December Round-Up

Ahhh. December. I love December. Aside from some absolutely horrible work days, it was a great month. Let's take a look back, shall we?

Movies Seen: Fourteen, with none in a theater. I finally got around to seeing "The Dark Knight," and while I liked it, I do have one question for it: Why so serious? There's not a lot of joy in that movie. And by "joy," I don't mean there wasn't enough of "teh funny" or anything like that; I just mean that even after the chase sequences or cool fight scenes I wasn't compelled to utter a "Yeah!" of excitement. It was all just so...serious! Bottom line is, if I want to see a heavy handed movie about crime, I'd prefer it not involve a guy wearing a cape. As for Heath Ledger, I did think he was pretty great, even if his accent really grated on me after a while...

The biggest viewing disappointment--not necessarily the worst movie I saw, just the most disappointing--would be "Hamlet 2." I've read reviews calling the movie one of the funniest of the year, but I think I laughed three times at the most. I don't know. Maybe I just didn't get it.

Books Read: Three. One was a little book called "Compliments of the Season" about the history of the Christmas card that I picked up at the "The Great Dickens Christmas Fair," and it hardly qualifies as a book. The others were the first two books in the "Sookie Stackhouse" series of vampire mysteries that the HBO TV show "True Blood" is based on. They're pure pulp and as such are hard to put down. I read most of the first one on Christmas morning, (I got a set of the seven of the books as a Christmas present), and the second book in a weekend. If you've seen the show and like it, I recommend the books. Once you get past the first one, they aren't much like the TV show at all, and I hear the series is going to venture even further astray from the book series in season two.

Fancy Dinners Out: One, at Bix. It was awesome, as it always is. I hope that place never goes out of business; it's been around since the late 80's, and hasn't changed much since then, and for the most part, that's a good thing. It's a testament to its quality, I think, that it's been around as long as it has. It is pricey, though, so I'm not able to frequent it near as often as I'd like to...

Live Shows Seen: One, the San Francisco Ballet's version of "The Nutcracker," which I hadn't seen since, I think, I was in high school. Thankfully, they've updated their version, and it is much improved. I think my favorite part was the when with the snow queen and the snow flakes (?) are dancing in the fake snow. By the end of the piece, the stage was absolutely covered in fake snow. I'm sure it absolutely sucks to dance in, but it sure was pretty to watch. PBS aired this version as part of its "Great Performances" series over Christmas, so it will probably go into yearly rotation. Try to catch on TV it next Christmas.

Shoes Bought: No shoes were bought in the month of December because I had to save my money for Christmas presents. Tis better to give than receive, of course, but I have to say, I lucked out on the receiving end as I got a lot of loot, including a Wii (weeeeeeee!) lots of DVDs and books, and some assorted other goodies. A nice way to end the year, I tell you what.