Today I...

....mailed my “Thank You & Happy New Year” cards to various friends and family.

...cut my hair. The moment I turned the razor off I heard a mournful inquiry from my mom in the other room asking, “Why did you do that? You were starting to look so nice...” If she had her way, I'd still be parting my hair and wearing a bow tie. Short hair is just easier to manage for me, especially since mine curls in unflattering ways if it grows too long. Given a choice between Wolverine on a bad hair day and Matt Lauer, I think the choice is obvious.

...drove through sunshine and breathed outside air. The weather was far too crummy and I stayed in my room far too much this weekend. I've realized in the past that my brain turns to pudding when I don't go out for extended periods of time, but sometimes I forget on these long weekends.

...took some great pictures for tomorrow's post. I guarantee they'll be better than lame pictures of melted snow.

...hoped I was about to hear ”The Unforgiven”, only to have the opening chord shift as ”The Unforgiven II” played instead. The only thing worse than an inferior sequel to a great song is the bait-and-switch of having the first sound be exactly the same. Why DO I listen to the radio?

...had a rock tossed at me by angry birds. I was walking on the beach slowly toward some seagulls, and a few started to run. As I quietly told them it was okay, I heard loud cries overhead. I looked up and at first thought there were a pair of geese circling me. They were brown, larger than the seagulls and smaller than geese however. Something fell from one of them and my first panic stricken thought was that it was relieving itself. I jumped back as something hit the sand with a loud “THUD!” and sunk a bit under it's own weight. When I realized it was a chunk of broken asphalt, I got the hell out of there.

...discovered that my favorite online game would not be returning. A while back, the creator of the game shifted his focus to a newer version, but kept the old one open for people who still wanted to play that one. At some point, when he closed that edition to new members, we should have seen the signs. Still, nearly 200 players still logged on every day. A week ago while performing upgrades on the new game, he took the old one offline. There was no word on whether or not it would be back up, and tonight he finally revealed its fate officially. I spent a long time, far too long, building up my character's statistics and while I'm sorry to see the game go, especially so abruptly, in a way it's good. I won't be playing the sequel, and the time I once wasted on the original can be devoted to better, more creative pursuits. Starting next month I'll be taking a 10-week online writing class that hopefully won't impact my posting here too much. Extra time can only be a good thing now.

...organized my sidebar a bit better and added a link to a ”BEST POSTS OF 2005” call-for-entries. I read about it over at Janet's, who's actively campaigning in The Best of Blog Awards herself. Feel free to cast your own votes and nominations if there are any posts or blogs you'd like to share.

...ended tonight's post with a list of my favorite Christmas movies, as promised in a comment elsewhere. In no particular order with or without reasons:

Home Alone(“The old man got to me!”-George Costanza)

Scrooged

Mickey's Christmas Carol(the definitive version of this classic)

Die Hard(“Yippee-ki-yay, m***erf***er!”)

The Nightmare Before Christmas(“I AM the Pumpkin King!”)

Jingle All the Way(OK, not really. But I did catch it on television a few years back and it wasn't terrible)

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus(note that it shares voice talent with Thundercats)

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer(Is this long enough to count as a movie? If not, then I might have to compile a second list of Christmas specials, with this at the top closely followed by Charlie Brown)

It's a Wonderful Life(I was late coming to this party, peering in over the years but never actually going. When I finally saw it, I loved it.)

There are probably others I've forgotten, so feel free to comment with any I may have missed, intentionally or otherwise.