I'm calling it the Christmas2Christmas Review because I really wanted to use a title incorporating a number which acts as a word. See, the "2" acts as "to" and connects last Christmas to this Christmas in a really neat way. Additionally it gives me a little visual trick - I can use the 2 with no spaces around it. If I tried it with the word, it would look like ChristmastoChristmas, and then people would ask me if I'm celebrating the new Greek holiday "Christmasto" (kris-MAS-toh) and that would be uncomfortable. My other title ideas were "52 Week Pickup", which is a takeoff on an hilarious card game my parents used to trick us with when we were kids; "My 30th Year: What Have I Done?", which has a more reflective quality and a cute double meaning; and my last choice was "Read My Last 33 Posts", which is just rude.
LAST CHRISTMAS I GAVE YOU MY HEART...
Let's start there. It's been one year since I proposed (SBBEYAS nominee), and in that time you could say...I've been busy. I maintained the engagement, got married, and now have two wonderful children, 9 and 7. It took some real parenting to raise rapidly aging kids in just one year, but we did fine and they seem to have a well adjusted life. After the new year, we're shopping for colleges!
Weddings were a theme of the past year, and they helped me rack up the frequent flier miles: Matt Murray's wedding in Northampton, MA in March; Josh Pepper's wedding in June back home in G.R., which ended with a lost wallet (SBBEYAS nominee); my cousin Beth Ann's wedding in G.R. a few weeks later over the 4th of July weekend, which gave Annie and me our only cottage trip of the year; and finally, our wedding in Chicago. Of the 4 weddings, mine was the best because I got to go on the Honeymoon.
We visited Chicago multiple times this year, including an early wedding planning session in January where we tried to get some amateur engagement photos. Problem was, it was -93 degrees (with the windchill) that weekend and smiling for pictures meant your face would freeze that way. But we picked our reception site and surveyed a couple other locations. We also hit Chicago in May, in August for our wedding, and at the end of October for a mini-vacation with Annie, after I finished nearly 3 straight weeks of travel for work, which included a stop in Chicago.
I turned 30 this year (5 months and 5 days after my wife did). In related stories, my company went bankrupt and emerged, and our house started falling apart. Seriously, as I'm writing this, I'm waiting for the plumber to come to fix our 2nd faulty shower of the year. The past two nights I spent time Gorilla Gluing pieces of our stone tile countertop back together, which involved moving the dishwasher out - not something I do every day. Last week I spider-bombed our basement, and in order to safely fill your basement with toxic fog blasters, you have to turn off things called "pilots". Apparently, both our water heater and furnace have them. Luckily I read that instruction before I did the fog thingy, so our house didn't explode. I have to admit though, that whole process caused me incredible anxiety. First, I had to deal with the fear that I would improperly stop/start the gas pilot functions. They put very strong wording on those labels that say "IF YOU SMELL ANY GAS WHATSOEVER IMMEDIATELY LEAVE THE PREMISES AND DO NOT LIGHT A MATCH LIKE YOU DO WHEN YOU SMELL GAS IN YOUR BATHROOM". Secondly, my brain envisioned legions of spiders sensing their impending doom and scrambling from all corners and cracks in the basement to jump on my head and neck as I ran upstairs to let the killer fog do its work. Blessedly, I saw not a single arachnid and haven't since. In summary, turning 30 for me meant a lot more housework, and our house is certainly obliging. My body actually feels fine, and I'm in decent shape after spending more time in the gym the past 2 months than I had in the past year. That's not a cry for help, right? "Hey, after 29 years without a single shred of desire to lift heavy metal bars, I think I'll start lifting heavy metal bars and grunting more!"
ARE YOU GOING TO TALK ABOUT SPORTS?
Well, duh. The best moment was clearly Lloyd Carr's final game with Michigan. A high scoring battle with Florida, a bowl win, lots of winged helmets in the air - a great way to start 2008! Little did we know it would be the only positive Michigan football story of the entire year, and maybe the next few. I made my first attempt at a Super Bowl ad review on my blog in February, revealing the fact that since I never have a team to care about in the Super Bowl, I'm now in that group of people that finds the commercials more interesting than the game. The Pistons won a whole bunch of games again, and ran out of gas in the playoffs again. They seem to be poised to repeat the feat this season, even with the addition of Allen "Practice?" Iverson, who is the reason Detroit traded my favorite dude of this era, Chauncey Billups. I'm further ticked because I have a t-shirt with Chauncey's name/# on it, and I don't want to have to buy new team gear for those days when I really, really need to show how much I love my home teams by wearing shirts. What if we showed our loyalty to, say, hair care products in the same way? "Dude, nice Suave shirt. You jumping off the Dep bandwagon?"
