Okay, so I'm still fucking ill. Turns out, my throat infection decided to move for greener pastures, and has now taken up residence in my chest. I hope it's very happy in its new home. I, on the other hand, am still feeling like shit and understandably, have neither been to work or quit smoking this week.

I do hope I'm better by next week. We have midnight tickets for STAR TREK on Wednesday and I intend to be there come hell or high water, I'd just rather not be coughing my way through the flick. Unless it sucks, in which case I don't mind.

Being ill sucks. I sit here having had a week off from work. Ordinarily, this would be a good thing, but seeing as that came as a result of a throat infection and temporary tonsillitus, it is certainly not a good thing. I have generally spent the last six and a half days with a horribly sore throat, coughing my lungs up and blowing my nose. I hope it isn't Mexican Flu.

I am also quitting smoking starting tomorrow. Again. I was going to do it last week, but being home ill never goes hand in hand with the stress that comes with giving up nicotine, so I decided postponing it was the best thing to do. I am also going to go back to work tomorrow, despite not being 100%, so I pray my motivation to do anything but sit on my ass has returned by 8am Monday morning.

At least with the aforementioned sitting-on-ass, I have been able to watch a few things. I started watching BAND OF BROTHERS, that was good (thank you Lovefilm), but I have spent a lot of time reacquainting myself with the original 60's STAR TREK, in preparation for the new movie, which is awesome (the show, I haven't seen the movie yet). It's always had this really bad reputation outside the Trekkie world of wooden acting, bad sets and general unintentional comedy, and while I can see it sometimes (the terrier with bits stuck on it from 'The Enemy Within', it's really surprising how good some of these episodes are. I mean, you certainly have to take into account that this was produced forty-three years ago on a relatively small budget, so in the context of that, it works really well. The stories are mostly actual proper scifi, not just a few spaceships fighting against each other and Captain Kirk doing heroic things (although admittedly, that does happen often). Like 'The Devil In The Dark', where a strange creature is killing off Federation miners, only to find out that they started it by killing its children. The creature looks like a big french bread pizza, but the writing and tone of the episode makes its scenes surprisingly emotional.

Anyway, I'm quite excited for the new film. The clips I've seen look good, and while I'm not 100% convinced, it should be a good laugh. My only real concerns is that they've hipped it up to the point where it's accessible for non-Trekkies, but at the expense of the spirit of Star Trek. But who knows, maybe I'm just being a grumpy old bastard?

On the plus side, I was able to see some very dear friends yesterday who were kind enough to visit, and their children and Logan met for the first time, which sounds all very kind of adult. But it was brilliant, and on one level amazing that it happened as I suck at communicating with people. My next mission is to ensure I see several more of my friends I haven't seen for a while, starting with two a bit of a way away who certainly know who they are.

My son has ABS - angry baby syndrome. Still, DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE is pretty fun.

Wow. It's been a pretty fucking crazy year. I'm not really sure how to sum it all up in one blog post. But I guess if there's ever a time to try it's now, as there's currently one hour and forty-three minutes left of '08.

A lot of huge stuff happened in my life in 2008, outside of the usual movies/music/games. I'll go through the media stuff later, but, like a famous prince, my life kind of got flipped-turned upside down this year, and we did some things in one year that some people don't do in a lifetime, let alone one year. First of all, buying our first house. That was a pretty huge step, but we managed to get an awesome home for a fraction of the price it would cost in a lot of other places, and all we had to do was move to Wales, which isn't so bad at all.

The reason we bought the house is probably the biggest thing to happen to us this year, and really, most years; the birth of my son, Logan. If you sat me down like three years ago and told me by this time I'd be A: married; B: owning my own home; and C: having a child, I would think you would have some sort of brain disease. Yet, it happened. Logan is awesome, and I wouldn't change what we have for the world, no matter what hardships we have gone through/will go through.

But yes, as well, there have been a ton of good movies/albums/games around. It's been a crazy year, what with the return of Batman, Indiana Jones, and Metallica. Celebrities have continued to have public meltdowns (Amy Winehouse, I'm looking at you) to show us how much better off we unwashed masses are, and the credit crunch/recession has ensured us that we can no longer have spontaneous trips to Woolies. My football team, a.k.a. Newcastle United, is on the brink of relegation instead of revolution, and is once again trying my patience in supporting them. But there's been some good things, people. Good things.

MOVIES

Well, the long-awaited return of Indiana Jones to the big screen didn't go entirely as planned. I liked INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL okay, and it didn't enrage my wrath the way it has done with a lot of geeks, but a combination of poor marketing and poor scriptwriting made it damn sure that this was certainly not the year of Indy. Not helping his cause was IRON MAN, which I am actually going to watch tonight (late starter as always), which was commercially and critically lauded, but everything was blown out of the water by near-TITANIC beater THE DARK KNIGHT, which, by the way, is a fucking amazing picture as you should already know. Heath Ledger is sadly no longer with us, but jesus, what a performance to leave as his last. NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN showed me that the Coen Brothers can do amazing things when they want to, and that Javier Bardem is one scary motherfucker. I was also surprised (pleasantly) by the very good KUNG FU PANDA, which chalks up as the first Dreamworks CG animation I have actually even gone so far as to like. Well done.

MUSIC

I suppose the big story is the return of two fallen giants of hard rock/metal to the scene, each with varying efforts. Metallica's DEATH MAGNETIC showed us you can go home again, but you must have Rick Rubin by your side. However, it was by no means a MASTER OF PUPPETS or ...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL beater. Guns 'N' Roses (well, Axl Rose) finally brought us CHINESE DEMOCRACY, and for all its fanfare and years of anticipation, it's just not very good at all. I have a feeling Axl pricked off all of the good musicians before they had actually finished tracks, and just filled in the blanks using ProTools and Adobe Soundtrack. Still, the surprise of the year for me comes twofold: first from Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip, who convinced me there is good UK hip-hop outside of the utter gash that is The Streets with ANGELS, while the best record comes in the form of Those Dancing Days and their enchanting debut IN THEIR SPACE HERO SUITS. A bunch of teenage Swedish girls singing doo-wop tunes with 80s pop influences? Yes man, yes!

GAMES

There have been some pretty awesome games this year. LEFT 4 DEAD is the zombie-massacreing game George Romero never made, FIFA 09 is finally a PES beater, LEGO INDIANA JONES was more fun than the film, STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED was frustrating, but still a hell of a good play, and GEARS OF WAR 2 was a huge disappointment. But we got a 90s throwback in the form of the blister-forming SUPER STREET FIGHTER II HD REMIX. My thumb still hasn't recovered.

On to 2009!