Fast away the old year passes

So much for 2004.

We got — or, more accurately, condemned ourselves to — four more years of Bush 43.

The Boston Red Sox finally got off the schneid after 86 years and won the World Series. Halley's Comet comes around as frequently as BoSox champuionships.

At the box office, we got more. More Shrek, more Spidey, more Harry, more Bourne, more Ocean. Can we possibly get a major motion picture that isn't a retread of something we've seen before? Not that any of these five sequels were bad — they all, in their own ways, exceeded their predecessors. But what fun it would have been to see these same five groups of talented filmmakers do something entirely original for a change.

We also got Mel Gibson flogging the Lord to a bloody pulp, which I'm still not sure is a good thing. (The film, not the event itself. Horrific as it is to contemplate, it's still the signal event in the history of humankind. But a movie about it...? I dunno. I'll stick with the book, thanks.)

On the tube, we got even more of the same old, same old. Yawn. Wake me when someone decides to put something truly innovative on the idiot box. Then again, if that's when you wake me, I'll be Rip van Winkle.

In the news, lots of people died, not the least of which were the 120,000 and counting poor souls who were lost to the year's most horrific event, the Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Among the names, they didn't get much bigger than Ronald Reagan and Yasser Arafat. Pierre Salinger and former Queen Juliana passed from the world stage. Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, was DOA. The self-destructive Ken Caminiti and the tragic Pat Tillman both departed, under dramatically different circumstances. Marlon Brando died, after years of having survived his career, and Janet Leigh died, for real this time, and without the screeching violins. Captain Kangaroo and Detective Lennie Briscoe died. So did Felix Unger and Superman. Weezie Jefferson "moved on up." Ray "The Genius" Charles and Rick "Super Freak" James moved...well, in Rick's case, perhaps not "up." Julia Child said her last "Bon appétit" and Rodney Dangerfield his final "I don't get no respect." Astronaut Gordo Cooper took his last celestial trip, as did Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who'd probably talked as much about death as anyone who'd never done it.

And far, far too many young Americans courageously sacrified their lives defending a bankrupt foreign policy built on an intelligence failure that has yet to be adequately explained.

For my part, I'm very much alive, thank you very much. Another year older. Wiser, not so much. I kept (sometimes in spite of myself) the business afloat for another 12 months — if you knew me at all, you'd know that my ongoing successful self-employment is little short of miraculous. KJ changed jobs after nearly two decades and, to no one's surprise, became instantly indispensible in her new company. KM climbed back onto the honor roll after a challenging freshman year, and continues to love horses.

I taught a couple of hundred lessons, some of them even worthwhile. I edited a bunch of reviews for DVD Verdict, and wrote hardly any — a trend I'm determined to reverse in the coming year.

I built my comic art collection. More cool stuff is on the way.

And I started this blog. Not only started it, but kept it alive long after I had to. Now, some days, it keeps me alive.

May the coming year bring you and those you love health and peace, dear reader. May the world catch a break or two now and then, for all our sakes.

Thanks for tuning in. Let's keep up our acquaintance in '05, shall we?