New Year's Resolutions 2018

2016 was pretty terrible. I'm not prepared to say 2017 was worse. I mean, a lot less famous people I admired died, I lost another friend but I'm getting older so I'm getting used to the idea that's going to happen more often. And I at least had the benefit of knowing that Trump was President instead of being blindsided in November.

But... this was a rough, rough year. I had one of the worst weeks of my life this year. The political situation was horrifying and exhausting. Expect the worst became the norm.

Silver linings? Yeah. A couple are mine, private things. But I made several really close new friendships and a lot more extended friendships. We expanded my store into a new location in June, which was exhausting and scary and resulted in some debt I'm still a little worried about but overall has been really rewarding. And this was my second year cancer-free.

Time for 2018 resolutions, and time to check in on last year.

Last year's resolutions:

1. Cook More - I tried out several new recipes, although I didn't have many that stuck.

2. Exercise - Nope. Failed again.

3. No Cancer - This one I got.

By The Numbers:

1. I read almost 600 single-issue comics this year, as compared to about 700 the year before, and 52 graphic novels, which is less than the year before.

2. I ate at 93 different restaurants this year. On average, I ate out about 27 times a month, which is more than last year.

3. I played 35 new boardgames.

This Year's Food Plans:

Places I Need to Try:
Freedmen's BBQ
Leroy & Lewis BBQ
Rolling Rooster Chicken & Waffles

Opening in January:
H-Mart at Lakeline

Early 2018:
Tumble 22 Brick and Mortar
Anthem on Rainey Street

Sometime in 2018:
Loro (Asian Smokehouse from Uchi/Aaron Franklin)
24 Diner (Rock Rose)
Easy Tiger (The Linc)

This Year's Resolutions & Goals:

1. Cook More - I need to add some new recipes in. Specifically, I need to learn to use the Instant Pot. I'm going to try to make at least one new Instant Pot recipe a week until that inevitably falls off and I scale back to once a month.

2. Read More - I utterly failed at reading books and graphic novels this year. So my goal is an achievable 48 graphic novels and novels combined. One a week.

3. First Game Con. This one's easy, I already have tickets to BGG Con in May.

4. Boardgames. My plan this year is to play 25 new boardgames. I've exceeded that the past two years.

5. Write More. I have a notebook with 300 Writing Prompts. It's meant as a kind of journal, but I'm going to write it from the POV of fictional characters. If I skip 65 days in there, I'll still fill the notebook. The plan is to aim for every day. The looser plan is to slowly build up a universe in which to tell stories, and if that works, I might do Nanowrimo in that universe. Probably next year. Maybe this year. Depends how ambitious I'm feeling.

New Year's Resolutions - 2017 Edition

So... 2016 sucked. On a macro level, at least. We lost Prince, Bowie, George Michael, Darwyn Cooke, Steve Dillon, Alan Rickman, Carrie Fisher (and her mom, within a day of one another), The Tall Man, Harper Lee, Garry Shandling, Merle Haggard, Doris Roberts, Michelle MacNamara, Muhammad Ali, Anton Yelchin, Garry Marshall, Kevin Meaney, and Gene Wilder, to name a few, not to mention my good friend Maida Carpio. We should have known when Abe Vigoda died in January that the grim reaper was not fucking around this year. Trump did a good job riling up the crazies and then FUCKING WON THE ELECTION, which none of us (including Trump and most of his supporters) saw coming. 2017 and beyond are going to be a rough slog of fighting fights that should have been over by now, watching progress we've made get steamrollered... and that's the BEST CASE scenario.

And yet... one of my best friends and his wife bought a new house. Another of my friends got married. My kids and my wife are healthy. The store is doing well. Successfully launched my Beach Cop Detectives podcast to pretty solid acclaim, which included getting to interview a whole ton of people, including Donal Logue, Michael Raymond James, Tim Minear, Kimberly Quinn, Shawn Ryan and Ted Griffin. Still love the Mustang. And oh yeah, my oncologist said I "might be cured," three words I never expected to hear. So there are silver linings, at least.

Time for 2017 resolutions, and time to check in on last year.

Last year's resolutions:

1. Reasonable Bedtime. The plan was, in bed by 12:30, asleep by 1:30, up by 11:00 at the latest. Instead, it was mostly in bed by 2:00, asleep by 3:30, awake by 11:30 and reading Facebook on the iPad for a half hour to shake off the groggy most days. FAIL.

2. Cook More - As predicted, I knocked out most of my new recipes early on and then fell into bad habits, but... I did cook more, even if it was a lot of the same recipes, and I added a few late in the year thanks to Suzanne's Instant Pot. So improvement on this one in 2016. PASS.

3. Exercise - Yeah, no. Whoops. FAIL.

4. No Cancer - On the other hand, I did manage this one. PASS.

5. Halloween Costume - I came up with some options, then discarded all of them in September and decided to go with an Overwatch costume instead. Which I ultimately decided not to get. FAIL.

6. Spend More Time With My Kids - I did pretty good here, as Katy and I watched a bunch of TV and movies (including Inception, The Matrix, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Midnight Run) and Aaron and I played a bunch of videogames and went on Pokewalks. PASS.

7. Stay on budget. I allocated myself 6 videogames in a year, 12 TV seasons in a year and 104 dinners in a year. I bought one videogame, 10 seasons and... a lot more dinners. Qualified PASS.

8. Try New Things. This one went out the window pretty quick. FAIL.

9. Less Negative - Nope. In an election year when Donald Trump was running... what was I thinking? I also did not succeed in not posting about Superman v Batman, which I still haven't seen (and don't plan to). But I wound up kind of liking Deadpool. FAIL.

