Fuck off, 2009.

I refuse to be the kind of person who allows themselves to have 'bad days.' I just don't believe in the concept. I think that when someone decides that they're having a bad day, they've made a decision to fail. They decided that things are too challenging, and their way of dealing with it is to give themselves a free pass to be a total piece of shit to everyone around them the rest of the day, and then scream aloud that it's justified, because they're having a 'bad day.'

That's bullshit. By refusing to have 'bad days,' I hold myself to a certain standard, and I don't let myself slip into negative thinking.

But that's bullshit, too. I've been eating more this year, drinking more this year, smoking more this year, and I haven't been a good friend to a lot of people. I allowed myself to make this year bad. I got too concerned with showing signs of weakness, and somehow fell into the belief that if I acted like nothing was wrong, nothing would be wrong.

Anyway, BLAH BLAH BLAH, I did my best to make myself crazy and thus make myself even fatter and sicker. Awesome. That all stops. Now.

I'm putting my goals for 2010 on here for all to see, in an effort to make it more embarrassing if I fail, as an extra motivator.

 - I am going to stop night-snacking. I have a terrible urge to eat while I read or watch stuff at night. It's a terrible habit, and it pisses my wife off.
 - I need to stop snacking altogether. It serves no good purpose, and is a big part of the problem.
 - I need to make smaller portions available to myself, and thus eat less at each meal.
 - I want to drop 50-100 pounds this year.
 - I am going back to not drinking at all on nights that are before work or school days.
 - I am going to quit smoking.
 - I am going to give Fallout 3 one more shot, since so many smart people have such stupidly high opinions of it.
 - I am going to find a way to enjoy exercise.
 - I am going to force my family to be more active.
 - I would like to finish my graduate degree in 2010.
 - I would like to publish another book in 2010.

Making exercise fun is going to be hard. When you're as fat as I am, it seems like it just can't be fun. I used to be a mega-athlete, so I know where these exercise addicts are coming from, I do, but shut the fuck up.

One thing I was thinking about that might be kinda cool is exploring the area in which I live on foot, while using a GPS. I would turn the directions off, and only use the map to navigate. Then, at least, I'm using my brain as well. I'd say, 'hey, I wanna see if maybe my sprawling neighborhood has a road that connects to Street X,' then I'd navigate by the GPS on foot, and see if I can find a route. Sounds interesting to me, at least.

I'm also going to give 'gaming while on the treadmill' another shot. I also like shooting hoops.

So, anyway, while I'm really disappointed in how much I let myself down in 2009, I can pull my shit together and make 2010 the year in which you motherfuckers BOW to me.

What about you all? Any thoughts on 2009? Any plans for 2010?

-Blaine

PS - Don't forget to check out our gaming blog & podcast over at Untitled Gaming!

Random Things

So now that I've had plenty of time to come down from the rush of this past semester, I've been slowly getting a move on things I'd been putting off.

I was WAY too happy when I migrated my music/iTunes directories on my main HDD into a single iTunes directory on my second HDD in my huge gaming laptop and pared it all down from 80GB to 50GB. I moved the .xml files and everything without having a single issue, which I was VERY happy with. I wanted to high-five myself, then hand myself a beer. If you had any interest in doing this yourself, I found a GREAT walkthrough here.

I'm also WAY too pumped for the Nook I'm getting tomorrow. Acquisition Day is always a reason for joy, but I'm a junkie for gadgets, and I think that ebooks are a great thing. Cutting down on paper consumption is a great way to reduce the number of trees that are cut down, which also has the benefit of angering pro-hate terrorist zealots.

Plus, being able to take my collection of books down from something that nearly fills a huge basement to the something that fits onto the Nook is very appealing. 

I've been using the B&N ereader on my netbook for a while, and while I've really enjoyed that, I'm pumped to have a super-thin, super-light device that specializes in the ebook stuff.

Additionally, since I can import .pdf files into it, I've been prepping .pdf versions of a lot of the strategy guides I've purchased in the past so that I can load them on it for easy access. I've also been doing the same with a lot of the novels I've purchased in the past. Additionally, I've been buying ebooks from the B&N store for a while, so it'll be cool to load all those on there, as well, which will be easily accomplished via the persistent 3G connection.

I'll be getting some Blu-Rays, as well. I'm hoping and praying for the Battlestar Galactica Blu-Ray set, but we'll see.

I'm not expecting anything on the gaming front, since I never really ask for them, since any game worth owning is already in my position.

Anyway, I want everyone to have a great Acquisition Day, and while you're getting sick of your family, be sure to check out our new gaming, Untitled Gaming, and be sure to check out the new podcast when it goes out this weekend on the blog!

-Blaine

Alright, alright

And, I'm back. The semester is wrapped up, I get to take a few weeks and focus on work & projects, I get to soak up college basketball, I get mock the BCS for a few more weeks, I get to work on the new book a bit, and I get to launch a new gaming blog with Tony!

