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. Lord help me if I ever have a kid. :-P

I have a brand-new four-day weekend to enjoy, and three of those days are devoted to this site. One change won't be popular, but I'm also going to fix some things around here that need improvements, and I hope to put up some better goos than the scattershot ones that I barely managed to get up in the last few days. Stay tuned.

I'll say to you the non-holiday message I've been saying to everyone else: Have a wonderful long weekend.


Two Replies to Back in Black

Jackie Mason | December 24, 2006
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Scott Hardie | December 24, 2006
There are certain traditions that I'm happy to join, such as the trading of gifts and the taking of a day off from work. :-) Aimee Mann has a great new Christmas album out, but I bought it because it was a new Aimee Mann album.


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 »

Gigantism

Thanks to a friend who couldn't use them, I scored They Might Be Giants tickets to replace the broken Valentines gift that I originally bought for Kelly. We took in the show last night with two other friends who happened to be going, Nathan and Raquel, and it was a great time. Most of my concerts have been metal, so I'm used to screaming and head-banging, and I didn't exactly know how to get into the music, especially since I was the least familiar with the TMBG catalog. Go »

Pandora

[This post wound up being very long-winded and self-absorbed, but that's what blogs are for, I guess.] For years, I've gotten increasingly picky about how I listen to music. Sometimes I just want to listen to everything I have on shuffle, but sometimes I want to get more specific like only music from one genre on shuffle or all songs by one artist in chronological order, and sometimes I want to get really specific, like songs about dreams or artists from Michigan or recordings featuring violins. Go »

The Aggravation of Blog Readers by the Movie-Spoiler Scott Hardie

The upcoming Western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has looked appealing to me for a while now. (I originally used a pic of Brad Pitt in character for the Jesse James goo.) Great cast, great photography, great old-fashioned title. Go »

Ten Stress-Relieving Tips for Visiting Walt Disney World

I know a few people visiting the self-proclaimed Happiest Place on Earth for the first time in 2008, and I've been there a lot, so here's what I tell them. 1) Go during the off-season: Between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, or between New Years and Valentines Day. The hotels are a fraction of their normal cost, the Florida weather is dry and cool, and best of all, park attendance is at a minimum. Go »

When Anxieties Attack

It feels weird to write about a fairly minor health incident in my life after someone else on this site just went through a major crisis. But people have been asking since Kelly's cryptic Facebook comment on Tuesday morning and I guess I should explain. I had been working every night last week on a project for work and getting a couple of hours of sleep each night, which turned into an all-weekend thing, and the avalanche of tasks didn't stop when the site launched early Monday morning. Go »

Risky Games

Here's plugging two games that I've been enjoying lately: Dice Wars is a good little miniature online game for one person, playable in about 20 minutes and very satisfying for its size. The text below the game explains the rules, but suffice to say, it's basically Risk but built to be played rapidly thanks to some rule simplification and a very swift AI. (Thanks for suggesting it, Joandy!) Go »