Rain Gryphon

Happy Christmas, everyone!

Korean script isn't a naturally-evolved written language. The king of Korea, around 1450 or so, engaged a team of scholars to create an easy-to-learn written language, since Chinese was considered too difficult to be practical for anyone except scholars. Who knew?

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Weird clouds. Not too many generations ago, a cloud in the shape of Great Britain would have been considered a major omen, at least to the extent that people in those days would have been educated enough to recognize the outline.

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Once again, it is demonstrated that driving a train full-throttle into a curve is perhaps not the best practice.

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I got Fancy Pants and Coco Pommel in my blind bags! :D

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Christmas tree related misfortunes.

So, as they seem to do every few years, das Beeb has discovered once again that Americans will occasionally use British figures of speech. I note they miss a few that I picked up from Chris: "a bit of a girl's blouse", "numpty", and the ever-useful "a right pillock". He could be a bit salty when he got going :)

I think they make overmuch of some of these as well. I've heard 'autumn' and 'fall' used completely interchangeably my entire life, for example. I distinctly recall one day about the age of seven or so (1968, for those keeping score), pondering why only one season out of the four had two names.

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Chris' funeral was a year ago today. I've cried a bit off and on these past few days, but I feel reasonably okay. I made a donation in his name to Monterey Bay Aquarium, where I once spent a very happy day with him, and got a nice letter from his dad.

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Friday I went shopping for Christmas stuff at le Tarzhay. I ended up with a bunch of glitter-coated sputniks* in oddly subdued colours, and had my advice about ornaments and lights asked by two other shoppers, which was odd but entertaining. Apparently I actually look like someone who knows something about Christmas decorations.


*Spiky ornaments. They're pretty obviously supposed to represent the Star of Bethlehem, but 'sputniks' is the traditional name used by collectors and Xmas fans. The fact that 'sputniks' *is* the time-honoured name speaks volumes about the origins of Christmas-collecting as a hobby.

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You can get edison base LED Christmas bulbs now that will work in a regular 120v string. I'd not known. I don't like that you can't drive them under-voltage and make them look 'warm' like you can incandescents, but they do come in colours such as pink and purple, which, along with the edison base, goes some way toward balancing out their faults.

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I note that both le Tarzhay and Meijer's have begun selling plastic ornaments loose, in bins, as was the custom in the 50s and 60s. In previous years all of the loose ornaments have been displayed on hanger racks. These all look like retro ornaments too, so I have to assume the decision was a marketing one. I liek it - it takes me back :)

So, a discussion of the ongoing contretemps in Canadia over changing their national mascot from a Beaver to a Polar Bear led me down a path of inquiry where I learned that the 101st Airborne's Eagle mascot is actually Abe the Battle Eagle, a famously ferocious Eagle of the Civil War. I hadn't known. Nor had I known, for that matter, that their black shield honours the Iron Brigade.

Wisconsin's state capitol seems prone to catching on fire as well.

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I put up a Christmas tree. It is a very small tree, the smallest one I own that I consider an actual tree, maybe 18" tall. It's made of red and silver mylar, and I decorated it with red lights and red ornaments. I even found a red star for the top. It's sitting on top of my vending machine (which is itself red, and contains red candy). I'm glad to have one, I guess. I've always been so enthusiastic about Christmas lights and decorations, and this year I just lack the energy.

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Physically I'm getting better. I was in a hurry yesterday, and ran up two flights of stairs with no distress, so I guess my heart's ejection volume is increasing.

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I recently took part in a discussion about drive-in theatres on Little Details. Columbus has a still-operating one on the south side. I drove down today just to look at the sign. I want to go when the weather is warm again. It's probably been 30 years or more since I've been to the drive-in.

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I got a bird book called iBird for my Android tablet. It's got recorded calls for each of the birds that you can play. These seem a good tool to help identify the various birds, but what took me by surprise is that the birds will actually come over and see what's going on in some cases if you play their calls. I had some Crows giving me this WTF look at lunch the other day.

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One of the things I picked out from Chris' possessions was a Sibley bird guide, a large, well-illustrated guide for identifying American and Canadian birds. It fell open to the Golden Eagle entry. One of my RP characters that I used to play with him a lot is a Golden Eagle.

Woot! The raucous people next door but one seem to have suffered a visit from the Eviction Fairy!

