2012
by Scott Hardie on January 1, 2013
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 »
Overheard
"Back when I sold real estate, I used to touch up the houses myself. It was a tough market, there wasn't money to pay for it. Anyway, this one house, I have the damnedest time getting the color in the living room right. Go »Bad Housekeeping
If you're lazy like me, there's not a right time to put away the clean dishes. Who cares if you use them one-by-one out of the dishwasher? But there *is* a right time to discover that they're still dirty, and that's long before you're putting away the last couple of items after eating out of the dishwasher for days. Go »My Hot Thanksgiving
It may have been a cold Thanksgiving up north, but it wasn't in my mother's apartment yesterday, where the air conditioning was broken and it was 80°. And that was before we turned the oven on for an hour to heat the food. We've ordered pre-made meals before from various businesses like Boston Market and Publix, but this year the only source we could find was Zoës Kitchen, a Middle Eastern chain restaurant. Go »Something Comes Along to Intervene
I've been enjoying "Meddle" and "Remedy" by Little Boots, two great electropop songs with catchy hooks, perfect for summer. But I didn't really take her seriously as an artist until I heard "Stuck on Repeat." It's pop music on acid, like Kylie Minogue produced by Captain Beefheart, and the unlikeliest hit song of the year. Go »All King and No Kubrick Make Jack a Dull Boy
I recently got to talking with friends who liked The Shining, both Stephen King's novel and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of it, but who were unaware that King has always loathed the movie, despite its reputation as one of the best horror films ever made. It's hard to imagine that a writer doesn't know his own work better than someone interpreting it, but I think this is one of those rare cases where the writer is just too close to the story to get it. Here are three reasons why I think Kubrick's film better understands the material, and is better overall, than King's novel: 1) In King's version, Jack Torrance is a fundamentally decent man who wouldn't hurt a fly, but who is down on his luck and desperate. Go »
