All I Want For Christmas Is…?

It’s officially the time of year in which I get asked the dreaded question:  What do you want for Christmas?
My standard reply – particularly when asked this by my mother – of “nothing,” is generally deemed as unacceptable.
Of course, my standard reply isn’t entirely true.  I am not, after all, some enlightened Buddhist who has transcended material attachments and the prison of desire.  I like having stuff, and I generally would like to have even more stuff or at least better versions of stuff that I already have.
The problem is, no one who is likely to give me stuff is willing or able to drop the kind of cash that would be required to give me the stuff that I really want, and even if they were, I won’t be willing to accept the stuff I want as a gift, because, seriously, regardless of your financial ability, there is no reason for anyone to spend that kind of money on me.
…okay, maybe if someone in my family or one of my close friends suddenly struck it rich and could easily afford to give such extravagant gifts, I might take a somewhat less principled stance, but even so, the point is, the stuff I want costs too damn much and it would be completely unreasonable for me to expect anyone I know to get said stuff for me.
Hell, even if all the people I know who are likely to give me a gift pooled their resources it would still be way too much money for them to invest individually.
Here’s a f’r instance:

What you’re looking at is a Wacom Cintiq 24 HD Touch.  This is a device that runs north of $3,000.
What do I want for Christmas?  I want that.
I only know one person in the world who can afford to buy that for me and with whom I’m sufficiently close that I’d be willing to accept such an extravagant gift:  myself.
And even I’m not willing to buy that for me, so I certainly couldn’t ask anyone else to do so.
Of course, there are smaller, more affordable things that I want – or need – but the problem there is that if I want something, and it’s affordable, I’ll just buy it myself.  That is, after all, why I’ve allowed myself to become a corporate drone and establishment stooge:  so that I make enough money to buy myself the things that I want (within reason) and need.  I mean, obviously I don’t work because sitting in a cubicle all day is my passion in life.  It’s a thing that I do so that I can keep a roof over my head, food in my belly, and keep myself well-stocked with comics and electronic gadgets.
You may object that Christmas and gift-giving/gift-receiving are about more than just getting the stuff you want, and I would agree with you.  It’s a big part of why I appreciate the gifts I do get, even though they’re generally things that I could easily buy for myself.  I understand that the gift itself isn’t the point.
But by that same token, it’s part of why I don’t like being asked the question, because if you like me well enough that you feel compelled to get me something, you should also know me well enough to be able to identify an appropriate (and affordable) gift.
So maybe what I really want for Christmas is for the people I care about – and who care about me – to know me well enough to not have to ask that question.
That sounds kind of harsh, and I don’t mean it to, but it is what it is.
The other reason I find the question irksome is that if I give an answer and that ends up being the gift the element of surprise is gone, and while I’m not nearly so invested in Christmas as I was when I was a kid, there is still that part of me that enjoys the thrill of anticipation and the joy of uncertainty.  Tearing open the wrapping paper is a lot more exciting when you have no idea – or at least are not completely certain – what’s inside.
However, I recognize that I’m not exactly the easiest person to know – or to understand – and when you factor in my tendency to just buy the things I want for myself, figuring out what to get for me is tricky without me providing some input.
So it’s a matter of trying to think of something that I want that I don’t yet know that I want, which, yeah, not easy.
But it’s not really any easier for me, frankly.  I have a difficult time thinking of things that I want that I don’t already have that are also reasonably affordable.
Then there are the non-material things that no one can provide, or at least, that no one can buy, the things that I want even more than that too-damned-expensive-for-anyone-to-buy Cintiq, which can’t be given, and which I don’t seem to be able to acquire for myself.  But we won’t delve into any of that…
Ultimately, while it’s not the most useful answer to the question, or an entirely honest one, “nothing” has been my go-to reply not because I don’t want anything, but because when I try to come up with an answer that hits all of the appropriate points, nothing is what I can come up with.
With all that said, no matter who you are, how close we are, or whether or not you can actually afford it, if you really want to buy me a Cintiq 24 HD Touch, in the spirit of the season, I will willingly set aside my principled objections to anyone spending that much money on me and grudgingly accept it…

A Very Threshold Christmas

Unwrap something special this Christmas.

Here's hoping that you all get exactly what you want this Christmas.  Unless you want something horrible, like a neutron bomb or something.  I mean, there are limits to my good wishes for every individual, Christmas or not.
So...here's hoping that you all get exactly the kind of safe and socially-acceptable gift you want this Christmas!