So that's four PASS / six FAIL. Whoops.

By The Numbers:

1. I read almost 700 single-issue comics this year. Well, I'm sure I read a few more than that, but I read and liked that many.

2. I ate at 88 different restaurants this year. On average, I ate out about 25 times a month, which is... a lot.

My favorites, or at least the ones I went to at least a half-dozen times, were Brooklyn Pie Company, Chi'Lantro, Chuy's, Culver's, Deckhand Oyster Bar, Firehouse Subs, Fuddrucker's, Hoody's Subs, Hopdoddy's, Jack Allen's Kitchen, Juarez Mexican Bakery, Michi Ramen, Mod Pizza, New Fortune Chinese, Outback Steakhouse, Popeye's (somewhere I go once a month), Shake Shack, Smokey Mo's, Torchy's Tacos (almost every month), Vera Cruz All Natural Tacos, and Wendy's.

This was the third year for Chuy's, Torchy's Tacos, and Michi Ramen. The second year for Chi'Lantro, Hoody's Subs, and Popeye's. While I went to Mambo House, Peached Tortilla, Smashburger, Sushi Nini, Kerbey Lane, and Noble Sandwich this year, they fell off the regular visit list.

This Year's Food Plans:

Opening in January:
Flyrite Chicken Sandwich on Burnet

Opening in February:
JT Youngbloods in Mueller
Batch Craft Beer & Kolaches on Manor
Kula Revolving Sushi Bar on Airport

Opening in 2017 sometime:
PS 35 (New York style pizza, Round Rock)
Velvet Taco (Rock Rose - March)
Sprinkles 24/7 Cupcake Vending Machine (Domain)
Noble Sandwich (Georgetown - Spring 2017)
Easy Tiger (The Linc - 2017)
24 Diner (Rock Rose - 2017)
Home Slice (North Loop - 2007)

This Year's Resolutions:

I had a whole list. Now it can basically be summed up with, "No. YOU move." But... a few ideas.

1. Cook More - I'll try and add another dozen recipes to the repertoire this year. I got a gift card to Blue Apron for Christmas, so I'm trying that. I think I'll also try to figure out some of my favorite food that I eat out and see if I can make it cheaper at home, cut back on going out quite so much.

2. Exercise - Sure, why not, more likely not to make it again, but keep aiming. Thinking about trying out the boxing gym by work.

3. No Cancer - Let's keep this train rolling.

Last Year's Pop Culture Goals:

1. Read 15 new books. Book books, without pictures. Specifically, the 15 books I already bought in the last few years. I read five. Two of which I bought new this year. Whoops.

2. Read 100 new graphic novels. I'm a little surprised to fall short on this one, but my reading time got eaten by Overwatch more often than not. I fell short at 69 graphic novels.

3. Catch up on my TV and movie Blu-Rays and DVDs.

4. Play 15 new boardgames. From this year's list, I played TIME Stories, The Networks and Posthuman. In total, I played 34 new boardgames.

5. Go to 5 Comic Book Conventions. Wound up only going to 4, but at that point I was more or less done.

This Year's Pop Culture Goals:

1. Read 6 new books. Since I failed last year's goal, this year I'm scaling back to one book per two months, at least.

2. Read 60 new graphic novels. That's five a month, which was about my speed last year. Ideally, a decent chunk of them will be the ones currently sitting on my overstuffed "to read" list, a lot of which are giant omnibuses I bought in the last couple years: Mind Mgmt Vol 5-6, Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Vol 2-3 HC, Delilah Dirk & King's Shilling. Absolute Transmet Vol 2 HC, Master of Kung Fu Omnibus Vols 1-2 HC, Avengers West Coast Vols 3-5 HC, Secret Avengers Vols 1-3 HC, Mike Mignola's Screw-On Head Artist's Edition , New Mutants Sienkiewicz HC, and Moebius Library World of Edena HC to name just the ones I bought in 2016.

3. Catch up is clearly too broad, so I'm going with specifics. So I'm going with one each quarter: Rewatch all of Justified, all of Hannibal, seasons five and up of Clone Wars (and possibly rewatch Rebels Season 2) and either True Detective or Orphan Black Season One.

5. GenCon. I'd like to make this the first year I go to GenCon. My original plan was to try for Heroes Con again, and Emerald City Con, and maybe New Orleans, but our new administration has me nervous about spending too much money or time away.

6. RPGs - In addition to my semi-regular D&D 5E game, I'm hoping to run Phoenix Dawn Command, an Overwatch FLEX Game, Apocalypse World 2E, Fiasco and Dread.

7. Boardgames. I've been doing good, my goal was 15 and I almost doubled it... but I'm not sure how many new games I'll run into with that many games under my belt, so I'm setting a goal of 12 (1/month) and figuring I'll exceed it. On the list to try: 7 Wonders Duel, Dream Home, Seafall.

New Year's Resolutions - 2016 Edition

2015 was a pretty good year. No big weddings, but two of my best friends had new babies. No new car, but I am still driving (and loving) my Mustang. And there was no chemo, even if there was a surgery.

Time for 2016 resolutions, and time to check in on last year.

Last year's resolutions:

1. No cancer. SO... CLOSE. But then I had stupid cancer in October that we had to take out. Still, like... 75% no cancer.

2. Read books. Last year I posted a picture of all the novels I had. Most of those novels are still there. But I did read over 20 books. And I read a total of 134 books including graphic novels. I also bought a lot of new books, including a couple of trips to Half Price Books and a fair number of Kindle purchases.

