12.27.2005

Today I...

....mailed my “Thank You & Happy New Year” cards to various friends and family.

...cut my hair. The moment I turned the razor off I heard a mournful inquiry from my mom in the other room asking, “Why did you do that? You were starting to look so nice...” If she had her way, I'd still be parting my hair and wearing a bow tie. Short hair is just easier to manage for me, especially since mine curls in unflattering ways if it grows too long. Given a choice between Wolverine on a bad hair day and Matt Lauer, I think the choice is obvious.

...drove through sunshine and breathed outside air. The weather was far too crummy and I stayed in my room far too much this weekend. I've realized in the past that my brain turns to pudding when I don't go out for extended periods of time, but sometimes I forget on these long weekends.

...took some great pictures for tomorrow's post. I guarantee they'll be better than lame pictures of melted snow.

...hoped I was about to hear ”The Unforgiven”, only to have the opening chord shift as ”The Unforgiven II” played instead. The only thing worse than an inferior sequel to a great song is the bait-and-switch of having the first sound be exactly the same. Why DO I listen to the radio?

...had a rock tossed at me by angry birds. I was walking on the beach slowly toward some seagulls, and a few started to run. As I quietly told them it was okay, I heard loud cries overhead. I looked up and at first thought there were a pair of geese circling me. They were brown, larger than the seagulls and smaller than geese however. Something fell from one of them and my first panic stricken thought was that it was relieving itself. I jumped back as something hit the sand with a loud “THUD!” and sunk a bit under it's own weight. When I realized it was a chunk of broken asphalt, I got the hell out of there.

...discovered that my favorite online game would not be returning. A while back, the creator of the game shifted his focus to a newer version, but kept the old one open for people who still wanted to play that one. At some point, when he closed that edition to new members, we should have seen the signs. Still, nearly 200 players still logged on every day. A week ago while performing upgrades on the new game, he took the old one offline. There was no word on whether or not it would be back up, and tonight he finally revealed its fate officially. I spent a long time, far too long, building up my character's statistics and while I'm sorry to see the game go, especially so abruptly, in a way it's good. I won't be playing the sequel, and the time I once wasted on the original can be devoted to better, more creative pursuits. Starting next month I'll be taking a 10-week online writing class that hopefully won't impact my posting here too much. Extra time can only be a good thing now.

...organized my sidebar a bit better and added a link to a ”BEST POSTS OF 2005” call-for-entries. I read about it over at Janet's, who's actively campaigning in The Best of Blog Awards herself. Feel free to cast your own votes and nominations if there are any posts or blogs you'd like to share.

...ended tonight's post with a list of my favorite Christmas movies, as promised in a comment elsewhere. In no particular order with or without reasons:

Home Alone(“The old man got to me!”-George Costanza)

Scrooged

Mickey's Christmas Carol(the definitive version of this classic)

Die Hard(“Yippee-ki-yay, m***erf***er!”)

The Nightmare Before Christmas(“I AM the Pumpkin King!”)

Jingle All the Way(OK, not really. But I did catch it on television a few years back and it wasn't terrible)

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus(note that it shares voice talent with Thundercats)

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer(Is this long enough to count as a movie? If not, then I might have to compile a second list of Christmas specials, with this at the top closely followed by Charlie Brown)

It's a Wonderful Life(I was late coming to this party, peering in over the years but never actually going. When I finally saw it, I loved it.)


There are probably others I've forgotten, so feel free to comment with any I may have missed, intentionally or otherwise.

14 Comments:

Blogger Curt said...

A Christmas Story, dude. It's better than all those except, maybe, IAWL.

12/27/2005 11:14 PM  
Blogger MCF said...

I thought about including that one. For years in high school and college people quoted it so much, I expected something like a Zucker comedy like Airplane or Naked Gun. When I saw it, I enjoyed it a great deal, but it didn't quite live up to the hype of everyone I knew running around saying "FRA-GEE-LAY!" These are, joke inclusions aside, all-time favorites and ACS falls just shy of making the list, every so slightly.

My word is Rygyr, which sounds like a video game.

12/27/2005 11:21 PM  
Blogger Kelly said...

They make sequels to songs? Well, I just learned my new thing for the day.

A bird threw a chunk of asphalt? Wow, that's one badass bird.

Great Christmas movie list. The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favs, and I love the inclusion of Die Hard.

