Out with the Old

For a lot of folks, 2016 can't end quickly enough. And I'm not going to argue otherwise. It's been a dark year. There have been more deaths (both celebrity and personal) than seems possible to deal with. And the US Presidential election accentuated how divided the country has become.

I have lots of thoughts on both of those things, but I don't think that this blog is the place for them, except for maybe one exception. Carrie Fisher's death hit me pretty hard.

She was a huge part of my childhood, but one of the things I love most about having new Star Wars movies isn't that I got to see more Leia Organa. It's that all the interviews gave Carrie Fisher so many opportunities to display her fearless honesty about how she saw the world. Whether she was making jokes to Colbert about having to lose a fourth of her weight for Force Awakens (so the "fourth" wasn't with her) or sharing her experiences and wisdom with Daisy Ridley, the Carrie Fisher I saw over the past year is the one I mourn most. That's the lady we need more of. And that's why her death really punched me in the heart.

But for the most part - for me, personally - 2016 has been a pretty good year. I got to take a trip to Tallahassee where I grew up, so I was able to reconnect with a lot of old friends and introduce them to Diane and David. I also got to spend some good (if too little) time with Nerd Lunch's Carlin Trammel and his family and also the ever-awesome Paxton Holley.

And speaking of the Nerd Lunch fellas, 2016 was the year when the podcasting bug bit deep and I co-launched three new shows: Mystery Movie Night (with my pal Erik Johnson and a bunch of my family members), Hellbent for Letterbox (with Pax!), and Greystoked (with my buddy Noel Thingvall).

I didn't get as much writing done as I'd planned to, but I'm working on a pitch with a very talented artist and work is progressing on the Kill All Monsters omnibus re-scheduled for 2017 from Dark Horse. Hopefully, I'll be better next year at integrating writing and podcasting, because I love both of those things.

I saw a bunch of movies, too, but that's a subject for another post. Or series of posts, because that's how I like to spend my January. Here's hoping that 2017 is a better year for everyone. Happy New Year.

Hello, 2012

I didn’t have time to do my usual year-end retrospective and New Year planning posts this year. We took a trip to North Carolina to see some friends and visit as many Blackbeard sites as we could find. Pictures are coming, but it was a great trip and we saw roughly the spots where the Queen Anne’s Revenge went down and where Blackbeard was killed. We also visited where his men were imprisoned before hanging, the town where he settled down temporarily when he went “respectable,” and the museum that holds the QAR’s wreckage. We even found time for a trip to the Lost Colony on Roanoke.

All of that took planning and doing, so that’s why we went into Cephalopod mode for a couple of weeks. I’d still like to do some Best of 2011 lists though, so if it's not too late, I'll work on those the rest of this week and next. I'll probably do music and TV this week and spend all next week on movies.

Even though I'm not going to do a long, Looking Forward to 2012 post, I do have one resolution for the New Year. I want to be much more spontaneous about the books I read and things I watch. I’m extremely list-oriented and new things that come out usually get put at the bottom of the list. This year, I’m giving myself permission to bump interesting things to the top of the pile. This is largely inspired by The Hunger Games, which I’m ashamed has taken me so long to get to. I wolfed that book down in two days over vacation and the sequels are on their way to me as I type. I want more experiences like that.

Hydra New Year!

What's your evil resolution?

What are you doing New Year's Eve?

Hope it's as exciting as what Killraven's got planned.



Have a great night, everyone!

Happy New Year!

Hope you have more fun at your party than Lana.

Go, Clark, go!