Song for the Season

Happy Christmas, Writers

From Black Books, the incomparable Dylan Moran on rejection.

Hey, Republicans, Here's a New Year's Resolution You Should Try

Stop being psychopathic jackasses.

Hayley Babour think's white supremacists are just misunderstood. 

Did you know that Methodists hate America?

GOP Lawmakers Support Pedophilia, So Long as You're Married.


Really. None of these stories comes from the Onion.

Farewell - 2010

TCM Remembers montage for 2010. Song "Headlights" performed by Sophie Hunger.

The Whos Were Snuggled Safe in Their Beds

Wilson, hiding under the covers for fear of being photographed in silly hats.

Or perhaps he's tuckered out from an evening spent guarding the laundry.

And even though we let Spike play cards, he still seems rather stabby.

Merry Spikemas

Spike rues the day someone invented cell phones with cameras. I'm sure later on he'll be smothering someone in their sleep.

Actually, this is exactly why the internets exist, so people can post pictures of their cats wearing hats.

Annie Oakley, She Ain't

In standing with my long history of mocking Sarah Palin no matter how many times I claim it's too easy, another episode in the annals of the Grifta from Wasilla.  In the past we've learned that Sarah Palin is a lousy mother, knows next to nothing about hockey, and has barely a passing acquaintance with the English language. Now we find that for all her rootin' tootin' Western pioneer spirit, she's about as handy with a gun as she is with a complete sentence. Which is to say, NOT.

And it's not just us left-wing liberals who have noticed that the snowbilly is a serial tall-tale teller, but those real 'Mericans out on the windswept prairies of our great country are realizing that much like she thought she was an expert on foreign policy because she could see Russia from her porch, she's an expert on hunting because she once bought ground beef at the supermarket.


Exhibit A: Sportsman haz a sad, because Sarah's an idiot. A very decent little column about what's so egregiously wrong with her whole narrative.


Exhibit B: Field and Stream Calls Fail.

Hey, Sarah, you know how that crappy reality show was supposed to burnish your wilderness cred? How's that working out for you?

(Disclaimer: Although I'm a crazy, socialist liberal, I like guns. I find them aesthetically pleasing.  I've been around guns all my life, as I come from a long tradition of hunting, fishing, camping, ranching. I've probably forgotten more about outdoorsmanship than Failin' Palin has ever learned. I was a pretty decent markswoman and carried a loaded revolver in my truck the entire time I was in college, driving back and forth across the empty spaces out in the West. While I don't hunt personally, I always loved trap shooting and target shooting. I also don't have a quarrel with responsible hunters who eat what they kill and have an understanding of real conservation. I will, however, say that I think people who like to shoot things just to watch them die are fucked in the head somehow, and anybody who thinks shooting something from a helicopter is okay should first die in a fire, and then be consigned to a special circle of hell filled with hungry wolves and disgruntled grizzlies. Pack light, Sarah, I hear it's hot down there!)

Delicious Strawberry-Flavored Death

I live in an alternate universe where Fringe will not be summarily canceled after moving to Fridays. I believe this because I love Walter Bishop with the white hot intensity of a thousand incandescent suns. The new Internet promo proves me right. Really.

Allsorts

I'm too busy, and I feel guilty about all the things I don't have the time to do. To assuage my guilt, here's some random shtuff.

Fascinating article in Mother Jones. The intersection of religion and things we don't like to talk about.


The five-year-old is enamored of this song, and sings it loudly in the car. What's it about? The Odyssey? Religion? The yoke of British Colonialism? I dunno, but catchy banjo.




Finally, just because you can never have too much zombie mayhem.

Random Thoughts - 12/9

It's a dessert topping and a floor wax! Had a dinner table argument as to whether Vampire Weekend's "Holiday" was used to advertise cars or Tommy Hilfiger. After a trip to the interwebs, we discovered that is was both. This is either genius marketing, terrible marketing, or an unholy alliance between Honda and Hilfiger for a world takeover by products starting with the letter H.

