Mainlining Christmas

Welcome to day 22 of Mainlining Christmas's series titled, "25 Christmas Eves." We've got a very special Christmas Eve for you this time, boys and girls. A nice little religious piece called, "Wings in the Night." Hope you like it. By: Erin L. Snyder “Mr. Juliard?” the woman asked, extending a hand over his hospital bed. She was beautiful, or at the very least attractive. Exotic would be the best word: her ethnicity was difficult to pin down, even for Hugh, who’d always been good at that sort of thing. Part Spanish, part Indian, maybe? Hugh didn’t ask, of course. He simply raised his hand. It was tiring, but mainly because the painkillers sapped his energy. “Hello. I didn’t catch your name,” he said. “Burkwitz. Melody Burkwitz.” She smiled. “I’m not sure if you’ve heard of me.” Hugh shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m not offended,” she said. “I’ve done a few morning shows. My books tend to gather attention. It’s not always the sort I’d like,

I was flipping through shows on Hulu (every year they compile a list of Christmas episodes and specials available ), and I saw an episode of Suburgatory titled "Krampus." Calling something "Krampus" is a good way to pique my interest, so I hit play. Keep in mind I don't remember ever hearing of "Suburgatory" before, so I was going in blind. It was certainly an odd thing to jump into. It seems to revolve around a teenage girl, Tessa, who's recently moved to "the suburbs" with her single father. The focus jumped around a lot, so a good portion of the episode was devoted to minor characters. Also, the show wasn't entirely episodic, so a lot the plot lines were continued from previous episodes (though, in Christmas tradition, it seemed to wrap most of them up). There was a lot going on here, but three plots seemed to be the most significant: Tess went to spend Christmas with her (newly discovered) mother. Her neighbor discovered

I'm getting more interpretive with the angel motif around here. Isn't she pretty? Here's what she started out like: I added Kneadatite over the word "Faith", and then I added some extra flames to her hair and wings: A light sanding, then plenty of paint, and she's evoking a very different look. I didn't manage to get in all the cracks as much as I'd like, but maybe I'll do a little touch-up when I have more time. I went over all the non-flesh colored parts with white first, then chose the best bright colors I could mix. The fire wings are many layers of oranges, reds and gold. Here's a shot for scale: I thought about going back in with a symbol or something, but I like that it's not completely obvious who she is. She came out pretty nice, and she's probably not going to eat your planet today. 

This is probably the strangest installment on the "Disney Channel Holiday" DVD we found on clearance, and believe me: that's saying quite a bit. I'd assumed it was the pilot from the episode's subject matter, along with the fact it's technically included as a Bonus Feature on the disc, but it turns out this was from the second season. That was kind of a let down: the episode felt like it had some good ideas behind it but was unpolished. Turns out, this was what the show was like after it was polished - I can only imagine what it was like beforehand. Don't interpret that to mean the episode was bad. Actually, I can't decide whether it was bad or good. Hell, I'm not even sure it wasn't brilliant or horrible. Let's start with the show's premise. Apparently, Phil of the Future is about a family from a few hundred years in the future marooned in the present when their time-Winnebago broke down in the middle of their vacation. This epis

As everyone knows by now, the prophesied end of days is scheduled for today. The way I see it, anything that occurs in mid-to-late December is, by definition, part of Christmas, so I wanted to offer some insight into our world's horrible demise as it happens. Unfortunately, I've got some last-minute Christmas shopping to do, so I'm not going to be able to give the 2012 apocalypse as much attention as I was hoping to. Nevertheless, throughout the day I'll be updating this post, so you can follow along. Note : all times are Pacific Standard. 9:04 AM : So far, things are pretty quiet out here. Sky's are kind of blood-red, but it's still just raining. It's a little cold, I guess. 9:06 AM : Checking the morning news. Most news sites are reporting the East Coast was swallowed by the ocean. Fox News is claiming liberal bias. 9:08 AM : Small, fiery rock crashed through window. Gonna have to board that up later. Kind of reminds me of the movie "Armaged

As always, Amazon has a handful of free Christmas albums up on, so I decided to download and listen to them. After all, I obviously didn't have enough Christmas music already. Album: Greenhill Christmas Music Sampler Artist: Various On average, this is a bad sampler, primarily containing elevator jazz and new age tracks. But since this is a free album, there's no law of averages at play: all that matters is whether there's anything worth keeping. And fortunately, the answer is yes. There's not a lot, but there are a handful of good songs, along with (dare I say) one great one. Oddly enough, the great one is from a new age artist, David Arkenstone. It's an adaptation of Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy, albeit one that (at least to my ears) sounds like it belongs in a spy movie. I looked up Arkenstone's Christmas album after hearing this and listened to the 30 second samples. They sounded good, but they're certainly nothing like this Dance of the Sugar

The Gift of the Magi O. Henry, 1906 Premise: You know. No, really, you've seen or read something based on this story. You know, anything with two people who buy each other gifts but give up something important to do it, making the gift exchange generally somewhat ironic? I told you you knew. I’ve seen so many versions of this story as part of Mainlining Christmas, that it hadn’t occurred to me until yesterday that I’d never actually read the original story. And hey, it’s better than I expected. The style is humorous and playful, with more than a few sly jokes. The story focuses on the wife, Della, and while she’s a bit childish at times, she's also forthright, determined and loving. The ending is much sweeter than I expected. I quite enjoyed reading this. Why am I still talking about it? It’s a short story and it’s Free . Here, read it yourself! http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7256