I've come up with an easy method for determining the Awesomeness-Level of co-workers (or any other group that you frequently associate with).

It's quite simple – here's how!

Figure out approximately how many people you can have real conversations with. By "real" I mean: things that you're mutually interested in, things that one of you are interested in but the other person doesn't keep thinking to themselves "lalala don't care, are you done talking yet", and random things like zombie invasions…… Actually, scratch all that – just figure out how many people you can talk to about zombie invasions.

I estimate that I can carry on a conversation about zombie invasions with 10% of my co-workers, which gives my co-workers an Awesomeness-Level of 10. If I do the same with my friends, they end up with an Awesomeness-Level of about 85.

See! Incredibly easy and highly accurate! Obviously this entire metric gets skewed when we're actually in the middle of a zombie invasion, but when that time comes, I'll broadcast a new system on all emergency radio frequencies.

It's been a long year.. one of my most trying yet.. another move, a failed relationship that I wish had never even started, and a failed re-attempt at a relationship that I really wish I could have done better at. I've grown more distant from parts of my family, even ended up despising one of them so strongly that I really think I might (for once in my life) become somewhat (very) violent if circumstances drifted that way. There are a lot of negatives that I could go on about, because that's what my mind tends to focus on – the mistakes.

But not today.

Today is a day to think about everything that's good. To celebrate what we have, not what we've lost. To show gratitude to friends and family for just being there and being supportive. And, for me, to remind my stomach that thanksgiving was just the warm-up.

So, to all the people that have stuck by me, lent me their support, cheered me up when I was down, got me drunk when I was sober, made me get up and sing on stage/at the bars/in the coffee shop when I got a bit of stage fright, shared my homemade pizza, accompanied me for "hangover breakfasts", gave me a chance – even though I ultimately blew it, donated furniture to my apartment.. and anyone else that made any effort to care – thank you. You are what today is about. And I stuff myself with food in celebration of you.

Merry Christmas.