3. Watch all the TV & movies I have saved. Last year I posted a picture of all the Blurays and DVDs I had, and made an additional list of DVDs not pictured. I, uh... didn't watch most of them. But I did cut down on my buying, even though I did break on a few movies and TV shows.

4. Buy no more than six videogames this year. I just barely managed this.

5. 12 More Boardgames. This one I totally nailed, I actually played 36 new games:

1. Age of War
2. Bang!
3. Batman Love Letter
4. Betrayal at House on the Hill
5. Biblios
6. Castles of Mad King Ludwig
7. Cinelinks
8. Codenames
9. Concept
10. Cthulhu Wars
11. DC Deckbuilding Game
12. Dead of Winter
13. Diamonsters
14. Dixit
15. Double Feature
16. Epic
17. Epic Spell Wars
18. Exploding Kittens
19. Formula D
20. Geek Out
21. Imperial Assault
22. Jaipur
23. Just Desserts
24. Loonacy
25. Lords of Waterdeep
26. Lost Legacy the Starship
27. Machi Koro
28. Mars Attacks Dice Game
29. Red Dragon Inn
30. Red Flags
31. Roll for the Galaxy
32. Sheriff of Nottingham
33. Star Realms
34. Takenoko
35. The Captain is Dead
36. X-COM Boardgame

6. Get below 190 lbs. Uh... 204. Moving on...

7. Travel. Pretty good, actually. I didn't get out to New Orleans, Emerald City or Heroes, but I did take us all on a big Disney World trip, and we had a trip to San Francisco, and I had a couple smaller trips to San Antonio and other Texas local places.

8. Instagram - I abandoned this pretty early, but I still got over 300 pictures, so almost one a day.

9. Cook! I got to 10 new recipes, so not exactly one a month, but not bad.

10. NaNoWriMo - Abandoned this one. Not sure what I was thinking.

Also, less a resolution and more a plan, I got to eat at pretty much all the restaurants I was trying to get to, except for Perry's Steakhouse, Estancia Churrascaria, Sawyer & Co., and Texas Chili Parlor. The first two because they were expensive, the third because I decided it wasn't that important and the fourth just because time didn't work out.

By The Numbers:

1. I read almost 500 single-issue comics this year. Well, I'm sure I read a few more than that, but I read and liked that many.

2. I ate at 56 different restaurants this year. On average, I ate out about 20 times a month, which means roughly 1/3 of my meals were out. My favorites, the ones I went to at least a half-dozen times, were Chi'Lantro, Chuy's, Hoody's Subs, Kerbey Lane, Mambo House, Michi Ramen, Noble Sandwich, Peached Tortilla, PizzaRev, Popeye's, Smashburger, Sushi Nini and Torchy's Tacos.

Chuy's, Torchy's, Michi, PizzaRev, Sushi Nini and Noble were all on last year's list too.

This Year's Resolutions:

1. Reasonable Bedtime. For a while there in 2015, I was getting to bed by midnight, waking up around 10 AM. Then Battlefront came out and I backslid to 3 or 4 AM again. So my plan is, in bed by 12:30, asleep by 1:30, up by 11:00 at the latest. I know to most people this sounds like a crazy schedule, but I'm on a night owl schedule.

2. Cook More - I did OK learning a few new recipes in 2015, but I slacked off as always toward the end of the year. This year I resolve to learn to cook 12 new recipes... possibly one per month, probably I'll knock that out in the first six months and then fall again into bad eating-out patterns by the end of the year.

3. Exercise - For real. I make this one every year, and every year I fail. I think maybe I'll make Monday an exercise day. So that means at least a two-mile walk, or a mile on the elliptical, or even joining a gym if I get real ambitious.

4. No Cancer - Maybe this will be the year. First CT scan since the surgery is next week.

5. Halloween Costume - Every year, I promise myself I'm going to do a Halloween costume, and every year I fail. This year I have a plan. A goal each month, small and getting bigger, ending in a complete Halloween costume by the end of September. Goal One: Come up with five options for what I'm going to dress up as for Halloween. At least one of these will be a family option I can drag my kids (and possibly my wife) into. Another will be an option I can drag my friends into.

6. Spend More Time With My Kids - My goal is to spend at least one day a week either gaming or watching movies with Aaron and one day a week gaming or watching TV with Katy. That's because those are things they enjoy and I enjoy doing with them. If we can think up some actual activities to do, so much the better.

7. Stay on budget. I'm allocating myself enough money to buy one videogame bimonthly, one TV season per month and two dinners out per week. Not necessarily broken down by those units, but what that means is 6 videogames in a year, 12 TV seasons in a year and 104 dinners in a year. That last one is gonna be the tricky one, and even then I'm cheating by not including lunches. Next year we'll try to scale it back further.

8. Try New Things. I'm going to try at least one new thing each month of 2016. It may be big (like indoor skydiving) or small (like a food I haven't eaten before). I will no doubt be crowdsourcing some ideas on Facebook.

9. Less Negative - I am going to try really, really hard to present a more positive Facebook profile. This probably means me occasionally deleting posts when I decide they're only adding to the negativity of conversation. I will not be going all Pollyanna or stepping back on talking about legit social/political issues that piss me off, but I'm going to do my part to stop the spread of useless click-bait and rage-posting. And I'll try to stop wishing death on my political enemies, but I can't help but feel the planet would be better off without Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Dick Cheney and so many others so no promises there.

