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I am swiping this image from the blog of the aforementioned Todd Demong. Said image is of the main character for the latest project he and I are working on. It is beauty incarnate.

One hopes it will see the light of day in the coming year.

I'm thinking back on the year, which is not something I'm prone to do--the end of December seems a relatively arbitrary to for self-assessment. I guess I prefer to keep a running tab on my successes and failures. But after talking with Todd Demong this week, I looked back and discovered that it was sort of a crappy year professionally. Todd assured me that this was fine, and that one only really grows and learns when one fails--that successes teach you almost nothing. Viewed in that way, this year must have taught me a ton.

The same day I talked to Todd I was reading some poems by Walt Whitman (yeah, I read poetry, wanna make something of it?) and I came across these lines:

And Whitman knew a thing or two about losing the day, you know?

I'm attempting a few things in the new year. I suppose I'll have more opportunities to succeed or fail. 

I know which I'm hoping for.

I seem to have rediscovered Warren Zevon. And, perhaps because of my darker mood in this dreary season, I am fixated on his later albums, especially Life'll Kill Ya and The Wind. I have to admit that I feel like I'm punishing myself a bit when I listen to these albums. While I love them, they make me sad thinking about Zevon's premature death, about my own impending mortality and those of my loved ones. 

So I figured, Why not share the joy? Below you'll find another Warren Zevon video. This one is made by a fan and is a slide show of photos of Zevon from throughout his career. The song is Don't Let Us Get Sick, a song I can't seem to get out of my head lately. I find myself singing it to Oscar when I'm trying to get him to sleep. I am already saving for his future therapy bill.

Enjoy.

I found this on Karen Healey's LiveJournal. I decided I wanted to play along.

Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
• I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity. (NB: until I get bored.)
• Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
• Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.

Here are Karen's questions to me:

1. What was the best movie you saw this year?

Hands down,  the best movie I've seen so far this year was The Hurt Locker, Katherine Bigelow's film about a bomb disposal unit in Iraq. Beautifully acted, gorgeously shot and a powerful script. As near perfect a movie as I've seen in quite some time.

2. Who do you count as family that you're not actually related to?

A childhood friend with whom I grew up, Aaron Billingsley. No matter how long we go without contacting one another, we always fall back into a very easy relationship. In a lot of ways, my relationship with him is easier than my relationship with my actual family.

3. Who do you most admire?

That's a good question. I don't know if I have an answer. I'm afraid I'm too cynical to admire anyone, but if I can think of someone, I'll edit this post and add it. 

4. What's your wildest ambition?

That I might be able to support my family with my writing.

5. How have you been awesome lately?

I feel like I'm finally taking my life and my career seriously. 

There is new activity over at the Gear School blog. Alex Samaranch, one of the principals at Studio Fenix (if I remember correctly) has posted a couple of photos and small bit of text. WHat catches my eye is that the photos feature gear from James Cameron's new film, Avatar. The folks who designed the gear for the film obviously had the same design esthetic in mind as I did when I told Nuria and Sergio, "imagine that the guy who designed the Humvee also designed some fighting robots." I imagine it's not too hard to tell that one of my major influences for this esthetic comes from another Cameron film--the mech lifter that Ripley wears to fight the Alien queen in Aliens. 

I wear my influences on my sleeve.