I can't believe that 2006 is almost over. It's been a crazy year for me both personally and professionally. Between releasing both Theater Hopper: Year One and Theater Hopper: Year Two, pressing the flesh on the convention circuit, doing tons of interviews, getting regionally syndicated in Juice and generally running around like a chicken with his head cut off, I'm amazed I'm still standing!



Of course, there's more to my life than just the comic. My personal life saw a lot of upheaval, too. A European vacation, a car burglary and - most excitingly - a baby boy on the way in Februrary, my first child.



A lot has happened this year and when I look back and take stock, I'm really quite amazed that I came through it one piece. It feels good to end the year with a comic that kind of plays things quietly. It feels like a pretty ribbon has been wrapped around the year.



This is kind of personal, but I'm in a reflective mood, so I'll share it. I didn't think 2006 was going to be any good for me. In fact, I thought it was convinced it was going to be devistating. I was convinced I was cursed.



Back in 1996, I had a really hard year with a lot of difficult transitions. I graduated from high school. I started college. I lived away from my parents and my hometown for the first time in my life. Most horribly, I lost three relatives that year - my Great Aunt, Great Uncle and my Grandfather. Sadly, the only thing he wanted to see before cancer took him was me graduate from high school. He didn't make it. 1996 was a year that haunted me for a long time.



In December of 2000, I took my first real job after completing an internership the year prior. In March of 2001, Cami and I bought our first house. By July of that year I had been fired. A four-month job search proved fruitless and I had to swallow my pride and take a job at a credit collection agency for 6 months to make ends meet. We didn't know if we were going to lose the house or what was going to happen. It was probably the most stressful period of my young adult life and it took place almost 5 years to the month that I was previously besieged with more than I thought I could handle.



I became convinced that I was cursed and that every 5 years I was going to loose everything I had built up and be forced to start all over again. You know how some people talk about having a "5 Year Plan?" I was living my life like I wasn't going to make it past Year 6. I thought for sure that 2006 was going to be another bad year.



But that wasn't the case at all. I had a spectacular year and I feel like I've broken the curse. I can't wait for 2007.



I sometimes go on what I like to call "Thank you rants" here on the site where I thank you profusely for supporting what I do. I don't ever want to diminish the sincerity of those feelings. But this time around, I'm just going to keep it simple and say "Thank you for supporting me in 2006." Particuarly as it involves the two books - you guys showed me that anything was possible. So, thank you.



I have some pretty big plans for the site in 2007. You'll want to be sure and check the site on New Year's Day next Monday. We have a few treats in store.



In the meantime, come back later in the day and I'll post my FOR-REAL Top 10 list of movies for 2006.



See you soon and may 2007 be as wonderful for you as 2006 has been for me!

It's pretty easy to take pot-shots at Sylvester Stallone after he decided to bring the Rocky franchise out of mothballs. It's last chapter - Rocky V - was over 15 years ago! What more does the character have to say? Especially now that he and the actor who portray him are over 60.



Obviously there is no where else in the world except Hollywood where anyone could expect to find a 60 year-old former boxer going toe-to-toe with a heavyweight title holder. But my attitude about this latest installment - simply titled Rocky Balboa (numerals are apparently no longer in favor) - is starting to take a turn for the better. Stallone is completely aware of how cynics are approaching the film. "It's a desperate plea for attention. A last-ditch effort to revive a sagging career." Stallone, as writer and director, incorporated that into the script and make Rocky the avatar for his own career roadblocks. It's pretty clever, when you think of it. Or, perhaps that Stallone has become so closely associated with a pugilist who is a little slow on the uptake, we give him less credit than he deserves.



I love the Rocky movies. The first and the fourth primarily among them. Yeah, they can be a little cheesy. But it's like a cold dose of inspiration if you watch them in the right frame of mind. I think my initial reservations about Rocky Balboa had less to do with Stallone being over the hill and more to do with the film tarnishing what came before it. True, after Rocky V, there was no where to go but up. But those scenes in the trailer of Rocky hitting the sides of beef and running the steps of the Phillidelphia Art Mueseum... it looked like they were trying to invoke the spirit of the original in a wholly inauthentic way.



Now that I understand the broader context - that Stallone as the originator of this enduring American symbol of triumph over adversity - wants to put the punctuation mark on his creation... Well, I'm sympathetic to that and now more than a little curious.



That said, if Rocky doesn't die at the end of this movie, we know that Hollywood has become completely untethered to any sense of realizism. I mean, he's 60 years old, for cryin' out loud!



Switching gears, Monday night we set up an impromptu talkcast this time featuring co-host Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies. It was always my intention to do a show with Joe. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of film, is very easy to talk to and is hilarious to boot. Unfortunately, technical problems prevented him from participating in the first two broadcasts. Our plan at the time was for one of us to get their feet wet and get familiar with the technology and hopefully by the time we had the technical problems sorted out, we could settle on a format and bring you guys a really professional show.



Well, Joe has about half of the technical problems ironed out. He's able to call-in, but because he's running on a Mac OS, the TalkShoe application doesn't agree with it. So he can't see any of the chat room stuff. No matter. With one hurdle crossed, we decided to do another show at the last minute and get him on the line.



The show turned out great - better than I could have possibly imagine. Joe and I spent a fair share of the first hour talking about The Pursuit of Happyness. I would have been perfectly content to let it end there. But around the start of the second hour, we had a bevy of special guests who contributed to the conversation. Gordon McAlpin from Multiplex, Zach Miller from Joe and Monkey and Mitch Clem from San Antonio Rock City. With everyone on the line, it was like a little mini-reunion! I had an opportunity to hang out with all of these guys (Joe included) at Wizard World Chicago earlier this year and it was a real treat to be able to talk to them again. We had a GREAT time.



