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Thought this might be a bit fun to do. As we’re all different people with different things going on in our lives, sometimes you find out things about people you think you know really, really well and that one revelation changes your perception of them. So I thought I’d put up a short list of stuff that people probably wouldn’t guess about me for fun. Incidentally, this probably came up because I found out something about a friend I’ve known for around seventeen years–and I was shocked in a weirdly pleasant way. Here we go.

1. For some reason, I cannot cook vegetables worth a damn. I find myself able to cook meat reasonably well, I’ve baked a good loaf of bread and make a pretty tasty pie. Veggies? If I can think of more than steaming them, it’s a good day…but they turn out pretty bland anyway. And I like veggies, I just have a hard time cooking them.
2. Also food related, I’m incredibly anal about how things are in the kitchen, or as I like to say, my kitchen. I spaz out whenever I can’t find something that should be in its place. Nowhere else in the house, but the kitchen, it’s pretty bad.
3. I have a hard time watching certain shows and movies because I am too easily emotionally moved by Hollywood. And what sucks is that even when I know it is happening, I cannot control welling up during certain passages meant to evoke that reaction. It is the primary reason that I don’t really like watching sad dramas and the like because I don’t enjoy feeling manipulated. My in-laws watch a lot of movies and I usually pass on watching them–well, this is the primary reason.
4. I’m often riddled with self-doubt. Like right now, where I’m questioning whether I should even put this up (don’t worry, I will), but a lot of that self-doubt has some long reaching effects on my daily life. I overcome a bunch of it, but I really don’t like having it loom over me on a daily basis.
5. The older I get, the more I wish I learned more science in school. Seriously, science kicks so much ass, there’s likely a calculus algorithm which will plot out the ascending curve of science ass-kicking over time.
6. In the video games I play, when given a moral choice, I almost always choose the paragon side. Not sure why this is, but I would feel wrong choosing the evil (or slightly bad) side.
7. I have a strong desire to eventually have a games closet much like you see in a scene or two from The Royal Tennenbaums.

That’s a good enough list for today. Enjoy!

Note that these are not five songs made in 2010, just ones I found and dug.  In fact, they may not be representative of the band’s work, but still, I like these particular songs.  Enjoy!

5) NEU!  ”Hallogallo”

In one of my trips to the Cities, I listened to Sound Opinions on my local NPR station where they interviewed Michael Rother about NEU!  It was really my first introduction to what became known as Krautrock.  I loved it immediately.

4) Marion Call  ”In the Black”

I’m not sure how I found out about Marion Call, but my guess is Twitter.  Never got to thank the person who linked it.  I already blogged this video earlier this year.  It deserves a second play.  It has fun Firefly related scenes in the video as well.

3) The Decemberists “Sons and Daughters”

The Decemberists have been a buzz band for awhile now so it’s not surprising that I would eventually listen to them and enjoy their music.  What impresses me about them is their storytelling style in their lyrics.

2) Cee Lo Green “Forget You” or “F@$* You”

Was there any other song out there this year that was as fun as this one?  No, there wasn’t.  I’m also tickled to think that this song could possibly win another Grammy for Cee Lo.  I’m including the SFW version, but if you want the original with all the swearing, here’s the link.

1) LCD Soundsystem “Pow Pow”

No album made me just happy like this one did.  When LCD Soundsystem came on the radio, it invariably lifted my mood.  Fun song.  Fun album.

Yesterday, I blogged about the good in 2010 and now it’s time to look at the other side of the coin, the disappointments.  I won’t say bad, because in all of it’s weirdness, 2010 was not a bad year.  It was just filled with strangeness and some real head scratching moments.  Let’s get to the list.

5) Bad Customer Service

Am I alone here or was 2010 really bad for getting your needs met at certain establishments?  And I don’t really consider myself a bad customer, but in my growing up, I’m willing to put up with a lot less than I was used to in my youth.  And it was just weird things, too.  My bank screwing up very simple requests, forcing me to make multiple visits to get it cleared up.  Getting a simple drink right at a restaurant.  Taking nearly a month to get internet installed at my house.  Getting the wrong shirt shipped to you from the one you ordered in person, right in front of the person who runs the business.  I don’t get it.  What made it so that 2010 is such a bad year to get good service?

