It’s the end of the year  and lists and retrospectives abound. One can imagine that Donald Trump made many lists-regardless of what they cover. Frankly, I am a bit tired of these news story lists. I am intrigued by the lists that outline great discoveries from the past year. For instance, did you know that researchers discovered 450 Stonehenge-like formations in the remote northwestern part of Brazil.  It’s huge news because this was done using drones and indicates that settlers lived in the area far earlier than scientists originally believed. Scientists also possibly discovered three new planets.   Does this mean that there is no hope for Pluto anymore?  In this vein, I came up with my own list of what I personally discovered in my life this past year. There’s nothing deep on this list, folks. Just some things on my mind as I count down the hours.  Happy new year to all! I am lookimg forward to 2018 and all sorts of new discoveries.

1. Stranger Things.  It is awesome. How could I have missed this the first year out? I somehow did. I finally caught up with it this year and loved it.  And, just like many other people out there one of my favorite characters, surprisingly, is Steve.  How spot on was it when he said “I may be a pretty s—ty boyfriend, but turns out I’m actually a pretty damn good babysitter.”
2. Lasertag. Apparently, I am good at lasertag. For my son’s birthday, we went to Vegas and did lasertag somewhere in the outskirts of Vegas. It was awesome. I have good aim, apparently.   I also learned that five year old kids are incredible good at this as they tend to just sneak up on you.
3. Good local donuts. I have found that I far prefer the 79 cents donut to the $1.50 ones at the fancy donut places that put a limit on how many you can buy at a time.  Yes, there are donut shops here in hipster locales that say you can only buy 6 at a time. That is just so wrong. But, I digress. I chose the cheap but fluffy yummy ones.
4. Valium. I had joked about putting this on the list and decided to actually go ahead and do so.   Let me explain. I discovered a few years ago that I get claustrophobic in the MRIs. I tried to brave it and just go in without any aids. Then, this year (which was fairly high on the anxiety spectrum), my doctor got me to realize that it was ok to take a valium for the MRI machine. I pulled off my latest MRI without a hitch.
5. Blocking. Until this past year, I never had blocked anybody online. Then, I went from 0 to 100 in 60 seconds flat. Or sort of speak. I didn’t defriend anyone. I just made it so that I wouldn’t have to ever interact with people I didn’t care for.  It is quite liberating. Wish I had discovered this function sooner for it has brought me grand joy.
6. Netflix. For that matter Amazon Prime Video and Hulu.  I’ve had memberships to all for many years. However, I honestly never watched anything on them. I record most of my shows and am happy with that. Yet, this year, with the television season being so bad, I wanted to find an alternative. Lo and behold, I have all these memberships. Thus, not only did I discover Stranger Things but I also really got into Runaways. I highly recommend it. I also learned that I can watch these streams through my Xbox console. My son taught me that.
7. Bishop Briggs. What an awesome voice and set of songs. The melody. The lyrics. The beats. All work together to produce music for whether you need an angry, sad, or amused song.  The perfect singer for my 2017. On another note, while I was familiar with old Kesha, the new “Praying” song was so on point. I hope her life improves greatly and that she finds true freedom in the coming year.