OMG The Oscars Are Coming!

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The nominees are out. That means it’s time to start reviewing all the movies I’ve missed in 2011 and making a plan to see as many of the nominated films as I can before the winners are announced on February 26th.

That’s not a lot of time. I get myself into this mess every year (minus 2010, which I sort of took off). You can see my similar lists from 2009. I kept my lists of movies to see private the past couple of years, but they’re back!

It’s admittedly silly, but my goal is to see as many nominated films as I can. Not just the big nominees… ALL of them. The foreign films tend to be tough to pick up (oftentimes they don’t appear in theaters until after the awards are given) and documentary shorts tend to never be seen (at least the animated and live action shorts usually find release on iTunes and in theaters through the efforts of Shorts International. Then there’s the movies I simply do NOT want to see. (I’m looking at you, Transformers!)

Without further ado, here are the 61 nominated films. The ones I’ve seen as of today have been struck through:

  1. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
  2. Albert Nobbs
  3. Anonymous
  4. The Artist
  5. The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement (short)
  6. Beginners
  7. A Better Life
  8. Bridesmaids
  9. Bullhead
  10. A Cat in Paris
  11. Chico and Rita
  12. The Descendants
  13. Dimanche / Sunday (short)
  14. Drive
  15. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
  16. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore (short)
  17. Footnote
  18. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
  19. God is the Bigger Elvis (short)
  20. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
  21. Hell and Back Again
  22. The Help
  23. Hugo
  24. Ides of March
  25. If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
  26. Incident in New Baghdad (short)
  27. In Darkness
  28. The Iron Lady
  29. Jane Eyre
  30. Kung Fu Panda 2
  31. La Luna (short)
  32. Margin Call
  33. Midnight in Paris
  34. Moneyball
  35. Monsieur Lazhar
  36. A Morning Stroll (short)
  37. The Muppets
  38. My Week With Marilyn
  39. Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
  40. Pentecost (short)
  41. Pina
  42. Puss in Boots
  43. Raju (short)
  44. Rango
  45. Real Steel
  46. Rio
  47. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
  48. Saving Face (short)
  49. A Separation
  50. The Shore (short)
  51. Time Freak (short)
  52. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
  53. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
  54. The Tree of Life
  55. The Tsumani and the Cherry Blossom (short)
  56. Tuba Atlantic (short)
  57. Undefeated
  58. W.E.
  59. War Horse
  60. Warrior
  61. Wild Life (short)

For those of you counting, this means I’ve only seen *seven* of the nominated films. In 2009, I had 42 films to catch and last year it was in the upper forties. Now I’ve got one month to catch 54 flicks.

Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. But I’ll do my best to get as close as possible!

Wish me luck.

Games Played In 2011

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While I don’t really have a formal list of my favorite games of 2011 ready yet (if ever), I did manage to keep a running list of the games I played that were released last year.

A few notes:

  • I tried to be a little careful about not including something here if I only dicked around with it for a super short amount of time. That doesn’t mean I beat everything on this list, but I feel like I at least gave the game a fair shake.
  • This list is sort of ranked by order of when I played them. That said, the ordering gets a little messy at the bottom as I tried to remember all the games I forgot to note.
  • I’m definitely leaving off a bunch of little iPhone games I messed around with, but the heavy hitters worth mentioning get brought up.
  • I did my gaming on a variety of the 360, PS3 and PC, with iOS and a tiny, tiny bit of Nintendo DS/3DS thrown in. The PSP collected dust all year long.
  • That said, I’ll leave out what each game below was played on. I will say, though, I did a surprising amount of PC gaming this year and a few of these games got played on console and PC.
  • Facebook games can blow me. I played a few of them, but I’m not fessing up to it here!

To the list!

  1. LittleBigPlanet 2
  2. ilomilo
  3. Stacking
  4. Rift
  5. Bulletstorm
  6. LA Noire
  7. Catherine
  8. Bastion
  9. Portal 2
  10. Shadows of the Damned
  11. Mortal Kombat
  12. inFAMOUS 2
  13. Marvel vs Capcom 3
  14. SpaceChem
  15. Solar 2
  16. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D
  17. Fruit Ninja Kinect
  18. Age of Empires Online
  19. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
  20. Gears of War 3
  21. FIFA 12
  22. Batman: Arkham City
  23. Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
  24. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  25. Football Manager 2012
  26. Battlefield 3
  27. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations
  28. Dead Island
  29. Frozen Synapse
  30. Infinity Blade II
  31. Death Rally
  32. Dungeons of Dreadmoor
  33. Orcs Must Die!
  34. Spiral Knights
  35. Renegade Ops
  36. Rage
  37. Saints Row: The Third
  38. The Binding of Isaac
  39. Payday: The Heist
  40. Magicka
  41. Jamestown
  42. Jetpack Joyride
  43. Dark Souls

Now time to figure out which of these I liked the best…

Rihanna Samples The xx

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I keep hearing about this Rihanna lady and I guess I’ve heard a song or two, but I never really paid much attention. Can’t say that this will necessarily change that, but it’s a pretty damn good step in the right direction. I’m hard pressed to think of a more terrific song to sample (with a sort of not terrific name that’s actually still kind of terrific) than the lead track from The xx’s eponymous debut album, “Intro.”

The Rihanna track is called Drunk On Love and there’s short little clip that’s worth a listen. I don’t love it, but I far from hate it.

Celebration Time!

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I’m not usually one to pat myself on the back for a job well done, but I’m far too elated to concern myself with modesty right at this moment.

What has me so pleased, you ask? Today, for the first time in my adult life, I am debt free. Without debt. Zero dollars owed. My credit cards are goose-egged and I owe nothing!

This screen capture doesn’t really tell the whole story, of course. I pulled it from Mint and that only has my data going back as far as March 2009. The truth is that I owed upwards of $30,000 as recently as early 2008, steadily accumulated from the time I got my first credit card as a college freshman in 1996. Poor spending habits and spending well outside my means really bit me in the ass for a long, long time.

I suppose that at the end of the day, getting out from under a mountain of debt like that isn’t a particularly heroic act. It’s a little like setting fire to your neighbor’s house and wondering why they didn’t thank you with a nice zucchini bread after you saved them from the flaming wreckage. That said, it’s still a satisfying personal victory. Seeing your debts totally outstrip your income is an imposing sight. It’s scary and it feels like the process of getting rid of that debt will never end, that you’ll just be paying it off well into your golden years. No matter how much you pay (or can afford to pay), it always feels like the process is going too slow. Just keep at it and don’t lose your cool.