49 Forty-Ninth Birthday Blessings

It was recently my birthday!  On the day, I posted some short musings about how it’s okay that I haven’t done everything that I wanted to this year.  Then I did a review of my last year’s “bucket list” and identified what I’ve done and what I didn’t do, and tried to point out how even though there are things I didn’t do, there were other things that I did do that weren’t on the list in the first place.

Now it’s time to look with gratitude at all the cool stuff that I got.  Because really, I have a lot to be grateful for.  And not just the long term stuff, like great kids, a wonderful wife, relatively good health, and a sense of meaning and purpose to life.  I’m talking short-term, often shallow, good ‘ol fashioned stuff!

(Alternate) Box Office Blockbuster Tourney: Round Final!

So as explained some time ago, we are again playing a seeded tournament-style elimination game amongst each of the US domestic box office champion movies from the last 32 years, but this time with all-female judges.  Seeding was done via Rotten Tomatoes scores, with ties broken with Metacritic scores.  Three of our five judges have voted on each match-up of two films, with the winner advancing to the next round and the loser skulking off into obscurity, until we eventually reach our overall Champion!

(Alternate) Box Office Blockbuster Tourney: Round Four

So as explained some time ago, we are again playing a seeded tournament-style elimination game amongst each of the US domestic box office champion movies from the last 32 years, but this time with all-female judges.  Seeding was done via Rotten Tomatoes scores, with ties broken with Metacritic scores.  Three of our five judges have voted on each match-up of two films, with the winner advancing to the next round and the loser skulking off into obscurity, until we eventually reach our overall Champion!

(Alternate) Box Office Blockbuster Tourney: Round Three

So as explained some time ago, we are again playing a seeded tournament-style elimination game amongst each of the US domestic box office champion movies from the last 32 years, but this time with all-female judges.  Seeding was done via Rotten Tomatoes scores, with ties broken with Metacritic scores.  Three of our five judges will vote on each match-up of two films, with the winner advancing to the next round and the loser skulking off into obscurity, until we have our overall Champion!

(Alternate) Box Office Blockbuster Tourney: Even-Numbered Years Conference, Round One

So as explained previously, we are again playing a seeded tournament-style elimination game amongst each of the US domestic box office champion movies from the last 32 years, but this time with all-female judges.  Seeding was done via Rotten Tomatoes scores, with ties broken with Metacritic scores.  Three of our five judges will vote on each match-up of two films, with the winner advancing to the next round and the loser skulking off into obscurity, until we have our overall Champion!

(Alternate) Box Office Blockbuster Tourney – Odd Numbered Conference Round One

Experiencing some déjà vu?  It’s because if you follow this blog regularly, this post will look very familiar.

It’s because as I explained at the championship to our recent Box Office Blockbuster Tourney, it was drawn to my attention that all my judges in that competition were men, and someone said they’d be interested in seeing how things would have turned out if the voters were women instead. So now I’m running this Alternate Box Office Blockbuster Tourney.

49th Year Bucket List

So, point of clarification:  I’m 48 years old currently, having just celebrated my birthday yesterday.  I’m not 49, but that this year is actually my 49th year of living.  When I celebrate my 49th birthday, that means I’m completing my 49th year, not starting it.

And I know, it’s not really a “bucket list” if the deadline isn’t the end of your life…when you “kick the bucket”.  Indeed, maybe it’d be better to call this a “49th Year To-Do List”.  But that’s catchy sounding, don’t you think?

So this is a list of things I’m hoping to have achieved by the time that me being able to say “I’m 48 years old” is cold and buried in the ground.  What do I want to have achieved / completed / accomplished by then?  That’s what we’re looking at here.

Looking Back at Being 47

Today is the end of me being 47 years old.  I’ve been writing all year in one way or the other about how 47 is my favorite number, and now we’re here at the end of the year and all I can wonder is, did I actually do justice to this iconic moment in my life?  After all, I don’t get to go back and do it again.

Can I, indeed, think of 47 things I did or experienced this year that made the year notable or cool?

Let’s try!

24 Hour Film Challenge: A Strange One Down the Street

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Recently, some colleagues at the missions community that I live and work in ran a 24 Hour Film Challenge.  This does not mean you have to make a film that is 24 hours long (that’s how my youngest daughter interpreted it, originally).  It means you have 24 hours to make a movie, going all the way from story conception through writing to filming to editing & post-production to handing in your final project.

Funny Things My Daughter Says (#8)

An oldie but a goodie from many years ago, that I haven’t shared on this blog before…

When my oldest daughter was only about four years old, my family visited a modern art museum in upstate New York.  It wasn’t really our cup of tea.  Certainly, there were pieces that we appreciated, and perhaps more for me than my wife, but there were also plenty that we just had a hard time understanding where the artist was coming from.

And maybe it’s also that we just didn’t want to go to the bother of understanding where the artist was coming from.