2018: The 2,018th Year Ever!

It's the end of another year and around this time, people rank things. Also people like to talk about how much 2018 sucked. And it was a pretty shitty year. Not only globally, but for me personally. Between me spending a week in a hospital cause I blew out my small intestine and finding out I have a super mutant spleen, losing my job, finding a job I actually liked, finding out I can't stay full time at the job I like and going back to the job I hated (but for more money!), and having a few people who were close to me passing away, yeah this year can go fuck itself.

But there were some good things that happened this year.

First off (in no particular order), I published my second book (which you can totally still buy right now), which was a feat unto itself cause I was writing it when all of the terrible stuff in the first paragraph was happening to me. I'm also taking a break from the Time In My Hand series to write a full novel, which is a challenge for me but I think I'm up for it.

Also this year, I got to teach games at Gen Con. I got to teach The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31, Secret Hitler, and Doctor Who: Time of the Daleks. This was a very frustrating but awesome time. Frustrating because each game I had to teach was at tables far away from each other and I had multiple games going on so I had to run around making sure people were OK or playing it right. And I was told the wrong tables to set my games up so everything got confusing and was a big mess. But once things got going it was fun to watch, especially The Thing and Secret Hitler, knowing who was lying or telling the truth. I hope I get to do it again next year.

Something I use to do in the past was rank all the movies I've seen but the number of newer films that I see goes down from year to year. Like this year, I've only seen 10 new movies that came out in 2018 (well, one was December 2017, I didn't see it until January) so I can rank those now I suppose.

10. Super Troopers 2-I thought this was just OK. I love the first movie and the idea for a sequel sounds good but this wasn't really that great.
9. Solo: A Star Wars Movie-I did enjoy this movie and thought it was fun. It's only number 9 cause of everything else that I'm about to mention.
8. Ready Player One-I saw this with my friend Adam who was not a fan of this movie. I never read the book so I thought it was pretty good. I felt like the ending dragged on a bit but overall I liked it.
7. Deadpool 2-I feel weird putting this at number 7, I feel like any other year it'd be higher but the next six are REALLY good movies. Sorry, Deadpool.
6. I, Tonya-I like unconventional films that tell a story in a different way and a biopic from EVERYONE'S point of view is awesome. And there were a lot of funny moments in it as well.
5. Bird Box-I went into this with no expectations and no idea what it was. I only watched it cause everyone was talking about it and making spicy memes about it. And I'm glad I did, it was really amazing. I did have a few issues with it, hence why it's not higher, but overall it was creepy and kept me in suspense the entire time. Good job, Sandy and the rest!
4. Sorry To Bother You-God Damn was this movie fantastic. It starts off as a satire and then the middle of the movie it makes a turn you don't expect and you're just staring at the screen, wondering what the fuck is happening. Great movie, highly recommend.
3. Black Panther-The first time I saw this, it was literally two days after I got out of the hospital, so I wasn't in the right frame of mind and I said I thought it was just OK. I recently re-watched it and now think it's amazing. Sorry I said bad things about you, Black Panther. You awesome. Hi, auntie.
2. Hereditary-Holy fucking shit this movie was awesome!! I hope Toni Colette wins an Oscar for this performance cause she knocked it out of the park. I love love LOVE creepy ass movies and boy howdy was this one creepy ass movie! If the number 1 movie hadn't come out this year, THIS would've been my best movie of the year. Holy shit, I want to watch this again now!
1. The Avengers: Infinity War-Yeah, it had to be this one. This has to be #1 on everyone's list. How could it not? Ugh, I need to rewatch this ASAP!

And finally, for the past several months I've been posting polls on my Facebook to see how people feel about things I think about. It's time to reveal the results and my thoughts on them.

First up, was something I'm still gonna attempt to do in 2019, which was to watch all the movies in a horror series. I picked Sleepaway Camp cause I just got Part 2 on blu-ray and I picked The Purge cause the latest one was just in theaters so I asked which series should I start with? And the results...may shock you!

Out of 17 votes, the winner was The Purge which surprised me cause a lot of my friends are old school horror fans and I would've sworn they would've picked Sleepaway Camp, but nope. They went with The Purge. I have seen the first Purge film and thought it was pretty good. That was the only one I've seen, although I've heard the sequels get better the more they go on, which is so different than most horror sequels. So I guess the first movie marathon I'll do in 2019 will be The Purge films.

Second poll was just something I was curious about: Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore.

I'm gonna be bias here and say 73% of people are wrong. Billy Madison is the better movie. I'm sorry. I'm not sure why so many people prefer Happy Gilmore but I rather watch Billy Madison any day of the day. In fact, I think I have the movie memorized. But with that said, I find it interesting that 40 people had an opinion on this since Adam Sandler isn't really beloved anymore.

Then I asked the age old question: Bill and Ted or Wayne and Garth.

I admit, this is a hard one. How do you pick? What criteria do you use? In what context do you like one or the other? And in a way, both are similar.

Both are somewhat dumbasses in their own rights but are still lovable.
Both manage to find "hot babes" despite being dumbasses.
Both fumble their way through success and get rewarded in the end.
Both were huge in the 90's (yes Bill and Ted was first introduced in 1988 but whatever)
Both had sequels that felt a bit rushed. One of these sequels is better than the origin movie. The other is good but not as great.

But with 15 votes (not sure why this one was so low?) the majority went with Wayne and Garth. Again, I'm sure it had something to do with the sequels. Maybe we'll get both a Bill and Ted 3 AND a Wayne's World 3 in 2019. Wouldn't that be MOST EXCELLENT! SCHWIING!

Up next had to do with horror anthology TV shows.

Honestly, I figured this was how it was gonna go. Tales From The Darkside didn't get a lot of love when it was out and didn't last nearly as long. Plus it didn't have a puntastic host. If the reason people didn't vote for Darkside is because they haven't seen it, give it a chance. It's not THAT great but it's not bad. The theme song is pretty damn creepy.

And finally, the best poll I ever created.

The people have spoken! Die Hard IS a Christmas movie! And holy shit, this year people REALLY have gone down this road with me. IFC had a 24 hour marathon. There's been countless websites talking about it. And even the movie studio themselves had something to say!


So yes, Virginia, Die Hard is a Christmas movie. I don't wanna hear about it anymore. Just accept it.

And with that, we now look forward to 2019 and hope that maybe, JUST maybe, it won't be the shit-tastic year that 2018 was. Man, remember when we thought 2016 was bad? If only we could relive THAT year.

Also, I know I haven't posted much and I said as much in my into to this blog but I promise I'll have some things for you in the New Year, so stay tuned for that.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!
-Jason