It recently came to my attention that Yahoo! publishes year-long horoscopes. It seems like a lot of pressure. I'm barely able to plan out my week ahead, let alone million of strangers' years.

Though my faith in horoscopes is limited to non-existent (see Wikipedia's explanation of the Forer effect for details), I thought it might be fun to reflect on 2007's predictions.  Here goes.

"Balancing acts are something you do very well, and you'll be regular tightrope walker this year! You have a natural ability to patiently give people your valuable time, and weigh new ideas without jumping to conclusions. Lots of rewards both personally and professionally will come from being able to work hard creating various successful projects in your career."

Despite the bad metaphor, self-inflating language and cringe inducing grammatical error, not terribly far out. This year was certainly one of variety, thanks to IHSSA, the school play, mimes, Second City, Central, and work.

"Long-deserved appreciation for all the love, respect and uplifting energy you exhibit will connect you with new opportunities for advancement in 2007. It may be time to do some public speaking engagements. You have spent a lot of time mastering your communication skills, and you'll experience personal transformation in a deep and profound way. People listen to you because you have something important to say and know how to articulate what you mean. You could easily find yourself in the public limelight."

There were definitely some "opportunities for advancement" that came about (as previously listed), but they were borne more out of prior engagement/right-place-at-the-right-time than my oh-so-revered displays of love, respect and uplifting energy. Now that'd be something funny to see on a professional evaluation. "Subject is merely competent in workplace duties, however, we recommend this promotion based on the subject's love, respect, and uplifting energy." Sigh. I can only dream.

The home fires burn strongly this year as your interest in your family life sustains you. You are proud of your roots and your family bonds are very strong. Your softhearted nature -- exemplified by giving to your family without asking for anything in return -- comes naturally to you. Your nurturing gives people a deep sense of security and stability, and helps them to be more successful in their own lives.

The nature of the language used here fascinates the hell out of me. My family life sustains me? Hopefully "sustains" as in "The cheering crowd sustained the unconfident singer" rather than "after sustaining a major concussion, the patient passed away".

Also: these things are never depressing. I haven't bothered to look at each astrological sign's prediction, but I've yet to see a particularly pessimistic horoscope. There's something else I'd like to see. One day, I want my horoscope to say, "Are you really sure you want to read this? We suggest you browse through the comics. Perhaps you'd like to attempt today's crossword? Your Two Cents Worth is always a hoot. Well, if you insist...If we were you, we'd be saying one word right now, and that word would be: shit."

It's the astrological equivalent of your doctor saying "Uh-oh."

Anyway. This reflecting thing isn't going so well.

"Short trips and travel will intellectually stimulate you this year, and provide a refreshing change of scenery. Since you see the value of different pursuits and are optimistic to change, you will start new creative projects using your idealistic visions and wonderful imagination. You'll benefit from finding your inner resources and expressing them artistically. Creative writing could be greatly profitable for you this year. Sharpen your pencil and get going!"

Trips were indeed stimulating - particularly one to Chicago. And yes, it begot many creative projects, not to mention enhanced many in-development projects. 

Kind of appropriate, the creative writing thing: I concluded this year that it was what I was interested in majoring in. Hopefully it's profitable beyond 2007.

And that's the horoscope analysis.

As for the reflection itself: this year was very good and I was happy with how it played out. If 2008 turns out anything like 2007, it will be all the easier to consider myself particularly blessed.

Happy past year, happy past years, and happy new year. Thank you for being a part of my past, present, and (hopefully) future.

There's something both frightening and funny about these photoshopped pictures. It's famous people with their mouths for eyes.

As a lover of low-tech special effects and camera tricks, this is awesome.

In case you're reading this: merry Christmas to you.

I feel both a bit proud and a little ashamed to say that I made this.

In second grade, we learned about Koko the Gorilla. She was considered unique thanks to her ability to communicate with sign language.

For some reason we didn't cover this in the lesson plans.

When I get my own house someday, I want to have one of those bookshelves that's actually a secret passage. You'd have to pull a certain book and then it'd open. But here's the twist: the secret room would actually be the bathroom.

That way, when people would ask, "Where's your bathroom?" I could walk them over to the bookcase and cryptically ask, "Have you ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?" Then I'd walk away.

New YouTube video: it's a stop-motion project.

Side note: when Zach (one of the guys in it) saw it with the music for the first time, he kept singing the song in it except he'd accidentally intersperse lyrics from the kids song "Sally The Camel".

"Let's ride, ride Sally ride."

The above lyric is not a suggestion to ride an animal/person named Sally, but instead a command to Sally The Camel.  As in using the word "ride" as a synonym for "go", since Sally ought to be going rather than riding.