I am also going to do my damndest to not post about Deadpool, Superman vs. Batman or any other pop culture thing I hate. If someone *else* posts about it on my page, I will damn sure unleash every bit of venom I've been saving, but I'm going to try really hard not to take potshots for no good reason.

This Year's Pop Culture Goals:

1. Read 15 new books. Book books, without pictures. Specifically, the 15 books I already bought in the last few years, pictured below. If I finish those, I''ll allow myself to buy some new books, maybe finish up the trilogies I started or continued reading this year, notably The Expanse series and Newsflesh trilogy.

2. Read 100 new graphic novels. Easy. The plan is to read all of the ones in these pictures first. So that's 45, which means if I read 3-4 a week, and keep adding at the rate I've been doing, I'll have them all read in maybe four months.

3. Catch up on my TV and movie Blu-Rays and DVDs. Pictured below are 6 seasons of TV on DVD and about 30 seasons of TV on Bluray (I've watched some of the Clone Wars). Throw in 10 movies and the DVDs not pictured (including Space: Above and Beyond, Max Headroom and Wonderfalls) and it seems unlikely that I'll get through all of it. But the goal is to watch at least one movie a month and if possible, a TV season each week. There is almost no way I'll hit that goal. But I'll be tracking it here.

4. Play 15 new boardgames. On the list from last year: 7 Wonders, Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures, Gloom, Splendor, Terror in Meeple City. Considering that my list last year had 20 games on it, and I only dropped a couple, that's not bad for 2015. Adding to the list for this year: TIME Stories, Isle of Skye, Star Trek 5 Year Mission, Portal Boardgame, Monarch, Above & Below, Mysterium, Mafia De Cuba, Legends of Andor, Welcome to the Dungeon and Sapiens. Also have two games coming from Kickstarter, On The Air and Posthuman.

5. Go to 5 Comic Book Conventions. Really want to go to Heroes Con this year. Also considering Emerald City or possibly Wonder Con. Will probably go back to Alamo City Con and will possibly exhibit at Wizard World Austin, will definitely be at STAPLE! This is all contingent on not having to spend money on cancer.

New Year's Resolutions 2014-2015

2014 was an improvement on 2013 in almost all major ways. For one thing, while the cancer was still around, and I had to do chemo and have a surgery, nothing was quite as major as the surgery I had in 2012 and had to recover from. For another, I got myself a new car, a Mustang, something I've been wanting for quite a while. One of my best friends got married. My store continued to thrive. I continued to meet a ton of interesting and fun people. My family was all pretty happy and healthy, all things considered. Some of my friends had shitty years, and that sucks, but a lot of them did pretty well. New babies, kids growing up, new relationships, all kinds of cool stuff out there.

So now we come to 2015, which just really sounds like living in the future, despite the lack of jet-packs, flying cars or reasonably-priced sex-bots. So it's time for resolutions, and a check in on last year.

Last year's resolutions:

1. Don't die. Bam. Knocked that one right out. Suck it, death.

2. If I do die, regenerate as a ginger. See #1.

3. Learn Spanish. So, yeah. Started off strong using Duolingo, faded entirely. I would guess that what I gained is the ability to read a tiny, tiny (pequino) bit of Spanish, but speaking and understanding it spoken? Not so much.

4. Read at least 12 books. Done. No problem. I read:
City Primeval by Elmore Leonard (July)
Devil Red by Joe R. Lansdale
Galveston by Nick Pizzolato
Leather Maiden by Joe R. Lansdale (April)
Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman (August)
Pagan Babies by Elmore Leonard
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
The Great Divide by Matt Taibbi (May)
The Hunter by Richard Stark (June)
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby (February)
The Walking Dead by Greg Rucka (January)
Vanilla Ride by Joe R. Lansdale (September)
Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas & Jennifer Graham (March)

5. Be 10% less of an asshole. Hard to quantify. I'm gonna go ahead and give myself this one, I feel like I at least managed 5%.

6. Spend time with as many of my friends as possible, as much as possible. The most successful of my resolutions, and also quite honestly the easiest. I fully embraced my extroverted nature this year.

7. Play at least 12 new board/card games this year. Yep. 20, actually. For the record, they were:
Battlestar Galactica
Boss Monster
Cards Against Humanity
Escape from Colditz
Firefly The Game
Forbidden Desert
Geek Out!
King of New York
Machine of Death
Night of the Grand Octopus
Once Upon A Time
Rarrrr!
Roll Through The Ages (Bronze Age & Iron Age)
Sentinels of the Multiverse
Shinobi Wat-AAAH!
Telestrations
Terra Mystica
The Resistance
Tsuro
Unspeakable Words

8. Stay under 200 lbs. Ballpark? At end of year, I think I'm at 199. I was doing well before holiday eating habits kicked in. But... I managed the most important part, which is not having to buy new clothes. (I mean, I did buy new T-shirts, but not because I in any way needed them.)

9. Go bike riding with my kids. Not so much. My bike, which is a holdout from college, turned out to be pretty broken. And the kids don't ride their bikes a lot.

10. Travel. We took a family trip to Denver, and I managed to get up to Dallas, which I haven't done for a couple of years, and I took the daughter to San Antonio for Six Flags. So... baby steps on this one.

This year's resolutions:

1. No cancer. I managed not dying, let's see if we can push that up a notch by having no chemo, no surgeries and no cancer. I've got 2-3 CT scans I've got to get through to make that happen. #nocancer

2. Read books. To start with, all the books I have on my night table. I've been gathering books, both graphic novels and just-plain novels, for years now. I'm going to do my best to get through them before I buy more. Graphic novels I sort of buy as they come out so they don't go out of print, but I'm going to continue to not buy too many extra until I get through the pile. Novels... I'm gonna try not to pick up anything new until I've read those on my stack.

