Welcome to the first of a dozen monthly recaps of my attempt to stick to a series of New Year's Resolutions for 2012. This first installment shall cover January. Yes, we still have a handful of hours left in the month (where in the hell did the month go?), but it's close enough for government work.

I start to get petit-mal cases of self loathing when I go several days without writing up a blog post. Thankfully there are people like Kim, Marty, and Dave to help me out with a meme to get those cranial juices flowing again. Sure, this meme is a week or two old right now, but it's still doable.

Would ya look at this? I'm actually posting Snippet Wednesday on *gulp* a Wednesday!!!

AHHHHH!!! The dead rise from the grave! Seas boil! Dogs and cats... living together!! MASS HYSTERIA!!

I love when art and life comingle a bit, get all kinds of cozy together, and wind up turning out a result such as Left. Left. Left. Right, Left.

Hey all, sorry about missing out on a Snippet Wednesday yesterday, but support in the fight against SOPA and PIPA reigned supreme across the web. Not sure how it will all play out, but we can hope, right?

Sorry. No Snippet Wednesday this week. I will be back tomorrow with Snippet Thursday: The Reckoning. In the meantime...

That is all.

I really hate when you start to see support for a technological device wane.

I'm attempting to decide what's worse... having a winter with consistently cold weather throughout that makes you hate winter, Mother Nature, life... or having a weird, moderate-temperature winter followed very suddenly by some wicked snow.

Oh man, not a good way to start 2012 by missing out on my first opportunity at a Snippet Wednesday last week. Gah! Must rectify.

One of my Christmas gifts was a copy of the two-disc, 20th anniversary edition of Nirvana's Nevermind. While not my favorite Nirvana album (that honor goes to Bleach), I still feel Nevermind is pretty damn close to perfect and I love it dearly. And, while listening to it on the way home this evening, I expressed this "near perfect" claim on Twitter.

For a couple years now, my buddy Bob, of Voices In My Brain, has been conducting an annual Celebrity Death Watch on his blog. This year, I'm going to follow in his footsteps and, even though we're a week in to the new year, post my own Celebrity Death Watch.

It's been 2+ years of poop-and germ-free peace and quiet. But he's back.

I think the Metro in Chicago is trying to kill me.

I finished my second-straight annual photo challenge over the weekend. It feels good knowing that I've committed to a creative project and actually come through in the end. Of course, using an iPhone this past year made it so much simpler than the year before since I could upload to the web live.

Perhaps I've become jaded in my old age screaming in vain as all them young whippersnappers go tearing by me in their speed-demon vehicles, but I've been thinking about that post of mine from a couple weeks ago where I talked about the NTSB's proposal to ban ALL cell phone or device usage while driving and, to be honest, I'm starting to like it.

For many, it's a chance to reminisce on an eventful year gone by and look forward to another great year.

For others, it's a chance to say "see ya" to a year they might prefer to forget and hope that 2012 will prove better.

Whichever way you choose to look at it, I hope 2012 is a great year for you.

Happy New Year!