The Spirit of the Sword

Today I finished watching the last episode of the Chinese TV show The Spirit of the Sword.  It was surprisingly good.  This show proves that I don't dislike soap operas, I just like them to have lots of sword fighting and martial arts mayhem, which of course American TV networks will not provide.  Oh, well.  If you like martial arts films I recommend giving it a try.  Also, you can get unintentional humor from the horribly bad English subtitles on the discs.  If you like what they show in the opening sequence, you should really enjoy the show.

Resolutions

I have never been big on the concept of "new years' resolutions."  I have always said that if you identify something that you want to change, just change it at the time you recognize the need for a change.  Don't wait for an arbitrary point of time in the future.  This probably represents me missing the point of taking the turn of the year as an opportunity to stop and think about what is working and not working in ones life, so I have actually taken some time over the last few days to think about what I want to accomplish in 2013.  I have come up with the following.

1. Play the guitar again - I haven't really played any of my guitars in probably five years, and I miss it.  There is a certain satisfaction in learning to play a new song or mastering a new chord structure that I only find in the guitar, so it is time to get at it again.  That being said, spending the first six months of 2013 building up finger callouses again will not be fun.
2. Read more books - I have always enjoyed reading, but often get pretty nonchalant about it, taking a few months to finish off one book, and I usually don't read more than a dozen books in a year.  I want to do better in 2013, which I can probably accomplish by playing less Football Manager on the computer.
3. Partly related to the above, I want to be more intentional about how I spend my time.  I often find myself puttering about the internet without purpose, wasting time that could be more profitably used elsewhere.  Even if I am playing a game or watching TV, I want to do so because that game is one I really want to play or that show is one I really want to watch, rather than it just being something I am doing without active thought.