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It was a lovely day here, 65F and sunny. Some of the trees have already lost their leaves, but many (including the maple at my bedroom window) are still leafy and green, if a touch faded looking. I'd not mind winter and fall if this were par for the course.

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A large collection of eruption pictures from the Boston Spheroid. Some are quite nasty, but all are fascinating.

The volcano seems finally to have exhausted itself. The heat is dying down in the crater, from satellite imagery. One of the scientists on the spot describes 'bands of looters' suddenly appearing on the road, all heading into the devastated zone. The webcam, that returned briefly, has died again. One likes to think that a looter swiped it.

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I may put my Christmas stuff up early this year. Because I'm an adult, and I can. I can also use all of my Christmas trees if I want, although that wouldn't leave much room to get around the place. I could also put up all of my lights, although the last time I did that it was in an apartment about three times the size of this one, and it heated the place.

Earlier at the grocery store, I bought a DVD titled 'The Flight Before Christmas'. I did so entirely on the strength of the cover, which had some cute character designs. I'm often disappointed when I do that. Not this time.

I'm floored. It goes way, way beyond cute character design. It's got heart, in much the same way that 'Rudolph' does. The characters have some emotional depth, and there's some actual dark places in the plot. I'm quite impressed with it. If I'd seen this at the same age that I first saw 'Rudolph', I think it might have affected me as strongly.

spaceroo and princebambi, you both need to see this.

And the White Sox have won the Serious. I'm pleased that Chicago won, but I feel kind of sorry for Houston getting swept like that. It would have been nice for them to win at least one game at home. The curious thing is that neither of these two teams have been in the World Series in my lifetime, which is saying something.

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Sexual Harassment Panda!

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I need to decide what I'll use for a Christmas tree this year. Last year I put up my beloved Regal aluminum tree, and decorated for 1965, with reproduction Cool-Brite flashers in the windows. Actually I was quite sparse on my decorating last year, but that kind of works for a mid-60s display. Folx who were there in the 60s will recall such trees:



The year before I had the "Shopping Mall Tree", a kind of wire frame completely covered with white fairy lights and clear glass balls that look like soap bubbles. It's striking. I never did manage to get a photograph that really shows the magnificent American excess of that tree.

I've got enough (I'm pretty sure) C7s at this point to fulfill a longstanding fantasy, and have a real tree with 50 or so C7s, and each one unique. There's something fascinating about the idea of no two bulbs on the tree being the same. I need to take inventory again and make sure.

Alternately, I did stock up on the C7 blinkers last year, and could manage a late 60s/early 70s tree as well.

It's probably sad that I have this much Xmas lighting but everyone needs a hobby, and there are worse things to be fascinated by. One year in the old apartment I put up pretty much everything all at once, and it was enough wattage to keep the place warm without running the furnace. It'd probably roast me if I did that in my current, much better insulated place.

I keep thinking that one of these years, I'm going to build a sheet metal cone, and paint it like a tree, just like in "A Charlie Brown Christmas". There's something fascinating about that idea, especially being able to rap on it, and hear the hollow *bonk*.

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Fred Flare has Rudolph cards!


They've also got actual portable record players for sale. I haven't seen those in years. They have Gumby and Pokey figures, and quit a bit of Yellow Submarine stuff. Lots of nice Bambi shirts too. It annoys me that Bambi is always offered on girls' clothing, and not on guys', especially since he's male to begin with.

Tree pictures, as promised!

Flaster contemplates his handiwork. Back in 2001 he managed to decapitate this wiseman. I was gonna glue him back together, but I happened to be out of glue. and ended up putting him away before I got more. Next year when I unpacked him I decided I'd just keep him this way as a sort of souvenir of Christmas Past. I added the cloth 'bloodstain' then. Just behind Flaster's head you can see the Kangaroo Wiseman I added to make up the requisite three.

Silver Balls! Silver Balls!... The silver balls await in their box.

The tree, all blue and mysterious.

The firey golden heart of the tree. This is part of what fascinates me about the aluminum trees, is the way their mood changes with the light. I like to defocus my eyes, and stare down into it. It's hypnotic.

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When I tug gently on Flaster's tail, his spine cracks. He seems to enjoy it - he'll come up to me and present his butt until I do that, then purr and wind around my legs.

