Where do you stand on opening Christmas presents early? For, against, have more complicated feelings about it?

My family's done very little of the early gift-giving. It never became a tradition; I think we did it maybe once or twice. Earliest tends to be the stockings (candy and a Mad or Cracked magazine), which kept me and my brother T.J. distracted -- well, distracted somewhat -- in the morning while Mom and Dad worked to awaken.

You?

Why is "Train in Vain" by The Clash called that? What's the character in the song training for? Was it just called that because it rhymes?

True. It's a very Shane Black Christmas.

Watch almost any of his flicks for Christmas! Sex, violence, quips, hot people, all good.

(I am bad. I have not seen either The Last Boy Scout or The Long Kiss Goodnight.)

Ever heard of The Aristocrats (supposedly the rudest joke ever told*, and a subject of a really jaw-droppingly funny and overwhelming film)?

Think Sam Kinison ever told a version of it?

I wonder about things like that. The deeply wrong premise would likely have darkly amused him; on the other hand, it was a vaudeville routine that kept going through the comedy scene throughout the decades, and maybe it was too "old-school comedy" for him. I have trouble imagining Kinison getting into vaudeville.

Still: maybe once or twice or more times than that, Sam Kinison idly or seriously said "So, this guy walks into a talent agency..."

Or maybe they tell the joke in Comedian Heaven. Or Comedian Hell, depending on wherever you think Kinison wound up.

---

* I say "supposedly" because the fullness of time may possibly yield AN EVEN RUDER JOKE. As Sam Kinison himself once said, "People in the audience are going 'Jesus, God, that's the sickest, most disgusting joke I've ever heard on stage.' WRONG! I can top it."

Dear Cat,

My heart goes out to you in this time of mourning and life. I hope you and your family can carry on in joy and fond memories of Maria.

Tine' and I shall pray for her, you and yours.

Always yours,

Tom

Modern science fiction, reimagined as steampunk. Via ixzist.

Like this:



And, also, like this, which I actually think is really lovely:



And this, which I think is hot:

( It's a large shot. )

(Warning: there's at least one 9/11 reference amongst this work.)

This Sunday night at Portland's Mount Tabor Theater, the people at 7th Planet are hosting a double feature of Mark Hamill (Cock-Knocker himself! Oh, and, also, the star of these Start Wars or something films) that they shall comment on. They're showing the science fiction action film Slipstream, the one with Beard!Hamill and Bill Paxton in a post-apocalyptic blasted land (score by The Magnificent Seven's Elmer Bernstein!), and Time Runner, where Hamill fights time-traveling, planet-invading aliens.

Sunday night from 7 to 11, Mt. Tabor Theater at SE 49th and Hawthorne. Free. I'm tempted.

Here's a laugh (a historical laugh!) written and drawn by beatonna.

Did some writing tonight that won't be online (at least not yet) in a way y'all can read. Won't say what it is, but some of you may be able to guess.

Productive week at work so far. Productive lunch today, too: I indeed reached the new food cart Big-Ass Sandwiches and happily ate a toasted roast beef sandwich topped with fries and Bechamel [sp?] cheese sauce, washed down with a mango Jarritos. I can get there and back to work with time to spare. Good for potential future visits to Big-Ass Sandwiches; I want to support them!

Meanwhile, don't mind me, I'm going to be asleep and thus less interesting for a while.

"Merry's Treasure"
By Onómir

“Come now Merry, you’ve naught said two words all night. Staring at your ale and pipe is not like you. What is on your mind, if you don’t mind me askin’, and what part of our journey do you remember as best?” Samwise prompted Merry too join in the conversation, as the four hobbits reminisced in the Ivy Bush.

“Sorry Sam, I was mulling over in my head the times with Boromir and King Theoden. The events we shared, stories we told were, or are, precious to me.” Merry looked up, smiled, wiping away a glad tear. “To fallen friends.”



At the end of a year, or adventure, it is a good thing to take stock, look back, and remember the times, friends, joys, and sorrows.

Such is life.

Peace

Mind continues to bend under the weight of Lost, now that I'm watching Season 2. (I have the DVD sets through Season 4, thanks to friends of my folks. My parents, both Lost fans, are amused I'm finally experiencing it. As Mom said, "Confused yet? You will be.")

There was a potentially more-than-slight impediment I had to get past in order to like the show. At some point in Season 1 I had the thought Am I supposed to like anyone on the island? That season, at it throws the island's mysteries at you, also throws the characters' issues at you. Deep, dark secrets, all around, except for maybe Vincent the dog, and they're not dealing with those deep, dark secrets all that well as they're getting swamped with the new secrets of the island, and of course their being CRASHED AND STRANDED in a horrific, violent way is gonna throw anyone off. Not a happy time. So people's issues, because it's understandable in the situation and because it's required for Lost's plot, become more prominent and affect how these characters behave. But there was SO MUCH of it that, especially with me powering through the show, it became a little wearying. (Plus I knew that some of the plot questions raised in Season 1 STILL haven't been answered as of Season 5.)