Thanks to Logo and Chiller, you can now watch roughly 17 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer per day. Which lead the S/O to ask upon entering a room, "You're watching Buffy again? Didn't you just see that episode yesterday?" At which point I remind him that he watches On the Town every time it's on TV -- which seems like an awful lot.  What, is the plot going to magically change? Although it would be cool if, just as a change of pace, Gorgo emerged from the Hudson River and ate Frank Sinatra.

When will Justin Beiber hair be outlawed? It's a crime against nature. That look isn't even good on a windswept sheepdog.


Had a communique from the kids' principal that somebody named "Fr. Ed" was giving a talk at the school and she wrote, "Since this talk is so dynamic, I've decided to make it mandatory for all parents. There will be a sign-in sheet and extra seating."  Take a step back there, princess. The first thoughts that come to my mind when I hear about a surprise "mandatory" meeting with extra seating? Poison gas, alien pods, and involuntary organ donation. Er, no thanks, I'll pass. I like my organs where they are. She followed up with a letter saying that the "mandatory meeting" had generated quite a "buzz." I bet it did.

Starting watching the whole season of Rubicon on the DVR. (Yeah, already canceled. I'm so behind.) I'm enjoying it, but the striking thing for me is how much James Badge Dale looks like Matthew Morrison's brother from another mother. So now all I can see is Rubicon/Glee mashups, where everyone breaks into song at inappropriate moments. Inside my head, this is somehow more entertaining than each show alone.

Catholics, help me out, what's with the magic beans? Kid #5 dumped his backpack in the car, and three magic beans rolled under the seat. The S/O keeps strewing them about. When did he turn into an 85-year-old Gypsy woman? Did we have to trade a cow for these? 

Found out the S/O plays Farmville. Farmville? The fuck? How do people over the age of 14 find the time to play Farmville? I'm so behind, I'm actually using time right now that hasn't even happened yet. I owe time. I'm going to have to die 10 years earlier just to break even. But it's just as well, because I'm sure that somehow Farmville is the opening volley in an alien plot to steal our organs. Not everybody's going to fall for the "mandatory meeting," so they've got to have a backup. Don't come running to me when you've traded your spleen for an extra flock of chickens.

The Tim Minear Curse

Been busy, busy. Love/hate relationship with the holidays. Children have too many activities: soccer team/drama club/choir/school pageant/boy scouts/college finals/dorm emptying. My shopping is not done.

To top it all off Terriers has been canceled.Oh, I knew it was coming. You know how I knew? For one thing, it was great TV. And I don't mean just good, enjoyable, kill-an-hour TV, I mean GREAT TV. You know how else I knew? Tim Minear was an executive producer.  

I love Tim Minear. For some unfathomable reason, TV karma does not. Why the way Tim Minear is treated is proof there is no god. (Unless it's Cthulhu, because Cthulhu and the elder gods do NOT want you to be happy.)

May I present my exhibits? Angel, and the non-existent Season 6.  Firefly. Wonderfalls. The Inside (wowsers, that was dark, even for me. I loved it.) Drive. Dollhouse. Did I mention Wonderfalls? And now Terriers. If Tim Minear is even peripherally related to a TV series, it is doomed to die before its time. Sigh.

At least Terriers had a chance to wrap everything up with a nice bow. (unlike Now and Again, damn you all to hell CBS. I shall go to my grave wondering about the Egg Man)

Terriers was perfect, or as close to perfect as you can get. Nothing wasted, no plot holes, no deus ex machina, no sudden and inexplicable collapses of character motivation. It was as good as anything I've seen on TV, and I'll admit I got sucked in and invested myself totally in it. Even though I knew it was doomed.

If you missed it, find it when it comes out on DVD.  It's worth it.

The Spectral Libary is Now Open

I've created a blog annex just for writing, since this blog tends to get cluttered up with whatever bubbles up from the basement in my brain when I leave the trap door unlatched.