The show ended up going a little long. Okay - a LOT long. But I think you'll find it an entertaining listen. You can download a copy of the show here. Throw it on in the background while you're working on a spreadsheet or something. Download it to your iPod and listen to it during a particularly boring meeting. You'll enjoy it. Trust me.



My last bit of news is that tomorrow is my 29th birthday. Every year I tell myself that I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. But what the hell? I like to celebrate like anyone else. Cami and I are going out to dinner Friday night and I think we're going to see The Polar Express on IMAX afterwords. Either that or Happy Feet. Whatever is showing. Our IMAX is part of our downtown science center, so they're always trying to rope in kids in the hope that they'll check out the rest of the facility and maybe learn something. Neither film is really at the top of my "must-see" list, but I appreciate the irony of seeing films of this quality on the World's Largest Screen. It should be fun.



That's it for now. Talk to you all again on Friday!

This comic was originally intended to be a lot more political. I was going to make references to the United States trying to establish a democracy in the Middle East and bullying the U.K. into supporting the war. But then I thought... that's giving a little more weight and credence to The Golden Globes and the Hollywood Foreign Press by comparison than I'm intending.



Every year The Golden Globe nominations are announced and every year I have to find a new way to comment about their irrelevance. But you don't want to overdo it!



Cami and I went to see The Pursuit of Happyness (with a "y" - that's not a typo, folks!) on Saturday night and I wasn't very pleased with the movie. It's a lot more depressing than you think.  By now you probably know the story about  Chris Gardner's money problems in the early 80's as he tried to care for his son while homeless and chasing down a job through an unpaid, competitive internship at Dean Witter. The trailers make the movie look like the most inspirational tale ever told. There's no doubt what Gardner accomplished was amazing and a true testament to maintaining the beliefe in The American Dream. But if you already know the story - as most people do - the conclusion is vastly underwhelming.



If I had used The Pursuit of Happyness on one of my Spoiler t-shirts, the line would have been something like "Chris gets the job." Because at the end of the movie, that's pretty much all that happens. Then it ends. Abruptly. My complaint is how lop-sidded the movie is. You get five minutes of happy versus one hour and fifty-five minutes of dissapointment and heartbreak. You're pulling for Chris. You want him to succeed. But the film (and life) keeps dealing him bad hand after bad hand and after a while, it becomes too much.



I know this is how life will treat you some times. Life will almost never cut you a break and there are far less happy endings than sad ones. But if I'm being lead into the theater under the pretense that a movie is going to give me a two-hour reprieve from those harsh realities, I would hope that it could deliver. Instead, I left the theater almost feeling worse than when I went in. After getting the job, would it have been so bad to see Chris move into a nice appartment or maybe take his son out for dinner? Something more than him clapping his hands on a busy street in slow-mo "I did it!" glory? It's not enough. That's what I'm saying.



I wouldn't go so far as to tell you to avoid the movie. It's not constructed poorly nor are the performances sub par. Every does a good job. But... I don't know. For me, it just didn't click.



Maybe it's all the running Will Smith seems to be doing in the movie. Every third scene, he's doing a full sprint either chasing after someone or running away from someone else. This guy does just about as much running per film as Tom Cruise!

Observe the work of a fevered mind.



I ran into all kinds of writers block when I tried to come up with some kind of commentary about Eragon. I don't know much about the movie other than it's based off a book that was on the New York Times best-seller list for something like 80 weeks, that the original story was written by some kid when he was 15 or 16 and that if the movie is some kind of mideval fantasy and requires a British actor, Jeremy Irons is contractually obligated to appear in it. My thing with the unicorns was pretty much rooted in my deep-seeded need to take things that are beautiful and ruin them for everyone else. Plus, I just thought the name "Hillstryder" was really cool.



This has been, like... Unicorn Week for me, or something. On Monday, my office had a white elephant gift exchange, so I purchase this good vs. evil unicorn playset from Archie McPhee to give away. The conversation that resulted from the giving of this plastic oddity led to a discussion about the Rankin & Bass production of The Last Unicorn. Things came full circle during Monday night's talkcast when - completely unprompted - the converstation once again led to The Last Unicorn. Maybe you can figure it out. I have no clue.



Incidentally, if you were unable to join in on Monday night's talkcast, you can download a copy to listen to at your leisure. Brandon J. Carr, formerly of The Kenmore made another appearance as well as Zach Miller from Joe and Monkey. The three of us shoot the breeze in the second hour. The first hour was pretty much me flying solo, talking about everything from Apocalypto to Rocky Balboa.



I pretty much burned through all of this week's new releases all the way into the releases lined up for Christmas. That's okay because I probably won't be doing another broadcast until the new year. It'll be enough to juggle the comic, my 9 to 5, the holidays and my family.



A concept that became cemented for me with Monday's show is that I really need to settle on a name and a format of the show and that I absolutely NEED someone else in the "booth" to bounce things off of. I've had a co-host in mind since before I did the first broadcast, but technology issues have prevented it. Until I can get him on board, I think I need to take a hard look at how I'm organizing the show, which areas of conversation I want to cover and then create a schedule and stick to it. I think it would be a much better program if I made it an hour long with segments that repeat from week to week. That way, people know what to expect without having to listen in for so long.



At any rate, it's a fun little experiment and I'm eager to see where it goes. Remember to download episode two and give me any feedback you have in the review section on the TalkShoe page.



That's it for Wednesday. Talk to you soon!