Santa's Progress Part 4

Brian and I just watched THE POLAR EXPRESS and BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD DO CHRISTMAS, and in that time NORAD has tracked Santa over Florida and -- most recently -- New York!

And despite my usual sleep schedule, I'm thinking I may be asleep by the time Santa gets here. So this may be my last entry for Christmas Eve.

But first, I want to convert my copy of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE to mp3s so I can listen to it on my ZVUE. I've listened to a little of THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW (the first story in the CHRONICLES OF NARNIA series, though it was the 6th book written and published) on my ZVUE and I am SO digging on it!!! Those Focus On Family Radio Theatre folks really knocked it out of the park!!!

Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS! Keep tracking Santa!!!

Santa's Progress Part 3

Santa's been spotted over Newfoundland and Canada!

When I got back from the family dinner at Red Lobster, NORAD had him over Brazil.

I'm about to sit down to THE POLAR EXPRESS w/Brian, so I may not be updating again.

Not that you need me to report. You can see for yourself.

Hope you're making the most of your Christmas Eve, in whatever way gives you the most joy!!!

Santa's Progress Part 2

I just woke up after a peaceful and groovy sleep! I fell asleep listening to THE TWILIGHT ZONE RADIO DRAMAS adaptation of Rod Serling's "Night of the Meek". It's a cool little story about a drunken department store Santa who actually gets to become Santa for a night... in a Twilight Zone kind of way.

I've heard Rod Serling called misanthropic a few times, but I believe that's a misunderstanding. Serling certainly wrote many, many stories that show us humans at our worst, but the POINT of those stories was almost always that we CAN -- and sometimes DO -- do better! A lot of the TWILIGHT ZONEs, in particular, revealed a big, bleeding heart at the center of even the most wretched do-bad-der.

Anyway, I woke up to discover that NORAD has Santa above Moscow now!!!

It looks like as I slept the Jolly Guy hit Austrailia, Japan, China, the Himalayas, and India. (And other places. I'm just REALLY bad at geography, so I have no idea which countries I'm missing along the way.)

I also woke up to find THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA RADIO THEATRE in the living room!!! ALL 7 of C. S. Lewis's Narnia stories adapted for radio!!!

I'm dying to see the movie, but I'm (a) such an aduiphile that I'd love to experience them in that medium, and (b) so obsessive that after I experience one story I'm going to want to experience ALL of them!

And I ordered this set off Amazon almost a month ago, and I'm just so thrilled that is just HAPPENED to arrive ON CHRISTMAS EVE!!! If I had know that's what the package was, I'd have waited until tomorrow to open it!

Okay, as I sign off for now, it looks like Santa's still over Russia.

More later!

Santa's Progress Part 1

NORAD predicted that Santa would begin his annual trek around 4:00 am Eastern Time, which is 3:00 am here.

And just about 5 or 10 minutes after, NORAD reported their first Santa-sighting this year.

Bursting with holiday spirit, I searched through my library to find something to watch and found THE MUPPETS CHRISTMAS CAROL. That hit the spot!!! I've seen MANY interpretations of that novel, and the Muppets' adaptation remains one of the best and most effective!

As I prepare to retire for the evening, NORAD reports that Santa is over New Zealand. Time for Peter Jackson and WETA Workshop to get their presents for bringing the rest of us SO MUCH joy this year!!!

I'm really enjoying tracking Santa this year -- this is my thing this Christmas -- so expect more updates throughout the day!

For now, good night! May you dream of balletic sugar plums!!!

Santa Tracking

For the past several years I've wanted to follow Santa on his journey across the world, delivering presents to good little boys and girls. Which is something I CAN do thanks to NORAD!!!

But every year, I always forget until Christmas day!

So this year, I'm gonna do it!

I think. I don't know when Santa does his thing, and I have an Edwards Family Christmas Eve dinner thingy tomorrow w/Mom and some aunts and uncles and cousins and such.

But that's at 4:30 pm. So I should be home in time to follow Santa online.

I'm so excited! I love the Internet!!!

Dave Letterman Comedy Bits

Know why I love the Internet? (Well, ANOTHER reason...)

I haven't been able to watch David Letterman since the 1990s. But I've been catching up on the comedic genius that is Dave letterman by visiting The Late Show with David Letterman's website!!!

You can watch clips of many comedy routines, including Top 10 Lists!!! I got to watch 10 characters from Star Wars help Dave out with "The Top Ten Things Never Before Said by a Star Wars Character"!!! I got to watch Dave turn into a Rankin-Bass style stop-motion puppet to return Sant's Naughty/Nice list!!!

The Internet RULES!!!

Seriously, if you dig Dave Letterman humor, go to the site and just ENJOY!!!

And this was a cool way to spend an inordinately large portion of my last work day before I take a week off for Christmas & New Years!

Rand McNally Dot Com Rules!

Back years ago I used to be SOOO impressed with MapQuest, because they could give me directions from anywhere to anywhere else.

That was a few years ago.

Tuesday I'm driving to Dallas to hang with my friend Laura, and I go onto my one-time-beloved MapQuest...