12/28/2005 5:27 AM  
Blogger Kelly said...

I forgot to say that the only movie I'd add to that list is The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. I'm a sucker for that one.

Also, good luck with the writing class.

12/28/2005 7:31 AM  
Blogger Janet said...

My boyfriend meant to get his hair cut before the holidays but never did. Everyone complimented him on how nice it looked. Go figure.

Ugh. Does this make me a blog whore now? Say it isn't so! Then again, YOU mentioned me so that does that make you my unofficial pimp in the process?:)

12/28/2005 10:20 AM  
Blogger MCF said...

I don't know if I like this pimp analogy. I also nominated Rey, Curt, Rhodester and a few others in various categories, and I don't think anyone wants to see those guys in fishnet stockings and high heels...

Kelly, only when bands go lame in the mid90s as Metallica did do they make sequels to songs. Album sequels are one thing, as in the case of GnR's awesome Use Your Illusions II, but returning to the well with a subpar version of a great song was a tragic, tragic mistake on the part of Metallica.

Which Grinch did you mean, btw? I like the cartoon which probably would be considered a special and not a film, and I have yet to see the Jim Carrey movie. Another one I mean to get to is Will Ferrell's Elf, which I've heard was very funny. I suspect that will make my list when I get around to seeing it.

12/28/2005 10:50 AM  
Blogger Rhodester said...

TODAY I...

got a little verklempt when janet emailed me and pointed me to the following at the best of bloggers website, or whatever it is..

Comment by MCF — December 27, 2005 @ 5:24 pm
Rhodester is extremely funny:

http://rhodester.blogspot.com/


Gosh, thanks MCF **blushes**

12/28/2005 11:27 AM  
Blogger Kelly said...

Ooops, I messed up the title. I meant How the Grinch Stole Christmas, of course, and I meant the animated one. IMdB classifies it as a short, so I guess you're right when you say it's more of a special and not a movie. Still, I would probably cheat and put it in, because I just love it.

Also, my verification word looks like a sneeze: hhuhitk

12/28/2005 11:30 AM  
Blogger Rhodester said...

Bless you, Kelly

"abbgx"

I sneezed too.. you're contagious!

12/28/2005 11:33 AM  
Blogger Lorna said...

You cut your own hair!!! a man of interesting talents.

Let us know how you like the writing class.

And it's not about the Fra-Gee-Lay, it's about "Show mummy how a piggy eats" and Bart slithering over the fence to meet his end at Old Blue's deadly fire...

12/28/2005 12:30 PM  
Blogger MCF said...

Yeah, I was debating between you and Darrell, Dave. Darrell is damn funny, but SoCon has it's share of serious posts about religion and politics in between the ROFL stuff so I wasn't sure if the judges would consider it as an overall humor blog. You consistently have things like cows swimming with dolphins and screaming bugs, and thus snagged the vote. :) As for Darrell, I ended up voting for one of his specific posts in the other contest I linked to.

I wish the best blog thing had more categories though. If I could put everyone from my blogroll in there I would have. I may have to just make up my own arbitrary awards by the end of the year myself....

12/28/2005 5:20 PM  
Blogger MCF said...

Lorna, I would use "cut" in the loosest sense of the word. I have electric clippers with varying length guards and I usually just buzz the whole thing down to either 1/2" or 1/4" inch. It's still long enough that I have black on top of my head instead of unsightly MCF scalp, but short enough that I don't have to worry about a comb or gel for a month or so. After suffering an aneurism or something, my old barber continued to work up until his death, and my last few visits he couldn't hold anything steady and his arms were constantly shaking. For SOME reason after he died, I never bothered to go to another barber again. Perhaps I was traumatized....=)

12/28/2005 5:25 PM  
Blogger Kelly said...

Thanks, Rhodester. I've been meaning to get a sneeze guard on my computer ...

12/29/2005 5:37 AM  
Blogger kevbayer said...

I also cut my own hair. Sometimes I have Rubi assist. I don't do the buzz-cut though, Rubi won't let me go that short (I want a flat top, but "nooooo"). So I cut the sides and back short and the top just a little longer, trying to blend them together... but it usually looks like a bad bowl cut.

My word-verification: "iixvg" Sounds like a dwarven name.
I've had better sounding word verifications.

12/29/2005 8:23 AM  

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