Did you get a calendar for Christmas?

Michelle already got this blog off to a stellar start for the new year, but I wanted to jump in with a resolutionish post before 2006 gets too old.

I haven't read the word "2005" in the last three days without seeing it followed by "was a horrible and repugnant dungheap of a year" or something similar. Iraq, Katrina, The Dukes of Hazzard, South Asia, Benedict...it's hard to say much was good. And in all likelihood we Fullers won't look back on this year with fondness either.

But my ingrained habit of looking at the bright side plows forward, sometimes even to the point of annoying me. In 2005 I started a blog, became a US citizen, celebrated my fifth anniversary, welcomed my second child into the world, and um...finally watched The Graduate. Victor fell asleep.

But now we look ahead to another year. If you didn't get a calendar for Christmas, congratulations. You get to go to the store and pick one you like. And it will be on sale. Other than that, nothing much changes, but it is fun to write that first check of the new year and see how "06" looks in your own handwriting. Here's hoping yours isn't for a hospital bill.

I never make any resolutions, since that would involve admitting that I'm not already perfect. But I have pledged to lose two pounds for every five that Michelle loses. I think I'm ahead so far.

I've seen a lot of blog resolutions (blogolutions?) around books. Australian Alicia wants to read 25 books, while KP celebrates reading 93 in '05. It's never occurred to me to count. So I think this year I'll make a resolution to count how many books I read. Then I'll know how many to pledge to read in 2007.

Rachel and Jenell are in the habit of reviewing each book they read on their blogs. I will not do this, because not only are my opinions not as interesting as theirs, the books I read are nowhere near as cool. For instance, the last few would have looked something like this:

n -- The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A unique writing style and memorable characters make this a book that you read four years ago. As I read it I gained a new appreciation for the complexities of life in the heart of Africa and a new disgust for the United States. To go with my old one.

n+1 -- Is Your Mama a Llama? by Deborah Guarino
At the urging of my son, I gave this book a 139th look. Its clever rhyme scheme and charming illustrations still don't make me want to stab myself in the eye with a Hot Wheels forklift.

n+2 -- A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Being a well-churched college graduate conformist from Nowhere, Saskatchewan (Middle district), I found much to connect with in this gut-wrenching and inspiring autobiographical account of a battle with drug and alcohol addiction. He says fuck a lot.

So I'll spare you the details and just count them. I am tempted, however, to do a series of movie reviews. I don't see anyone else doing that. So I hereby resolve to see 100 movies this year, and write a paragraph on each one until I get bored or you tell me to cut it out. Let's see how it goes...

1 -- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Michelle and I actually saw this on New Year's Eve, but it seems like a good place to start. It was good enough. They didn't ruin it. There were a number of things I would have liked to see done differently. Doesn't anyone else remember that Aslan is supposed to be the size of a small elephant, not a small lion? And at no point in the movie was he frightening or wild. At the end of the movie Tumnus tells Lucy, "He's not a tame lion." Could have fooled me. But great landscapes and costumes, pretty good battle choreography, faithful adaptation (no pun intended).

2 -- Kill Bill Vol. 1
Yes, I am this far behind. You'll get used to it. Mostly this is just a bloodbath that is probably redeemed by more plot development in Vol. 2, but one thing you must remember is that Quentin Tarantino loves style, and in this one he packs it in. The man knows movies, knows what they can do, and he's not afraid to do it. Forget realism, forget detail, Quentin is going to give you bad guys, he's going to give you guns and swords and weapons that have never actually existed, he's going to give you cool cars and cool effects and cool fights in cool restaurants with cool billboards in the background if you care to notice them. And he's going to ooze style all over your living room rug.

I saw this one a few weeks ago, but I have to give a mention to Donnie Darko. Brilliant. If you've never seen it, it's worth checking out. On a recent list of the top 50 independent films of all time which I'm not going to dig through KP's archives to find again for you, it was number 2 (to my man Quentin). It's kind of a cross between...um...Back to the Future and Hellraiser. Maybe. I dunno. It's good. Happy New Year.