Pre new year's eve thoughts

I have just been humbled in claiming a couple of honors.  I was the third-most comments on Lizard Happy, and then I got best comment of the year on Life By Chocolate!  I am so stoked, I wish I would have done a little more research while I was combing posts for the contestants in the 2015 Time Machine Beauty Contest, coming up soon!  Unfortunately, I think it might be a little late to copy Robyn, and Blogger doesn't give you quite the stat variety that WordPress does.  In fact, I see that Blogger stats helpfully skip from "last month" to "all time".  But you know me and stats, and I am dutifully climbing through the comment lists as I type this, looking for who commented the most (although I suspect a certain renegade fellow Timelord will be at the black heart of that one).  In the mean time, I'm feeding Scrappy his dinner at 8:10 PM (and he's lucky to get that, since he ignored his breakfast for 7 hours, eating it at 3 PM).  And since 7:30 to 8:30 is usually snack time, he's now looking at me for that at 8:15!  And seeing that when I get to the end of January 2014, I'll only have 47 PAGES to go through... uhh, not happening.

Neither are the treats, sorry.

Although I was amazed at the places you can find your blog on the internet when you go looking for it....

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So I just got done looking into Todd Starnes' story on this week's Newsweek feature.  For those not in the know (and I wouldn't bother looking), an author- and I'll play a game here, I'll bet he is a university prof from either the northeast of California (no offense, J Day and Juli), 55 to 65 years old, has a degree in some sociology type only-get-a-job-with-this-degree-teaching-in-a-liberal-college thing, had dark rimmed glasses and a salt-n-pepper beard- takes all the worst moments of so-called Christians and misguided social crusaders, spreads the type out to include all Christians, and posits that we don't know the Bible at all.  Then he proceeds to misapply anything in the Bible he ever claimed to read (" I Timothy is one of the most virulent anti-woman books in the Bible..."), so that he can build to a crescendo conclusion that the Bible is a mistranslated forgery, and Christians don't know what's in it or how to apply it.

I thought about challenging this douchington here, but why bother?  Anyone without an atheist agenda will already recognize it for the pseudo-intellectual hack journalism it is;  Any Christian who bothers to give it more than the cursory skim I gave it may well be a troll looking for fodder; and the author certainly would reject any refutation on the basis that, like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, it would make him appear less like the god he currently is in his own eyes.

So why bring it up?  Both to point out that a once-respected news magazine (yep, there was a time once), has jumped the shark on credibility and has joined the cadre of sources that the Anti-Christ can check off his list of approval as a yes.  Oh, and the big laugh I got out of the "subscribe for $1.25 a month" ads sprinkled throughout the article.

Oh, I didn't come real close- former investigative for the NY Times, bald as a cueball.  Best known for picking the guts out of Enron and turning it into a (surprise) NY Times bestseller.


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Wow, December 30th.  I would have to say that, if you subtract the merry month of May, this has been a pretty good year here.  Sure, me and Scrappy are breaking down faster than you can fix us.  And the rent went up $36 a month.  And the car spent the summer making an annoying clicking because of two expensive parts it wouldn't even need if it wasn't "smart".  And I had a kidney stone start in just miles from Cleveland on the way home.  But we got it pretty good.

I think of people like Skippy and Juli and Mad Jack and their health concerns.  Others (obviously unnamed) with financial disasters, marital cliffhangers, life changes.  If the worst thing on my list is having to cut my salt and sugar intake so my head doesn't blow clean off, God has been VERY good to us this year.  And Clara stayed on Doctor Who!

And I think perhaps you can see why I say, that's a GOOD thing!

So for a second straight year, I'm not so trepidatious about the looming year ahead.  If I can just keep ignoring the growing number of Kurt Eichenwalds (the aforementioned cueball), keep up on the rent, and find a way to not strangle a certain four legged pest tonight, things should be okay.

To close this out, here's where we roll the year end credits in blogland.

For the laughs and great comments from A Beer For The Shower, thank you.
The wit and wisdom of Arlee Bird and his various blogs, I thank you- including turning me onto the early Seals and Crofts!
For all those who have either left blogging or just took an indefinite hiatus this year, like Alisa, Nain, and Leslie Moon, thank you.
Stephen T McCarthy, for the deep and the non-deep.  Thank you, Brother.
For the BOTB people- Robin, Larry, FAE, and the rest- thank you.  Special thanks to Robin for the times I got one of her Here's To Yous.
For Elsie, Susie, Miss Kris,  Rawkin Robyn- the wonderful ladies I have met electronically- thank you.

For the FB friends that I have gained from blogging- Kelli, Holli, Barb, and Doria-you are very special.  Thank you.

For the two great ladies that made blogging so fun in my early days and are more than just FB friends now- Trish and Tracy.  Thank you.

For Al Penwasser- what, you want thanks?  I bought two of your books, for pete's sake!  And I thank you for writing them.

For Roland Hansen, despite our disagreements, I've a feeling that under the electronic skin, we have a lot more in common than different.  Thank you.

For the closest two... Norma and Bobby G.  What, indeed can I say?

And if I missed anybody, thank you. And I did... I've caught three in the hour since I posted this!  Now stop scrolling looking for your name and have a great new year!