One thing that's been abundantly clear to me about "maintaining" (*) my review site and blog this year: Inertia is a bitch.

* I feel the word "maintaining" requires quotes at this moment, seeing as Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox have been running from an explosion on my home page for more than three months now — never my intention when I posted that image. (**)

Back last December I was faced with a panic situation. I still hadn't written most of the BSG season 4.0 reviews, and season 4.5 was breathing down my neck. I had precious few weeks to write more than half a dozen reviews that I knew would be long and detailed and exhausting (because I was dealing with the exciting and much-to-discuss final season of BSG). And as I had that weekly deadline of 4.5 episodes always threatening me, it forced me to turn out my reviews on a breakneck (for me) schedule so I could keep up. Then the final episode aired and I was off the hook and could sigh in relief. No wonder it took me six weeks to finally post the finale review. (Read more...)

From the personal files: I bought a house last week. Here's a rundown of what moving has entailed. This does not go into details about the buying part in the month leading up to this week.

Monday, April 21: I closed on the house at 9 a.m. It only took about 20 minutes. Apparently when you finance a mortgage with a credit union it's a lot less paperwork than with a bank. I only had to sign my name about 20 times, which is far less than many closings, my lawyer told me. I spent much of the day on the phone changing addresses and phone numbers on my credit cards and bank accounts. (Read more...)

It's strange how the changes of the seasons work. It's summer, and then, suddenly, it's winter. Or at least that's how it feels. There's a month or so of transition (it used to be called "fall," but it seems that fall barely exists anymore, it's so damn short) and then you go from hot mode to cold mode and stay there for months on end.

Once you're mired in the season (actually, I'll apply the term "mired" to winter and "immersed" for summer, since winter is more of a chore), it feels like forever ago since the previous opposite season happened and forever again until it will arrive again. (Read more...)

Today, the day after Thanksgiving, is "Black Friday," the busiest and most insane shopping day of the year. Every year the story is the same: We see the news reports about the lengthy lines at the major retail stores and all the "great deals" — and there's always inevitably a headline out of somewhere about how a fight broke out at Wal-Mart over $50 DVD players or something. (The $50 DVD player as a Great Deal, which led to a fight/headline a few years ago, is already a humorous anachronism; now $50 DVD players are a dime a dozen.)

I'm here to announce the painfully obvious, which is that Black Friday is colossally absurd. It's one of the most ridiculous examples of media/marketing-manufactured hysteria that I can think of. Retailers should be ashamed of themselves for encouraging this annual mess — far more ashamed, even, than for starting Christmas season on Nov. 1.

I will demonstrate this not with my usual rant, but with an anecdote. (Read more...)

I'm on vacation with Kathy and her family in South Haven, Michigan. We're in a house less than a block from the lake. The weather is beautiful. (Read more...)

Here's some food for thought: If you are running a web site, make sure that you maintain as much control over your domain name as you can. That sounds like a no-brainer, but I made a mistake back in 1999. I realized it later but I let it go for a long time (years) and I didn't rectify that mistake until 2006. In trying to rectify it, I thought it was going to turn into a major pain in my ass. In the meantime, I almost unknowingly made an even bigger mistake. (Read more...)

Today, my friend and coworker Mike and I went out to a gun range and shot a box of ammo at a paper target.

A hobby that Mike acquired a year or two ago is clay target shooting with a shotgun. He had explained to me the complexity and sportsmanship of shooting on a clay target range. From what he described, it sounds pretty hard. He finds it relaxing. Me — I don't know if I'm up for another hobby. Between reviews and this blog, it's not like I need a new recreational time-filler to tackle. (Read more...)

For a long time now — I'm not sure exactly how long — I've obsessed over the length of the daylight. All year long, my internal way of marking the passage of the year (aside from obvious things like, you know, calendars) is observing how long the days are. I've noticed the length of the days for as long as I can remember, but I'm not sure when I really started obsessing over it. (Read more...)

So I'm 16 years old, and I'm in the basement of Bernie's house. Bernie's parents have a lot of money, and their basement is a cornucopia of entertainment for high school students who are bored. We haven't had our driver's licenses very long, but there's only so much driving around you can do. (Read more...)