Click on the link, read up, and please help us start building our base! Those of you who followed the podcast will know what to expect, and for everyone else, it's going to be a repository for our random opinions, reviews, commentaries, and all gaming-related crap we're known to squeeze out, but in handy literary form! The podcast is going on, and will be returning this weekend, when we start our 'Best of the Decade' and 'Best of 2009!' Go over to the new blog, read our entries, and help us pick our top ten of the decade!

Otherwise, I saw Avatar and Julie & Julia over the weekend, and really enjoyed both.

I took in the 3D Avatar experience, and MAN, was it an experience. Everything about that film just works, and my only complaint about it was about the medium itself, which is the limited scope of film (as opposed to a game or television series.) I had some minor gripes ('unobtanium?'), but it was the most I've enjoyed a theatrical experience in a long time.

What's great about the 3D is that it's subtle. It's immediately noticeable, no doubt, but instead of being distracting and a pure gimmick, it really brings the film to life in an amazing and seamless way. There are moments that I can't imagine quite work in 2D, plus the 3D really helps bring a sense of HUGENESS to the film.

Avatar is a truly great film, and one that easily tops anything else James Cameron has accomplished to this date, and that is saying a hell of a lot. Aliens, Terminator, Terminator 2, & the Abyss rank among my favorite films, and this film feels like the next step in that progression.

Julie & Julia is a really interesting film about author Julie Powell and the famous chef Julia Child, and intertwines their respective rises to fame. It's directed by Nora Ephron, and really flows much better than I'd expected two separate time lines would. To see how Powell draws from Child's evolution to inform her own evolution was very cool, especially from a writer's perspective. It was very interesting for me, personally, to get perspective on someone who'd tried to be a writer but had given up, and then let themselves get pulled back in. Plus, I'm a closet cook, so the film was nearly pornographic (for me, who LOVES food) in some parts.

At first glance, it's a chick flick, but it's a good film for anyone who's chosen the generic life in favor of the dream life.

Otherwise, it's nice to finally chill for a little bit. I got a little overwhelmed with a lot of things going on this past Saturday, and had to just let myself implode and pare things down a bit. I'm not normally like that, but I sometimes forget how much pressure I put on myself to not fuck up everything in my life. Granted, the pressure is there for a reason.

What's tough is that I cut myself off from much of my social life this semester to really focus on things, and now I feel like I've been a shit friend, but there's also this phenomenon in which my wife works whenever I'm not at work, so I never see her, so I want to see her when she is around, but that's also the only time I can go out, since I'm home alone with my son all the other times. Thus, I'm still a shitty friend.

So, yeah, enough bitching and moaning.

All I wanna do this break is work, write, and record. It makes me chuckle that I think of 'only work' as 'vacation.' I also wanna not be exhausted all the time.

I am also keenly anticipating the acquisition of my Nook on Friday.

Anyway...
 - don't forget to comment on the 'Best of the Decade' posts over @ Untitled Gaming
 - don't forget that we're podcasting this weekend!
 - what do you got going on this week?
 - what's tops on your Xmas wish list?

-Blaine

2009 is ending...as is the decade...

...I've been a bad bloggist because it's difficult for me to devote time and energy to this blog when so many other things are going on. In my current day-to-day structure, if I'm attending class full-time, I do not have time to blog, ever. I have a wife, son, job, real writing, and I'm into games and sports, so this blog is easily cast aside, which sucks. I want to do this M-F, but it's just not working out w/ my school aspirations.

I'll try to find a way to change that. I'd toyed with the idea of writing several posts at a time over the weekend, but the fact is that there are other ways I'd like to spend my weekend. I may give that another shot, but we'll see.

Either way, since I have no classes for the next month, I'm back.

It's an exciting time to be me, though. I've got some things cooking, on a few different professional fronts, as well as some collaborative work that may happen, and I'm pretty pumped. I'm also pleased to report that sales of my book have increased with the holiday season, which shocked me quite a bit. I guess that some feel that Christmas is the best time to read about God betraying man. Who knows? Either way, thanks, and GO BUY ANOTHER NOW!!! It's available in both book form ($15) and ebook ($1.25).

I don't have a ton of time today, but I wanted to remind people that I wrote a reasonably decent novel, and Tony and I have a couple podcasts coming up. We're recording the first one next weekend, the day after Xmas. We'll do a little 'what's new?' followed by a ton of discussion about the best games of 2009, and close with the best games of the 00s (the 'aughts,' as we're supposed to call this clusterfuck of a decade.) We are soliciting nominations, so please, either leave 'em in the comments of this post or any next week, or hit me up with 'em on Twitter!

The day after New Year, we'll be recording a 2010 preview, and I'm asking for the same info, though not just yet.

Anyway, I'll be back with a lot more next week, but lemme know what were your best games of 2009 were, as well as what were your best of the 2000s!

-Blaine