AND THEY CAN'T FIND MY HOME!!!

And THEN...

THEY CAN'T FIND THE ADDRESS I WANT TO GO TO!!!

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!!

If the whole point of one's existence is to provide maps and directions, how does one NOT KNOW WHERE EVERYTHING IS?!!!

So now I'm all about RandMcNally.com!!! They know where I live! I tried a couple of places -- Yahoo Maps was one -- but they either couldn't find my home or couldn't seem to figure out how to get there.

BUT RAND MCNALLY KNOWS!!! No muss, no fuss. They even offer a printer-friendly version of the maps and the directions!

And the layout is geniuous! There's a little map of the journey at the top, so you get a great overview of where you're going, then there are the step-by-step directions, then a map of the destination at the bottom, so you can see the details of where you're headed!!!

Now, as for the step-by-step directions, every website has some inaccuracies. Like, when an overpass doesn't allow you to turn left onto a major street. But that's fine, really. You can always work around those little bugs.

But the main thing is that THEY KNOW WHERE I LIVE AND WHERE I WANT TO GO!!!

So Rand McNally rules!

KING KONG RULES!!!

Brian and I caught Peter Jackson's KING KONG last night, and it was everything I was hoping it would be!

Then, when we got home, I busted open my KING KONG: PETER JACKSON'S PRODUCTION DIARIES and watched I-don't-know-how-many-hours of Mr. Jackson and crew (and cast) MAKING the movie!

That's a good night!

I seem to be all well now. I still have a lingering cough, but it doesn't hurt, so I can deal.

This is it. This is Christmas weekend coming up. And I think I'm all ready!

How about you?

If you haven't finished your Christmas shopping, may I recommend online shopping? THEY do the shipping FOR YOU!

Um...

Haven't seen NARNIA yet, but I hope to soon! I'm off the last week of December, so I'm hoping that I can squeeze at least ONE trip to the movies in there!

DUDE!!! SERENITY is out on dvd TOMORROW!!! Which meants, natch, that as soon as I get off work -- 2am -- I'm rushing over to Walmart and picking up my copy!!!

SERENITY!!! Now I can watch it AS OFTEN AS I WANT!

In fact, I can now watch the entire show AND THE MOVIE TOGETHER!!!

How cool is that?!

JOSS WHEDON RULES!!!

Health Bar Nearly To FULL

Been in bed, sick, since Sunday!

But I believe I've pretty much kicked it. Sunday and Monday were filled with short, delusional naps, brought to consciousness by the realization that I'm shivering in my own fever-sweat.

The fever dreams weren't negative though.

I'm thankful for that!

Even though they were super-vivid at the time, and I kept returning to almost a continuation of the last dream every time I dozed off, I can barely recall the details. But the gist of my recent fever dreams is that any thing you want -- my dreams centered around blankest and sheets for me, the source of my warmth, but I understood that to represent ALL objects we want in life -- is made up of microscopic versions of that item. And that item is, ultimately, ALL items. And despite our tendency to search and search for some items, we already possess that microscopic piece, and can multiply it at will. And it's the multiplication that CREATES whatever item we're looking for. (It takes a hundred million of these "quanta" -- for lack of a better descriptive term -- to make up a blanket, but a trillion of them create, say, a car.)

So, effectively, we ALREADY possess the raw material, and the means that transform the raw material into the item we desire.

Therefore, in essense, we already have EVERYTHING we will EVER desire. It's just a matter of remembering that fact and willing the raw material to multiply into the correct conficguration.

Hows THAT for a headtrip?

BTW: Never tripped on shrooms or acid IN MY LIFE! Honestly.

Can you believe it?

Anyway, I'm getting ready to go to bed, so that I can wake up and return to work tomorrow.

Spent a groovy day of loading up my ZVUE with Chrismas tunes and Old Time Radio shows...

I tracked down this copy of KING KONG, an adaptation that was produced for KONG's first rerelease in 1938, and it arrived in the mail today!!! TODAY!!! The day Jackson's version hits theaters!!!

In case you're interested in Old School audio classics, I found KONG here.

There are some guys here in Austin that perform Old Time Radio shows LIVE -- in era costume and everything, like you're back in the 30s, 40s or 50s watching a live broadcast -- called the Violet Crown Radio Players and they recreated the '38 KING KONG radio performance. But I didn't get to attend any of the shows. In fact, I learned about them a year or so ago, and I have yet to attend any of their performances!

Blah.

Anyway, I should get to bed.

Maybe fall asleep listening to KING KONG again!

PC TV

Because of LikeTV.com, I was able to watch an Italian horror flick from 1981 called SEVEN DOORS OF DEATH...

...IN MY ROOM!!!

...ON MY COMPUTER!!!

I know, this is lame to most, but I LIKE NOVELTY!!! If there's something I can't do, then all of a sudden I CAN do it, I'm thrilled! I'm like a big kid, I like gadgets, I like technological advance, and I like being able to do stuff that I previously couldn't do.

