GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL!

OK, now I know that those of you who know me are already aware of this. And probably those who don't know me wouldn't find it too much of a stretch to believe. I'm horrible at setting and achieving goals.

In fact, one of the surest ways for me to fail at a particular goal is to set it. I can be going along fine in a particular area, then say, "Hey, this is going OK. Maybe I should set a goal of doing this every week for so long and then have this accomplishment by so and so date."

And then, *pbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbt!*

So please rejoice with me today when I announce to you that I've accomplished the goal I set back in January when I decided to keep a movie list just like my movie heroes Stennie and Mike. I set the then Herculean task of 200 movies in one year. And this afternoon, I by-God hit 200 movies for the year.

My movie #200 was "Whale Rider," which I'd heard a lot about and rented this weekend. I took it Mr M's Saturday and we started watching it, but it being the weekend of the bad knee, and subsequently the weekend of getting a couple of the Naprosyn tablets Mr M had for his arm, I fell dead asleep about 8 minutes into the film. He finished it while I dozed, and was not bowled over by it. I personally liked it. It's a great story, and a great movie to recommend for kids, especially girl kids. Great "girl power" movie.

And just to go one better, I hit 201! Tonight I watched a movie called "Winged Migration" that I'd seen Ebert & The Other Guy review on their show this weekend. It's a documentary all about birds and their migration habits. It was filmed by people who got "up close and personal" with these birds, and no doubt about it, it was beautiful and breathtaking. But it was also about two hours of birds hopping about.

Now, don't get me wrong, it had its moments, even sad ones, as we see some succumb to hunters on their trips, and caught in land tractor reapers, and we see one bird get stuck in oil that was absolutely heartbreaking and luckily they didn't let the camera linger too long.

However, I think a much better story would be just how they got these amazing shots. I'm hoping somewhere in the special features there will be a short story about this.

But the thing it impressed upon me the most? Baby birds are cute. Baby birds are the cutest things in the world. Every one of them, even birds that grow up to be ugly mofos in adulthood are absolutely adorably cute as babies.

Damn. I've watched 201 movies this year.