Happy New Year to All!

I have been a bad blogger and slacked the last week or so. I apologize. I have been working a lot of overtime and have not felt creative or witty.

So 2007 is upon us. With John Edwards declaring his campaign for president a few days ago, it seems the race for the office of president has started almost two years prior to the election. For the next two years, we are going to be overloaded with radio ads, television ads, e-mails from campaign groups, and on and on. I am not ready for this yet. I was in Belgium for the last election and stayed up all night there watching election returns (vowing the entire time that I would not stay up and go to bed). The 24 hour news media truly has destroyed any semblance of normalcy. In the never ending quest for news to broadcast, we are bombarded with reports about barricaded subjects in Iowa, traffic accidents in Illinois, snow in Colorado, tsunamis in Sri Lanka, lost hikers in Oregon, and fog in London. In earlier times, we did not have the constant push for information that we have today. I would not have known, nor likely have cared if three hikers were lost on Mount Hood in Oregon because this type of story is not pertinent to my life. In a day and age when Comedy Central provides most Americans with their news, we can all agree that the process is broken and badly needs to be fixed. If we could return to the principles of less is more and quality over quantity, we would be in a much better place.

I have not seen any movies lately that I have fallen in love with. I saw Babel when I was in Hawaii. It was a good flick, but very much in the style of Amores Perros (a Mexican film by the same director). I am a huge Cate Blanchett fan, but I would disagree that she deserves an Oscar for her role in this film. She writhes around in pain a lot, but we never get to see much about who she is. It is definitely worth seeing, but you can wait for the DVD. The Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up and Sing was pretty good, but it was edited so you kept jumping back and forth between the present and the past. I believe it would have been more effective to edit it in chronological order, but the documentary shows the great musicians the girls really are. If you like the Dixie Chicks as musicians, then you will like the documentary. If you are not a big fan, then there is not much for you to see that you have not already seen.

I am late for work, but I wanted to post before the New Year. I hope everyone has a safe and terrific New Year...from Fremont to Fargo, from Hong Kong to Hoboken, from Santiago to Seattle, the best for you and yours in the coming year.

Feliz Ano Nuevo! Cuidate.