2006 "To Do" List

Yeah, well, I'm slightly better at managing To Do lists than at keeping resolutions, so here goes:

1. Get our debt under control. (Easier goal than "get out of debt.")
[We have a plan. We may revise the plan, but for now we are going the simple route: we made a list of all our debts, arranged by interest rate then principal and we are just going to take aim at the highest interest debts first. I have already eliminated my two highest by transferring them; one to my line of credit and one to a new card which offered really low interest for 5 months, but even after that, about 10% below the store card.]

2. Visit Ottawa.
[My brother and his family live there. It would be nice to go out there sometime in the coming year, maybe even for Christmas with the hope there will be a bunch of snow for kiddo to enjoy. Unfortunately, it's not cheap (about $600 per passenger) -- it's cheaper for us to fly to Hawaii, London, or Mexico!!]

3. Finish 3 knitting projects (a. scarf; b. slippers for kiddo; c. Jayne hat)
[The scarf and slippers are in progress; the Jayne hat is the next project I want to start ('cause I just love it and it's a good opportunity to learn how to knit with circular needles).
Photo of the scarf in question: ]

4. Win lottery or earn/find/collect extra cash/stuff.

5. Fill in some blanks in my "cultural knowledge" -- literature I "should have" read and films I "should have" seen.
[Expect a list and/or solicitations in the near future. To give you an idea, I saw 2 of the 3 Godfather films over the break and I am currently reading Call of Cthulu as a start to this goal]

That should be enough, I think.

Oh, and Happy New Year, if you choose to celebrate. :)

My Choice: Best of 2005

Best on TV:

1. Arrested Development (All of it. Pure gold.)
2. Six Feet Under (in particualr, the series finale -- the song Breathe Me by Sia still brings me close to tears by reminding me of the final few minutes)
3. My Name is Earl (best new comedy this year)
4. Dr. Who!! (best sci-fi for my buck)
5. House (yes, it is getting a bit tired, but Hugh Laurie is just so watchable)/The Daily Show/Colbert Report (funny and topical)

If Arrested Development dies on the table, then so be it. I will just have to buy all three seasons on DVD, along with all the other clever people out there.

Best on the Big Screen (out of the 19 theatrical releases I saw this year):

1. Syriana
2. Serenity
3. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
4. Wallace & Grommit: Curse of the Wererabbit
5. Broken Flowers

OK, the first three are definitely set in stone; both Syriana and also Serenity surprised me with their connections to humanity and Goblet of Fire surprised me with its ability to boil down a huge book into a tightly wound adventure. Curse of the Wererabbit was definitely the best family film I saw this year. Broken Flowers could as easily be exchanged for Jarhead -- both were enjoyable on the same sort of level; I got a lot out of them in the theatre, but don't need to see either again. I'd have included Constantine -- which I liked enough to buy on DVD -- but it was all eye candy with little if any substance.

Best Music:

This one is simple. For me, this was the year of Kanye West. Hubby and I bought both Late Registration and also College Dropout because:

1. He said "George Bush doesn't care about black people!" on live TV
2. His performance on SNL kicked ass (as did the backstage with Mike Myers skit -- a nod to the live TV rant)
3. His single "Jesus Walks" was used in the trailer for Jarhead -- and it just lodged itself in our brains.

I'm not going to write about Best Books because I don't think I read a single book on any bestseller list ... or in fact much of anything published in 2005.

BBC Film - Viewers Choice for 2005

This is a very interesting list.... not quite how mine will look. (Which reminds me, I need to make one.) The BBC list puts Serenity at the top but also includes Team America: World Police (albeit at number 10).

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Phony Sony Graffiti

Sony ad execs thought they were being clever with their latest ad campaign to target "urban nomads." Basically the ads are painted on abandoned buildings and other places you'd expect to find graffiti in urban centres.

I love the response in San Francisco:

...the ads were defaced soon after they appeared as word spread that Sony was behind them. "Get out of my city!!!" and "Fony" were written on one.

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Boxing Week Madness

For some reason, post Christmas sales (called Boxing "week" rather than Boxing Day for the past few years) have been insane this year. I don't mean "insane" as in "wow, I can't believe this stuff is so cheap" but "insane" as in "WTF? Why is the entire population of Victoria trying to park at the same [expletive deleted] mall?"

We did go out on Boxing Day; we skipped Mayfair mall and went to Hillside (where HMV actually did have some insane prices for DVDs -- we bought both Supersize Me and also the Aviator for $5.99 each -- we figured even if we hated the Aviator it was only 50 cents more to buy it than to rent it.). After Hillside, we hit what hubby calls the gexus (geek nexus) -- a cluster of comic and gaming stores downtown. Legends Comics had a fantastic sale -- all their recent reads comics* were on sale for $2 each (or 10/$15 or 20/$20). We got 20.

Today, we went to Mayfair, thinking that it would be a bit quieter. We were wrong. The parking lot was jammed and the stores were crowded with people trying to burn off gift cards. Most unpleasant, really.

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*Reasons I really like Legends Comics include the fact that the owner presumes most his customers are idiots and he is terribly sarcastic about it. The sign for the sale comics included this note:

Comics have staples.

In other words, don't try and bring me a collection with a glued spine, the one priced at $9.95, and try to argue that it was on the recent reads shelf and so I should sell it to you for $2. Dumbass.