Let's see, what else? The Tigers added a bunch of dudes you've sort of heard of, then did much, much worse. I'm pretty sure the Wings won the Stanley "Stan" Cup but I maybe watched 2 periods of hockey all year, and they were the last 2 periods of the Cup-clinching game. Some fan! If you're in Michigan, the cold and prevalence of ponds just sort of makes you watch more hockey. Here in Utah, hockey takes a major backseat to skiing, the Jazz, and producing children. And back around to Michigan Football which, as we all know, lost to their 3 major rivals (Utah, Toledo, Northwestern) during their worst season EVER. But hey, the basketball team is back, baby! We owe West Virginia half a thank you.
STIZL, WE REALLY WANT TO KNOW WHAT WORDS AND PHRASES YOU WISH WOULD DIE, SINCE NO OTHER PEOPLE THINK TO WRITE ABOUT THAT
Actually, a surprising few columns were available on this subject. Lake Superior Sate University apparently has this topic locked up. Really? We can't do better than that? Harvard, Yale, and Davenport were too busy to put one of these together? [Note: When I researched this, LSSU had their 2008 word list - today, it shows the 2007 version...not sure why. Check back maybe.] Anyway, a few phrases have been bugging the crap out of me, so now I will talk about them, proliferating their existence on the interweb for eternity:
1. "We overcame a lot of adversity" Alternate misuse: "We've had lots of adversity" (generally in sports): Athletes and media love to talk about the momentous hurdles facing teams and individuals in sport, like "the opponent also likes to win" and "sometimes you get owies". I heard a QB from a football-factory powerhouse, who was 11-1 at the time, talk about the "great adversities" they "overcame" to "get to where they were at". Aside from the poor grammar, what great adversity did you face? Losing one game? Injury? Those things affect every single team/individual in all sports in all corners of the earth for all time. Those things are normal, not unusually challenging or contrary or even unlucky!
2. "From Wall Street to Main Street" (politics/media): Uh, yeah - let's go ahead and group all companies, all people, all communities into two convenient groups (which happen to make a clever, poetic phrase). On one hand, "Wall Street" - an actual place, but the idea of which has become completely un-relatable and, frankly, disreputable to most Americans; and on the other hand, "Main Street" - a quaint reference to small town, middle-American communities which is myopic if not condescending. Thanks for this one, Economy!
And the best one of the bunch from LSSU's 2008 list:
3. "It is what it is": This vague phrase is often used when someone totally under qualified is asked to comment on a very specific issue. I'd explain it further but it's just, well, it is...
STIZL'S BLOG BLOG ENTRY OF THE YEAR AS AWARDED BY STIZL
Thanks to all those who commented on their favorite posts, lines, or topics this year. I received over 3 suggestions for the SBBEYAS, a new record! Several posts discussed pants, and those seemed popular. But the runaway winner, and the reason to start this review at Christmas, is...
Ring A Ling.
(wild applause, awwwws from the ladies, groans from the guys...)
WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?
Don't invite Sue to a surprise party.
Also, you absolutely do NOT have to enter microwave times in :05 increments! I don't know why this unwritten law seems to control our actions, but it does. And you don't even have to use only :15 or :30 multiples either. What, like if your oatmeal is set for 1:30 it will be perfect, but 1:26 it's lukewarm soup, and at 1:48 it's burning oat-paste? And think about this: Every time you enter, say, ":30" on the microwave, you waste a ton of energy by moving your finger from the 3 at the top to the 0 at the bottom. Next time, just try hitting ":33". If you're not big into saving fractions of seconds on finger motions, then just do random #s that are near enough to your target time - :47 to reheat your coffee, maybe. It's fun - trust me, you'll feel like you're doing something naughty. And we all know, in today's depressing economy, we need to find elements of fun in the little things, like microwaving or putting on seatbelts (SBBEYAS nominee).
Speaking of the depressing economy, hope you had a Merry Christmas!
