Super Golden Friends

So - Anyone miss me posting?

Anyway, this was too funny not to share:

Hope you all are having an awesome summer!

Day 31: Favorite Part of the Season?

How can I choose?

So much is great! The music, the countdown, giving gifts and receiving gifts,
the food, the movies and specials!

But, most importantly, the best part is taking the time to spend moments with friends and family, reminding ourselves what and who is important in life.



This was a fun challenge!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, or whatever,
and I wish you all a great 2011!

Day 1: Favorite Tradition

Christmas Challenge Day 1: Favorite Tradition

Wow, so many to choose from! We do lots of things each year here!

I will have to say the new-ish tradition (a few years now) of celebrating Christmastime instead of 'just' Christmas Day.

From the day after Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, we celebrate Christmastime. It involves the spectrum of traditions and fun we all enjoy: decorating the house, watching the movies and specials we all love, listening to Christmas music, having friends and family over and, in turn, visiting family and friends. We also take one night to drive around and look at the lit-up houses around town.

Our Christmastime is non-religious, it is just about enjoying the time together and celebrating the warmth of family and friends.

Theme Thursday - Friend

Theme Thursday posted "Friend" as the topic this week.

I thought it would be a great opportunity to shine the spotlight on some of the people I have met online, people who have become more than just a weird name or a funny avatar. People who have become true friends.



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Ravyn (@ Ravyn's World)

I was going to limit this list to just friends, but I couldn't do it. I had to start with the one person, above all others, who has become not only my best friend but also my love - my wife, Ravyn.

We met way back in 1994, when this online world was still so new. We bonded as friends before we ever met, and fell in love when we did. We have been through so much since then, including raising all of our amazing children together.

We are coming up on 15 years since that first, 'real-life' meeting, and I wouldn't change one thing about any of it. She has shown me not only that there are good, caring, loving people in the world, but that I deserve all that for myself, as well. I only hope I have done the same for her.

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Jeff (JeffScape @ Irreverent Irrelevance)

I have known Jeff the longest, in terms of online friends (well, 2nd longest, if you count my Ravyn). We met a long time ago in a comic book chat or forum, I can't recall now.

Our mutual love for, and frustration with, the comic book world was a basis for a friendship that has withstood distance, overcome differences (me = settled family man/him = nomadic soldier) and grown with a shared passion for writing.

Jeff is as loyal and honest (and frustrating) as you can ask for in a friend, and even if he doesn't like to get all mushy about, I am thankful to know him.

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Cal (@ Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness)

I met Cal after stumbling across his blog a year ago. I was shocked and amused to find someone posting some many photos, links and anecdotes that I loved and identified with.

Over this past year, I have come to also know Cal as a great guy with a big heart, an eye for the beautifully strange and unusual and a prolific love for blogging that keeps me inspired.

Cal is also always vigilant in the war against the cephalopods, and we will be thanking him for it one day!

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Steve (Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein @ Monkey Muck & Dr. Monkey's Retro Blog)

I met Dr. Monkey earlier this year, we had a crossing interest in different blogs, and I soon came to appreciate the strange mix of content he offers daily.

His blogs can be a source of wonderful inanity, with posts featuring creative replacement dialogue mixed with cheesy photos or vintage pics. And the next day it can be a heartfelt post about something dear to him, or a rant about something that just inflames his sense of what is right.

Dr. Monkey is a man who has learned to love and enjoy life while still holding accountable those who need a good kick in the rear. Thanks for saying what some of us find hard to articulate, Doc!

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Hector (Curious George @ tvandcelluloid)

I met Hector about a year ago, on a forum for the show we both have a deep-seated love for, "Friday the 13th: The Series". It is a show that has an enduring appeal that goes much deeper than the 80s look it sports.

Hector and I agree on so many points regarding the show, it is amazing sometimes. But I was also taken by the good nature, laid back attitude and generosity that is just who he is.

He has had quite a roller coaster year, but he has maintained quite a positive outlook and a sense of humor about it all. I applaud him for always being able to look on the bright side, and wish him tons of luck in the new chapter he has just begun!

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Laura (@ The Aquaman Website and Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog)

Laura is another old friend, er... I mean long-time friend! We met when I surfed on over to her amazing, comprehensive site for all things Aquaman. I was as astounded by the work she put into the site as I was by the fact that there was another fan so fanatical about the King of the Seas. Back then, it seemed like we were few and far between.

I have known Laura throughout the ups and downs of our hero, and he has had plenty of those, but also through the ups and downs of normal life. She hasn't always had an easy voyage herself, but she keeps on keeping on, and I am always rooting for her.

I also owe the creation of this blog to her. Back in the Fall of '08, when she posted about one of her Blog-anniversaries, I was inspired to start this one myself. So, thanks Laura!

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I could go on and on, really. I have met so many great people here.