4) Buying the House

This one get’s it’s own heading.  In the past, I would have expected the purchase of a house to be a bit of an ordeal, mainly because I just wasn’t that good with my own money and that caused problems.  But a lot has changed since those days and though I’m not an expert in financial issues, I’m not a liability any longer.  Which is what baffles me to why getting our house caused a lot of headaches with Melanie and me.  There was nothing complicated about the mortgage we were trying to do, no fancy tricks, no zero money down hoo-ha.  It was a conventional mortgage for a sum which we were well able to afford.  When the bank stopped answering our correspondence for two weeks, it really confused the hell out of us because we were kept in the dark during a critical time of the purchase.  Granted, everything worked out in the end, but I’m not one to really relish surprises when I’m making the biggest purchase in my life.

3) Internet Noise

I can’t really read the Star Tribune online anymore.  The inmates have taken over the asylum.  It’s not just the Star Tribune, but on a number of websites.  Commenting has become such an expected part of some of these sites, I’m not sure how much they realize that it’s a hindrance rather than a facilitator.  The lofty goal was to create a community discussion where people can engage with each other.  However, the trolls are more persistent, more rancorous, more interested in defending their ideology rather than debating the merits of their position.  News sites in particular seem loath to turn off comment sections because it can drive page views, but they do that at the cost of sacrificing the story to those trolls.  Editorials are shredded down to partisan broadsides, ditto for any story dealing with government.  Even sports sections are fraught with the homers who support the team no matter what and those yelling for wholesale change.  None of this started in 2010, but it did seem to grow exponentially this year.

2) The Election

I’m not going to write too much about this as you can look back to my post-election rant I wrote in early November.  And to the surprise of some, I’m not even going to say that the Dems losing was much of a surprise and I’ll admit to some extent, they deserved it.  Hell, I was pretty disappointed at their lack of progress over the last couple of years and was apathetic to the election.  But to see such a swing to the Republicans was shocking to me.  It was a shock to me that candidates pledged not to compromise at all when they were running for the Senate, the deliberative body of Congress and the half of government where many deals are created.  Regardless, I’m not going to rehash this.  It’s depressing.

1) Accomplished Goals

I’m calling myself out on this one.  I had a bunch of goals set, most of which were attainable.  Of those goals, a handful were reached while there were a good number more either half finished or nothing done at all.  I could give myself a pass on it and chalk it up to all the stuff I did get done this year, plus the big events of this year. That’s not who I am though and before anything here gets misunderstood, let me tell you that things are fine.  Actually, it’s helpful to me to see what I set and where I fell short so I can address those items.  They are my little failures, but I know what they are and on at least some of them, steps have already been taken to correct for those missteps on the year.

The areas I fell short?  In writing, I only partially achieved my goals (blogging more regularly) and didn’t follow through on more creative writing.  At home, I have an established routine, but still not one that completely works.  Health-wise, I need to work out more, eat better and take better care of myself.  I need to be a better husband and father.  It’s all attainable stuff and ones that I’m not completely horrible at doing, but improvement can be made.  That’s why my life keeps getting better as I get older.  Hard to believe, but it’s true.  The disappointments drive me to be a better person and hopefully I can hit those goals this year.

Way back in January of this year, I made a list of things I wanted to do or get done this year, goals to hit and such.  I’ve always found it helpful to review those plans at a later date to see where you are and perhaps what you can do.  Here we go:

1) Blog nearly every day.

I’m going to call this a moderate success.  Of the 365 days of the year, I blogged something on 102 days and counting since this month is not yet finished.  Not quite one third of the days and if you take into account that I rarely blog on weekends, that’s not too bad.

It also occurred to me that blogging every single day was ambitious.  I see other people do it and I have to admit I’m a bit jealous.  But then I realize that they have journalism backgrounds and are used to putting out copy quickly on a daily basis.  It’s what they do.  I’ve never really had that training nor have I had to do so for any job I’ve done.  In that vein, 2010 looks pretty good.

