“Johnny, your mom is an angel — she always was.”

In my building’s parking lot.

On busy Bardstown.

Let’s see how many years it is before I do another of these.

The universe heard me and apparently mistook my quiet little plea for some kind of brazen challenge or dare, because 2009 began badly and progressively found new and increasingly inventive means of dishing out cruelty. I’m glad it’s over, and I’m glad it’s gone.

So, 2010, I’m the one who’s challenging you to be better. I’ll certainly be doing my part. Can you rise to the challenge?

Hopefully I’ll have some Hercules news I can share with you in the near future — it’s going to be awesome. My writing partner Kevin Rice and I are working on some other things, too, that I can’t tell you about until I can. But it’s all good stuff.

Sometime this week I’ll try to do Top 10 lists for the music and movies of 2009. Or maybe not. I don’t know. One of my resolutions for 2010 is to spend less time in front of a computer, and if the ghost town this blog became in 2009 is any indication, it shouldn’t be that difficult a goal to accomplish.

Bad things (and people) that happened in the last two years aside, the good people in my life continue to remind me constantly that we’ve all got a lot to be thankful for.

In fact, let’s listen to our good friend Glen Phillips sing a song about it.

Here’s to your amazing 2010, and to mine.

Onward and upward!

It’s August 2006. The Gin Blossoms and Nina Gordon have released new albums on the same day, which is excellent news for me. So just after midnight on release day, I drive to Wal-Mart to buy them so I can put them in my iPod and listen to them at work that morning.

So it’s almost 1 a.m. and I’m standing in line at the checkout lane, and the woman in front of me has gathered so many groceries that her cart is straining and sagging. She turns around and looks at me with my two CDs and says, “Please go in front of me. You only have two things, and I bought the entire store.”

“Thank you,” I say. “That’s very sweet.”

(And it really was — a rare bit of thoughtful humanity in the wild world of retail.)

The creepy old man in front of her says, “You can go in front of me, too. It’s going to be a long night.”

He smiles a leering, crazy smile and brandishes his own two items — a Jimmy Buffett concert DVD and a big box of Ex-Lax.

I promise I’ll try to get some new stories. I have a great one about something that happened at Long John Silver’s, but I can only tell you in person because it requires lots of funny voices. And then there’s the “Sheena Queen of the Jungle” flight attendant story from last summer, but that one requires an in-person telling, too.

I’ll start.

Problem:

Rosario Dawson isn’t happy with how crazy Los Angeles drivers are.

Solution:

Come live with me in Louisville, Rosario Dawson!

“Goodbye, 2008! I’m off to John’s house now. Forever.”

See how easy that was?

And did you know that A History of Violence was the last major Hollywood film to be released on the format? (I’m still trying to erase that movie from my brain. I’m so sorry, Melissa.)

My parents bought our first VCR in the early 1980s so that I wouldn’t have to miss episodes of the live-action Spider-Man show on Saturday mornings while I was at catechism classes in Corydon.

That was a great deal. We’d get the breaded tenderloin and mashed potatoes and gravy and noodles lunch at Jock’s on the corner, and then go home to a fresh episode of Spider-Man.

Best parents ever. Just for this Christmas, in fact, they bought me Selma Blair to go along with my purchase of Liv Tyler. (Not the actual actresses. That’s just what I named my Blu-ray player and my HD-TV. I would never want to purchase either of those ladies, but if they’d like to come live with me, that would be way okay. I’m a good cook, and I love to tell stories and go on adventures.)

I still own a few VHS tapes, and it will be hard to let them go. So I guess I won’t. And in that regard, VHS, your legacy lives forever.

(One of the deadlines is particularly exciting. And I can’t tell you about it yet.)

But!

In the meantime, you can see Bob’s pictures here.

And be sure to read his captions! They are HILARIOUS.

And true.

Every word of every one.

Thanks again to Courtney and Bob and Kate and Melissa for making the journey with me, and to Bob for driving through conditions both perilous and frustrating, and to Jonatha and Glen for being our sweetest angels upon our arrival. This concert meant a lot to me, and I’ll tell you more about why when I get time to write it all out.

No one’s life should be this blessed. I’m glad mine is. More to come.

We left at 8 a.m.

It should have been a six-hour drive.

Instead, we walked into the 8 p.m. concert at 8:07 and were lucky we got there at all thanks to weather and numerous stops to sit in stalled traffic for crazy amounts of time.

Stories coming soon. Including my splits-inducing head wound from when I “almost almost” got scalped by the door.

And big thanks to Bob for navigating us through the most ridiculous driving conditions I think I’ll ever see.

Here’s one quick picture in the meantime:

With Jonatha Brooke and Glen Phillips

More to come soon — I’ll tell the tale as soon as I can stop laughing about it all.

– Batman, The Long Halloween

“I promise myself that I will be HD-ready by the time The Dark Knight comes out on Blu-ray.”

– John Bierly, in the kitchen one evening while sipping on a Pepsi

And so it is.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the new ladies in my life — Liv Tyler and Selma Blair:

Liv Tyler is a 37-inch Samsung 1080p HDTV, and Selma Blair is a matching Blu-ray player.

(I have a long history of naming major electronics after my favorite ladies both fictional and real; the iPods are Sweet Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, and my cellphone is Maggie Gyllenhaal.)

I’d been holding off for a long, long time, talking myself into, then out of, taking the plunge. But there are so many good movies coming out now on home video, and I was tired of buying DVDs when I knew Blu was so much better, and then there was the promise I made to myself about going HD before The Dark Knight arrived (which will happen on December 9), so I kept my eyes out for good deals and finally found the right one at HH Gregg.

I got there at 5 a.m. Friday, and two hours later the box was wedged so tightly into my backseat that the TV had to be cut out of the box just to get it out of the car and into the apartment.

I know I’ve really been falling behind on writing here lately, so hopefully this will get me in gear to start doing more reviews. I’ve seen tons of movies lately both at home and in theaters near me, so maybe I can get some more writing done here.

(In the meantime, I’m still cranking out tons of stuff for Impact and reviews of Detective Comics and Batman Confidential for Batman in Comics, and working on some other cool stuff with my writing partner, Kevin.)

Big thanks as always for your visits and your patience!

More to come.

And by good cause, I mean sharing something fun with you.

(And big thanks to your friend and mine, Melissa, for sharring it with me.)

Go here …

Gap.com: MerryMixIt

… to check out “a surprise holiday cast” mixing it up to sing Christmas songs while wearing Gap attire.

My favorite is Rainn Wilson and Selma Blair. I have the hots for Selma Blair. Check her out this week on DVD in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which is also an excellent film above and beyond the hotness of Selma Blair. Is it wrong that I don’t like NBC’s Kath & Kim, but I still sometimes watch it because Selma Blair wears trashy outfits? Probably. But I’m learning to cope with it.

Be sure, too, to check out the one with Jon Heder dancing hilariously (yet skillfully) while Janelle Monáe belts out a tune. (That Napoleon Dynamite is a good-lookin’ dude.)

I’m not so big on Sarah Bernhardt, but the one she does with the Dixie Chicks is good. (The Chicks look and sound amazing, and Natalie’s eyes are so blue, blue, blue.)

Freddy Rodriguez, Jason Biggs, and the particularly hilarious Romany Malco do a hilarious “We Three Kings.”

Fun stuff.

(And Kelly, this one is for you.)