I'm going to post work over there, short stories, novel excerpts, flash fiction, for anyone who cares to look. I'll restrict the blog posts to just writing, and rotate out the static pages on occasion. I'll be building it up over the next week or so as time permits.


The Spectral Library

Poem From the MIddle of the Night.

Woke up at 3 AM with this fully formed in my head.


Winter

Silence
Brittle as dried grass
Under a burning frost,

We wait for the rifle-crack
Of breaking ice
As we go under.

Across the field
The vault of trees
Pulls the last light into shadow

All is quiet,
All is cold,
Cold.

We are breath
And huddled warmth,
And I need the weight of you
To keep me from flying away.

MMM, Bacon

The S/O says I'm a marketer's nightmare, because I react completely unpredictably to advertisements. But this is one ad that makes me want to GO BUY THIS PRODUCT RIGHT NOW.







*Ad gets double bonus points for quoting Tremors. I think I can actually act out that entire movie by heart.

**I have long lobbied for replacing the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the Six Degrees of William Fichtner, but people stubbornly refuse to accept my role as a trendsetter ahead of my time.

British SF TV Flash - Primeval

Primeval is returning to BBC America New Year's Day. For those that missed it, the British SF series explores what happens when rips in the fabric of time starting popping open and spitting forth various critters from past and future.

I've had a love/hate relationship with Primeval in the past. It started out as pretty compelling and then jumped the megalodon in Series Three when main character Nick Cutter (Douglas Henshall) bit it unexpectedly. Not that I was all that attached to either the character or the actor, but is seems that when he left he took all the writers with him. After that it became a drinking-game show, saved only by the awesomeness of Jason Flemyng and Ben Miller. (Who are both pretty damned awesome).

Miller's back, along with regulars Hannah Spearritt and Andrew-Lee Potts, and a new cast. Jason Flemyng makes a return at some point, but I suppose he's too busy off being awesome to show up earlier.

Jury's out as to whether the show returns to earlier form, but one thing's for sure, I'm definitely looking more forward to it than the Americanized version of Being Human *shudder*.

Random Thoughts - Crabby Holiday Edition

Why is walking two dogs like walking two dogs, but walking three dogs is like walking eight dogs?

Fox is going to cancel all of my favorite TV shows, even ones that are on other channels, because that's just how Fox rolls. I hate you, Fox.

The S/O is in the midst of his holiday decorating.  Kid #4 walked into the living room and quipped, "It looks like Christmas threw up." The fact that the LED lights are brighter than the regular lights, and the fact that somewhere in that string of eleventy-billion lights a fuse keeps blowing, is going to cause the S/O to have an aneurysm. This concerns me only so far as if he has an aneurysm, it will leave me solely in charge of all the other living things in the house, and we're running out of room to bury things under the tree in the backyard.

Chris Stewart broke his fucking hand. 

I believe I now have both bronchitis and an ovarian cyst. The bronchitis caused me to cough violently enough that I bonked my head on my desk, while the ovarian cyst causes me to scream rather piercingly when the spymobile hits a rough patch in the road. Since it's a five-speed diesel, this is often. (Handy reference guide for those of you without ovaries: imagine clamping a pair of vise grips to a testicle. Now close them. Hard.)

Also, I somehow managed to torque my ankle while sitting at my desk. And in dismantling the dryer to uncover what was making the horrifying grinding noise, I pulled a muscle in my back. It has come to my attention that sometime in the near future I will simply fall apart in the middle of the hallway like an old jalopy in a Keystone Kops reel.

Finally, being self-employed means that you don't get take vacations at the end of the year. Instead you work longer and longer hours in an attempt to squeeze those last few dollars out to pay for figgy pudding and chew toys.  I have also learned that I am either a terrible employer or a terrible employee, because I am always behind. I'm thinking of unionizing and going on strike, at which point I will cross my own picket line and start a fist-fight with myself.

It is only December 1st.