What a great year. Kelly and I got engaged. Kelly gained permanent employment and health benefits. We made lots of new friends locally, especially Amanda, Evie, and Wes. We paid off our car. We bought a freezer and organized our home. I'm proud of going way above and beyond to follow the Atkins diet even if it didn't produce results. I launched Pirate Paradise and re-launched Thorough Movie Reviews, and had fun with lots of other things on this site too. I resumed watching movies frequently, something I missed from years past. If it wasn't for losing our cat, losing GooCon, and an ongoing deficiency of discipline regarding food and money, I'd say it was just about a perfect year. Here's hoping for more continued good fortune in 2013, to you and to us all.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

Back in Black

Is it already the end of December? It feels like it's been three days since Thanksgiving. Between late nights at work, holiday parties, and shopping for the big day, this month has been a blur. Go »

Get a Clue

Among hard-core board game fans, an argument has raged for years now over preferences for European-style games and American-style games. European games emphasize strategy, trade, and abstraction, while American games emphasize luck, conflict, and detailed themes. European games also strive to keep every player involved as long as possible, rather than eliminating them. Go »

Downtown A-Town

I can't write about why I spent the week in Atlanta because it's too confidential and work-related, but I can say that I had a good time around the margins of that event. The first day was the only loss. I got so little sleep the night before (seemingly a part of every trip I take) that I spent it groggy and exhausted. Go »

Can't Blog Now...

....Must play Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion! I finally understand why they called that earlier game "EverCrack." Go »

Mars Needs Kitties

Thanks to Lori for sending me this: That gets me thinking: Do you think if people hadn't had the idea for crop circles until a decade later that the fad would have even happened? In this decade we have the tools on personal computers to fake images like this with photo-perfect results, and hoaxers could just distribute photos with the click of a mouse. Photos have been doctored for decades, of course, but now your grandma can do it, you know? Go »

Scott's Pet Peeve #2519

Why do some microwaves have a convenient quick-start option if you press 1 or 2 or 3, so that they instantly start cooking with 1:00 or 2:00 or 3:00 on the clock... but DON'T have this same functionality programmed into 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, which do nothing when pressed alone? How does an engineer possess both the vision to provide the former and the lack of imagination that results in the latter? Go »