Resolution.

  

The new year is traditionally a time for resolutions, mandates for change - and hopefully improvement.  Generally I haven't bothered with this sort of thing - admittedly, I'm using the new year as an excuse to lose a little weight, but it's more based on just waiting out the dietary excesses of the holidays than anything else.

However, I have become increasingly aware of an area where I do need to improve, and I've decided to address this in one of my rare New Year's resolutions.

My problem?  I've become a lazy geek.

In years gone by I was a far more dedicated fan, although perhaps a less discerning one - it can take some time to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff.  But for the last few years, I've been slowing down - not going out to movies as much, watching less TV,  buying fewer books, and perhaps not revisiting my existing collection to the degree that I should.

Admittedly, 2015 saw a major change in my life in the form of a new relationship and a wonderful live-in partner, and I don't think that all of my decisions to miss movies were bad ones - I'm not certain that I need to particularly regret missing Chappie, Jupiter Ascending, Tomorrowland, The Fantastic Four or Pixels.  (Particularly the last two.)  And I did manage to see Ex Machina, Fury Road, Age of Ultron, Terminator Genisys*, Ant-Man, Jurassic World, The Martian and The Force Awakens.

 

However, there's been a lot of well-received TV** programming from the last couple of years that I've skipped entirely, such as Daredevil***, Orphan Black***, Agents of Shield, Agent Carter***, Arrow, The Flash, The Man in the High Castle and Gotham - not to mention almost entirely avoiding Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. (In my defense for those last two, I'm fairly familiar with the source material, and I think that I felt that watching TV versions would just be redundant.)  In fact, if it weren't for Doctor Who and The Big Bang Theory, I really wouldn't be watching any TV at all.

Overall, I've been relying far too much on second-hand information and other people's reviews of things rather than forming my own opinions, and spending a little bit too much time looking at YouTube™ videos and funny cat pictures instead of reading.

So it's my hope that in 2016 I'll be able to catch up on some of the opportunities that I've let slide over the last couple of years - not to mention finding the time to report as appropriate via blog postings.  Wish me luck - and a happy New Year to all!  Once again, half way out of the dark...

- Sid

* Okay, on a flight to Japan rather than a theatre.

** For the sake of simplicity, we'll consider Netflix™ to be the moral equivalent of a television broadcasting network.

*** Okay, one episode.