Mainlining Christmas

The holiday cheer just keeps coming. This is part four of my look at my new Christmas music. Album: Gregorian Christmas Artist: CantArte Regensburg & Hubert Velten I'm a sucker for a bargain: Amazon was selling all 49 tracks of this for 99 cents. That's two cents a track. Granted, I don't really need more chant in my Christmas collection... but still: TWO CENTS A TRACK. The music's good, but certainly not essential. Album: Joy of Christmas Artist: Giovanni Pretty decent piano music. There are a handful of tracks I like quite a bit. Album: Country Christmas: A Christmas Welcome Thomas Kinkade Artist: Various (country) The only thing that pisses me off more than this album's existence is the fact I kind of enjoyed listening to it. See, here's the thing: it's got Thomas Kinkade's name on it, so I was all excited that I'd be able to hate it out of spite (no, his death wasn't enough). At any rate, the CD's a coll

God, Home Alone 3 is a strange movie. Wikipedia sheds a little light on this thing: originally, they wanted Culkin back. He'd have been a teenager at this point, which would have explained the escalation with the villains. Obviously, they couldn't get him to return, so they wound up relaunching with a new character, who was about as old as Culkin in part one. This led to the second most disorienting aspect of the movie (I'll get to the first in a minute): the discrepancy between the tone and the threat the villains supposedly represented. Along with Culkin, the robbers from the original two were gone this time around. In their place was a team of elite espionage professionals fighting to regain a computer chip they'd stolen from the US Air Force only to lose because they failed to exercise common sense when going through airport security. The implication seemed to be that their employer would have them killed if they failed to recover the object. The computer chip

We're up to day six in our series, 25 Christmas Eves. For those of you just tuning in, I'm posting a new piece of genre fiction every day until Christmas, and every damn one of them is about a Christmas Eve. This one's a fantasy piece. By: Erin L. Snyder Toby’s Bridge isn’t called Toby’s Bridge, at least not officially. It’s called something else. No one gives a damn what that is, cause it’s on Toby’s land. Sure, it’s not really his bridge. It’s the town’s bridge. Town’s bridge, town’s road, and all that. Town’s river. But everything all around it - the forest the road cuts through, the old mill (that hasn’t been up and running in twenty years), the marsh... all that really is Toby’s. People in Renville are fond of calling Toby the poorest rich man in America. Might be something to that. Just might. Toby’s is one of them old covered bridges. Sturdy, good build and all that. Don’t really make them that way much anymore. Not in Renville, anyway. Everyone wants bri

A lot of people think the worst movie in Matthew Broderick's career was Godzilla - just a few days ago, I'd have said so myself - but I really think Deck the Halls might claim the prize. I've seen worse holiday movies this year, but I can't remember the last time I watched anything this vapid and idiotic. The movie is supposed to be a comedy, which means it's supposed to be funny. It's not. At all. It is, however, structured like a comedy, as if someone set out with a checklist and systematically crossed items off a list. New neighbors: check. Rivalry based on male ego: check. Obligatory gross-out sight gag: check. Car destroyed: check. House destroyed: check. Dream fulfilled: check. The wives are loving, loyal, and level-headed, but somehow unable to perceive anything in the world around them. The kids are two-dimensional jokes. There are cheap attempts at slapstick to placate kids and Kristen Chenoweth's cleavage to placate their fathers. My faith in

Part three of my comprehensive look at my new Holiday albums.... Album: Christmas Wishes Artist: Anne Murray Growing up, I always hated country music. That's changed as I've gotten older, but I still don't have much in my music collection. While it's still not my favorite genre of music, I'm finding that I'm enjoying the country Christmas albums quite a bit. I shouldn't be surprised: it's one of the most under-represented types in my now substantial collection of holiday tunes, so it's a much needed deviation. I don't know much about Anne Murray - according to Wikipedia, she's a country/pop singer from Canada who was big in the 70's and 80's. This album is from 1981, and I'm enjoying it. Album: Christmas with Jim Reeves Artist: Jim Reeves I'm going through these albums in alphabetical order, so it seems kind of odd that I get two country/pop albums in a row. This is also a solid album, though I don't l

Generation X Holiday Spectacular (1995) Scott Lobdell, Chris Bachalo, Mark Buckingham This little story about Generation X (Generation X is a team of teenage X-men, mostly second and third stringers I don’t know much about) intervening in a hostage situation in a Maine town isn’t terribly holiday related except for the snow. And the fact that the narration seems to be done by an elf hiding around the edges of the panels. That doesn’t have any bearing on the story, though. It’s okay, I guess, although the little snippets of characters unconnected to the story are more interesting than the story itself, and the villain seems awfully annoying. Generation X Holiday Special (1998) Joseph Harris, Adam Pollina, et.al. The same super-lame villains strike again, this time trying to kidnap a kid on Christmas Eve who’s only wish for Santa is to not be a mutant. The art is stronger in this one, and there’s some interesting snippets of character stuff early on when all the young mutants

Day five of 25 Christmas Eves brings us a short horror/fantasy piece. Hope you enjoy. By Erin L. Snyder I know you’re not going to believe any of this. And I know I should be keeping my mouth shut, asking for an attorney or something. I’ll probably wish I had, come tomorrow. But right now... it’s all I can do not to pull my hair out. I got to tell someone what happened tonight, and, well, you’re the one asking. So, Merry Christmas. Here goes. I got the idea for the suit off some old TV show. I couldn’t tell which if I cared: it was something I saw when I was a kid, and it stuck with me. Guy dresses up like Santa, busts into a house, and cleans the place out. If a kid wakes up and sees the guy, “No worries, son. It’s me, Kris Kringle. There’s a light on the DVD player that doesn’t work on one side.” Send the brat to bed, and I’m gone before anyone’s the wiser. Yeah, it’s a lousy thing to do to a family at Christmas. But I guess I’m just a lousy guy at heart. But... look.