I don’t know about the rest of you, but it’s been a less than stellar year. It hasn’t sucked but it also hasn’t had a whole lot of goodness to it either. The music I’ve heard has been solid but not awesome, and I’ve spent more time in my back catalogue than with current releases. The movies I’ve seen have been merely OK excepting Wall-E. Even the Dark Knight, which was good just blew it at the end.

Books have been a decidely different endevor; World on Fire, The Coldest Winter, The Shock Doctrine-or at least as much of it as I could read before becoming so depressed that I thought a worldpurge might be a good thing (hint-when you pray for Chuthlu, something isn’t right), and the Commanding Heights all taught me a whole lot about how the world economy works. Or doesn’t, as of late.

Which brings me to the job. Which I am mired in in some decidedly unpleasant ways. I seem to be unwelcome and untrustworthy here. I offer to assist on things, but no one takes me up on it, and projects that come up have me shut out, so there’s no way for me to get in there and learn, progress or succeed. I seem to have risen to a level of mediocrity-a level that was requested of me. There’s a lesson here about leadership; if you don’t ask the people around you to do something interesting, to own the work they do, they won’t. Or perhaps that’s just my problem. And I do have problems here; I’m not a very good advocate for myself, and I resist doing projects where I don’t understand why I’m doing them, or don’t have clear (or any) direction. I get that I am partly responsible for what’s going on, but it’s not all me, and now I’m isolated and sad. This is not to detract from the communication or leadership issues here, which are serious and problematic, but I feel like I ought to shoulder some responsibility for my situation.

Which all sounds like gradeschool bullshit, I know, but it’s not. It’s Gen-X bullshit, thank you very much; I’m in a dead-end job and I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Of course, I’m picking a great time to crisis about it, too. Every job I look at I feel grievously unqualified for, like there’s a cattle brand of FAIL waiting for me.

Sigh.

My writing has stalled too. I’d like to get my website built, and I go about halfway and then get irate and decide Left 4 Dead is a better use of my time. (Which it frequently is, because it’s awesome.)

Which leads me to one of the high points of the year; videogames. Mass Effect, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Metal Gear Solid 4, Dead Space and Fallout 3 have all been either really good or flat out excellent. Special awards go to Little Big Planet though, because it really is one of those games that has no shortage of Wow to it. Play it if you get the chance.

Added bonuses include my girlfriend, and her acquisition of a new job which is a tremendous relief for her. Getting to witness history through Obama’s election is pretty humbling. Making some pretty good beer and getting to write about it has been fun too. OK, blog about it, but it counts, right? Sorta?

I only have one New Year’s Resolution, and that’s to make the next year better than the last one, and I’m not sure I did such a good job of that this year.