I’m watching non-stop murders because the idiot ditty on “How it’s made” erodes the brain, I have no interest in Battles of WWI at this moment, and one more bit about haunted hotels, Al Capone, Atlantis, or the Bermuda Triangle, and I am going to turn extremely un-merry. I have been watching non-stop murders for two weeks.
Mmm. What else do we have? The Apocalypse. That’s cheery.
I’m not asking for the umpteenth rendition of Frosty the Snowman, but I’d like something nice and uplifting. The Apocalypse? Gimme a break! We’re going to hear plenty of that upcoming—the Mayan calendar thing: I’ve heard the modern Maya are planning a fiesta to continue past the day—and figuring that’s the end of the world is beyond silly. The calendar-maker planned it for the rock he had and thought, “Y’know, carrying this on another full cycle is just overkill. I think the chief will be happy with this one.”
Anyway—we’re now pretty well Christmassed-up. Got a couple of errands to run. But mostly we’re good. And I’m back at work on the novel.
Hope all is well with you guys!
Didn’t the world end earlier this year? I’m sure there was some big news story about it. I seem to remember people with signs saying it was guaranteed. Wonder what happened to those folks and who they blamed when we kept ticking along.
Merry Christmas to you and all your house! And may the new year be filled with health and happiness!
If you’re too Christmas-ed up, here’s a wonderful Chanukah tune to celebrate with:
(The Maccabeats of YU, performing Matisyahu’s “Miracle”) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHwyTxxQHmQ
Thank you for the link! I think that’s the song I heard last year on NPR and loved it!
A couple of years ago, the local PBS affiliate broadcast an endless loop of a cheerful Yule Log fire in a decorated fireplace all Christmas Day. Not a bad option if you don’t have a fireplace! Failing that, I suggest hitting your local Redbox or Blockbuster and picking up a few things you might have delayed seeing over the year, or downloading something from Netflix. It’s mad out there in the stores, MAD, I tell you!
That’s standard here in Portland. OPB puts a camera in a tripod focused on the fireplace at Timberline Lodge up on Mt Hood, and everybody partys (somehow “parties” doesn’t seem right–it’s not plural–more possessive, and not quite that either).
I curl up with a good book, like the Chanur Saga by a very good author.
Very Merry Christmas to you and Jane !
Went out to get some better hair dye and happened on a town covered in hoarfrost. When I got through, I hurried back and snatched Jane up (doing computer work in her robe and muffies) to go for a drive (in robe and muffies) out and about to see the pretty trees—evergreens and birches mostly—all decked out in white and sunshine.
I think you sent it down here through the Gorge. 24.5F here this morning, still frosty in the shadows in mid afternoon.
Love Actually (or About a Boy as the mood hits me), Die Hard, and Edward Scissorhands are my Christmas movies of choice. I also squeeze in an old school Doctor Who marathon and maybe Empire Strikes Back. AKA, the usual. 😀
I haven’t seen “About a Boy,” may have to watch it. I’ll have some reading and some movie / TV episode watching, and some writing to do for fun. These days, I mostly get “TV” and movies via iTunes. I agree, most of current TV has turned into reality shows and “psycho-killer du jour” procedural dramas. Eh, the world has enough bad news on the real news, without dreaming up more. I don’t mind some angst and real world issues in my fiction. But I don’t need a steady diet of it either.
I will curl up with Invader and try to finish it. So much else going on, it’s sat there mocking me.
I am a sucker for “A Christmas Carol”, the version shot in 1984 starring George C. Scott. I always feel just a twang of sympathy for him as the Ghost of Christmas Present leaves him at the tunnel. “Don’t leave me.” Just the way he says it is so plaintive, you’d hardly think it was the same actor who played George S. Patton to the delight of Richard Nixon
It’ll be dinner with parents and brother/sister-in-law Christmas Day.
Lol—our official Christmas movie is The Lion in Winter, the version with Peter o’Toole and Kate Hepburn—
For one thing, Jane and I are multiply related to the principals of the story, Eleanor and Henry, and possibly Philip—one of us may actually be related to Hepburn—and somehow we’ve always found the piece just wonderful.
And—–I just screwed up the bread recipe. Got in late from the city tour, just hurried and got distracted, and now I’ve got a soupy sort of bread trying to rise. Must’ve done liquids twice…I don’t know. Usually you can ‘fix’ a too-moist bread by adding flour, but a quarter cup of flour didn’t dent this problem. Betcha I already added water and thought I didn’t. Now I’m confoozled, and I don’t know whether to let the thing try to bake or just yank it and bake it in the oven. I was going to do the Chicken Parmesan Caesar tonight, but it looks as if it had better be Chili Size, and extra pasta: I’m not trusting the bread.
