Okay, here's some video, in chronological order:

For best results, click 'Watch in high quality' under the right-hand corner of the video screen.

Wedding

Vegas

New Zealand

Australia

Good stuff, eh?  Happy New Year.

 Okay, less than a month between blog posts, that's not too bad.  Especially with the chaos of the holidays.  Hope all my readers had enough time to forget about the dumb predictions I made last year, namely that Al Gore was OBVIOUSLY about to enter the presidential race, and of course that John McCain had the election all sewn up.  Also, I have yet to follow through on any of my promises to post ANY pictures or videos from our vacation to the southern hemisphere back in October.  I hereby blame these irrational instances on heat-fever, brought on by Global Warming. 

I have also been distracted from my blog by a tempting new mistress known as Twitter.  If you haven't heard of this, it's kind of a cross between a blog and a message board.  Or, think of it as a big social networking site like Facebook, but made up entirely of status updates ("at 8:15pm, Lisa wrote: 'hey, I'm eating a sandwich!'").  Basically you post up to 140 characters at a time.  A blog for the A.D.D.-afflicted.  The fun kicks in when you set up a large enough group of people to 'follow'. 

Much like MySpace and Facebook et al, there are plenty of semi-famous people on there that you can 'follow', receiving occasional updates from them on your homepage throughout the day.  As you can imagine, the more famous the person, the less time they have to sit around the computer and Twitter, but it all evens out.  Some of the people I'm following include William Shatner, Bobby Jindal, Kevin Smith, and Fred Thompson, but I very rarely see updates from them.  Less-famous but far more prolific Twitterers on my list include Michelle Malkin, James Lileks, and Jonathan Coulton. 

So, it's pretty fun.  Check it out, if it sounds remotely interesting to you.  You can even follow me, if the urge hits you. 

What else?  My New Year's Resolutions are to lose 20 pounds and not make any non-essential purchases this year.  Hopefully I can simultaneously cinch up both my budget and my waistline.  A month or two back, when I realized I had my Visa card number memorized, I knew I'd been doing WAY too much online shopping. 

Politically, I'm trying to decide which is more immature: Senate republicans threatening to filibuster any attempt to seat Al Franken, or Senate democrats threatening to physically block Burris, the guy Blogojevich appointed to Obama's senate seat.

Unsurprisingly, I'm more on the republicans' side in this one.  After all, the Minnesota Senate race has yet to be certified, which is at least a tangible, legal reason not to let someone in.  I haven't heard anybody give a actual reason why Burris should be ineligible for his seat, except that the guy who appointed him is a moron and a douchebag.  Granted, Blago's sanity and certainly his honor are in question at the moment, but he hasn't been indicted on anything yet.  There certainly hasn't been any evidence released that he profited from the Burris pick in any way.  Why should Burris suffer? 

And I can't quite work up any outrage over Caroline Kennedy (potentially) getting appointed to fill Hillary's seat.  Sure, she's a completey unqualified rich person who has never done an honest day's work in her life, with naive and outdated ideas of how government should function, only up for the position because of her last name.  So she seems to be a natural pick for Congress. 


But let's get back to me.  My quick new resolution is to post links to both pictures AND video of my 2008 highlights before the end of the weekend.  So watch this space... and try to stay cool out there.

I'll have to update this soon, since the wife and I will probably catch another couple of flicks before the end of the year, but here's the rest of the list:


Baby Mama: A- 
I don't know why this didn't do better.  I laughed, I cried.  Amy Poehler is amazingly funny. 

Be Kind Rewind: B- 
Not exactly what I expected from the trailers, got a bit schmaltzy and weird near the end.

Burn After Reading: B 
Much darker than I thought, but still very funny.  I expect, like the Big Lebowski, I will grow to like this movie more upon repeated viewings.  This may be an A before long. 

Cloverfield: A- 
Exciting, smart, funny, realistic.  I was almost reluctant to finally see the monster... the suspense of not seeing what they were running from was very well crafted.

The Dark Knight: A 
Felt like the ending was in the middle, but overall excellent.  Anyone wanna lay money that Heath does not get a posthumous Oscar nom?