Five Eberron novels, Elmore Leonard, 3 Fletch novels, and several others - if I read only what I have now, I'll hit 17 books

I'm also doing a reading challenge with friends, there are categories and the idea is to read 50 books. I'm not gonna get anywhere near that number, I'm guessing more like 12-15. #books2015

3. Watch all the TV & movies I have saved. Similar vein, I'm gonna try and slow down on buying movies and TV on Bluray until I've gotten through my backlog of several years. I'll no doubt still buy a few new shows and movies, but I'll try to relegate it to must-have new releases (like anything from Marvel Cinematic) and hard-to-resist bargains. This also comes with a resolution to start up my movie nights with friends again. #videos2015

The "To Watch" stack - Not shown: Key & Peele Season 3, Brooklyn Nine-Nine Season One, Space: Above and Beyond, Boomtown, Police Squad!, Max Headroom, Profit, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies Season 1, Band of Brothers, Batman Beyond and a few more DVDs

4. Buy no more than six videogames this year. Again... backlog. Until I need new games, I'm going to refrain from buying too many new games. I mean, when Arkham Knight comes out, I'm buying that, and if Pathfinder Online hits, I'll probably buy that... so I'm allowing myself essentially one every two months. Also, this is a cheaty one since I got a couple videogames for Christmas already. And since I won't be counting games I buy for Aaron. And since I got a Playstation Plus account to go with my PS4, so I'll have 1-2 new "free" games each month. #ps42015

5. 12 More Boardgames. I plan to add at least 12 more boardgames and card games to my repertoire this year. Since I also hope to do mostly-monthly boardgame nights at the house, this should be pretty easy. #games2015

I've got over 20 on the list just from 2014 games alone:
7 Wonders
Attack Wing (Dungeons & Dragons, Star Trek and/or Star Wars)
Battle for Kemble's Cascade
Betrayal at House on the Hill
Castles of Mad King Ludwig
Dead Winter
Dice Masters
Dixit
Doomtown Reloaded
Five Tribes
Formula D
Gloom
Guardians' Chronicles
Love Letter
Machi Koro
Red Dragon Inn
Shadowrun Crossfire
Splendor
Star Realms
Takenoko
Terror in Meeple City
 X-COM: The Boardgame

6. Get below 190 lbs. By the end of the year, I will weigh less than 190 lbs. Quite possibly 189. But that's the goal. This means trying to get back to my "less snacking, less desserts" rule and keep cutting back my soda intake (currently I'm at every other day, I need to drink less) as well as continuing to take the dog for walks, use the elliptical and generally do a bit more exercise and healthier eating. #diet2015

7. Travel. I've already booked the Image Expo in San Francisco for January. I've been threatening a New Orleans trip for all of 2014. Emerald City Comicon is in March (on the weekend of my daughter's birthday, so this may not happen this year.) Heroes Con in June. San Diego Con in July. I will make at least one other comic book-related show and a trip to New Orleans this year. #travel2015

8. Instagram - I plan to post at least one picture a day. This isn't really a self-improvement thing or anything, just something fun I plan to do. #365in2015

9. Cook! I bought Thug Kitchen and got a Salsa cookbook as a gift. I'm hoping to cook at least one new recipe a month. Ideally lots more. If anyone has any good recipes or cookbooks or websites with recipes to recommend, let me know. #cook2015

10. NaNoWriMo - I've been wanting to try this for years. As long as it doesn't conflict with #1 or #7, I think this year I'm gonna try and write a novel in November. Not for publication, because it will more than likely be terrible... but just for me. #nanowrimo2015

I *should* resolve to be less angry, less judgmental and less snarky... but I know full well it's not gonna happen. And honestly, being angry, snarky and judgmental, while absolutely character flaws, are a big part of who I am and I'm not willing to change that at this point.

Also, less a resolution and more a plan, places I didn't eat at enough that I want to eat in 2015 at least once: Perry's Steakhouse, Lucy's Fried Chicken, French Quarter Grille, DiMassi's Mediterranean Buffet, Hopdoddy, Estancia Churrascaria, Garbo's Lobster, Salt & Time, Sawyer & Co., Texas Chili Parlor, and Fork + Taco.

By The Numbers:
1. I read about 300 single-issue comics this year. Well, I'm sure I read a few more than that, but I read and liked that many.

2. I ate at over 50 different restaurants this year. Some of them more than once. OK, several of them more than once. My favorites, the ones I went to at least a half-dozen times, were Curly's BBQ (R.I.P.), Chuy's, Jack Allen's Kitchen, Torchy's Tacos, Lucy's Fried Chicken, Michi Ramen, PizzaRev, Sushi Nini, Haymaker and Noble Sandwich.

The New Year's Resolutions Post 2013-2014 edition

It's that time of year. In a couple hours, I'll be having dinner with my wife and several friends, a couple hours after that I'll be at a party with another group of friends and an hour after that I'll be singing karaoke with another group of friends. And the next day, I'll be having lunch and playing boardgames with yet another group of friends. And in the course of all that, there will still be people I love that I don't get to see until the New Year. I'm spoiled rotten in terms of the number of friends and loved ones I've got surrounding me.

2013 was a really shitty year in some ways (surgical recovery is no fun, and involved many trips to the hospital where I started to wonder if I'd ever feel well again, and finding out that the cancer was still there after the surgery is a pretty giant bummer) and a really great one in others (finally did recover enough to feel more like myself, made new friends, saw a few friends get into great new relationships, had a really good year for the store, spent a lot of time with friends and family, played a lot of great games, read a lot of great comics, watched a lot of great TV and ate a lot of great food). On balance, even with cancer having sort of a heavy thumb on the negative side of the scale, I'd have to say this was a pretty good year.