It took just powering through, and letting the show's ideas, emotions and flashbacks accumulate, as it were, for me to get past that. More sympathetic details eventually come out for each character, not just the dark and difficult stuff. And as the characters get farther from the traumatic event that brought them to the island, they get both more functional and more cognizant of when their fellow survivors aren't functioning well. More of the characters are looking out for each other. I think I needed them to get to that point. Makes it a more complete experience, not just seeming like the setup of a vast cosmic joke. (Though I did find the opening scene of Season 2 to be a nicely-delivered joke. Mama Cass! And come to think of it, that opening scene kind of pulls off something Douglas Adams tried to do sometimes, which was have something that was funny at first and then show that it's something serious, which if successful makes the situation more dramatic: "Oh...you meant this." So it works.)

I'm now about a quarter of the way through Season 2, just kind of letting it wash over me. Whatever issues I may wind up having with Season 2 (I know its reputation as a season that almost drove away a lot of fans), I'm invested now. Which I wasn't sure I'd be when I was about halfway through Season 1.

Because my Christmas plans have changed three times in the last 7 hours, and every change is messing with my ability to get this one polished off for y'all as I had planned to do today, I am going to post it in three parts, the first part being today. The second and third parts will both be posted either before Christmas or shortly thereafter. I originally titled this piece "The Letter" because, well, 98% of it was a letter from John to Bobby that Bobby didn't get until three years after John was dead.
 
Then Castiel showed up. As John would say, "Fuckin angels and the unicorns they rode in on."

At that point, the story went from John speaking to Bobby about their friendship and his faith in Bobby when it came to protecting the boys after he was gone, to a much more comprehensive story about Bobby's struggle to come to terms with living the rest of his life in a wheelchair, and how both John and Castiel figure into that struggle. Given that what prompted John to write this letter to Bobby in my head in the first place was Bobby's confession to Dean that, if he'd had the balls to do it, he would have put a gun in his mouth the day he came home from the hopsital; this much longer and more comprehensive story is much more the one I was looking to tell. It is not, however, 98% letter any more.

Fuckin angels and the unicorns they rode in on.

So anyways ... Here ya go. A huge thank you to smalltwndreamer  for being such an awesome beta/sounding board. I cannot tell you how important it is to me to have someone I can so completely trust to 1) be honest about a story's failings (because I already know what the strenghts are, dammit), 2) always, always, always understand that just because I don't take a suggestion doesn't mean that suggestion wasn't essential to my process, usually in a way that ends up being far more influential than taking the suggestion would have been, and 3) make smart, awesome suggestions that I usually do end up taking even when I say I'm not going to. Because you're usually right, g'fren ... which is exactly why I come to you when I need a sounding board to help me figure out where that sour fuckin note is coming from.

Title: Do Not Go Gentle
Author: Dodger Winslow
Genre: Gen
Rating: R for language
Word Count: 28,000
Spoilers: Up to where we are now
Disclaimer: I don't own the boys, I'm just stalking them for a while ...

Summary: And hard as it was to reconcile such considering with every other damn thing as passed between he and John on regular basis, the sad truth of it was, Bobby did consider that abrasive son of a bitch family. Family not in the literal sense, and not even so much for the blood shed between them in battles fought back-to-back with their very souls as penalty for surrender. But more family in the simple fact that only true family can piss a man off as effortlessly as John had always managed to piss him off. It was a skill the man possessed in spades without even trying, and there had never been a day gone by since the day they met that John Winchester had not been actively trying.

 

( Do Not Go Gentle (Part 1 of 3) )

 

"She's the sexy kind of round."

(Okay, NOW to bed...)

The solstice happened earlier today. We've now started climbing out of the dark.

No, the night won't look brighter because of that, 'cause it's night. Tends to be dark, except in the Antarctic Circle right now where it's light all the time, but you know what I mean.

In other good news, something good started today: former DJ Lisa Wood (on Twitter as Lisa Effin' Wood) and her husband Brian Wood joined Portland's burgeoning food cart scene with their sandwich cart, Big-Ass Sandwiches. The shortest day of the year and they were out feeding people with tasty, cheesy, french-fry-laden sammiches (yes, the fries are among the toppings). I plan to be there at lunch tomorrow to have one such sammich. Sandwich. I should say "sandwich." Me saying "sammich" just sounds wrong.

In other other good news (the repeating word thing must be from all that watching of Monty Python and the Holy Grail when I was younger), my work day was productive. I should keep that up.

And this is getting random enough that I'll take it as a sign that I should go to sleep.

"Lost and Found"
By TS Tharp
12/21/2009

In the sand near the end of Frisco Bay,
the ravens watched, nesting together.
A cool fog swirled around him that day,
indelible memories, and a single feather.


At a beachside spit near the Presido in San Francisco I walked with Tine' and found three Ravens. I longed to have a feather and look downwind of them and was rewarded with a long black feather. I'll try and get a picture up.
That was the muse for my simple poem.

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/buzzlog-uruguay-to-hollywood.html

On the subject of movies forthcoming;

I do so look forward to seeing Robin Hood and Iron Man II in 2010.

I hope to see Avatar 3D and Sherlock Holmes this month yet.

Whine alert;
i am offically strung out on perocet, at this point, trying to get through each day until this kidney stone passes, or until it gets struck and i allow a Dr. to go in and get it...Christ help me.