Christmas Wrap-Up

Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot, And Never Brought To Mind? Department:
One of the things I was looking forward to the most about my time off from work - I've been off since the Friday before Christmas and won't return until the 2nd - apart from just plain not being at work, was having the opportunity to meet up with the (former) boss lady while she was in the area visiting for the holidays.
We had plans to meet for lunch the day after Christmas, but the weather decided that it had no intention of letting that happen, starting out the day with freezing rain, followed by snow, followed by more freezing rain.
So we made plans for the next day, but had to reschedule yet again for today.
I knew that she would have a lot of demands on her time while she was here.  As I put it in the text I sent her prior to her return to NoVA:

I realize I'm all the way at the back of the long line of people who want to see you while you're here, and it'll probably turn out that I'm in the wrong line, like the line to get a fishing license or something, but I am in line.  Just FYI.  Also:  Christmas presents.

After I arrived at the place we were meeting - early, of course - I laid the odds as being about 50/50 that I would be getting a text or phone call telling me that we would have to either reschedule again, or call it a miss entirely.  The odds went to 99/1 when I noticed that I had gotten a text from her.
Fortunately she was only letting me know that she was slightly delayed, which, honestly, I had pretty much thought was a given.
Always being on time is not, after all, among the many positive character traits she can lay claim to.
Sometime shortly thereafter I got a text asking me where I was - she had assumed I'd gone inside, but I was outside waiting in my car.
With that confusion out of the way, we commenced to having a nice lunch and spent time getting caught up, and I gave her the aforementioned Christmas presents, which included a Christmas pin-up picture I did for her.  As I put it, "I drew you a Christmas picture because of course I did."

Vintage style, complete with torpedo boob bikini top.

It was, of course, good to see her again, but the visit was too short, and it made me sad to think that, at best, it will probably be a year before I see her again.

The Nightmare After Christmas Department:
Among the presents I received on Christmas was Walmart gift card from Jamie and Casey.  I don't often go to Walmart, as I hate the one in Leesburg and seldom go to the one in Sterling, but, as it was on my way after I parted ways with the (former) boss lady, I decided to stop there and put it to use.
...
I knew it was a bad move as soon as I saw the parking lot, but I was committed to getting it over with.
Fortunately I only ended up standing in a line that wasn't moving at all for about ten minutes - after having claimed a space at the end of another very long line, only to discover that, in fact, I had cut in to the middle of a line that was even longer than I thought.  Oops. - before another register opened up and I was able to make my way out of there, with only minimal levels of PTSD.

Light Week Department:
My present from the (former) boss lady was a gift certificate for the comic shop.  In our original lunch plans, we were going to meet at a restaurant right across from the comic shop, as she was going to be in the vicinity anyway, and so, it being a Wednesday, meeting there seemed like a win-win.
Given the reschedule, going there would have been much more of a trek for her, so we had decided on another location.
In any case, because I didn't go there on Wednesday, or yesterday, for that matter, I decided I'd swing by the comic shop on the way home today and put the gift certificate to use.
Because that's the way things go, it turned out that this was the one week of the year in which nothing I actually read shipped, and I couldn't find any old reprints or anything else I wanted, so the gift went unused for now.
She had said that she wanted to buy me a statue for my collection - my gift from Scott and Stacy, by the way, was a Raven statue, which completes my set of the ladies of the original line up of The New Teen Titans - but she didn't know which ones I have.  It's probably just as well; I mean no offense, but I wouldn't trust anyone other than Scott to actually pick out something like that for me.
Also, they don't currently have anything in stock that I actually want anyway.

Wonder Girl (Donna Troy), Raven, Starfire

Merry Christmas

The gift that keeps on giving.

All I Want For Christmas...

...is a better reference image to work from for this picture of Kelly Brook:

What, you thought I was going to say the actual Kelly Brook?
I learned long ago to set my Christmas expectations low.

I mean, seriously, who uploads a 360p video to YouTube?  No one on the staff of Love magazine had an iPhone?
In any case, Merry Christmas from Threshold!