The Foot Fist Way: B 
Like if Napoleon Dynamite grew up to teach kung fu.  Danny McBride is the new Bill Murray.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: A- 
Only suffers in comparison to other Apatow movies.  I'm a sucker for musical comedy, so the dracula songs in this film floored me.

George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead: B+
We saw this at the Bear Tooth, so I was pretty drunk by the end.  But I remember a feeling of satisfaction with its entertainment value. 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: B- 
Better than Temple of Doom, but that's all.

Iron Man: A+
Best movie of the year, hands down.

Journey to the Center of the Earth: C- 
And it only gets this because I saw it in IMAX 3D in Vegas.  During the movie, I remember thinking that if I was sitting in a regular theater, I would probably walk out.

Kung Fu Panda: A 
The action scenes are so smooth yet fast, I'm looking forward to watching this with my kids someday.  I think it'll be a movie that you notice new stuff on every viewing.

Leatherheads: B- 
A couple of roles seemed miscast.

Pineapple Express: A 
Solidly funny.  I had no idea James Franco was funny.  I must check in at funnyordie.com more often.

Quantum of Solace:  A 
There are two or three of the BEST chase scenes I've ever seen in this movie.  It's like Bullitt, cubed.

Tropic Thunder:  A 
Funniest non-Apatow movie in at least five years. 

WALL-E: A 
Just great.  I WANT TO HUG THAT LITTLE METAL BOX!

What Happens in Vegas: A-
Far better than I expected, even though Cameron Diaz isn't that hot anymore.  Surprisingly moving.  Bonus points for Dennis Miller.

You Don't Mess with the Zohan: B 
Good for a Sandler movie.  Wish I was Jewish so I could get more of the jokes.

It occurred to the wife and I that we should really do something to make our dog Penny's days in the garage a little less lonely.  Upon our return from the southern hemisphere, we started checking the shelter and dog-rescue webpages.

Lo and behold, yesterday we found this little lady and brought her home. 

MySpace, meet Pepper.  Pepper, MySpace. 

My opinion has been wavering on this bailout idea, mostly due to ignorance.  But the more I read about it and the events leading up to our current situation, the louder my conservative side screams "SCREW 'EM!  LET 'EM FAIL!"  This position is well to the right of both presidential candidates... hell, I find myself agreeing with Ron Paul!

The proponents of the bailout scare me pretty well with their predictions of recession -- if not outright depression -- should Congress fail to pump a bunch of money into the system.  And from what I understand, it wouldn't be a true 'bailout', but more of a loan, in that the government would merely be buying up a bunch of bad debt; mostly foreclosed mortgages where the value of the mortgaged property has fallen.  If the property value rises and becomes more valuable, someone else will buy it back from the government, and profits could even be made.  One of the more contentious parts of these bailout bill negotiations has been what do do with the (potential) profits. Also, the 700 billion isn't really a firm number, and the billions would be parceled out in stages, some of which may not be used at all if conditions improve. 

So, the overwhelming voter outrage at "bailing out Wall Street instead of Main Street!" is probably a little simplistic, but they might be right after all.

It is worth noting that generally, the people insisting that the system will collapse without a bailout are the same people who created this chaos!  And remember that this would merely be the latest in a string of government bailouts of the last month or so.  Fannie, Freddie, Bear Sterns, AIG, and the auto industry ($25 billion last week... anybody notice?) have all been bailed out in the last few weeks. 

I've been starting to hear a rising tide of voices suggesting that there will probably be a fair amount of economic pain without (another) bailout, but not the disaster that the media and the bail-ees would like you to believe.

But my souring on the idea of yet another giant bailout really goes to the CAUSE of this entire financial crisis.  Government intervention into the housing industry created the problem we now have, and more government is not the answer.

Decades ago, the government 'chartered' Fannie and Freddie, meaning that the gov't promised to make good on their debts.  This allowed F&F to offer lower rates than other mortgage lenders, and also encouraged them to make riskier loans.  Worse yet, starting in the 1970s and intensifying in the 1990s, Congress began requiring mortgage lenders to relax their mortgage standards for the poor and minorities... otherwise known as subprime loans.  Know the story from here on?  These subprime loans are great for the lender... even if the lend-ee gets foreclosed on, the lender still owns the mortgaged property, which has probably gone up in value!  But if not....

