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Intentional Reading
Do you ever feel left out of a conversation? It’s only mid-January and while the year is still brand-new, the old year still has a few remnants lingering. The biggest me for is the various Best Of lists still readily available. I read many of them—books, TV, movies, music—and made an interesting observation about the book ones: I read few of them and could not contribute to the conversation. I’m an avid reader I have anywhere from 2-5 books going on all at once. Well, let me clarify: I’m re-reading Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic in 2023 so I’m only reading a page a day, but it’s still active. I’m…
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When Life Throws Curve Balls at Your Resolutions
How are those resolutions coming along? It’s Day 7 of January 2023, a full week after many of us toasted the new year at midnight and resolved to make changes in our lives. Back in December, I wrote about making resolutions—or habit changes—with the guiding principle of “just try.” Most of us want to change something about ourselves—to become a better version of ourselves—so the first step is to decide to try. The next (and the next and the next) is to follow through. Depending on where you get your data, a large percentage of folks who make new year’s resolutions fail by February. One statistic I found was 80%.…
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New Year’s Resolutions: Just Try
Do you have your New Year’s resolutions planned yet? Yeah, yeah, I know it’s still two weeks away but this will be my last post at Do Some Damage until January. But I’ve already started thinking and planning the things I want to accomplish in 2023 and it is really important to kick off the year on a good note. On the Daily Stoic podcast, host Ryan Holiday wondered why we constantly make New Year’s resolutions and he brought in a quote from Samuel Johnson: “Reformation is necessary and despair is criminal.” I looked up this quote to see if it is part of something larger and it is: “When…
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The Urgency of Now and Knowing Who You Are
Well, by my own definition, I’m officially in my mid-fifties. For any given decade, I consider the years ending in zero through three to be “early.” Four, five, and six are “mid” while the last three years are “late.” I turned fifty-four on Tuesday. You might think that would be cause for a great, big sigh. Sure, there’s a little of that as well as the realization that there are more years behind me than in front of me. That, my friends, is just a sign of mortality. But here’s the giant cherry on top of this sundae we call life: I’m alive! So it is always good to recognize…
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The Sea of Tranquility: One of My Favorite Books of 2022 That Made Me Cheer
This might be my favorite book of fiction for 2022 and I didn’t even pick it. I’ve been a part of a four-guy science fiction book club since 2009. Each month, one of us picks a book and we meet the first Tuesday of each month. Over the past year or so, I’ve started a new thing: on the books I don’t select, I don’t read the book description. I just download the audiobook and start listening. I want the book to reveal itself it me without any preconceived notions. Now, typically, around the 20-25% mark, I might circle back and read the description but not always. I ended up…
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Taking Stock and Looking Ahead
Are you ready for 2023? I’m a firm believer in constant renewal, be that daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly resets. That is, after all, what New Year’s Resolutions are: a reset. A chance to start a new habit or break an old on. But it is a good idea to plan ahead and be ready for your start date, and that’s where it’s good to review the current year. I actually started the process this week at my office during my lunch hours. I found an empty conference room with a large white board and started taking stock of 2022 in terms of my writing. I made various lists including…
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I Finally Saw Clerks III
What did you expect from Kevin Smith, a man living on borrowed time? Back in the summer of 2019, I set out to watch every Kevin Smith film leading up to the release of Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. It was a fantastic experience where I wrote about the movies as I watched them, watched no trailers ahead of seeing the film (leading to a shocker in Jersey Girl), and then ranked my favorite films, performances, and scenes. Being the pop culture geek that I am, folks are surprised to learn that I only started watching Smith’s films 2019. Up until then, he was only a podcaster (and that only…
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I Finally Watched Masters of the Universe: Revelation
By the power of geekdom, how can folks not like Masters of the Universe: Revelation? I’m not sure, because it is an epic, summer blockbuster movie in five episodes with one massive cliffhanger. My (Lack of) Background with MOTU I have none. Zero. While showrunner, Kevin Smith, and I are both from Generation X, I’m two years older than he is. As such, back in 1983 when the original cartoon debuted, I had just aged out of the target audience for He-Man and his toy line. I was a Star Wars kid who owned a ton of those toys, but I was just not interested in MOTU. Even when Return…
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I Finally Watched Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Way back in June 2019–only four months ago as I write this–I made a decision: I wanted to watch this movie when it was released. In order to fully appreciate Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, I would have to watch the previous twelve movies in the Kevin Smith filmography. I did and reviewed all the films. Last week, I ranked the existing twelve movies as I liked them, with a unique choice at the top. All of which serves as an introduction to the review of this, Smith’s thirteenth film. Getting to the Theater I bought my ticket to Reboot back in July 2019. At the time, the Houston Astros…
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Top 10 Favorite Scenes of Kevin Smith Films
When I made my initial list of favorite scenes in Kevin Smith’s film, I ended up with nineteen. Then, after seeing Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, I added a twentieth. Most of these scenes everyone already knows so I won’t bother with context. I will add some to the one Reboot scene. If you’ve read my post where I rank Smith’s films, Jersey Girl topped the list followed closely by Chasing Amy. If you’ve read my list of favorite performances, you’ll also note those two films dominate my list. I could probably make a Top 10 list with just these two films. The Top 10 Hockey rink scene where Alyssa…