. Indeed, just about any artist that CKUA plays would be a happy thing to receive.
And it's been a while since I gave my CD collection the attention it deserves.
One down, woo!
James
Death's Door Playtest schedule:
Friday, Dec 10: 1 evening playtest, all three sessions in one night.
(I know, Myrna, this is your moving weekend, and I'm sorry; it's the only Friday in December I have open) :/
Fridays January 7, 14, 21: 3 evening playtest, one session per night.
Sign up in the comments.
(and show up, this time)
thanks,
James