Last year's resolutions:

1. Don't get any major diseases - Whoops. But the cancer is technically a resurgence, not a new disease, so maybe I get credit there?

2. Recover from the surgery - More or less. Still occasional pain, and parts of me just won't ever work the same or have been actually removed, but I'm in much better shape now than I was in January 2013.

So... resolutions to make 2014 even better? Here we go:

1. Don't die. It's clear that "not getting sick" isn't really in my wheelhouse now. So I'm gonna lower the bar a bit.

2. If I do die, regenerate as a ginger. Wait... that's actually from The Doctor's resolutions list. Scratch that.

3. Learn Spanish. This is the outlier, I'm not sure I actually have the inclination/time to pull this off, but I want to try maybe some sort of audiobook-in-car type program or something. One, because there's a fair amount of Spanish spoken in Texas and it could be handy. Two, because I'd like to visit Spain and it'd be a hell of a lot easier if I spoke Spanish. Three, if I can show my kids that even after forty you can learn a new language, maybe it'll encourage them... I sure wish I'd learned other languages when I was younger and it was theoretically easier.

4. Read at least 12 books. Book books, without pictures. One book a month. I can do that. It's kinda sad that I haven't been able to do it in the last couple years.

5. Be 10% less of an asshole. We all have our moments. I'll hope to have fewer of them.

6. Spend time with as many of my friends as possible, as much as possible. I've been doing this one, actually, but more of it. More lunches, more movie nights, more game nights, just more time with the people I love.

7. Play at least 12 new board/card games this year. For someone who owns a game store, I play woefully few new games each year. I think this year I tried out Legendary, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and Carcassonne South Seas, the latter really being more of a variation on one I already played. One new game a month seems doable.

8. Stay under 200 lbs. Actually, if possible I'd like to get back down to 170 or so, but with my weight creeping up to 195 lbs., it's time to start seriously cutting back on snacks and exercising more. After how much weight I lost when I was sick, it's good to be back to something more normalish, but I don't want to have to buy bigger size shorts, jeans, t-shirts, etc.

9. Go bike riding with my kids. Both my kids got bikes for Christmas. I really need to get mine fixed up (or get a new one) and go out on rides with them.

10. Travel. I've been too sick to go anywhere for a couple years now. We've got a little money, and so I want to take a trip this year. Maybe for our 15th wedding anniversary in May, maybe to a comic convention I haven't attended, maybe out of the country, maybe all three. New Orleans, Denver, Disney, Spain, Italy, France, Heroes Con, Emerald City Con,one of the cons in Toronto, these are all possible destinations.

That's it. Happy New Year to everybody, I'll hopefully be checking in monthly on progress of the books/games resolutions and on the other ones as well.

1. The Resolutions Post

So I figured I'd start out with that old chestnut, the New Year's resolution/look back at last year post.

Last year kinda sucked. I spent most of it dealing with cancer. That said, there was also Spill dot Con, our second annual All-Ages Awesomeness at the store, plenty of good times with friends and family, so it wasn't all cancer. It's just that chemo, radiation and surgery does kind of overwhelm everything else.

Last year's resolutions:

1. Post at least weekly on the blog - That's the reason for the numbers on the blog posts. I got to #41, which means I missed posting 52 weekly posts. And since there were sometimes months between posts, I missed that by quite a bit.

2. Watch all the Blurays and DVDs - Well, I didn't watch all of them, but I did watch quite a few. Of course, I also added quite a few, so the stack of stuff to watch remains pretty big. I'm OK with that.

3. Catch up on graphic novels - Same deal here. Read a lot of them, added a lot more. But the amount of stuff I have that's been sitting unread for years is down quite a bit.

4. Catch up on novels - Failed miserably. Need to get better with the prose reading again.

5. Keep my healthy weight and get back to exercising - My weight is pretty good, actually, thanks to cancer and surgery more than exercise.

This year's resolutions:

1. Don't get any major diseases - Should have started with this one last year. Who knew?

2. Recover from the surgery - As I write this, I'm still unable to sit comfortably for more than about half an hour at a time, my "bodily functions" are not really under my control and I'm pretty much a hermit, staying inside and healing. It's slow going, but I'm hoping that the recovery will continue and I'll be back to something resembling normal by the time my birthday rolls around in April.

I do have one more round of chemo which will probably run until June, but I'm hoping I can manage all that and get back to what normal is for me by the middle of summer.

That's it. If I can manage those two, I think I'm doing pretty good in 2013.

22. The Halfway Point

Jumping the gun a bit here, as it's not technically June yet, but we're about halfway through 2012, so I thought I'd do a check-in on my resolutions.


1. Post at least weekly on my blog. 
Well, I dropped the ball on this one, but technically because of doubling-up and lots of cancer posting, it's week #22 and this is post #22. Not what I had thought I'd be posting about, but at least I'm posting.

