Month: December 2005

I wanted to announce that my current favorite Christmas Carol is Carol of the Bells. I know you want to know this. Go write it down somewhere, I’ll wait.

I was trying to think why it’s my favorite. I think it just has to do with the solemnity of it (I guess it depends on the version. The Jingle Cats are right out.) and the fact that it just feel very wintery and holy at the same time. Something like that.

So the cool thing about iPods is listening to songs in alphabetical order. I haven’t loaded anything near my full collection into iTunes, because my iPod only holds 4gig of stuff. But I can currently listen to 6 versions of that song in a row! And yesterday I did!

My current favorite version is actually one with words, I believe by the Memphis Children’s Choir but when I bought it at iTunes it doesn’t actually say who performs the song, it’s just listed under “Children’s Xmas”. For only 99 cents, you can listen to the same song as me!

Gaily they ring
While people sing
songs of good cheer
Christmas is here
Merry merry merry merry Christmas
Merry merry merry merry Christmas
Gladly proclaim
With one accord
The happy tale
Welcome the Lord
Ring Christmas Bells
Ring Christmas Bells
Merrily Ring
Tell all the world

Okay, I’m not as sad as I would be if we were talking Big Papi. I’m not so sad about Johnny “no Arm” leaving as I am that this really just removes the last remaining poster boy of the 2004 team (assuming Manny is going somewhere else). Sure, we still have some of the better guys from that team, but who do I think of from that year, after Papi? Millar and Damon. Cowboy up, and ride off into the sunset, boys. And to the stinkin’ Yankees…man, that’s what really stings, I think.

My normal morning routine is that the radio alarm blares, and I smack it off. It’s a reflex. This morning it went off while Jen from XLO was reading news, and my reflexes turned it off even though I didn’t want to. I heard “Ex-Red Sox centerfielder signed for…” and I knew, but not the details. If the Sox had signed him, it wouldn’t be Ex now, would it?

It certainly woke me up, anyway.

I’m happy today. You want to know why? Because it’s officially the day that marks the end of the days getting shorter and we start get 30 extra seconds of daylight every day. Or something like that. I hate hate hate commuting home in the dark. I drive on winding unlit backroads, and almost hit a deer a few weeks ago. (Almost as in, when I got the van completely stopped, the front back end of the deer was about a foot or so away from my grill.) I really just need it to be light while I’m driving that route, thank you.

Only a couple of days until Christmas. I guess it’s time to start wrapping. I have piles of gifts in my room because we can’t leave anything under the tree this year. I just don’t trust the dog. Also, I took the plunge and set up my Christmas train set and put it under the tree, so we couldn’t put gifts there. The dog has been pretty good about the train. Well, actually, when we first got it up and running, he was HORRIBLE, but it was really funny. He was barking at it, and would jump on my lap so I would save him from it, and he finally got brave and sort of knocked it off the tracks with his nose. The next day, we could run it and he didn’t even pay attention to it. So I guess once he vanquished the beast, he didn’t have to worry about it (or bark at it) any more. I won’t run it if I’m not watching him, because it is an expensive set, and I don’t want him to knock it over or chew on it. But I’m happy that I was able to at least set it up and play with it a little. Maybe next year, I can try putting out some of my houses.

Okay, there’s a new contender for best headline of 2005. I don’t know what the other contenders are, but Reuters gave us this beauty today: “Violent, Drunken ‘Bad Santas’ Wreak Havoc Worldwide”. I mean seriously, does it get any better than that? It’s a story about bad guys dressing up in Santa Suits. The highlight of the story, in my eyes, was “in Auckland on Saturday … 40 drunken Santas rampaged through the city center, stealing from stores and assaulting security guards in a protest against Christmas becoming too commercial.”

Well, that’ll show ’em, eh? I wonder what they serve for Christmas dinner in the slammer?

I also wanted to update the bad Christmas Special entry from the other day. Sure, Grandma Got Run Over by A Reindeer was a horrible mess of a cartoon, but for some reason, a show we caught later that same day was much, much worse. Much worse. Did anybody but me see “A Christmas Dinosaur?” See, this little kid snuck a peek at the present from his aunt, a petrified dino egg, that happened to hatch and then they had to hide this thing (which understood English pretty well, by the way) until Christmas morning, when they finally admitted there was a pterosaur with a 20+ foot wingspan living in their treehouse but luckily, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains there is a colony of dinosaurs who came back to claim this one. Holy crap. Accent on crap. I just tried to look it up, and anyone who doesn’t believe me can try to catch one of the following showings on Cartoon Network: “A Christmas Dinosaur” – December 20, 9:00am – December 22, 10:00am – December 24, 1:00pm – December 25, 7:00pm

I don’t think we need to be watching the animated “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” Gah. Shut it off, shut it off!