PLUS... the movie was a nice piece of research. I don't know a lot about Italian horror flicks -- except that Dario Argento doesn't scare me in the slightest -- except that they influenced a lot of the American horror filmmakers that I love. I get that Argento is a HUGE part of that inspiration, but I've never dropped acid, and so I suspect I will never be as profoundly impacted by these flicks as others have been.

HOWEVER... Having seen SEVEN DOORS OF DEATH -- or, as it's actually titled, E TU VIVRAI NEL TERRORE - L'ALDILA -- I think I'm starting to see the inspiration!

Don't get me wrong, this isn't THE GRUDGE or THE RING (or RINGU), but it's not bad! I mean, it IS BAD, but it's got some really cool stuff in it. First of all, it starts off as a sort of haunted house movie, then evolves into a Satanic Cult movie, then wraps up as a zombie movie! And these different sub-genres are blended pretty naturally into each other!

But the mere fact that 24 years ago someone was BLENDING SUB-GENRES is a revelation!!! Whedon has been doing it with finesse and panache since the mid-90s, but I don't think I've seen such inventiveness BEFORE that! And there is was, on my PC screen! In 1981, we Americans were making AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, THE FUNHOUSE, HALLOWEEN II, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2, THE HOWLING and maybe a few others.

Now, granted, the 2 werewolf movies furthered sfx. HALLOWEEN II and FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 showed us the beginnings of Franchise Horror (I'm not saying whethere that's good or bad, I'm just saying it IS). But AMEREICAN WEREWOLF isn't really a horror movie so much as a horror comedy. And THE FUNHOUSE... You only see that on local TV that can't afford to air REAL movies.

Perhaps I'm being too snide here.

My point is that when American horror filmmakers were resting on their laurels, Italian horror filmmakers seem to have been pushing the envelope.

And that makes me happy.

Because now I have a whole sub-genre of horror to explore, and hopefully steal from!

My next PC movie will either be WHEELS ON MEALS -- a Jackie Chan/Sammo Hung/Biao Yuen masterpiece (possibly THE opus for those 3, depending upon who you talk to) that I still haven't gotten a chance to see -- or SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS -- a cult classic that I've been dying to see, if for no other reason than the sheer novelty of it.

I mean, COME ON!

SANTA!

MARTIANS!!

SANTA CONQUERING THE MARTIANS!!!

That LikeTV.com really is like TV: It makes you EXCITED about watching movies you otherwise would have ANY desire to see!!!

I've seen MARCH OF THE PENGUINS now TWICE!!!

I had heard about it for months (as, I'm sure, you have, too). But I had my need-to-see-in-theater flicks picked out by the end of last year. (Limited finances/limited time require thoughful budgeting of both.)

But I was able to get that movie and MR. & MRS. SMITH for under $30!!!

DUDE!!! MOTP is just about, frame for frame, the most GORGEOUS flick in history!!! (It probably helps that I have a thing for penguins and a thing for ice...) And the only dialogue you hear (narration, actually) is spoken MORGAN FREEMAN! That doesn't hurt!

Also, MR. & MRS. SMITH is just as much fun as I knew it would be!

Also, check it out: Last night I watched HIS GIRL FRIDAY -- for the FIRST TIME, which is surprising because I've been a Cary grant fan since the '80s, and this is one of his landmark performances -- ON MY ZVUE!!!

For those who don't know, ZVUE is the poor man's iPod with Video.

I subscribed to this site called LikeTV and downloaded the movie from there.

They've got tons of movies and old TV show episodes and animated shorts -- it's mostly old, old, OLD stuff whose copyrights have lapsed... LIKE the stuff TV used to air before the advent of made-for-cable programming... hence the name -- and all of it can just be downloaded and viewed on your computer. (Not all of it has been formatted for ZVUE yet.) I don't own a protable dvd player, so I'm just enthralled by the idea of watching movies and 'toons on a device just barely larger than my cell phone!!!

I like gadgets!

I also downloaded a copy of Jackie Chan's WHEELS ON MEALS that I can watch on my 'puter. And a 1981 Italian horror movie called SEVEN DOORS OF DEATH, which looks like it will be fun to watch!

I also downloaded 3 of the old Basil Rathbone SHERLOCK HOLMES flicks, one of which is on my ZVUE right now. The Basil Rathbone flicks were the beginning of my Sherlock Holmes obsession. They lead me to the original Conan Doyle stories, which in turn lead me to the realization that the BBC Jeremy Brett-and-David Burke/Edward Hardwicke adaptations -- which characterize both the main characters (Holmes and Watson) MUCH more faithfully!

Blah.

I'm rambling, aren't I?

Hell, what am I worried about? RAMBLING'S what blogs WERE INVENTED FOR!!!

I'm debating about whether or not to buy FANTASTIC FOUR tonight when I get off work. One the one hand, it looks like fun, even if it isn't as good as the SPIDER-MAN movies or BATMAN BEGINS... On the other hand, it might suck REALLY bad, and then I'd wish I had my money back...

Then again... Jessica Alba in a skin-tight blue thingy...

TOUGH decision!