All it took for the subprime mortgage buildup to crash was for housing prices to decline.  Suddenly the lenders' financials started looking BAD, sending their stock prices down as the overall value of these companies started dropping.  The bailout solution lets the government buy these low-value mortgages from the lenders, improving the lenders' balance sheets, raising their overall value. 

The problem is that none of the bailout legislation proposed so far does anything to stop the policies and practices that caused the problem in the first place.  If the government steps in and buys these poorly-conceived loans from these struggling lenders, it encourages this risky behavior, instead of trying to reform it..  My favorite quote of the last few weeks is:

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."
-Herbert Spencer

Now, if the government stands back and lets these lenders declare bankruptcy, the effect is the opposite.  The company doesn't disappear -- it carries on, but now owned by its creditors.  Bankruptcy punishes those who took excessive risks and preserves the profitable parts of the business.  Now, the shareholders who had invested in the company do get screwed.  They are unquestionably getting the short end of this stick.  But, while that does indeed suck, I don't believe it means that the gov't should bail out those who made poor decisions, without being accountable for their own.

I cannot possibly wrap this post up better than economist Jeffrey Miron, who said
"The right view of the financial mess is that an enormous fraction of subprime lending should never have occurred in the first place. Someone has to pay for that. That someone should not be, and does not need to be, the U.S. taxpayer."

Okay, watching the Wall Street meltdown on the news, I was reluctantly going along with the conventional wisdom that this is bad for McCain and great for Obama.  Now Obama can point to the chaos and blame Bush and therefore, indirectly, McCain, right?  Gotta inject some change into the system!

But I just read this, and am almost as newly excited for McCain's chances as I was that first weekend after the Palin announcement. 

It turns out that the Bush administration tried to create new housing industry regulation back in 2003, specifically to monitor Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac!  Guess who stood in their way?

Even better, McCain is on the record, warning us about Fannie and Freddie and essentially predicting this whole credit crisis in 2005. 

Not only that, but he co-sponsored the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, warning that
"If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole."

All the while, Senator Obama was accepting over a hundred thousand dollars in lobbying money from Freddie and Fannie.

Please read this for more extensive detail, and forward the link on to anyone you know who thinks that Obama is the solution to (not part of the cause of) our current financial crisis.

Because if this isn't completely buried by the mainstream media, the last nail just got hammered in Barack's campaign coffin.

I wanted to expand more comprehensively on the way the media and the dems have been smearing Sarah, and the growing backlash, but too soon I found a better writer than I am who had already done so.  Today, I give you Victor David Hanson:

-------------

The hallowed NBC brand of old is now devolved into MSNBC's Matthews-Olbermann embarrassment. The once revered Atlantic Monthly now hosts blogger Andrew Sullivan trafficking in rumors that Gov. Palin's daughter really delivered her Down Syndrome child, and then hires an unhinged photographer (best known previously for making children cry to make political statements) who brags post facto that she tried to subvert her own cover photos of McCain, before posting creepy photo-shopped out-takes of him on her website. To read a NY Times columnist is to be told ad nauseam that Gov. Palin is a bumpkin hockey mom. Whether an US magazine cover picture of Palin, or the Washington Post's recycling old stories about Cindy McCain, the result is always the same: a concerted effort to ensure an Obama election.

The university crowd weighs in with op-eds warning us about white rural culture and the toxic landscapes that raised Sarah Palin, or why she is a counterfeit woman who piggybacked on the heroic work of pro-abortion pioneers. Every day another Hollywood dimwit—a Matt Damon, Lindsay Lohan, or Chevy Chase—attacks Palin or McCain in a fashion as crude as it is half-educated and incoherent.

Is it that hard to see, then, why McCain is dead-even or ahead—even when the incumbent Republican brand is suffering by association to war, economic uncertainty, and now financial meltdown?