Jason Soto (@ Invasion of the B Movies), who shares a love for films that don't always deserve it, and those that deserve more attention than they get.

wiec? (@ when is evil cool?), who is not only quite prolific in his blogging, but also shares a passion for the pop culture world and horror flicks that makes me feel less alone in my weird tastes.

Otin (@ Wizard of Otin), a man with a talent for writing that is always surprising and engrossing. His twisted tales always entertain.

Brian Miller (@ WaystationOne), a man who has a love and appreciation for family and friends that is constantly expressed in great prose and poetry.

Mr. Beautiful (@ The Leroy Lockhorn Appreciation Society), who has a shared love for the wacky and weird comic The Lockhorns. There must be something wrong with both of us.

Gilligan (@ retrospace), a blogger who has an eye and heart for the cheesy, out-dated and always wonderful stuff from our pop culture past. He is an archivist of our groovy memories.

Rob (@ The Aquaman Shrine & namtab.com), a man who continues to amaze and inspire with the sheer amount he is able to accomplish each and every day. I wish I had half his energy.

Jon (@ Random Acts of Geekery, Saturday Morning Superstars, Dracula's Crypt of Collectibles and many more!), who entertains every day with his multitude of blogs, and inspires with his wonderful family.

George (@ Macabre Drive-In Theater), who spotlights the odd and obscure in the horror world we both love.

Carl (@ I Like Horror Movies), who has his finger on the pulse of the horror flicks, both old and new, good and bad, that I connect with.

Johnny (@ Freddy in Space & Win Free Horror Shit!), who has such a love for the horror world that he goes above and beyond to share it with the rest of us. Thank you for all your work and passion, man!

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If I missed anyone, it was not intentional. Like I said, I could go on and on.

Thank you all for making life entertaining, exciting, funny, strange and unusual.

I hope to always be your friend.

Joe

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For more Theme Thursday, click here ---> Family

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100th Post - And Some Thoughts...

Can't believe I have done a hundred of these posts. Time flies. Funny, too, that it coincides with something I have been thinking about for awhile, but was unsure how to put into words.

Recently I read a review that went into all the things that have been "wrong" with different aspects of the various Star Trek shows. One of them stuck with me and still annoys me.

The writer said that one of the problems with Star Trek: The Next Generation was that the main characters all "got along" and that was just too unrealistic for him. I thought that sounded so depressingly pessimistic! Why can't a bunch of highly intelligent and well disciplined people (as a Starship crew would be) all work at getting along and being friends? Is it that far-fetched of an idea?

Are shows where the main characters all antagonizing each other, or flat-out disliking each other, so ingrained in us now that we expect that to be the norm? Do we even WANT that to be the norm? Why can't a show that is supposed to be based in the future, with an advanced and progressive human race, be a nice place where people are capable of getting along?

This then got me thinking about the way we live now, or at least the way we seem to expect things to be. Is it wrong to want to live in a positive world, where optimism and good will are the rule rather than the exception?

It reminds me of this scene, from Knots Landing (jump to 9m 44s), after Gary dismisses Karen as a "Pollyanna":

Karen: "I wanna be a Pollyanna. I don't want to look at the world through rose colored glasses, I want the world to be rose colored. I want people to be nice. People should be nice. Nice should be the norm. I hate it that I can't trust anyone! I hate it that I can't put my daughter on the front lawn by herself! I hate it that I have to lock my car, and that I have to worry about an alarm system in my house, and I can't send cash in the mail! That's not the way it's supposed to be, Gary! I liked being a Pollyanna, I want to be a Pollyanna!"

I have to agree with a lot of what is said by Karen here: Why is it passé or naive to want the world to be a rose-colored place? Why is her positive outlook the one sneered at as silly?

Will Ferrell is a hit-or-miss comedian, but the character he played in Elf is a great one. Buddy is without sarcasm or pessimism, totally happy with the world and wanting it to be a good place filled with good people. Yeah, he grew up in the North Pole with happy little elves, but it is when he interacts with people in the "real world" that you see how out of place he is. And all he is doing is being positive, happy and upbeat. Why is he the one so out of touch?

Another example would be Phoebe on Friends. She is usually just taken as the daffy, flighty, air-head, but if you watch the character develop, she is wonderfully interesting. How many sitcom characters have a past that involves a dead-beat dad, a mom who killed herself, and a life living on the streets? Yet Phoebe is hardly ever morose and dark. She is upbeat, loving the world and her time in it. And yet again, she isn't the norm, but rather the "odd one".

I know - I am being naive. The world is too complex, filled with too many different people and cultures wanting, needing and doing different things. And it isn't bound to change any time soon.

Just sometimes makes me sad.

I guess the only way to help change things for the better is to just be one of the positive, upbeat, optimistic people, no matter how "cool" it is to be dark and pessimistic.

Maybe, someday, rose-colored will be the norm.