Welcome to aught eight.

I’m planning on making the next 365 days a period of time in which I will accomplish some of the things I’ve been hoping to accomplish for the last 730-1095 days. I’m not talking about making resolutions, mind you; they don’t work (”only about a quarter of us actually stick with our resolutions for more than a week or two” - so they say). I just think that I will finally see the fruits of my labor and more results from the groundwork I’ve laid out over the last year or so (or even just the last few months).

Author Neil Gaiman posted a nice (if a bit sentimental for my tastes at this very moment) new year’s wish on his blog. I am pasting it here:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

I’m all over the books, art and perhaps even the madness; I would very much like to surprise myself. I can’t really speak to the rest as it’s not stuff I have control over. It will be an interesting year, I suppose. My 30th birthday is only 3 months away and while I’m trying not to assign too much importance to it (it’s a number like any other… no more important than 29 or 26 or 23, except that it ends in a zero) it’s going to be difficult. People do like to make a bigger deal of it than required. I’ve had a few friends turn 30 recently (or who will be turning 30 soon) and I haven’t made and don’t intend to make a huge deal out of it - more so than any other birthday, anyway. That’s the key, I think.

Perhaps that’s my overall theme for this year - keeping things in perspective.

But here’s a list of 100 things we didn’t know last year, courtesy of the BBC. It includes fun things like:

3. Adding milk to tea negates the health-giving effects of a hot brew.
31. There is mobile phone reception from the summit of Mount Everest.
67. The brain can turn down its ability to see in order to listen to complex sounds like music.
92. Zsa Zsa Gabor is related to Paris Hilton. (It just amuses me that this made the list).