Megan and I with the Nikons

For Christmas I gave Megan a Nikon D80 camera with the hopes that she will get into this great hobby. I admit my limited knowledge in photography but the little I do know I’ve passed on to her and she does a great job in taking photos. She even shows signs of creativity that just amaze me!

Back a few months ago I bought her a Flickr Pro account so she has plenty of room to keep her photos and learn from all of the great photographers that exist there.

This past year I discovered Audible audio books for my iPhone and it made my 40 minute daily commute back and forth from work more tolerable. Couple the books with the podcasts I listen to and I’m actually overloaded with content with no time to absorb it all!

Below is a list of all the books I’ve listened to or read in 2008:
• The Historian
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
• Interred With Their Bones
• The Monster of Florence
• Restless
• A Most Wanted Man
• The Audacity of Hope
• Night
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• One Hundred Years of Solitude

I must mention my favorite book in the list above as being The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I purchased this on Audible and I listened to the book twice! Great Book!

There were a handful of other books I tried to get through but put the side. One of my resolutions this coming new year is to double what I consumed in 2008!

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I stumbled upon a really cool web site while looking for apps for my iPhone called Magnetism Studios. I purchased a couple of things there Tile Sudoku being one of them, the other was a the Benjamin Button short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I read the story in an hour or so and I really enjoyed the experience of reading a book on my phone. Hopefully they come out with more books like this!

As for the movie I’m not sure if I’m going to see it since it’s almost 3 hours long!

Fringe is my new show at the moment simply because I’ve been purchasing each episode as it comes out on iTunes. The show is on a bit of a break at the moment with new episodes resuming on January 20th.

The cast of Fox's Fringe

The main reason I bring this post here is because of something my buddy Gene thought might happen. After watching the first few episodes he called me and told me he thought Lost and Fringe may merge paths in the future. He claimed the tall black man who heads up the Homeland Security Department was in one of the episodes of Lost. Now I can’t seem to remember that sighting myself but shortly thereafter I noticed an Oceanic Air plane ticket in one of the Fringe episodes.

The question here is does it matter that the two shows are on different networks? Is it possible they could merge despite that?

Both are great TV shows

Amazon.com box

Amazon claims record holiday orders in ‘08 season

Had to post this simply because I love shopping at Amazon.com

I can’t believe it’s over! Christmas came and went this year in the blink of an eye despite hearing the kids constant talk about how many day’s left until Santa’s arrival. Time really does fly as each year goes by, I noticed it this year in a big way!

The kids playing with toys

Baby Emma is a year older this year and she was so excited with her little kitchen complete with a telephone ( which seems to be her favorite part of the kitchen set - she is just like her mom )

Megan is going to see the Dancing with the Stars Tour at the Mohegan Sun Casino later in January. I was totally excited to give her this present just to see the response - my ears are still ringing from that screech she let out!

Thanks to our good neighbors Kristen and Steve for getting MJ the coolest gift any seven year old could ever get: Night Vision Googles! Forget the Wii and Nintedo DS games, this headset is the best present he ever received in his whole life! That’s what I was told while tucking him into bed last night!

My Christmas present was in my children’s eyes over the past two days…

The Big Three

My knowledge of hoop is limited I’ll admit, but the winning ways of this team is really pulling me in! I’m going to drop some serious coin and get some tickets to a game and bring the kids. Kevin Garnett is amazing and I love his attitude towards the game. I love watching players that are out there with the intensity that he has!

Go Celtics!

shoveling the white stuff

Today is the first day of winter and I have to say that I wish winter lasted only a week at most - lets say December 21- 26 then back to 60 degree weather. The only other option for me would be to have millions of dollars and be able to fly from coast to coast whenever I feel like it.

The snow has been flying since Friday morning and it’s starting to drive me crazy!

snow storm with some hot chocolate

Friday nights storm was nice to look at while sipping hot chocolate and watching a Christmas movie with the kids. But I am sick of it now as I sit here Sunday afternoon watching it pile up outside! The kids are still excited with the thoughts of having school cancelled tomorrow while watching Home Alone ( classic christmas movie )

Nothing Like the Holidays

Nothing Like the Holidays is a nice Christmas time story as seen through the eye’s of a Puerto Rican family who have all returned back home for the holidays in Chicago.

Great flick to see during the XMass season

7 out of 10 Stars

I decided a couple of weeks ago after seeing Quantum of Solace that I need to see a movie no matter what each month. I plan on taking a half day each month and partnering up with my friend Sal ( who has pizza shop hours ) grab some lunch and then see a movie.

I realized that there is nothing like seeing a film on the big screen for all of the obvious reasons, and I miss going to the movies like I did in the old days. Good times. These days I hardly have the time and when the opportunity does arise it’s usually a kids movie! I can’t complain too much since the kid movies today are actually pretty good - adding in some adult humor to keep us awake.

All in all thinking back on 2008 I think I frequented the cinemas eight to ten times. I watched another 10 or so films on my laptop and below is a list of what I liked the most:

1. Bolt
2. The Last King of Scotland
3. Across the Universe
4. Wall-E
5. Michael Clayton

My favorite resource for movie reviews is Roger Ebert’s site. I realize when I look through his reviews how many good movies don’t even make it to the local cinemas. Additionally, the sheer amount of films I want to see would take way to much time so I keep a list and it keeps getting bigger and bigger.