Hope the holiday break was as reinvigorating for everyone else as it was for us. My computer took a shit and I had to get it fixed, hence the crickets and tumbleweeds over in this little corner of the internet for the past week or so. It was nice to step away for a bit, but I did get the feeling like the world was jogging away from me while I sat in a lawn chair and sipped hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps. Time to get off my ass! Time to get off your ass! Time to catch up with the world! Time to jog up to it and goose it as you run by it, then run backwards to face it and give it the two-fingers-to-the-eyes-I’m-watching-you move and then turn on the afterburners!

So what happened while we were away?

Someone came up with the best idea I’ve seen in a long time: Oprah, Read This [via]

Some people unleashed a final avalanche of year end lists and this guy made the definitive one. [via]

Some stuff got expensive.

Some big guns came to the aid of a Chinese writer.

Or wait, was this the definitive year-end list?

What else…um, some asshole set himself on fire on a plane, that blue cat alien movie made a shit-ton more money, and Rush Limbaugh didn’t die.

Some randomness from my week without cyber drugs:

Oh hey, Lexy. Who are you gchatting with?

Oh hey, Steve. Why’d you just close that gchat window?

Walking home from the store we found a park. I said it would be a perfect place to throw a ball or a ‘bee around. Magically, these were on the bench, waiting for us.

I lit off fireworks and danced on New Years Eve.

I drank but did not get drunk. While the ladies were inside dancing, the men leaned against a strangers car and talked about relationships. The first New Years where I felt old. I did not feel good or bad about being old. Just okay with it.

We bought fish. Not for keeping…

But for releasing.

To start the year off with some good karma.

In hindsight I realize this could potentially be environmentally irresponsible, releasing a goldfish into an ecosystem that isn’t used to it. I imagine I’d have a tsunami of bad karma coming my way if I destroyed an entire habitat.

Shit. Need to think these things through more.

Oh well. Here’s to hoping they don’t tip the balance too much.