2008 ROUNDUP

I know I've been promising Top 10 lists but it's not going to happen. I gave them some thought and have made out some lists in my notebook but I realized it's silly for me to do it. Why just have another post full of lists? And yes, I realize the irony of saying that in a post that's going to be a list/stats. I just need to make sure that I post actual content next year, actual thoughts about what I'm listening to and reading and so forth. Maybe that will make my lists seemed earned next year. Or not.

Anyway, I'm going to rundown my year in pop culture consumption now...

I read 48 books in 2008, meeting the goal I set at the beginning of the year. I also abandoned 7 books this year, reading of 500 pages of those books combined. It was a restless year in a lot of ways, I guess. Last year I read 44 books, so I managed to increase my total again (not so sure that will happen in 2009). I read 26 books in the first half of the year and 22 in the second. I read 10 books by Kage Baker, 3 that George R.R. Martin wrote or at least had a hand in, and 2 each by Michael Chabon, Gregory Frost, and Jeffrey Ford. There were quite a few story collections and a fair amount of non-fiction for me. I average 4 books read each month and it was a good year of reading.

I read 264 short stories in 2008. I'm sure I abandoned some stories this year but I didn't keep track of that stat this year. My high was 50 stories read in November and my low was July, when I didn't read any stories. I read 144 stories in the first half of the year and 120 in the second half. The stories came from 9 issues of Asimov's, 10 issues of F&SF, and 11 story collections. My average stories read per month was 22. Last year I read 216 stories and averaged 18 a month.

I read 83 comics in 2008, 35 of which were trades (and 10 of those were rereads). I read 62 of those in the first half of the year (24 trades) and only 21 in the second half (11 trades). It was a year when I read the entirety of Y: The Last Man and Zot! (well, close to it). I read 14 comics twice - in February and again in June (but in June it was all trades as opposed to only 1 trade and 13 singles in Feb.). I read 2 comics each in September, November, and December (and in each case, it was 2 trades). My average comics read per month was 6.92 (2.92 for trades). Last year I read 119 comics (27 trades) and average 9.92 per month (2.25 for trades).

I'd like to pause and just note the downward trend in all of my reading in the second half of the year. Not a surprise when you consider I was working 2 jobs and taking 6 credit hours from the end of August on.

I bought, downloaded, or received 89 CDs in 2008. 68 of those were downloaded and 4 of the grand total were EPs; I also downloaded 13 songs. March was the biggest month with 10 new CDs and September was the smallest with only 4 new CDs (though one was a double disc set). I got 50 CDs in the first half of the year and only 39 in the second half. My average CDs per month was 7.42. Last year I got 110 CDs and my average was 9.17.

I saw 9 movies in the theater in 2008. June was the biggest month with 3 and May was the second with 2; the rest of the time I either saw 1 or none. My average movies seen was .75. Last year I saw 14 movies in the theater and had an average of 1.17.

I guess my overall trend for 2008 was one of decreased pop culture consumption. I only increased 2 of my 5 categories over last year (books and short stories) and even those tailed off in the second half of the year. Again, it's not a surprise. I don't go into 2009 expecting things to change and I don't really have any goals for my consumption other than to enjoy what I do consume and to write about it with some depth.

Happy New Year!

GOOD BEHAVIOR

On Sunday night, I logged onto our local library's website and requested a book. Now, that's not unusual for me - I've requested a fair number of books that way over the past year plus. But the more I thought about it Sunday night, I realized I should be good and hold off on getting any library books. Why? A few reasons.

One is that I can't let myself get too distracted as my college semester winds down. So far, I'm doing very well in my classes (another 100% on last week's Algebra test) and I need to make sure I finish off strong. Picking up a book right now wouldn't be the best idea, even though I'm only 4 books away from reaching my goal for the year.

I'm not going to stay completely away from books until the end of the semester, though. I've long targeted Thanksgiving break as a good time to get some reading done. Even though we travel 600 miles and hang out with family, there is still some time to relax and read. That coincides with last week's release of Jeffrey Ford's new story collection, The Drowned Life. I plan on ordering that in the next day or two, so I can take it to PA. I'm very much looking forward to it.

After I get past my finals, I will jump into reading as many books as I can. I'll have 2 whole weeks on not having to go to school or work at either job. Book-reading heaven!

I've also gotten myself into a groove with catching up on my SF magazines. That said, I still have 5 piled up after I finish the Sept. issue of Asimov's...and 2 of those are double issues. I also have a couple trade paperbacks I haven't read yet and I think I'm going to reread the first Zot! collection before I get to the new one (it's been a long time since I've read any Zot!). So, it's just comics and short stories for a few more weeks as they are much easier to squeeze into my busy schedule. I also won't buy any new trades until I get these read too.

So, there you go. I'm going to be on good pop culture behavior the next few weeks and beyond, but I'm not depriving myself. And best of all, there's light at the end of the tunnel.