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Max was talking about the Academy Awards the other day. I've never really grasped why people pay so much attention to those. They're industry awards, for an industry that I'm not part of. If I worked in movies, I'd probably be interested, but I don't. If something won an academy award, that's useful information to take into account when I'm deciding what movie to watch*, but what good does it do otherwise?

*or maybe not. 'Robot Monster', 'Frankenstein Conquers the World', and 'The Wizard of Mars' are firm favourites of mine that hold up to repeated viewing.

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I've always felt that 'Robot Monster' was under-appreciated by the critics. Granted, the plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but what always seems to be overlooked is that this is the little boy's dream. He fell asleep reading a pile of lurid 1950s science fiction comics, and this is the result. It's a movie that always worked for me in that regard.

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I'd like to commend 'Frankenstein Conquers the World' to Patch Bunny. It's a bad movie, but enormously entertaining. In many respects, it's the epitome of Japanese monster movies. It starts out in Germany, near the end of WWII, with a Nazi scientist trying to unlock the secret of the undying heart of Frankenstein, presumably to make a batallion of Nazi Frankensteins*. He runs out of time, though, and the SS spirits the heart out of Germany, and on a U-boat to Japan. They're studying it in a lab in Hiroshima when the atomic bomb falls, and it's buried beneath the rubble and presumed destroyed.

Twenty years later, however, the now-radioactive heart has managed to regenerate an entire, radioactive Frankenstein monster. He emerges from the rubble and begins to wreak havoc. It only gets better from there. It's a true masterpeice of the genre. Every so often you see something, and you know that if you had all the resources in the world, you could never come up with this, because your mind just doesn't work that way. This is one of those.

*The idea has so many possibilities. Imagine a squad of American soldiers, at an outpost in the Ardennes, and out of the fog come lurching undead SS men...

So, last night I was making hard sugar candy for Christmas, the sort that involves dumping oil of peppermint into a 150C sugar solution before pouring it out on a cookiesheet to cool. I make this stuff every year, but I've always been in a much larger house or apartment. The current place is small. I should have taken that into account in my planning. Under the circumstances, I also probably shouldn't have made a double batch.

The kitchen is always unbearably pepperminty after the candy is poured. This time, though, the whole apartment got that way. Flaster ran into my bedroom and hid. Literally every inch of my skin was cool and tingly with that 'peppermint' feeling, the one that you get in your mouth from eating peppermint. This was like whole body immersion, though. It's a weird sensation, and impossible to adequately describe. Today my clothes smell of peppermint :)

What's interesting too is that peppermint oil makes me cough, but cinnamon oil makes me sneeze.

If I ever become an evil overlord, I'll celebrate Xmas by putting my enemies into the Peppermint Chamber....

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On the bright side, if the place ever catches fire and fills with acrid smoke, I now know where Flaster will go to hide.

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Adapted from a reply to a friend's LJ. I think it stands on its own, though:

I think in general Brits and Commonwealthers undervalue the importance of the Monarchy to a stable and civil society. The Canadians I know seem consistently appalled at just how feral and vicious Americans can be, yet these very same people will sneer and turn their nose up at any mention of the Queen, professing (and apparently believing) that the rule of the common man is the sure cure for all evils.

If you look at the United States today, this is where you get with the rule of the common man. We're rich and powerful, but mainly because we never let any consideration of decency or the rights of the weak stand in our way. God help you if you can't defend what's yours. We talk a lot about how rights and dignity derive from natural law, but the concept of the inalienable rights of man didn't really help the indians much whenever they had anything that we wanted; nor does it seem to help the poor very much when they can be exploited for gain.

When you give up the Monarchy, you free everyone to do anything the majority dictates, and is capable of enforcing. Anything. Americans are taught from the cradle to worship that idea without thinking, and way too many Commonwealthers seem to think it's a recipe for Utopia. In reality it's the law of the jungle in fancy dress.

The existence of the Queen somehow protects the weak and exploitable. The indians are Her subjects, just as the poor are. I think that single concept - that your fellow citizens are also answerable to and in the care of the Queen, just as you are - is the single most important difference between the US and the Commonwealth. The Canadians never slaughtered their indians en masse like we did. They don't let their poor die for lack of medical care and housing like we do. They *could* do those things - they elect their government more or less as we do. They don't though, and I think the concept of everyone being the Queen's subjects is why.