They’re having a Firefly marathon on Science Channel.
First the politically correct one: “Happy unspecified occasion of a celebratory nature.”
and my personal favorite:
“Glad tidings we bring to you and your kin
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a bottle of gin.”
Why is the Science Channel showing the good sci-fi, and leaving the horrid made for TV movies to the Sci-Fi Channel? Not that I mind, as long as the good sci-fi gets on air somewhere, but it seems contrary to their respective mission statements. We can really get along without “Mansquito” (!) and others of that ilk.
I think Science channel gets that science fans tend also to be science fiction fans, and vice versa. Very glad to see Science running Firefly and other goodies. Skiffy / syfy … somehow dropped the ball around the time they cancelled Farscape or thereafter, and are trying to distance themselves from the very market the channel once was intended to serve.
Do hope your food is not problematic!
(Yes, my coat is of a brownish color.)
Lol! That’ll do~
The Snowman and The Santa Clause are our Christmas movies. I love the music in The Snowman, and the cheesiness of the other is just what Christmas needs.
Maybe you can turn your bread into a flatbread. You could have a perfectly wonderful accident there.
That’s a thought. Maybe breadsticks are in the offing, dusted with organo and basil and a bit of Parmesan.
The scarf that Hepburn wore as Eleanor had to be uncomfortable. It looked like one of those old things that people used to prop up their underchins to keep them from sagging.
Christmas Flicks….always The Lion in Winter (although we did not think of it as Christmas until you clued us in, CJ) and A Christmas Story… (You’ll put your eye out with a bb gun, kid.) Sometimes we do a marathon movie, Best Of Youth probably.
Happy Solstice….
WEll, the bread, against all odds, did turn out—kind of odd, with a very hard crust, but that’s ok.
😉
You don’t like the WW1 series? I thought it gripping. Somehow I’d forgotten all i learned about it 50 years ago.
Phil Brown
I’ve seen it. Really fine series. But as Christmas fare, it’s kind of grim—especially when we get down to the peace treaty that set up WWII. Idiots.
I’ve been at Compiegne (the only trees in evidence were neatly kept arbor vitaes) and seen the (second) railway car, memorial to the armistice—the Nazis burned the original—with a companion who’d been a teenager when the surrender took place. Her memory was very clear, very interesting.
The treaty that followed was a thorough problem. Idiots, I say. But don’t get me started.
I think I’d prefer a few days of thoroughly pretty fare, me. Bunny rabbits. Snowy slopes. Sparkly lights. 😉 Though actually we’ll both probably spend Christmas blowing up goblins….what’s wrong with this picture?
blowing up goblins is much better than dismembering a poor pirate pinata like Pegleg Pete. Well, depends on what you’re looking for, I guess. Instant gratification on seeing the goblin explode, or the shower of candy and other goodies when Pete explodes.
I’ve never understood the Treaty of Versailles to be anything but a means to punish Germany for something that was not really even her fault. There were (and still are) tensions in the Balkans, some of the new countries in Europe were sorting themselves out and trying to figure out where they stood in the new order. IIRC, Germany was politically obligated in the Triple Alliance to come to the aid of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and of course, that set them politically opposed to France. Even though most of the war was fought on French soil, I consider that the fault of the French themselves for not actively fighting more than a defensive war, for not training their soldiers better, and for not having adequate supplies for the troops. So, because France screwed themselves up, and had to call for help from Britain, Italy, and Russia, the bad Germans, Bulgarians, and Turks were made to pay for all of the damages done by both sides. Germany was made to pay the most, probably because she had been the biggest force on their side. France was still smarting from losing Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War, and so Germany lost that territory back, plus lost a lot of territory on the Baltic coast which effectively cut off their access to Prussia. That territory was given to Poland and served as a block to Germany’s eastern province. Of course, the Treaty made it easy for a small-time wannabe architect from Austria to incite the nationalistic feelings of the German people, and as a result of his rearmament programs, he helped bring the German economy to somewhat better than it had been during the Great Depression. That is one treaty that should never have been written. Nowadays, if we win a war, we’re expected to help rebuild the defeated country. “The Mouse that Roared”, so to speak.