The Hobbit: A Lazy Review

Went to see the long-anticipated The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey yesterday, and honestly my overall feeling is disappointment.  For the record, I was indeed expecting The Hobbit, which admittedly isn't quite the same caliber as Lord of the Rings, but it seemed to suffer from a worse case of "prequelitis" than I expected.  Some of it was unavoidable, some of it was just sloppy.  I could probably go on about it for quite a while, but unfortunately time is limited.

1)  Do we really have to keep using the Wilhelm scream?  Really?

2)  Can we please stop with the angsty close-ups of important characters screaming "NOOOOO!!!" when we all know nobody is really going to die?

3)  Can we stop dangling over cliffs for entirely too long waiting for "the nick of time?"

4)  Do excessively comical bad guys have to make slapstick comments right before they die?

5)  Why are there no obvious injuries after our heros fall from cartoonish heights?

6)  Why in the world is Thranduil riding an ELK?

Maybe it could have been cool, but at the time it was just jarring.  Will we ever live it down?  That remains to be seen.

By the way, Bilbo was awesome, Elrond was bad@$$, and Gollum was brilliant.

Three Years and Counting

It really seems like we've been married longer than three years.  And I mean that in the best possible way, just in case anyone was wondering.  Hopefully we can let the good times roll for a long time yet.

We've never really made a big deal out of our anniversary in the past.  The first year we went out to Chili's at the spur of the moment, but I was too down and out with morning (all day?) sickness to eat more than chips and salsa.  The second year we went out to P. F. Chang's with a gift card we got for Christmas.  This year we're having chocolate cake at home.  There are some vaporous plans to go see The Hobbit sometime, or maybe go to the next town for an extended weekend vacation, but we'll see how the scheduling works out.  I promised Dave a new laptop; his is limping severely, but he has his heart set on Alienware, so it might take a few months to save up enough expendable $$$.  He was complaining that he never knows what to get me, and I never ask for expensive things.

Well, I just found something I simply must have.  I know the second anniversary is supposed to be the paper one, but we'll just have to bend the rules a bit.  Besides, everybody needs a calendar.

2012 Debt Report

We didn't do nearly as well in December when it came to paying down the loan, but that was primarily because of Christmas shopping and the fact that I was investing my paychecks for the month in a fledgling home business.  In the end, we only reduced our total by another 3% since the last report, for a total of 14% paid.  Still, that isn't too shabby considering a regular monthly payment is 0.76%.

Part of our 2013 resolutions will be to attack this thing with all guns available.  Since my job is apparently no longer seasonal, that should help.  We'll see how long it lasts.  In the meantime, I'll try to get my cottage jewelry business up and running to pick up the slack if they decide they can't afford me.

We just fired our first salvo of the year, which should knock off another 2.1%.  The goal is still 3.5% per month.

A more encouraging view would be to consider our TOTAL family debt ever has been 48% paid.  Booya.