Some favorites from the past year.

At the Pow-Wow...

Windy and Jabba, duking it out.

An Eastern Bluebird finds a new home in our yard.

Face to face with wildlife during a nature walk.

That's a lot of turtles.

Another piece of our yard last January, with a rare, big snowfall.

And finally Toni admiring nature...sort of.

...for snow? Not usually, not around here. Yet this morning I woke up to a small piece of Winter Wonderland, which is pretty nifty. If I have to deal with cold weather, I want there to at least be some snow around. It just makes things pretty.

Those wooden things are planters and a bird-feeding station I built. You may think it funny, but it's pretty relaxing to kick back and just watch birds. Plus, I can take photos, which is another hobby of mine and score pics like this one:

Well, I think it's enjoyable anyway. Those are American Goldinches, by the way. They will eat thistle but really prefer sunflower seeds. The more you know...

I've had a setback on my road to recovery... I have an infection in one of my incisions that didn't seal. I might have said that. I can't remember what I said yesterday sometimes. Yeah. It hurts.

I need to stop whining though.

'Tis the season for the doldrums too. Has anyone noticed this? Gamespot and company seems to be suffering from the contagious blues. twilightlullaby, bluej33, many others. Tough times lately. That's too bad. I hope all gets better for everyone I know.

I don't want to get all sappy and sentimental (again), but GS- no scratch that- the people who frequent Gamespot and blog- have seriously helped me through a lot of crud in the last year. Man, I never realized how bad I needed a pat on the back sometimes until I started hanging out here.

Screw the blog police. If things suck, that's what we're all here for. It has helped me out a great deal to know all these great people.

Except johnsteed7. (Zing!)

Dysphagia: difficulty or inability to swallow.

It stinks. I'm swollen all along the esophagus and upper portion of the stomach =liquid/soft food diet. Know what happens whenwhat you swallow istoo thick? Dysphagia. It feels like you are being choked to death but yet can still breath. Just awful.

I played Dead Space on the 360 and got all the achievements. I even beat the game on Impossible Mode. Seems like an oxymoron. I had to turn to the Dark Side, however, in order to accomplish this. I had no choice but to microtransaction better weapons and armor.

Gamewise, it's virtually identical to the PS3 version. I couldn't really find a glaring difference in quality- good or bad. Which makes me wonder: if the PS3 blu-ray capable disc can hold significantly more data than it's 360 counterpart, why in the world aren't the games much, much better on PS3? Hm.

I really dig our Christmas tree. Some of the ornaments were my Grandmother's grandmother's. Looky two possive pronouns back to back in a sentence. That's hard to do.

I've been writing again. I don't know why- it just calls at me. It's a fools game to think you'll get published. If you write and want to see your stuff in a book, self-publish. That way even crappy writing can become popular amongst the masses (Eragon). Of course, if you write about vampires or werewolves crappy writing is always published (Kim Harrison, Stephenie Meyer). Ok, that's harsh.

But a little true.

"Beijing," and "Peking," are pronounced the same. Bay-jing. Impress your local Chinese restaurant people by tellin' em you want Bay-jing duck, not Pee-king duck. Unless you want the urinal champion duck.

Did anyone catch the Macy's parade on Thanksgiving? The Oneida were represented with a giant turtle and dancers! Outstanding.

I've lost 18 lbs as of this morning in 14 days.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, but I'm seriously not racist.

I have a hot tub and two-car garage on my Christmas list, but I'll settle for one of those plastic tube candy canes with M&M's on the inside.

Frankly, I don't care if you celebrate Hannukah or Kwanzaa or nothing at all. I dig the Christmas atmosphere, and it's a totally pagan holiday anyway. Read the books.

"No comment," is a comment.

If someone tells you they have a surprise for you, doesn't that kind of ruin the element?

I like this quote: "There are nights when the wolves are silent, and only the moon howls."

After writing about the psychology of gaming being a driving influence for gaming habits, I'm now going to explain to you why you should ignore psychological studies about gaming reported in the media.