Also consider that in February we had our first child and in early October, we bought a house.  Post counts in both months were staggeringly low and understandable for those two very good reasons.  Still, I’m looking to improve for 2011 and hopefully I’ll be blogging on weekdays consistently and might even throw something up on the weekends as well.

2) Write a book.

*sigh* I’m going to call this a partial success.  I did finish NaNoWriMo this year, but the product was such a mess of disjointed writing that it’s hardly even worth showing to anyone, nor is it even really worth revising because it wouldn’t be worth the effort.  Perhaps I can salvage some bits and move them into individual stories or maybe take a couple of ideas and flesh them out somewhere else, but as a single story it’s not going anywhere.

As for what I can do to improve for next year…let me get to that after my next point as they’re both related.

3) Write a short story a month.

Big fat fail.  I wrote exactly one story this year.  That means I was way short and missed eleven of twelve.  So what happened?

Writing for me is a funny thing.  I write on the blog and it’s fine because it’s a conversational part of me.  At least it’s better than me talking to myself all the time which I do anyway, but less so because of the blog.  However, when I write a story, I’ll start it and it doesn’t go anywhere.  What I end up with is a bunch of fragments, story bits started and unfinished, flat and uninteresting.

It’s not that I don’t have ideas and can’t get them on the page.  When I was in college, I’d often write a couple stories here or there between class commitments.  What’s different is back then I had other people who wrote with me.  It was good because we could share amongst ourselves and just roll with it, embracing anything that came to mind.  But now I really don’t have a group of people with whom I can write.  It’s not even that they need to know exactly what I’m writing about, but just that I’m writing and they’re writing.  In short, I should try to find a writer’s group.

Also, I think I would be helped by taking a class.  It just occurred to me that for fiction writing, I’ve never really taken a class.  I took a class that I thought was short stories and it turned out to be poetry as they changed the syllabus at the last minute.  I don’t regret taking the poetry class and I’m glad the teacher convinced me not to drop it, but I would have much preferred the short story class.

But what can a class do for me?  I see it this way.  I feel reasonably confident in being able to express myself, I feel that I can string together a premise and support it well.  I find that I do have a certain voice and I understand part of the craft of writing.  But I don’t have any feedback about my fiction from people who make a living writing.  I need that feedback, that criticism, and it will give me a community to react with as well as deadlines to get my ass in the chair and write.

So, two things then; I need to find a group of people I can explore my writing and I should take a class to hone what I have.

4) More Twitter updates.

I did.  Good for me.

5) Read more.

I don’t know if I can quantify this.  I did read things this year but I found that for literary works, it was difficult.  Take for example, Proust’s Remembrance for Lost Time: Swann’s Way.  I did enjoy it, but it is a dense book.  It’s one that it takes time to understand where the plot is going, not to mention all of the detail he put into the book.  It was hard for me to find the necessary blocks of time to dedicate to read it properly.

However, I did read a good number of other books, both fiction and non-fiction, so I’m going to call this a partial win.

6) Baby and dog related stuff.

There was a lot of it.  And add the house purchase, it was a full year.

As for next year, I’ll likely come up with another list for 2011.  Some of the items are going to look much like they were for 2010, but maybe altered a bit after learning and experiencing this year, what’s possible and what’s not.

Another short post today.  I wanted to put up a couple of links I found today

First is the story of “May the Force be with Katie“.  I don’t know if you saw this a few weeks ago around the inter-tubes, but Katie really likes Star Wars and had a themed thermos she took with her to school.  That is, until she was shamed to not take it anymore because some kids told her Star Wars was just for boys.  The story has a great ending though as people from all over the internet rallied to support her, from the sheer number of comments left on her mom’s blog and the number of supporters on Twitter…well, it just made my day.  You should read the article as it provides an update to where Katie is today.  It’s a great story.

*sigh* Now for the other one.  I just saw who is going to be the chair of the House Science and Energy Committee.  If this means nothing to you, carry on.  If you want to depress yourself a bit, go ahead and follow the links in the story.

Good day to you.