Thursday, January 04, 2007

A New year, a new post.

My entirely subjective and totally subject to change on a whim, 5 best things and 5 "what the?" things about 2006:

(honestly, this is totally off the top of my head and I'm likely forgetting/overlooking several items of more worthy inclusion).

Best:
5. Me Finding Clint Walker's Blog: 'Nuff said.

4. The change over in Congress: Parties come and go, and IMHO it's healthy to change whoever is in charge every so often. Besides, in politics it's often a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

3. Cars: The movie. Not Pixar's best, but it tells you something about movies today that when Pixar flops, it's still better than 90% of the movies out there.

2. The Return of Ghost Rider to Marvel Comics: My favorite comic book character ever gets one okay series from Garth Ennis, and one really good series from Daniel Way. Too bad the upcoming movie starring Nicholas Cage looks like it will be one of the worst in 2007. But I hold out hope.

1. The Birth of my third child: Thomas Wagner Wolfe, 9 lbs. 2 oz. on November 18th.

Top five "what the?":

5. A Prarie Home Companion: The Movie. I love the radio show, and (I never thought I would say this) Lindsay Lohan did an amazing job in this movie. Other than that, the plot made little sense, the theology was a bizarre muddle, and nothing that happened mattered at all. A waste of a movie and of Altman's last film.

4. Kerry's botched joke at the expense of the troops: 'Nuff said.

3. Being told that because Mormons "don’t kill people, you’re fair game" by a Washington, D.C. reporter: I get it now - in order for a religion to get respect in the media, you have to start killing people. Thanks for the lesson.

2. The Left Behind video game: Clint Walker (Friar Tuck) said it best.

1. The dust up over Orson Scott Card's new book Empire. Seems because it has conservative views expressed in it (as well as liberal ones, but never mind that), it must be attacked often and viciously. See reviews at SFBC.com and Amazon.com - from them, I gather most of the reviewers have only read the first five or so chapters, if that. Card's best work it ain't, but it's hardly the right wing propaganda that the far left loonies who are attacking it claim it is. They seem to think that if a work of science fiction treats conservative views as okay or at least respectable, it must be destroyed before it spreads like an infection. Whatever.