There is a growing public anger at the petty amateurish biases of those who claim they are sophisticated and subtle; and it is not just that they sympathize with a smeared Palin, but are angry that the media thinks they are so stupid not to catch on. The odder thing still is that the media obsession has turned into some sort of compulsive disorder—they know that they are way out of bounds; know that they are hurting their own candidate Obama— and they know that they simply can't and won't quit now.

 For a few days there, I was without (unrestricted) internet at both my house and my work.  That was a little painful.  At least the work connection is restored.  GCI is sending out yet another technician to the house on Wednesday to see why my home internet keeps slowing down.  This must be fixed immediately, as I now have two episodes of True Blood to download and view!

I've heard some bad things about the show, but it's created by the guy who did Six Feet Under, and stars a blonde Anna Paquin, so I'm sold for at least the first season. 

I just spent the second consecutive weekend hanging drywall.  This has turned out to be a lot easier and more fun than I had imagined, but I'm ready for this project to be over.  A little taping and mudding, and we should be ready to paint and hang everything back up.  But then we're going to knock some holes in the other wall and put in a door and two windows.  I am nervous.

What else is going on?  Sarah continues to get baselessly smeared by the terrified left.  I welcome this, as the backlash will be as beneficial as it is inevitable... and I think it has already begun. 

I must give props to SNL -- or at least, Tina Fey -- for her spot-on impression of Sarah, which you can now see just about anywhere.  NBC is notorious for locking down online versions of its content, but I'm suspiciously surprised to see so many places on the web where you can view it... the MySpace home page being only one example. 

However, I was startled by the lack of quality following that first, brilliant intro sketch.  My current theory is that they didn't want to waste any 'A' material while they were stuck with a swimmer as the host.  I remain optimistic for next week's show with James Franco. 

Um.  Yeah, that's all I got.  Laters.
 

 
 They didn't show this last night because Rudy went long.  They're going to show it tonight at the convention.  In the meantime...

 Pretty funny. NSFW language.

Sarah Palin is the reason compasses point North.

Sarah Palin's enemies are automatically added to the Endangered Species List

Ben Linus does Sarah Palin's bidding

Sarah Palin begins every day with a moment of silence for the political enemies buried in her yard.

Sarah Palin uses French Canadians as bait to catch giant king salmon.

Sarah Palin will give birth to the man who will lead humanity's war against the machines.

Sarah Palin's son is going to Iraq after the Surge, because a Palin during the Surge would have been unfair.

If placed into Schroedinger's experiment, both Sarah Palins remain alive.

Sarah Palin would have just had an Eagle drop the Ring into Mount Doom.

Global Warming doesn't kill polar bears. Sarah Palin does - usually with her bare hands.

Sarah Palin's hotness is the largest single contributor to melting polar ice caps.

Sarah Palin paid her way through school by hunting for yeti pelts with a slingshot.

Sarah Palin knows the location of DB Cooper's body because she threw him from the plane.

The Northern Lights are really just the reflection from Sarah Palin's eys.

The raw energy of Sarah Palin melts the Alaskan ice roads every spring.

Sarah Palin turned down a job as skipper of a Deadliest Catch boat because it wasn't challenging enough.

We don't know who would win in a Chuck Norris - Sarah Palin cage match because they've never invented a cage that can hold Sarah Palin.

More of an ever-growing list here.

 I've been politely chastised (thanks, Casey) for not blogging about the Big News yet, but I've been hanging drywall all weekend, so forgive me.  Here we go.

Like most (right-leaning) Alaskans, I have gone from outright shock to utter elation at McCain's pick of our beloved governor to be his Vice President.  The only drawback to the choice is the semi-painful annoyance of watching the lefties gear up to start throwing mud at the lovely Sarah. 

The first blast is that she's a token; picked solely because she possesses a uterus, in a craven attempt to siphon off the Hillary supporters that aren't thrilled about Obama.  This is naturally the first assumption of ignoramuses that haven't given Sarah a good look.  The benefits that Sarah bring to the ticket are plentiful:

....1.  Of course the pick appeals to the Hillary independent voter and forces Obama to go easy on Sarah, since he's already angered a lot of the female voting populace. But that's just to start. Sarah's a REAL WOMAN.  The women of the heartland are going to have a lot easier time identifying with a hockey mom than a heartless political machine in a pantsuit.  Even if Obama had picked Hillary, I think Sarah would still have been a smart pick for McCain.

