And the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day!

The Pogues - Fairytale of New York (lyrics)

Merry Christmas!

(Thanks to Tracie)

The Thing

When I was a kid, I used to borrow my folks video camera and make short stop-action movies with my G.I. Joes. I thought I was pretty creative, and I guess I was for my age, but I never made anything quite like this. This is the coolest stop-action movie I've ever seen.

John Carpenter's The Thing, remade with G.I. Joes:



(How sad is it that I not only recognize most of the characters here, I can probably tell you their code names.)

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer needs therapy, or zen

All of the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Rudolph join in any reindeer games. Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say: "Rudolph, with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?" Then how the reindeer loved him, as they shouted out with glee: "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, you'll go down in history!"

Dude, that is such the wrong message to be sending out to kids : )

So here you have this reindeer-kid, Rudolph, who's tortured by all the other kids at the schoolyard because his nose is off-color. Not only is he laughed at and called names by his peers, he's a social outcast. He's rejected. Then along comes The Man who says, "Don't worry Rudolph. I'm gonna make you a star!" What message are we sending here? Only after some big shot comes along and signs him to a sleigh-pulling gig, then is it OK to be Rudolph? Only after some dude with authority says, "He's cool", then it's socially acceptable, and we can love him, and we can shout with glee? No wonder there's millions of social rejects on YouTube crying for attention, hoping to be noticed.

Poor Rudolph needs some serious therapy!

Where's the story about the misfit red-nosed reindeer who gets laughed at and called names, but instead of enlisting in the carnival sideshow with the other freaks, decides that the real problem lies with what's considered "social norms", rather than his own peculiar shiny-nosed condition? Instead of searching for social acceptance, the reindeer-kid comes to terms with his own existence in a zen-like fashion: What nose? What red? What reindeer, even, but a spark of awareness that has no form?

I mean, the sleigh-pulling contract is nice too, don't get me wrong. But I think it'd be better for Rudolph in the long run if he sought his own acceptance rather than seeking the approval of others.

In the stormy east-wind straining

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in its banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;

Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round and round the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance —
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.

At the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Excerpt from Lord Alfred Tennyson's "The Lady of Shalott" (1833). The painting (also called "The Lady of Shalott") is by John William Waterhouse (1888).