Franco Christmas

Christmas Greetings From the Franco's from James Franco

Muwahahaha

All I Want For Christmas Is This Tongue Removed From Within My Cheek

Huffington Post put up a slideshow of 13 really funny, acerbic Christmas cards. The cards come from this company, Somee cards. Their tagline is "when you care enough to hit send". Heh heh. Hey - it's a busy world. I may not have time to hit send! People should feel flattered that I make room in my schedule.

They have a Twitter feed - I'm looking for the link. It looks like they retweet others, too.

SNL, Julian Assange Hijacks Mark Zuckerberg's Time, Man of the Year Speech

Bear McCreary, Composer (and He of Awesome Hair)

If, like me, you think the music for The Walking Dead is awesome (and if, like me, you also thought the music for BSG was fan freakin' tastic), then you'll be interested to know that the composer has a blog, and regularly posts videos of himself and his collaborators.  I took special interest in this video explaining the composition process. Unfortunately, the video file doesn't have an embed code. So no pretty video file to put directly in the post.

He seems too young and, well, goofy to be such an accomplished, polished composer. But that he is.

Bear McCreary's Website
Bear McCreary's Blog

P.S. I plan to record or write an article on The Walking Dead. I'm looking at January for my podcast to start.


The Walking Dead trailer

Adam Levin, The Instructions

I want to read this book, but I'm afraid it'll depress me, or worse - make me anxious and paranoid. I don't react well to antagonism. Just ask my mother. Or any doctor I've ever seen. Or any Comcast or AT&T representative.

A Nice Jewish Christmas

An 8 year old Neil Gaiman fights for a Christmas tree.

I remember reading this article by Neil Gaiman when it was published two years ago. He talks about how when he and his sister were kids, they lobbied (more like browbeat, it sounds like) their parents for a Christmas tree. His parents were perplexed. They weren't religious, but they were still Jews. Jews didn't have Christmas trees.

Ah!!!, a young Neil Gaiman interjected. The idea for Christmas trees is based on the pagan tradition of bringing trees in during the winter solstice and decorating them.

That was enough to persuade his parents. Or maybe it was the constant verbal torment from the children (that's how I got to go to Europe as a teenager and move out-of-state for college). They got their Christmas tree.

I really think it had more to do with having a big, sparkly ornament-laden spectacle in the house, and nothing to do with Christian, Jewish or whose holiday is better. I think it just had to do with sparkly. I'm envious--it sounds like it was a real tree. My family was Methodist, and all we had was the same old plastic tree year after year.

Carl Sagan, Auto-Tuned

Billions of planets...billions of galaxies...billions of auto-tuning opportunities.

Goodbye Blake Edwards

I grew up watching Blake Edwards movies.  Breakfast at Tiffany's has been one of my favorite movies since I was in high school. I would watch it on rainy days when I was feeling lonely, and didn't even have the company of a cat named Cat.

I thought Inspector Clouseau was the coolest, funniest character ever. I loved the Pink Panther movies. I thought the movies were modeled after the Pink Panther cartoon - not the other way around.  I loved Henry Mancini's music.

I didn't know he was American. I thought he was British like his wife, Julie Andrews, and like the star of the Pink Panther movies, Peter Sellers. Turns out he was from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I absolutely adored Victor/Victoria. I still make Victor/Victoria jokes, but sadly most people don't get the reference any more. I still remember the sparkling gown Victoria (as Victor playing Victoria - whatever) wore.

I even liked Micki and Maude.

Quentin Tarantino, Friar Clubs Roast

The December 17th issue of Entertainment Weekly had some great quotes:

Jeffrey Ross: "You changed the face of cinema. I just wish cinema would return the favor".

Sarah Silverman: "Quentin actually turned down directing Speed. Which marks the first time he ever turned down speed".

Samuel L. Jackson: "According to Quentin, [he and Uma] have a 'platonic' relationship...I'm guessing that means they talk a lot on the phone about Uma's boyfriend problems, and he gives her rides to the airport".

Heh heh.

Zack Galifianakis, Between Two Ferns

I didn't even know these existed until a few months ago. This is my favorite so far (because I love Ben Stiller so much). Though the Bruce Willis is rivaling for my favor. I don't even like Bruce Willis that much, but the stuff he says is so off-the-wall.

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis: Ben Stiller from Between Two Ferns

Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman is offering the chance to listen to all chapters of his childrens' book The Graveyard Book for free, read by him as part of his book tour. When the book was published, he offered it streaming for free. And of course I procrastinated until it was gone. Hopefully I won't do that this time.

Warehouse 13 and Eureka new holiday episodes

Ensign Tightpants

Wil Wheaton is thrilled that someone knitted him a burrito cover

Okay, so I've never seen Wil Wheaton in tight pants. I just thought it was funny because Wesley Crusher was an Ensign on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and any excuse to make a Firefly reference is taken with glee. It actually fits in a six degrees kind of way because Nathan Fillion (AKA Captain Tightpants) was in Dr. Horrible's Sing-along blog. Felicia Day was in Dr. Horrible's Sing-along blog. Felicia Day is the star of The Guild.

Queue Kevin Bacon moment: Wil Wheaton was in The Guild!!!

So it all makes sense!!! I'm not mad!!! I'm not delirious with fantasy-soaked misguided perceptions of reality!!!

I want to see Wil Wheaton in tight pants now. Or hugging a gaggle of smurfs.

I first read Wil Wheaton's blog several years ago--probably five years ago. But like many adult-onset ADHD girls, I found other geeky things to move on to, and I forgot that I had his blog on my Google Reader. But now that he's Evil Wil Wheaton on The Big Bang Theory, he is prevalent in my life once again. And I still think he's the awesomest.

I listened to his podcast Radio Free Burrito for the first time tonight. It was a short episode (18 minutes), and it was primarily Wil Wheaton talking about Pink Floyd (particularly a performance of The Wall he was going to that night) and reading a short short story he'd written. It was a nice story, but I wish there was more to it. He said, though, that the purpose of writing the story is just to write it--not to make it perfect.

His blog is always funny and creative.  It's neat to follow the life of one of my teenage crushes. I want to read his books (or listen to the audio books, depending on my level of laziness at that moment)

Is there finally going to be a sequel to ET?

This is an Asgard. He's from  MGM and Syfy's Stargate franchise. Asgards are cool.

Drew Barrymore could be the mom this time to a youngster who hides *another* tiny lamp-shaped alien in his or her closet.

Or maybe there's going to be a sequel to Independence Day. It'll be called Columbus Day, and it'll be the story of the day Kohl's and JCPenney go head to head. Who will win? The stand-alone clothing store where everything always seems to be on sale? Or the well-known department store that has decent stuff, and unlike some other department stores, never makes you feel like you're spending more money than you pay in taxes in a year?

Okay, now that I've successfully buried the lead...RUN!!! ALIENS ARE AMONG US!

That's possibly what NASA is going to tell us at their conference tomorrow at 2 P.M. Or they're going to tell us that they found a plant on another planet.  They're going to tell us something involving extraterrestrial life. Huzzah!!!