This is kind of cool.

Movies I've recently seen:

• Mr. Bean's Holiday - Let me get this out of the way: I am a Mr. Bean fan.  If I ever talk to anyone who doubts the potential of silent storytelling, I command them to watch clips of the Mr. Bean TV series.  (Seriously; if you haven't seen any of the episodes, they're well worth your while.  It's surprisingly clever stuff.)  Anyway, this is the second and last Bean movie.  He wins a trip to France and crazy shenanigans ensue.  Not a bad movie by any means, but not a particularly good one either.  Overall it just felt watered down - there weren't as many "that's-logical-but-not-at-all-logical-at-the-same-time" moments as there were in the TV series and first film.
• Zoolander - I've been told that I need to see this movie too many times to count. Conclusion after viewing: it has its moments, but it doesn't have much else.  And when the moments have already been quoted to you to kingdom come, they don't hit as hard as intended.  (One exception: the word "eu-googly" got me every time.)  I'll give it this, though: the person who lent the movie to me said, "A lot more 'inside joke' moments will make sense after viewing this movie."  Fair enough.
• Requiem For a Dream: The film follows four addicts, leading up to the film's climax: a frantic and gruesome montage.  If I were asked, I'd give it five out of five stars, but (as Jordan and I concluded) it's one that I've got reservations using the words "enjoyed" or "liked" in association with.  Anyway: it's a really well made film, definitely disturbing, but definitely effective.  I've got no reservations calling it a modern classic.

What the hell?!  I don't even know what to say.  What am I supposed to say?!

"I am a new father and I cannot be there with my newborn child. Can the Zaky help?

If you must go away for a long period of time, leave a Zaky and a loving note to your partner that says something like: "I am leaving my hand so our baby feels my touch until I return..."

I finished up the first season of Heroes a few weeks ago.  I liked it a lot.  It was like a giant action movie.  Not something that takes a lot of mindpower to enjoy (i.e Lost) but it was fun all the while - on top of that, it was well written and well paced.

I was going to get started on the second season on one of NBC's websites, but unfortunately they don't have the season's earliest episodes on there - I'm not too sure why.  NBC withdrew from iTunes, so there's no (legal) way I can watch these episodes.  Do they want me to pirate episodes?

But I digress.  I got a little distracted by the first season of Dexter (as introduced to me by Kyle). The basic gist: Dexter is a blood splatter analyst for the Miami Police Department.  More importantly, he's a serial killer - albeit a serial killer with (kind of) a conscious.  He finds other serial killers who have beat the legal system and kills them.

As the protagonist of the show, we've got to at least tolerate the guy; the writers go one step further and make us actually like Dexter.  Though he lives his life pretending he's not a sociopath, he does an incredibly charming job doing so.  He's even got a girlfriend - a woman whose ex-husband was an unstable drug addict.  ("A girl nearly as messed up as I am," Dexter remarks in the show's omnipresent-but-not-at-all-annoying narration.)

The Dexter character is incredibly deep, but most importantly, he's likable.  Part of this is thanks to the show's writers.  "Dexter never chose to be a serial killer," they seem to say to us, "his brain was just wired that way.  However," they instill in us after only a couple of episodes, "he does choose to use his 'curse' in a way that is beneficial to society - he kills those who senselessly kill."  This opens up an interesting discussion viewers must consider; is it safe to call Dexter a "good guy"?

Another significant part of the character's strength goes to Michael C. Hall, who plays Dexter.  Hall does a great job of balancing. Dexter as a character is fun to watch, but not too fun to watch.  After all, he is a serial killer.

I'm only seen five episodes (there are twelve in the first season), but I can wholeheartedly recommend this show.  The story is well paced, the show's production work is spectacular, acting is damn solid, and the writing itself is a great mix of truly frightening crime scene mystery with macabre humor.  It's really a stretch to compare it to any other show I've seen.  Maybe you could call it Monk's evil cousin.

Anyway, it's a great show.  My entire family has taken to watching Dexter - and yes, we're completely aware of how weird it is that we watch the show as a family.  My Dad never fails to remind me after the credits roll: "A good family show."

The New York Times recently wrote an article about downtown Des Moines. Midway through the article, the writer comes to an unexpected conclusion:

"I’m not sure I would go so far as to say that Des Moines has become a
vacation destination. But it has most certainly become cool."

Anyway, this made the Des Moines Register very happy - so happy that they wrote an article...about the New York Times article. This article, by the way, was placed on the front page of the Business section just yesterday.

It's like someone told the nerdy kid on the playground that he wasn't so bad, and the nerdy kid overreacted and started making a big show of it. And at that point, the cool kids are thinking of retracting the nerdy kid's "not so bad" status.