2. Watch all of the Blurays and DVDs I have that are sitting unwatched on my shelf.
Still working my way through this one, not helped by the fact that I continue to buy and get new DVDs and Blurays which slot in front of the stuff I already have. But here's the update:

Blurays:
Breaking Bad Seasons 2 & 3 (I've seen the show, but not the special features - Started my re-watch of this with Season 1 DVD as of last night, plan to watch one episode a night until I'm caught up)
Coen Brothers Boxed Set (Watched Raising Arizona & Miller's Crossing, just need to re-watch Fargo and watch Blood Simple for the first time)
The Dark Knight (Re-watched the movie, just need to watch the special features, probably closer to when Dark Knight Rises hits and I get in the mood for more)

Justified Season Two (Plan to re-watch and of course watch all the special features - season one was a great Bluray set)
Kick Ass (Saw in theater, but haven't seen since, plus special features)
Louie Season Two (Have re-watched a few, and some special features)
The Man With No Name Trilogy (Never seen, except for Good, The Bad and The Ugly, plan to rectify that soon)
Memento (Haven't seen in quite some time, plus special features)
No Country For Old Men (Re-watch, plus special features)
Rocketeer (Haven't seen in several years)
Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Haven't seen in a while, plus *tons* of special features)

DVDs:
Band of Brothers (Haven't seen in a few years)
Batman Beyond Seasons 1-3 (Re-watch, but I haven't seen since original airing in most cases)
Batman Brave and the Bold Season 2 Part 2 (There might be a few in here I haven't seen yet)
Blazing Saddles (Re-watched about half, haven't been in the mood to watch again just yet)

Casablanca (Still wrapped, haven't ever watched the DVD though I saw it at the Paramount again in 2010)
Chaplin (Never seen, and I'm a Robert Downey Jr. fan)

Breaking Bad Season 1 (Seen the show, but not
Community Seasons 1-2 (Have seen original airings, but haven't re-watched, plus there are tons of special features)
Crimson Tide (Still wrapped, so haven't seen in a few years)
Kids in the Hall Complete Series (I've seen a lot of these, but not all of them)

Lost Season 4 (Still wrapped, will probably use this as an excuse to re-watch the whole series)
Manchurian Candidate (2004) (Still wrapped, white elephant gift from a few years ago, never seen)
Max Headroom (I love this series, haven't seen it since it originally aired)
Monty Python's Flying Circus Box 6 (Still wrapped, may or may not use this as an excuse to watch all the Monty Python I've got)
Party Down Seasons 1 & 2 (Cheap on Amazon, couldn't resist, love this show)
Police Squad (Still wrapped, saw it when it was on TV, love it, looking forward to the revisit)
Predator (Haven't seen in many years, may or may not watch special features)
Profit Complete Series (Still wrapped, saw a couple episodes back in the day, always wanted to complete it)
Pushing Daisies Season 1 (Still wrapped, have seen all of it's original run, will use this as an excuse to re-watch the whole series)
The Shield Season 5 (Still wrapped, have seen all of the show, might use this as an excuse to re-watch the whole series, one of my all-time favorites)
Snuff Box (British sketch comedy show I got for my birthday, I've seen some clips on Youtube and it's pretty hilarious)
Wonderfalls (Still wrapped, saw its original run on TV, will probably follow up by Pushing Daisies watch with this)

3. Catch up on all the graphic novels on my to-read pile.
I actually read quite a few graphic novels, but I keep adding more. The piles are a little smaller, though, and have different stuff in them.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (These came back into print, finally, so I finally picked them up. And then Diamond neglected to send volume two. But I'm borrowing that one from a friend.)
Modern Masters/Marvel Comics (Lots of text-heavy, these are gonna take a while)
The Book of Genesis (Signed by Crumb!)
Manga Ka in America (Great art)
Devil Dinosaur Omnibus (Kirby weirdness)
EC Archives (These are review copies from way back)

 So Diamond had a sale and I picked up a bunch of Essentials. These take a while to read through, so it'll probably be a while before these all move off the stack.

And this is what remains of my indy graphic novels and review copies. Pretty pared down. Honestly, I've tried Pang a couple times, and it might just not be for me, the rest I just haven't been in the right mood for yet.














4. Catch up on the novels on my to-read pile.

The Kindle Fire put a bit of a dent into this plan, as I started buying and reading more books. But the good news is, I am reading more actual books. And I found a couple more books I wanted to read that I thought had been lost, so the Fletch books went onto the read list. But this pile is much more manageable right now.

5. Keep my healthy weight, hopefully get back to exercising and eating normally again
I forgot, of course, the all-important resolution: Don't get cancer. Whoops.

1. 2012 New Year's Resolutions

Huh. Been a while. Which leads me to resolution #1 in 2012:

1. Post at least weekly on my blog. My hope is to some kind of weekly comic book post, but I imagine as we start getting into election season I'll get drawn into political blogging, and that despite my outlets of LEOG (that's League of Extremely Ordinary Gentlemen on Spill.com), TV Dudes & Loose Canon (on Lounge Geeks.com), I'll probably wind up posting on TV and other geeky stuff as well.

What lead me to start resolutions in the first place was my January 1st reorganization/clean-up of DVDs and Blurays, leading me to resolution #2:

2. Watch all of the Blurays and DVDs I have that are sitting unwatched on my shelf. I don't have as many Blurays, but there was a Christmas one or two years back where a lot of stuff wound up going, still wrapped, to the DVD shelf and I never got around to watching it. So the list I have to watch is as follows:

Blurays:
Breaking Bad Seasons 2 & 3 (I've seen the show, but not the special features)
Kick Ass (Saw in theater, but haven't seen since, plus special features)
Kill Bill 1 & 2 (Seen many times, but not special features, and haven't re-watched in a while)
Memento (Haven't seen in quite some time, plus special features)
No Country For Old Men (Re-watch, plus special features)
Rocketeer (Haven't seen in several years)
X-Men First Class (Haven't seen since the theater, haven't watched all the special features)
Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Haven't seen in a while, plus *tons* of special features)

