28.5

Hello! I hope everyone had a wonderful holidays! I took a break from blogging, albeit a longer one than I had originally intended. Now I'm back in full effect, yo! (Insert the sound of my wife Tracy saying, "Hey, 1986 called and it wants its slang back.")

So what's been going on for the last three weeks or so while I've been not blogging?

--I went to the doctor for my annual "when-I-have-health-insurance" physical and got a mostly clean bill of health, although I was dismayed to learn that my body mass index indicates that I am officially overweight (I came in at 28.5--25-30 is too much) and my iron count is a tad low. The solution: more exercise and iron supplements. Getting older officially sucks.

--I did get older, turning 37 on December 26th. Yea me. Boo me.

--Pakistani presidential candidate Benazir Bhutto was assassinated less than three months after returning home from exile. Current Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf swears he had nothing to do it. He also claims to have no idea where Osama bin Laden might be hiding. This is probably a blog for another time.

--The WGA is on strike and most television shows are on hiatus. I'm saving this line in my personal folder because I'm sure I'll be "Alt-V"-ing it into my spring and summer posts as well.

--I saw SWEENEY TODD, JUNO and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. All were very, very good indeed, but JUNO was probably the smartest, freshest and most incisive movie I saw from 2007. I no longer do conventional Top Ten lists, but I can say that if you are looking for a good movie to go see in theaters or an excellent DVD to rent, you could do a lot worse than the following: American Gangster, Talk to Me, The Namesake, Knocked Up, A Mighty Heart, In The Valley of Elah, The Kingdom, Superbad, Waitress or The Black Book (in addition to the Big Three movies in CAPS.)

--Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee won their party's respective Iowa caucuses. That loud choking sound you hear in the far off distance is the sound of both Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney gagging on their respective campaigns.

--The New England Patriots finished their regular season 16-0, becoming the first NFL team in 35 years to go undefeated in the regular season. I'd write about this in my sports blog, but thinking about the Patriots makes me want to gag. Has their ever been a more unlikeable collection of personalities on a great team in pro sports history?

--I had a wonderful white Christmas in the great snowy Rocky Mountains and I hope wherever you're reading this you did too.

Peace and may 2008 bring us a Democratic president and an end to the occupation of Iraq.