Thank You

It's that time of the year again to start breaking out the things to be thankful for (to have an "attitude of gratitude" as I recall learning once back in Sunday school). While I'd be lying if I said 2010 thus far has been a banner year for Ole Vic and that my life is exactly where I'd want it to be right now, there is always an abundance of things to be thankful for at all times. The big things are a given and it would be superfluous and redundant to go over the major stuff like people who care about me, my freedoms, my health, my looks, etc, etc. Believe me I am super grateful for those things everyday as demonstrated by my occasional bouts of anxiety that any of those things will suddenly be taken from me. However aside from the aforementioned big stuff, I have traditionally (well I actually forgot to do it last year) taken to time to appreciate the more subtle, but still quite important details to be thankful for this year.

So what am I thankful for this year?:

• Learning how to hide status updates from specific people from my Facebook News Feed. You just click on that box at the right hand corner and the option is right there! It's crazy that it took me to like the beginning of this year to figure it out. This perfectly solved my longtime conundrum of filtering out the most irritatingly asinine and disagreeable updates in my feed without resorting to the nuclear option of harshly cutting off all Facebook ties with someone (just because I find you annoying doesn't mean I want to cut off all avenues of communication with you). Of course I'm willing to live with the other of the coin: the possibility that some of my "friends" are filtering me out (but really who'd do that to me?).

• Brandon Lloyd's fantastic season. Not to jinx it or anything with the playoffs looming next month but I am currently enjoying my best fantasy football season ever (totally jinxed it), thanks in no small part to the completely unexpected breakout play of Broncos WR Brandon Lloyd. The formerly inconsistent journeyman wide out has done nothing but produce (already over 1000 yds, 7 TDs, and averaging almost 20 Y/D) for every owner fortunate enough to have picked him off the waiver wire earlier in the year hoping for one or two more quality games before he regressed. It really covered up my terrible Mike Sims Walker draft pick. Minor thanks also to fellow wavier wire pickup Steve Johnson who has been catching touchdowns like a boss as of late.

• The hour long 4th season finale of "The Venture Bros.". "The Venture Bros." is one of the fews shows left on TV that I actually make an effort to follow. With every agonizingly belated season the show has really grown more weirder and more ambitious in their style, storytelling, and pop culture non sequiturs. Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails; but you always have to appreciate the effort. That said, the extended hour long running time of "Operation: P.R.O.M." really should be the ideal length of most Venture episodes since there is often so much new stuff getting introduced every episode along with the progression of the current season arch that it often times feels rushed or packed together. Without going into a summary, I feel this episode really struck a nice balance between exposition and action. Also, bonus points for the borderline obscene explanations of what a "Rusty Venture" is, the extended "Mr. Wendell" references, and surprise use of "Just Like a Friend" by Pulp at the end.

• Caffeine Pills. I guess if I want to get really specific I would say the 100 ct. Prolab Caffeine Supplements from Vitamin Shoppe. For the price of a few cups of coffee I got a convenient and steady caffeine supply for the whole year. These were the unofficial MVPs in passing the NY and NJ bar over the summer. Hey, we all need our fix somewhere, I like to get it in a no nonsense pill. Unfortunately pep pills users still live under the ugly stigma placed upon them by the infamous Saved by the Bell episode,"Jesse's Song". Hopefully one day it'll be just as normalized and acceptable as getting a cup of joe. When it happens I'll be so excited.

• Far East Movement's "Like a G6" going to #1. As a lover of pop music and as a Korean American, it filled me with great pride last month to find "Like a G6" by Far East Movement (sort of like an Asian Black Eyed Peas with 2 out of the 4 members being Korean Americans) featuring The Cataracs, DEV topping the Billboard Hot 100 chart; the first US #1 hit by a Korean artist. It also didn't hurt that the song was a great pop record with equal parts terribly stupid and insidiously catchy. Of course we can't forget all the great Korean pop pioneers who came before that helped paved the way for "Like a G6" like Joseph Hahn, member of Linkin Park who went to #2 with "In the End" in 2001, (half-Korean) Amerie who had a top 10 hit with "1 Thing" in 2005 and, straight up K-Pop act, Wonder Girls who hit #76 with "Nobody" in 2009.

• And, as always, another year of "Lockhorns" comics. My Lockhorn blog may be on extended hiatus until the end of the year, but that doesn't mean I still can't enjoy their hilarious daily battles. It looks like Loretta has ruined another Thanksgiving.

Cue the song!: