It’s a new year and blogs across the net have done “2008 in review” and “looking ahead to 2009″ posts. I’ll do a little of both.

Music:

2008 was a great year for music. My first discovery was Yeasayer and my last was Bell Hollow. Both had CDs I immediately purchased. The best musical find wasn’t a band or a new CD though, but something much more valuable: a source of new music, RCRD_LBL.

The last year also involved a rediscovery of my interest in music creation. In addition to recording an old favorite and three new shorts, I wrote and recorded my first new full-length song in years. Unfortunately, I have done very little music recording since. This is partially because I finally got the equipment to record drums. I played and recorded myself only to discover that I’m hopelessly out of practice and need lessons. I’ve been taking lessons for several months just to relearn what I’ve lost. I’m also picking up some new skills along the way.

In 2009, I plan on continuing the lessons to the point where I can play and record the drums competently. Then I can continue my collaboration with Chopdeli. I also plan on continuing my electronica composing. I have a song in the works tentatively called Rust Belt. I’ll also post about what I think is the best of RCRD_LBL and hope to review CDs more often.

Religion:

I started ’08 by completing a good book: Mere Christianity (Scott, I continue to forget to return your book). It was so thought-provoking, in fact, that I wrote a three-part post that generated excellent discussions in the comments. I also continued an ongoing debate over abortion. Another great discussion was generated by another multi-part post about The Problem of Evil. Finally, I discovered a religious podcast called Beyond the Box and have an ongoing discussion about one of their episodes.

On a personal level, Bunnies4Buddha and I have decided to stop attending the Unitarian Church we in-frequented. We felt that it just wasn’t a good fit, socially. We like the messages and the volunteer activities, but just didn’t feel like part of the community, which was the initial purpose of joining. Furthermore, I joined a local atheist and agnostics group. We basically get together once a month to eat, drink, and socialize. This was a good social fit for me. We also got to see a free screening of Religulous.

In 2009 I plan to continue my religious criticism posts. After all, those tend to create the most lively discussions. However, I feel it’s time I start outlining what I believe and why. It’s easy to tear beliefs down, but a much more difficult to build them up. Since my beliefs tend to be philosophical in nature, look for them under that category.

Philosophy:

Other than the philosophy of religion posts I’ve already mentioned, I wrote several posts on freewill. It started with my favorite post from 2008 and was followed by two more related posts. I also wrote a couple more posts related to Jonathan Haidt’s moral theory.

I hope to do more philosophic reading over the next year. I still have the collected writings of Thomas Paine to get through. I’m also keenly interested in Baruch Spinoza’s philosophies and have a book on that topic sitting on my shelf. There is also I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter that looks particularly inviting.

Politics:

It was good year for liberals. Our country simultaneously elected a president with heritage outside of Europe and proved that bigotry is still alive and well with California’s Proposition 8, and other hate-based legislation. Locally, we also removed two congress persons with some disturbing un-American rhetoric from office. I also worked the polls in my precinct three times this year (two primaries and the general election).

In ’09, I’m looking forward to see which campaign promises Obama is able to keep and which he’ll have to abandon because of political realities and emerging situations. I’m also hoping that my new congress people are more responsive to my emails and much more tolerant of the non-religious like myself.

The Internet:

If you’ve been following my blog over the course of ’08, you’ve likely noticed a drop in the frequency of my posts. There are a few reasons for this but one reason is definitely micro-blogging via Twitter. If you are part of Twitter, you can always follow me there.

I hope this trend doesn’t continue in 2009, but since I don’t post for posting’s sake, we’ll have to see.

Other:

In 2008 I discovered podcast novels. The first I listened to was a sci-fi action book by J.C. Hutchins called 7th Son. B4B and I listened to it on an extended drive and loved it. On our last trip, we started Murder at Avedon Hill by P.G. Holyfield, which may be even better. Last, but certainly not least is my friend Scott’s very own Archangel. It’s second part, subtitled Legion, is not only voice-acted, but one of the characters is voiced by yours truly. In addition, some portions of it are produced by myself as well.

One plan for 2009 that doesn’t fit the above categories is a physical goal I’ve set for myself. I plan on walking 1,000 miles in one year. I’m not counting things like walking around the house, or to and from my car, only exercise-worthy walking. The walk has to last for at least 30 minutes at an exercise pace to count. I also have subsidiary (and much easier) goals of 5,000 push-ups and 10,000 crunches.

Happy New Year to all my readers.