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Good King Wenceslas looked out
On the feast of Stephen
when the snow lay round about,
deep and crisp and even.

Good King Wenceslas, Traditional Christmas Carol

Labels: qotd, Twelve Days of Christmas

Slow and easy. It's cold out there, and I have a cold. I'm just eating soup and lo mein hoping to be ready for work on Monday. Sucks. We're almost done here.

Labels: Twelve Days of Christmas

Are you planning on any? I'm not except for the weight loss thing and getting healthier. That's it. Or perhaps learning a language in programming or in speaking. Nothing revolutionary just evolutionary.

Labels: music break, Thievery Corporation, Twelve Days of Christmas

It's snowed just about every week since Thanksgiving. It was never like this, and the last few years there was barely any snow. Now, we've got snow. Lots and lots. Snow season has moved in. At least we haven't had an 18" blizzard yet. Keeping the fingers crossed.

Labels: Twelve Days of Christmas, weather

2014 Rulez!

Happy New Year to my friends, family, and hangers-on. May you have another successful year.

Labels: Twelve Days of Christmas

Let's get it started early. So long 2013. Hello, 2014. Here's to everything that happened in the past 365. Here's to everything that will happen in the next 365. I wish you and yours a safe and happy New Year!

Labels: nostalgia, Twelve Days of Christmas

The penultimate day of the year! Yeah, I just used a vocabulary word. Yeah, I used it right. And, yeah, the year is almost over, but let's not forget the past year. What I mean by that though is the past year in film.

Lately, this blog besides the "Twelve Days of Christmas" has devolved into my film comment blog. Not reviews, but comments. Not any insight into the movie I saw, but insight into my reactions to the film.

How is this holiday specific? It's auld lang syne for movies. Pretty soon I will set up my own list of great movies this past 2013. Happy New Year! Enjoy another holiday… I'm stretching for things to write.

http://thedissolve.com/features/2013-in-review/

Labels: Twelve Days of Christmas

Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of the year

Snowflakes in the air
Carols everywhere
Olden times and ancient rhymes
Of love and dreams to share

Sleigh bells in the air
Beauty everywhere
Yuletide by the fireside
And joyful memories there

Christmas time is here
Families drawing near
Oh, that we could always see
Such spirit through the year

Christmas Time Is Here, Vince Girauldi Trio

Labels: lyrics, qotd, Twelve Days of Christmas

I'm purposely posting everyday to get me to Little Christmas as the eastern Church would call it. Here's a shot from the Ice! ice show at National Harbor south of DC.

It was a cold, cold experience even though today's temperatures reached into the 50s. I wore my Patagonia Better Sweater, a hat, and a scarf, yet the provided parka they gave to you help insulate me more. Unfortunately, I did not have gloves and it got cold. After a bit, I wanted warmth.

This is a reminder that over the Holidays there are some things to do besides eat, sleep, and watch television.

Get up.
Go out.
Enjoy the winter!

Labels: picture, Twelve Days of Christmas, wintry mix

This ish is hard when you have no theme. I would post something more interesting, but I'm too lazy and stuffed to the gills with Holiday feasts. Maybe I can figure something out in the next couple of days…

Yule Log for your viewing pleasure. Not sure if it shows it for the full hour. I only watched 30 seconds in order to figure out if it was worth posting.

Labels: Twelve Days of Christmas

Gift giving.

Labels: Twelve Days of Christmas

It's late on Christmas night, and I am stuffed. I've got my fill of festivities and of the food found at said festivities. I've got my fill of Holiday music. I've got my fill of gifts and giving. Yet, there is always more Christmas cheer.

There is still the other eleven days. Here's the last bit of blogging of the year. What should I fill it with. The last time, I wrote about media associated with Christmas. It was a splendid idea. Here we are again, the first day of Christmas, Christmas Day. I'm not going to write about Christmas media. Not sure what I want to write. I just need to write.

So the final posts of 2013 should be a hodge-podge of things that I am thinking about this last week.

Maybe also get you a partridge and a pear tree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_days_of_Christmas

Labels: lotd, Twelve Days of Christmas

I didn't want to end it this way, but twelve posts in a row is plenty so I'm gonna end it with a whimper. Hopefully, tomorrow's Epiphany will be better, but for today it's The Simpsons (Marge Be Not Proud)

Bart was caught shoplifting which disappoints his mom. She treats him more grown up. He buys a picture to replace his photo mess up on their family Christmas portrait. It was a Christmas present. It all takes place at Christmas time.

Kid berates his mother for Bonestorm. Calls her stupid. Tells her to shut up. "Buy me Bonestorm or go to hell!" Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge seems like the better game.