"What?"

I know, it's all so confusing. Let me explain.

Psychological studies reported in the media is often referred to as "Pop-Psych," among those who study in the field. It's a double entendre; Pop-Psych because it's popular with the "common folk," and Pop-Psych because it generally pertains to pop-culture. A psychological study about the effect of the Wii on children? That's Pop-Psych. This is done because psychologists rely on grants- federal funding to foot the bills of their experiments and laboratory equipment.

Because scientific fields are ensconced in the need for monetary assistance, most end result studies are flawed. Essentially, these fields are capitalistically infected; the need and desire for money propogates not only the outcome of their so-called studies, but what it is they study in the first place.

"So it's all bull?"

Not exactly.

When it comes to gaming, an astounding number of psychological studies have been performed. Are they all junk? Not necessarily. In fact, good scientific processes are *usually* implemented in studies- even those reported in the media.

The problem lies not with the manner in which the study is conducted, but how the results are interpreted.

The study:

The APA (American Psychological Association) released a report c. 2000-01 that reported that "violent video games can spurn aggression." Naturally, the media picked this story up and ran with it. The study indicated that a group of college students with a history of aggression became even more aggressive after playing video games.

The problem:

Many! First, the sample size was horrifically low. About 200 students in two different studies. You cannot make a blanket statement such as "violent video games spurn aggressive behavior," using 400 young people as a representation for the entire country of the United States.

Second, the term "aggressive behavior," is defined loosely- almost comically. "Student who spent more times playing video games peformed worse academically." Huh? So for one, being a bad student = aggressive? Ha! For two: welcome to Duh-sville. Of course students did worse in school when they played more video games! They should have been studying, not playing games. That's nothing to do with aggression.

Finally, the primary piece of "evidence," noted were taunt noises. Yes, taunt noises. Apparently these aggressive individuals would use loud noises (provided by the game) to taunt other players "longer than non-aggressive players."

Seriously? Taunt noises were longer = kids get more aggressive. That's just awful interpretation.

So it begs the question: "How can a good study have such awful interpretive results?"

$$$$$$$

Around 2000-01 was the era of a new, conservative movement in politics. A new U.S. President was elected with a conservative agenda. All political talk aside, in short it would be fiscally beneficial for a group to side with a conservative government when coming out with results to a study. Results that please the King allow the Peasant to live another day with his head.

One final quick example: results about gaming are not always negative- it just seems that way. Sadly, positive results can be sketchy as well.

Several studies were done from 2005-08. Not coincidence that these studies paralleled the meteoric rise of the Nintendo Wii (and to a lesser extent the 360 and PS3), these studies said that "video games were actually beneficial to very young children academically."

So, now that the Wii (good or bad) had infused some money into a horrific economy, gaming was desperately needed to be seen in a better light. Out with the "good studies."

The problem: if you look at almost all of these studies they all unified in their flaw: they vaccuum the results.

"Say what?"

The vaccuum: the greatest flaw in psychological studies. Socio-economic factors were not taken into account during these "games good for the mind," studies. The studies merely showed a correlation between kids with Wii's and 360's and better education.

Welcome to Duh-sville Part Two. Children who have the benefit of being in a family that has the fiscal ability to afford these consoles receive a much better education than those who didn't. A truism in the world: the more money you have, the smarter your children have the chance to become. Poor students perform worse academically (in general).

Upon closer examination, the students who performed worse than those with Wii's or other next-gen consoles not only didn't have a Wii, but usually were in an environment that couldn't afford any console at all. (Generality) No money = poorer academic performance. How much affect the console had on intelligence was sketchy at best. Hand/eye coordination yes, academia no.

So remember, there are psychological influences in gaming. However, those influences are best left to be found by the individual at home, not fed to you by the latest Yahoo news, Facebook feature or Twittered to your mobile device.

And please remember all of my ancestors who were killed or stuffed on reservations by your ancestors as you stuff the turkey down.

To my non-American friends: Happy Thursday!