2.  She (finally) brings some real conservative values to the ticket, as I so winningly captioned a cartoon for the ADN back in February.  Especially on the pro-life front, as the story of Trig only amplifies.

3. On energy, she gives McCain a credible opening to reverse his stance on ANWR.  Now he can say "well, I sat down with Sarah and she explained to me what the LOCALS think about ANWR, and showed me some pictures, and turned me around." 

4.  Sarah, in a sense, reinforces the experience issue against Obama.  He can't really point to her and say she's inexperienced, when his own is so strikingly similar... if not LESSER.  I've always been a big fan of executive experience.  Really, do you want a leader that has actually been in charge of something, versus one who has been merely part of a large group, speechifying and voting once in awhile (especially voting "present" over 130 times)? 

5.  McCain can keep running the ads where Biden attacked Obama in the primaries, without worrying about Obama doing the same to him, if McCain had picked Romney or Giuliani. Sarah has never said a harsh word about McCain.

6.  Obama's "change" platform eroded significantly when he picked a 36-year senator as his backup.  You can't credibly claim "Washington is broken", while adding one of the longest-serving senators to your team.  McCain picked the fresh-faced outsider.  His 'Maverick' status is restored.

7.  She strengthens McCain's 'reformer' credentials with her own.  She chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004, and also served as Ethics Supervisor, but resigned in January 2004 in protest over the "lack of ethics" of fellow Republican members. After resigning, Sarah filed formal complaints against the state Republican Party's chairman, Randy Ruedrich, and former Attorney General Gregg Renkes.  She's supporting Sean Parnell against Don Young (and has been credited with killing the 'Bridge to Nowhere'), and has challenged Uncle Ted to come clean about his finances. (thanks, Wiki)

8.  Sarah is charming, charismatic, friendly, and as we all know... super-hot.  Her pick does as much to add men to the base as it adds women.  Guys, who do you want to watch at a press conference, Palin or Biden?

9.  She grabs the "historic!" label from Obama.  Now, either way it goes, there's either a black guy or a chick in the White House for the first time next January.  ALSO for the first time, there will either be an Alaskan or a Hawaiian in there!  Go freak states!

On a personal note, it's good for me, as I get to bore people with the trivia that the next Vice President used to babysit me back in Wasilla, and that her dad was my 5th grade teacher (who once threw me up against a wall once, but that's another story.  And yes, I had it coming).

And on a personally capitalistic note, it's great for me... I've sold almost 20 of these shirts already, as the nation googled Sarah over the weekend.  Are those disrespectful?  Or should I make a VPILF version now???

Back to the mudslinging.  The one I woke up to today is that maybe Trig is actually her daughter's child, and that Sarah faked her own pregnancy to cover for her daughter Bristol.  Pretty eye-opening in its ridiculousness. 

The two semi-valid stories that will need to be spun are the very recent revelation that the 17-year-old Bristol is now pregnant, and of course, Troopergate.  I don't think either will have much impact.  Apparently Bristol is planning on marrying the father and keeping the baby.  I don't know how the dems could give her a real hard time for this, and it shouldn't be a problem even for the social conservatives.  Even Dobson has already come out in her defense. 

As for the trooper thing, right now it's just an excuse for her (and McCain's) detractors to wail "she's under investigation!"  Reading the details, it's hard to work up any animus toward Sarah.  When there are death threats involved, it becomes a bit more complex than a silly 'abuse of power' charge.  With any luck, the legislature will wrap up their investigation soon and (undoubtedly) clear her of any impropriety.

That will leave the dems scratching in the dirt for anything to smear Sarah with, like [gasp] once wearing a tshirt in college with a boob joke on it.  These are the stories that make me laugh, because as Chief Grady put it: "desperation is a stinky cologne."