I really should know better than to get into political stuff in my blogs, since not everyone who reads them are union loving, progressive, agnostics. In fact, not even my own family and good friends agree with me a good part of the time and I've learned to keep quiet about a lot of things. Still it is nice to have a place where I can rant and not bother Donna by yelling at the television.

In my humble opinion, as bad as the past year was in Washington and in the media, the countdown to Election Day (and probably way past then) is going to be even worse. The GOP has made it clear since Obama won in '08 that their one & only job was to ensure the man was a one-term President. It doesn't matter if they block even things they themselves once tried to pass or that the majority of the American public thinks they doing a horrible job. All they can focus on is creating an atmosphere so poisoned that only the most toxic swamp dwellers are voting in their caucuses and primaries. The candidates they are voting for would be a joke in any other election year, yet this is the 'best' the Republican Party can come up with. Mitt Romney (or as he is known in Chez Chaput: The Anti-Christ) is the kind of guy you fear sitting next to on a long flight. Newt Gingrich is a serial-adulterer and was tossed out of the Congress he lead for years. Rick Santorum avows some strange form of Catholicism that I certainly don't recognize from my youth growing up in the church. Ron Paul is...well, Ron Paul!

This is probably not the last time I rant here about all this and frankly I've kept it shorter than I had originally intended. All this stuff makes me angry and after a while I just want to get back to talking about comics & zombies.

Catch you all later!

Needless to say it's been way too long since I last posted and for that I apologize. I've become so accustomed to posting on Twitter & Facebook (and I'm still on MySpace, if anyone cares) that anything over 140 characters seems like beginning a novel. I recall promising sometime in 2011 that I'd post more frequently but that promise fell quickly by the wayside. I'm not going to redo that resolution again, but I will try to remember that I do have these two blogs.

If you've been looking at Shot's Shack, you'll notice that about once a month or so I'll put up one of my infrequent YouTube videos. You should probably only look for those if you are into comics, since that's primarily the topic I cover. They'll sometimes be something about TV or movies and even an occasional prose novel. Of course, since I'm also posting on several comics sites, along with Good Reads & Shelfari I generally get my ranting done before I even remember I have a pop culture blog.

I guess I should start off this New Year by briefly going over the last one.

Donna and I continued to work on our new place. We've gotten some new furniture (okay, second hand but in good condition) to make the place more inviting to any guests we may have. Over the holiday break from work we went back East to visit Donna's family in New York and mine in Connecticut. Seems hard to believe that it had been almost six years since I saw my family. Fortunately, they all seemed to be doing well, and I only wish I could have seen more of them. Trying to cram friends & family into two days wasn't enough. There were too many cousins I would have loved to have seen, if only for a few hours. I think I lost track of how many people I invited out to visit us. We'll have to restock the bar, if nothing else. :-)

My 2002 Saturn gave up the ghost and I'm now driving a 2010 Chevy Impala out and about. Sadly, my driving skills (or lack of concentration) has already left me with a dent on the rear driver's side wheel well. The only good thing is that the guys at the car wash (where it happened) were able to buff it up so that you really don't notice it. Hopefully, this will mean that I'll be accident free and not have to worry for a while. Could also mean that I have to pay closer attention when pulling into gas stations from now on.

For those of you wondering, my new 'job' (position really) at the Library seems to be going smoothly so far. Still learning the regular patrons and routines that go with a smaller branch. Certainly much quieter, most of the time, than working at the Main library, but it can be hectic when you are on the Reference Desk and have to be both Adult & Children's librarian, plus computer tech all in one. Fortunately, I have a very good & experienced staff to keep me from making too much of a mess of everything.

Not sure if it's the job, getting older or my terrible diet, but I discovered a week ago that my blood pressure has reached a point where my doctor has decided that medication is necessary. Considering my weight and lack of exercise I shouldn't be surprised that things have finally caught up to me. As he said, "If it tastes good, don't eat it." *sigh*

I believe that I've kept you from more important things long enough, so I'm going to wrap this up. If you're checking in from New York, I hope that winter will not be around much longer, although from what I hear it really hasn't been all that bad. If you are here on the West coast, you know that things have been cooler than we like but we'll be down at the beach in a couple of months (if not sooner). If you are located in the vast wastelands between the coasts, there's not much I can say to cheer you up I'm afraid.

Take care and stay in touch!