The episode wasn't one of the more overt Christmas episodes for The Simpsons. In fact, it doesn't play as a very special Christmas episode. And this post doesn't play like one of my other ones as well. I guess the Christmas theme is that it can last too long. We can't wait for Christmas to get here, and it is trying once the season starts. Then it seems to go on, and on, and on, but now it's over. I just wish I ended this series better. I can't wait for next Christmas.

Labels: d'oh, tis the season, Twelve Days of Christmas

If you weren't scared by the Ghosts of Christmas, perhaps Gremlins can give you a scare.

Crap. I have nothing to say about this one. It's a better fright story than A Christmas Carol. Watch it.

Christmas theme? Mayhem! You know that feeling when you play Santa handing out the presents. It's just like a host of gremlins running through town. It's madness.

Christmas mayhem! Onward to madness! Like gremlins.

That's all I've got...

Labels: fright, tis the season, Twelve Days of Christmas

News Radio (Xmas Story)

The guy in the Santa suit ho-ho-ho-ing and ringing his bell could be dangerous. If you don't believe me just ask Bill McNeal. The Santa harassed him making him wary of the harm that could be done to him. Except it turned out to be a stunt to get Bill McNeal to listen to the Santa's audition tape. It turns out the Santa was looking for advice on getting a job in radio. Or was it?

Mr. James gets a Yankees autographed jersey, and he gets the staff baseball caps. Except the staff isn't thrilled. To make up for it, Mr. James buys them all cars except Matthew who gets an old-timey radio comedy show. Is that enough for them?

Christmas theme is bad presents. Not getting what you had wished for. Admittedly, this ain't a theme, but something that occurs always during Christmas. If you wanted it so bad, you should've bought it yourself. On the flip side, cash is always good; don't buy lame presents.

The chance for something lame greatly increases with the amount of presents you get. I got very few presents this year. Thanks, Santa!

Labels: tis the season, Twelve Days of Christmas

The X-Files (How The Ghost Stole Christmas)

Christmas time finds Mulder and Scully investigating a haunted house in Maryland. The duo find two desiccated bodies under the floor boards. The corpses are wearing the duos outfits. The duo are on a wild ghost hunt. They meet up with the former occupants of the house who committed suicide on Christmas Eve in the past. The ghosts delve into the two FBI agents' complicated relationship.

One of the worst episodes of the X-Files. The concept was cute by a half.

Christmas theme: Need to be connected to someone. Sceptic with the believer. Both afraid of the loneliness. Sharing the holiday season with someone who understands you.

I miss the internet community that The X-Files spawned. And Scully in her short bob. Mmmm, Scully!

Labels: Scully, The X-Files, tis the season, Twelve Days of Christmas

You! Yes you. What day is it? New Year's? Have I been asleep all this time since Christmas? No, don't answer that? I say though do you know the butcher on the next street over? Do you know if they've sold the goose hanging in the window? Still there! Good! Here's a farthing fetch me the butcher. Bring him back with the goose in 10 minutes, and you'll get another farthing!

Happy New Year!

I just substituted New Year with Christmas, but as we all know that scene is from A Christmas Carol. I'm finally getting you back to a familiar holiday treat. Yes, a week late, but we can go back in time to witness what Christmas means to a humbug of a man.

Usually, this is when I summarize the movies story, but if you don't know it by now. Get thee to a library.

The Christmas theme for today is Christmas Day! Happy New Year! Nothing like thinking about Christmas Day than to start 358 days away to getting there. Remember where your Christmas Spirit should be; in the here, in the now, in the next. Nothing better than to start being Christmas than to start on the first day of the year.

So remember, be Christmas year round lest the Ghosts of Chrismas Past, Present and Future come to visit you.

Labels: tis the season, Twelve Days of Christmas

New Year's Eve. It's a new movie opening this weekend. I don't think I want to subject you, my readers, to something that painful so I'm gonna fall back to one of my favorite Coen movies, The Hudsucker Proxy.

Norville Barnes, a hick from Muncie, Indiana, peers perilously over the ledge as the clock strikes twelve on New Year's Eve. He wants to take his life because he was a failure at being the CEO of the Hudsucker Corporation, but he was just a stooge put in place by the board to drive the stock down. At the disastrously lowered price, the board members wanted purchase the stock on the cheap. Needless to say, Norville's idiocy guides the Hudsucker Corporation to new heights especially with the introduction of the hula-hoop, Norville's invention.