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Last night I dreamed that I was riding along in a sort of open-topped jalopy with my mother and my stepfather. We had a flat tire, and stopped at this little service station to get it fixed. The owner was very old, and had some model racing cars on display. These turned out to be models of cars that he'd either driven or crewed. One of them represented a racing motorcycle welded to the side of a modified stock car kind of like a sidecar, except that the car and motorcycle both had an engine and driver. He explained that they raced like this in 1947, but then gave up on the idea because it didn't work too well. He had a kind of hobby store in there too mixed in with the service station, but I couldn't find a model of the car-motorcycle hybrid. I ended up buying some WWI British soldiers in 33mm scale. He also had a glass floor with electric trains beneath it.

I should probably draw the hybrid. I pictured it very vividly, and in colour. It was a late 30s sedan with amateurish sheet metal fairings added on, painted red and blue. Sitting here writing this, I just realized that the colour scheme was based on the Noc-Out Hose Clamp Special from the 1941 Five Hundred, but using darker glitter shades. I can just see this on the cover of some old Lindberg models box.

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I need to finish my model of Dan Gurney's Ford GT40. It was coming along nicely, then everything else intervened. Maybe I'll work some on that over Thanksgiving.

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It's puerile, yet entertaining, to listen to 50s love songs, and mentally replace occurrences of the word 'kiss' with 'kick', then imagine it acted out as a music video.

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Equally, I've never been able to listen to the line about 'raise her head [to give her] one last kiss' from "Teen Angel" without picturing the hero hunting around after the wreck and picking up his girlfriend's decapitated head. Apart from that one unfortunate image, it's a very moving song.

New York has submitted their final Olympics bid today. I'm of mixed mind. It'd be nice to have the Olympics nearby, but on the other hoof, I can't help but think that if they don't get that, they're more likely to support the idea of a 2012 World's Fair. Admittedly, that's a longshot, but I'm hoping...

Athens seems to have dug themselves a serious hole with Olympic financing. The most recent count shows that they lost US$11 billion on that. That's just amazing. Even New York City couldn't afford to lose that amount casually. I have no idea how a city like Athens is paying for that. Even granting that the Greek government is probably backing them up, that's still steep for an economy of that size.

I can't imagine how they'd incur that kind of cost. Australia supposedly spent about US$2 billion, which seems more reasonable for the amount of stuff an Olympics needs. As empty as the place was, they could have held some of their events in the 1896 stadium, which would have been kind of cool to start with, in addition to saving money.

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Looks like that appeasement-oriented obstructionist Colin Powell is history. Along with Ashcroft, that's the two most annoying and out of control Cabinet members gone. Hopefully they'll replace him with Rice, who's got a lot more steel in her than Powell ever had. Even though I didn't vote for him, I'm pleased with how Bush's second term is shaping up.

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There's a movement afoot to amend the Constitution so foreign born citizens can be President, mainly so we can have Ah-Nold in the White House. Elect him now, und obey him later!

I'd like having Ah-Nold as my leader, I think. He strikes me as almost the perfect Republican, like the second coming of Barry Goldwater. It doesn't hurt that he's a *way* alpha male, and it'd be neat to have an actual Tiny Toons character (more or less) in the White House.

Additionally I think the native birth requirement is just basically foolish. Even if it served some practical purpose in 1790, it's pointless now.

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Red Bull has bought Jaguar, which is a relief. It's not like there are a whole lot of F1 teams to spare, these days. One hates to see any more lost.

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I got a red and silver Mylar Xmas tree at the local Damnation Navy for $3. It's beautiful, if small (about two feet tall). I wish they still made them from aluminum instead of Mylar. There's just something so wonderful about the sound that the aluminum trees make. I want a pink aluminum tree, but I'll probably never have one.

I think the old-fashioned metallic trees are making something of a comeback. The funky stores near the university have an uncommon number of them on display.

I'm fixing up my collection of old cardboard Christmas houses as well. They're one of my favourite memories from when I was a toddler, little cardboard houses with cellphane and rice-paper windows that you set up in a village, and put lights inside. They just utterly fascinated me. I got given the custody of those when I was about eight or so, and they've been mine ever since. It's been ten years or so since I had them out on display. About half of them date from the 1950s, and the rest are inferior models from the end of the 'cardboard house' age in the late 60s/early 70s that I bought myself. I found a nice collectors' webpage about how to repair and renovate them, so I'm going to have them out again this year.