DVDs:
Band of Brothers (Haven't seen in a few years)
Batman Beyond Seasons 1-2 (Re-watch, but I haven't seen since original airing in most cases)
Batman Brave and the Bold Season 1 and Season 2 Part 1 (Have watched parts of these, and seen all of them on original airing)
Blazing Saddles (Still wrapped, so I haven't seen this in a few years)
Breaking Bad Season 1 (Seen the show, but not special features, and want to re-watch anyway)
Casablanca (Still wrapped, haven't ever watched the DVD though I saw it at the Paramount again in 2010)
Chaplin (Never seen, and I'm a Robert Downey Jr. fan)
Community Seasons 1-2 (Have seen original airings, but haven't re-watched, plus there are tons of special features)
Crimson Tide (Still wrapped, so haven't seen in a few years)
Kids in the Hall Complete Series (I've seen a lot of these, but not all of them)
L.A. Confidential (Still wrapped, not sure I've seen this since I first saw it in theaters)
Lost Season 4 (Still wrapped, will probably use this as an excuse to re-watch the whole series)
Manchurian Candidate (2004) (Still wrapped, white elephant gift from a few years ago, never seen)
Monty Python's Flying Circus Box 6 (Still wrapped, may or may not use this as an excuse to watch all the Monty Python I've got)
Natural Born Killers (Never seen, got as a white elephant gift a couple years ago)
North by Northwest (Same)
Police Squad (Still wrapped, saw it when it was on TV, love it, looking forward to the revisit)
Predator (Haven't seen in many years, may or may not watch special features)
Profit Complete Series (Still wrapped, saw a couple episodes back in the day, always wanted to complete it)
Pushing Daisies Season 1 (Still wrapped, have seen all of it's original run, will use this as an excuse to re-watch the whole series)
The Shield Season 5 (Still wrapped, have seen all of the show, might use this as an excuse to re-watch the whole series, one of my all-time favorites)
Wonderfalls (Still wrapped, saw its original run on TV, will probably follow up by Pushing Daisies watch with this)

So... that oughta keep me occupied for a while. And this leads me to #3 on the list:

3. Catch up on all the graphic novels on my to-read pile.

And while I'm at it, resolution #4:

4. Catch up on the novels on my to-read pile.

So that's the catch-up plan. And I plan to continue the Cheers and Terriers re-watch on Netflix. Beyond catching up on my various forms of entertainment, there's the other stuff.

In 2011, I went from 197 lbs. in January to 170 lbs. now. I lost about 18 lbs. from fixing up my diet and exercise (that's good!) and then another 9 lbs. when I had food poisoning that turned into extended stomach nastiness (that's bad!) Leading to resolution #5:

5. Keep my healthy weight, hopefully get back to exercising and eating normally again

Plus, of course, all the usual stuff about being a good husband, dad, boss and friend.

Happy New Year everyone!

New Year's Resolution #4: Read More

I already read a lot, but it's mostly comics and graphic novels. And then, mostly new comics and graphic novels. I just counted, and I've got a stack of well over 50 (maybe closer to 75-100) graphic novels sitting on my bedside table/headboard bookshelf. Some of them have been there for two to three years, waiting to be read. With the flow of comp copies mercifully over, I'm not facing the Sisyphean task of reading while more keeps flowing in, so my goal this year, in addition to whatever other comics and graphic novel reading I've been doing, is to read one, preferably two, graphic novels off that stack each week.

In addition, I read only a few novels in 2008. Audacity of Hope, three of the George R.R. Martin Song of Ice & Fire novels, a few others. This year, my goal is to read at least one novel a month, preferably two. I've got a stack of about six sitting on my bedside table, ranging from Stephen Colbert's book to Obama's Dreams of My Father to Rucka's latest novel (Patriot Acts) to the second Harry Dresden book to the James Ellroy classic Black Dahlia. I'll definitely read the last available Martin book, Feast For Crows, in January. And then I'll try to tackle more.

I'd like to read some more non-fiction as well. There are three or four books from authors who have been on The Daily Show that I've put on my to-read list, but I haven't even bought them yet because I've got such a backlog.

I also started doing a little more on the site Goodreads beyond just signing up whenever a friend emailed me about it. I'm slowly entering the books I've read and hope to read, and once that's done I think I'll go, alphabetically and methodically, through the graphic novel collection and put that in. So there will probably be some graphic novel short reviews as I do that. What can I say, I'm an organizer by nature, and have just a touch of OCD in me.

New Year's Resolution #2: Blog Update

Well, it's less a resolution and more of a housecleaning kind of thing. But here's the notable stuff:

1. No more monthly blog update postings. At least for now. I'll still update the top comics, graphic novels and TV sidebars, but posting about it was kind of silly.

2. I changed out my gigantic list of categorized links for a blogroll, which will be easier to maintain.

I had all these grand plans for doing a "comics day" and a "TV day" and a "Book day" and posting about whatever on certain days, but... not right now. I've just quit comic book reviewing for good, cold turkey, no more, for the first time in a loooong time, and I now have only one monthly deadline for writing. And that feels pretty good. So I'm not in any hurry to replace it with a new routine here.

Also on the resolution/accomplishment front:

1. Took down the Christmas lights today. Which is a notable improvement for how long it took me to take down last year's Christmas lights. Those I took down... uh, also today. So yeah.

2. Eating healthier - Today I've had takeout chinese, a hot dog, a helping of bread pudding, two Cokes, some chex mix made with bacon grease... and a cookie. So that one's blown already.