Amy Archer is a Pulitzer winning journalist who spies something funny about Norville Barnes as CEO, and she decides to investigate him. She poses as a fellow Muncian and becomes Norville's secretary. She finds out how much of an idiot he is, but also that there is some genius to his idiocy. She falls in love, yet, she exposes his idiocy and causes his downfall. "How could you a fellow Muncian?" Queue the climb to the ledge.

The Christmas theme today is the circular notion of "what comes around goes around." Christmas comes just once a year. It's gone, but it will be back again next year. Live for that and it will come around again. Give and you shall receive. Or as they said in the movie karma.

The big O! "You know, for kids!"

So as you celebrate New Year's Eve remember, you do get a second chance. It'll come around again in a year's time.

Labels: movies, the shelves, tis the season, Twelve Days of Christmas

Most every anime featuring high school romance is going to have it's Christmas episode. Hatsukoi Limited is no different. It's title is "Before it Snows" (雪が降り出すその前に) I just wanted to copy and paste that. You see I needed an anime to tell us all about Christmas in Japan from the schoolboy's perspective. I would've chosen my favorite anime, but settled on Hatsukoi Limited because it sorta has a theme we could attach to it for today.

The set up for the anime is that these girls and these boys have crushes on each other and they either need to acknowledge the crush or be crushed by rejection. It's a short, simple, complicated manga turned by Kawashita-sensei that you should read about its plot at wikipedia. Anyhow, the Christmas episode has the gang planning a Christmas party. Three girls and three boys each crushing on someone are to attend and they'll exchange gifts. The day arrives and two girls and two boys have bailed out for various reasons leaving the more antagonist couple alone. They don't know if they like each other; they just know that the other is really, super annoying. They argue then get into a snowball fight which clears their heads enough to acknowledge that each has a good point to them; they're steadily falling in love. They exchange presents and each finds that they got what they had wanted.

The Christmas theme for today is koi. Love not familial or brotherly, but passion. We should feel it all year long, but it is more acute around this time because of the sharing and

The second Christmas theme for today is "tsudere goodness." Assertive, combative, confrontational at first given way to gentle, warm-hearted, loving that's a Christmas present I can't wait for.

The third Christmas theme is grade S zettai ryouiki. That's the star on the treetop and the ribbon on the gift. Waiting for it is worthwhile.

Labels: anime, Hatsukoi Limited, tis the season, tsundere goodness, Twelve Days of Christmas, zettai ryouiki

If I didn't have the time to watch last post's film, I'm even more crunched for time for today's,Christmas In July. So, to save time, what we'll have here is the transcript as I live blog the film. I'll just have to figure out the Christmas theme on the fly as well.

Ready? Here we go...

Christmas in July is one of Preston Sturges' lesser films not as great as the Lady Eve or Sullivan's Travels, but one of the few he directed himself. No idea who Dick Powell and Ellen drew are, but still it's filled with his repertory cast such as William Demerest.

William Demerest locks the jury on the Maxford House Coffee slogan contest. Maxford House!

They don't announce the winner? Oops.

Dick Powell doubles down after every loss! Always bet on black!

"If you don't sleep at night, it's not the coffee it's the bunk."

It's a Viennese doctor's theory that coffee doesn't make you sleep.

Maybe the Christmas theme for today and this movie is Christmas should be 365-24-7, year round. Always be sharing all the time outside of Christmas. Maybe?

What would Sturges do with more accomplished actors? Wait until his next movie to find out.

He works for the competitor! There's a bell to start work? Like school! It is school! Rows and rows of desks where the workers ply there trade. And a secretarial pool as well.

Going to principal's office. Damn he's getting grilled.

"Cheese it!"

Co-workers have sent a fake telegram for winning the Maxford House slogan contest. He won the big prize. $25000! He's going on a spending spree, but he's been fired. No, he's gotten a promotion.

"It's bred in the bean."

I don't think this movie has anything to do with Christmas...

The contest winner is here? They hadn't even announced it.

"I just give money away." "I can't wait to give you my money."

They just waltz up and took the money.

Now they're buying some crazy contraption automatic pull out sofa bed. The future is now!

Here we go... they're buying everyone in the neighborhood presents. Truly it is Christmas in July.

They're walking out of the department store without paying again.

That's probably it for the Christmas mention. I wonder how they'll get out of this one.

They're still arguing about the slogan winner and the guy has already spent the money on gifts. Here's Sturges and his witty dialogue.

He's a loser... And the jokes on him.

His name has already been painted on the door so he keeps his job! And he did win. I think we saw that coming!

Wow what a short movie. Must've been a single reel.

Welp. It would've been better but I didn't know a movie with a title including Christmas wasn't about Christmas. I'll try and do better tomorrow.

Labels: tis the season, Twelve Days of Christmas