Antiresolutionary Agendas

New Year, New View

This post includes your requisite OMG It's a New Year! blather. Not your cup of tea? Skip to the third act, darling.

Let's get on with it.

Part of my goal setting for this year includes a slight refocusing of what this blog is and how I use it. That being said, while I don't plan on changing the template right now, I am going to change how I format posts. This will serve a couple of purposes: first, to make these things a little easier to read. I am a little too Great Wall of Text sometimes. And second, breaking this stream of consciousness ramble into more manageable chunks will help me focus what I'm saying. 

Maybe. 

Hopefully. 

What else is new...?  

Ah. Right. Back to work today, but in two and a half weeks I'll be having a little fling with a certain geographic area to the north. Getting a little anxious for it. Everyone around me is sick, and I think I have a slight cold. I just want it out of my system by the time I board the plane. :sniffle:

Christmas was fabulous. It was full of food and fun and I got the nerdy gifts I wanted. Especially books.

I even got my very own TARDIS! The light glows when you lift the lid, and it makes the timey-wimey inter-dimensional noise.

Promises, Promises

This is the time when people have made it through the hedonistic abandon of the end of year holidays and they start to make promises to themselves, little personal bargains with their waistlines, their psyches, their unchecked internal demons. And headlines are all full of lists and things to help everyone keep those upcoming year's resolutions on track. This is great for fluff pieces and filler, but no thanks.

I  mean, I think resolutions are in theory a nice idea, starting the year off fresh, bright-eyed with the best of intentions - to lose the weight, stop biting your nails, be nicer to that one annoying co-worker, to finally stop harvesting the organs of drug-addled transients for sale at a premium on the black market to pay for your secret underground Dooms Day Cave...whatever it is that you desire to change in the coming year.

But most people don't keep their resolutions. Maybe they never intended to. I just don't like reading the same well-intentioned advice for two weeks at the beginning of the year. It gets boring. But, I have made a list of things I'd like to make happen. Nothing too specific, lots of general ideas.

Because we're all such pros at lying to ourselves, and I think we get lied to enough every day as it is, that's high on my list of things to maybe strive for this year.

Another goal is related to beating my Books Read count for the last couple of years. For 2013, the magic number is set at 35 and I'm already one book ahead. In 2012 I bested my goal of 30 books by one, and in 2011 I set the bar kind of high at 40 and failed to reach it by two books.

The full list:

• Get shit done
• Be more personally honest
• Take the stairs
• Don't get bogged down in the bullshit
• Read more
• Make time to be creative
• Get up and move it

Plus, as always, Neil Gaiman is there to give the advice you need just when you need it. 

It's a New Year and with it comes a fresh opportunity to shape our world. 
So this is my wish, a wish for me as much as it is a wish for you: in the world to come, let us be brave – let us walk into the dark without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces, even if we're faking them. 
And whatever happens to us, whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We can find joy in the world if it's joy we're looking for, we can take joy in the act of creation. 
So that is my wish for you, and for me. Bravery and joy.

I made an image macro for this, but it just doesn't read well, since the file is too big. It's now my Facebook cover photo instead, and I'll probably slap it up on Tumblr this week.

Huzzah for making stuff! To bravery and joy in 2013!

Screen Gems

And, oh hey! Great television comes back after the seasonal tv blackout of late fall and early winter. 

Such as Doctor Who...

And Lost Girl...

Plus, there are quite a few shows coming up in the spring schedule that I am looking forward to. I probably won't get to watch  most of them - only so many hours in a day, after all - but it's nice that there seems to be an emphasis on quality right now. Very inspirational to see the focus on telling a good story and entertainment that has a little tooth to it and thought behind it. All that dumbed-down crap flooding the airwaves and melting people's collective brains got really depressing for a while. (Yes, yes, I know most of what is available is still pretty bad, but I have hope!) 

One of the new programs I'm kind of interested in specifically is Ripper Street, because who doesn't love dark period pieces with amazing costuming and must I remind you it's got Matthew Macfayden? This is probably going to be similar in tone to BBCAmerica's other period drama, Copper, so I'm curious whether this ushers in a new resurgence of gritty, stark, atmospheric dramatic programming?