15th Best Album of the Oughts: Lyle Lovett and his Large Band “It’s Not Big, It’s Large” (2007): I’ve decided to do the albums of the decade as a daily countdown in order to keep the posts from become just a huge pile of YouTube posts. For this entry we are going to go with my favorite release from the incomparable Lyle Lovett from the decade. The fact that most people still know him as the funny looking guy who married Julia Roberts is sad. Others at least know him as a pretty much classic country artist. But it is his work with the Large Band that makes your jaw just drop. I am dropping my hatred of douchebags with video cameras in the front row just so I can post this footage of “I Will Rise Up.” If you don’t get chills by the end you officially do not have a soul.
With the end of the year upon us I’ve decided to take a look back at my New Year’s Resolutions that I posted on January 1st and see how I did. If I am anything it is accountable for my actions.
Resolution #1: Learn how to juggle: I would like to state that on Wii Fit Plus I have achieved three stars in the juggling mini game and that is taking into account that my Mii must stand on top of a large ball in a circus costume while juggling. I would have four stars if it wasn’t for the fact that at a certain point they start throwing bombs at you. Ok, it’s not really juggling but at least a virtual version of myself can juggle three balls at the same time. I consider that to be an accomplishment.
Resolution #2: Get my weight under 190 pounds: As of this evening I weighed 207 pounds soaking wet. Barring a crash diet or the loss of a limb I do not expect to achieve this by the end of the year. I have made some progress as I’m down from the 215 I was at one point and I did have a nice run of constant workouts going for a few months. I’ve lost all that momentum though and have gotten soft and flabby again. This will be a big focus of mine in the new year as I have to be the best looking groom ever.
Resolution #3: Learn how to actually cook: Kind of mixed results on this one. I still do more heating than cooking but I have gotten a lot more adventurous in that regard. I cook up fish and shrimp a lot more and am getting much more comfortable with the fact that cooking with detailed directions and a stop watch is not the proper way to cook. I really want to experiment more with cooking in the new year and, you know, use actual ingredients in making a dish as opposed to whatever comes out of the bag.
Resolution #4: Increase blog readership: My lofty goal at the start of the year was to have 50 people read the blog in one day. Well, on my best day I just missed getting 100 people so I have to say that was a success. Sadly, I’ve lost a bit of that momentum though I can still have a good 30+ hit day every week or so. I’m not too upset about that as now that my adventures in the dating realm are over I am working on what the main topic of the blog is going to be. I think I’ll be settling on a new tone soon and will make that next charge at blog superstardom. Until then I will just have to be happy with my Norwegian fan base.
Resolution #5: Focus on the positive in my life: I’m pretty sure that I’ve accomplished this one. I certainly feel happier and more positive though that is at least in part because my life is going so well at the moment. Whether one led to the other or the other way around is a matter of argument though. At the end of the day I just can’t say that I am as much of a cynical bastard as I used to be. Sure I’m still sarcastic as hell but I am just a lot happier with life and more confident with what I have around me. Quite a change from a year ago.
Resolution #6: Get back into the concert going scene: Complete failure here. I did not go to a single concert all year. I did not even see Wilco when they played within walking distance of my apartment. Even from a purchasing point of view I took most of the year off from music. It’s not that I don’t love music anymore, obviously it is one of the biggest aspects of my life. It’s just that age may have finally caught up to me. Driving an hour on a weeknight to see a band that I haven’t heard of just to be tired at the office all day isn’t as much fun as it used to be. At least in KC all of the shows were close (and my job was less demanding or at least people paid less attention to my alertness in my cubicle). I’m kind of sad about this one but it is just how life goes.
Resolution #7: Complete the Best of the Blog: This one still hasn’t gotten off the ground and my novel is still floating around partially written on a few laptops. Basically the idea of the Best of the Blog (a compilation of my best blog posts) is great but has two slight problems in that a) I have to dig through 1,300+ posts to figure out which were actually good and b) even the good ones could use a rewrite. I still have one big writing project that will end up with a bound book in me. I’m just not sure when that will appear.
Resolution #8: Reader’s Choice: Thanks to long time reader Dennis this one turned into “Take a yoga class”. Now I technically did not take a yoga class though I did find one nearby. However, thanks to Wii Fit I became well aware of yoga and did perform the poses on a daily basis. True, most yoga classes are not focused on keeping your center of balance within the yellow circle but I found it to be relaxing and stimulating. Yoga is now part of my fitness routine. Not bad at all.
Resolution #9: Take a real vacation: Kim and I went to Iceland. Never in my life did I ever expect to be sitting in a geothermal spa in Iceland. Nor did I ever expect to find myself looking at a menu that had both puffin and whale as featured proteins. Can’t get more real than that.
Resolution #10: Meet the woman of my dreams, fall in love and get married: Smiles. Well, I’ve completed the first two parts and am well on my way on the third. I certainly didn’t see this coming when I wrote the resolution but hey, that is why you have resolutions in the first place.
I’ll write up the 2010 resolutions next week. Let’s see what I can accomplish in the new year.
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