New Year’s Eve is one of my favorite days of the year. Though the blank slate of the new year is obviously just an illusion, it’s a very powerful image for me, and I really look forward to putting 2007 behind me. I can’t recall a less pleasant year.

Poor 2007 suffered from the comparison with 2006, where I lost 15 pounds, produced a very successful game (at least commercially) and met a Scotsman. In 2007, I managed the toughest project of my career and to be perfectly honest, lost a lot of my happy thoughts and energy in the process; for the first time in many years, I didn’t run in a single race.

It hasn’t been all bad, of course. As the game is almost out now, we can see what it’ll be like, and I’m truly happy with what’s been achieved. I decided to learn the piano, bought one and learned how to play it. Jonathan moved to Montreal and adjusting to life à  deux was easier than we were both expecting. I travelled for fun, to Scotland and Turkey, for the first time since buying the house. Difficult times are times of growth and I’ve earned some truly novel insights in 2007. There have been lessons that take me in new directions, but they fetched a dear price in sweat and tears.

A few eclectic highlights, for the love of lists -

Best books I read: Mary Queen of Scots, Zag

Worst books: Hey Nostradamus! (there’s nothing for it, I just don’t like Coupland), The Dip

Honorable mentions: The Ghost Map, Theft: A Love Story

Most influential book: The 4-Hour Workweek

Best movies: Michael Clayton, Ratatouille, Into the Wild

Best musical discovery: Death Cab for Cutie

Most annoying new development: Facebook’s Fun Wall

Most disappointing developments - society: Bali Climate Talks, the Bouchard-Taylor Commission

Most cautiously encouraging development - society: The delay of Canada’s restrictive new copyright bill

Best game played: Mass Effect

Happy new year 2008 to all lightspeed chronicles readers, I hope you look forward to 2008 as much as I do!