Late (Or Really Early) Holiday Cheer

On Christmas I sent a holiday-themed picture to the always lovely Nadia.
Given that, unlike me, most people have lives, it took her a while to get back to me.
I don't like to post pictures I've done of people until I've gotten a response, so here, almost a month later, is the picture in question:



On a less cheerful note, last week when we had a bit of an ice storm I ended up skidding my way into a curb when I was going in to work. Initially it didn't appear to have done any damage, but some time later I started noticing an odd noise when I was driving, though I didn't notice any issues with how it handled. So I thought that maybe it was just my imagination, or it was something that had been there all along and I was just now noticing it. Still, I really didn't like the sound of it.
I'd taken today off to go out and do some of what I call "weekday stuff" and brought my car in to the dealership to get it checked out.
Turns out I wrecked the hub and bearing on one of the wheels. Fortunately, it won't take long to fix, though I'll probably end up paying the costs upfront and getting reimbursed by my insurance, since I just now filed the claim after finding out about the damage. I didn't want to file a claim if there wasn't anything actually wrong with it, after all.
As an added bonus, I seem to be getting sick. Heaviness in the chest with a cough, a headache and runny nose, and shortness of breath. In fact, just carrying the box o' stuff I got from Costco (going to Costco falls under the heading of "weekday stuff") from the rental car to my door left me gasping for air.
I'll probably go to the doctor tomorrow if I'm not feeling any better.

A Threshold Christmas

Bah Humbug...Or Whatever. I Don't Care.

Given that…

I’m not a child, nor am I an adult who’s prone to things like “whimsy” or “a sense of childlike wonder” or anything like that*

There isn’t a religious component to my personality

While I have family – most of which is located more than a thousand miles away – and friends whom I care about, I don’t have a family of my own, or any sort of significant other with whom to share my life or special occasions

I hate crowds and am not a fan of humanity in general, mostly because humanity tends to form crowds and get in my way

…I don’t think it’s especially surprising that I’m not exactly the holly jolliest person in the world when it comes to Christmas, nor is this bit of understatement likely to be news to anyone who knows me.
Still, I’ve never been especially Scrooge or Grinch-like - though I’ve been called both – and while I don’t get any particular enjoyment out of Christmas, I normally don’t begrudge other people their happiness or holiday spirit – as long as it doesn’t get too obnoxious or intrude on my own life too much. Granted, invariably it does, if only in the obstacle course created by the hordes of consumers who are rushrushrushing – while paradoxically not seeming to move at all – to get in all of their holiday shopping as I’m trying to just get on with my normal life, but, in theory at least, I have no problem with people having Merry Christmases and Happy Chanukahs or Felicitous Festivuses or whatever they’re celebrating.
And I’m normally perfectly happy to dole out gifts to the aforementioned loved ones, because, hey, it’s Christmas and that’s what you do regardless, and beyond that, well, they’re my loved ones.
But this year…
I don’t know; somehow the massive crowds, the sappy, cloying music that’s suffocating in its ubiquity, the standard flare-ups from the noise machine about the “War on Christmas,” and just a vague, yet persistent, existential malaise have all added up to a sentiment that can best be summed up as “Fuck Christmas.”
Seriously, I don’t even feel inclined to give anyone anything. I mean, I will, but I don’t feel especially good about it. And that’s not me being miserly or lacking generosity, it’s just me not feeling it.
And it’s supposed to be better to give than to receive, and sure, normally I find that to be true – in some sense, at least – but receiving still ought to be good, right?
But while I don’t really want to give anything, I kind of don’t want to receive anything, either. I mean, what for? Most of the stuff I want I just get for myself (see the bit about not having a family/significant other), and if I want something that I can’t buy for myself...well, I can guarantee you that no one is going to buy it for me (nor would I expect anyone to do so).
So where does that leave me?
I told my mom – who is home now and recovering nicely, by the way – about my humbuggishness and she said that I should be happier than usual this year, given the fact that I didn’t lose my mom. That thought had already occurred to me, of course, and yes, my mom making it through all of that she went through does rank up in at least the top five best Christmas presents, but even so…
So what’s the point of all of this? I don’t know. I’m still going to give out presents, and I’ll still appreciate whatever presents I get.
It’s unlikely that I’ll be rushing down to Whoville to steal Christmas away from them – but if I did, I’d probably be small-hearted enough to say, “Screw you, little Cindy Lou Who, who’s no more than two” –and I probably won’t receive any ghostly visitors on December 24th.
So…well, so nothing, I suppose.
Amusingly, and perhaps appropriately enough in a pervese sort of way, the original point of the above was meant to be the introduction to a post that was going to serve as a semi-joking list of things I would like to get for Christmas this year.
…yeah.
Still, I’ve come this far, so I might as well go ahead with it, though it seems kind of counter-productive now. Of course, it wasn’t going to be terribly productive anyway, since ultimately it would have been directed towards some specific people who are the only ones I know who are likely to actually get me any of these things, especially since these are all things that I would like to add to my collection of comic book statues and figures, and they’re the ones who, in giving me my first statue, got my collection started…
In any case, here are some helpful links to statues I would like to add to my collection:

Dove (Dawn Granger)

Wonder Girl (Donna Troy)

The Huntress

Phantom Lady

Power Girl

Wonder Woman

Raven

The statues below are larger and more expensive, and seem less likely – understandably so – to be presented to me as gifts. Still, they’re worth mentioning:

Batgirl

Black Canary

Catwoman

Wonder Woman

Another Wonder Woman

Zatanna

And from the Marvel – and even more expensive and unlikely – side of things, there’s this:

Black Widow

For anyone who’s going to give me anything that isn’t a statue, I’d say that your best bet is some sort of store-specific gift card that will give me an excuse to buy one of those inexpensive things that I keep thinking about buying but can’t seem to bring myself to drop the twenty bucks or whatever to actually get.
Or, you know, just save your money and know that I won’t mind, because Bah Humbug and whatnot…

*I acknowledge that I have a certain level of arrested development.

Not Fit For Polite Company

So this morning I headed down to Scott and Stacy's for Christmas brunch, where I received my gift: a figurine of Princess Leia as Jabba's slave in Return of the Jedi.
It's very cool, but the fact that she was packaged in a disassembled state was just creepy. It was like getting a gift from the Ice Truck Killer from the first season of Dexter:


Of course, the figure is from Japan, so I suppose I should consider myself fortunate that she wasn't being raped by tentacles as well.


The Princess fully-assembled, which I suppose some people might consider just as creepy in its own way as the disassembled version, what with her being chained up in a skimpy outfit for the pleasture of a big, fat slob (and I'm not talking about the Star Wars fanbase) ,but for geeks of my generation....okay, maybe we're no better than Jabba, but damn, Carrie Fisher looked hot in that outfit. Assembling the figure resulted in a lot of swearing, as her "Snap-Fit" arm steadfastly refused to do either of those things.


They opted to get me the Leia figure to complement this poster on my wall.

There were more people - and especially kids - at Scott and Stacy's than I was expecting, so it was a bit of an overload for me.
It didn't help that I'm not really fit for polite company, and had to keep restraining myself from responding to things like this:

Stacy (on the phone): Scott gave me a pearl necklace!
Me (thinking): Must...hold...it...in.
(Scott looks at me, waiting for me to say something inappropriate.)
Stacy: He made it himself!
Me (thinking): Oh my god.
Scott: That hurt, didn't it?
Me: Yes. I'm not fit for polite company.

Of course, earlier in the day I'd shown a bit less restraint. I was told that I had to try this cake that Jamie had made, so I went to the table to get a piece of it and was greeted by two nursing mothers, one of whom said, "Jon, have you tried this?"
She was pointing to the cake, of course, which was on the table between where the two of them were sitting while nursing, but given the context I couldn't help but burst out laughing.
At some point I walked over to my car to put the disassembled Leia away and to call Kim's so that I could wish everyone a Merry Christmas. A bit after 2 a bunch of us headed off to the theater to see Avatar in IMAX 3D, about which more later.
After the movie was over we were greeted with a downpour that's doing a number on the snow, but which, combined with fog, made it nearly impossible to see the lanes.
Everyone was invited over to another person's house for dinner, but between the people overload and wanting to get home before it cooled off and the rain became more dangerous, I declined.
As for the gifts I gave, usually I just get a gift card for Papa John's for Scott and Stacy and the kids, but there was this hardcover collection of all of the Rocketeer stories - which have been recolored and are absolutely gorgeous - so I wanted to get that for Scott (I picked one up for myself as well), and so I opted to give the girls a bunch of kids' comics and some ginormous Hershey bars, and Stacy a Target gift card. Tristram, the baby, got hosed, because, seriously, what do you buy a baby for Christmas? He's not going to know he got hosed.
As for my family, I gave my sister Kristy and her husband a digital photo frame, and went with gift cards for everyone else. I'd been undecided as to whether or not I was going to just send a big check for everyone like I usually do, or buy individual gifts, and then the next thing I knew it was like six days until Christmas, so...gift cards.
In any case, I hope everyone out there in Threshold land had a good, safe Christmas and that you all made it onto Santa's "nice" list.

Merry Christmas From Threshold

Hope you had fun unwrapping your gifts.

Post-Snowpocalyptic Update

Sometime before midnight last night the snow stopped falling for the most part. I'm not sure what the official tally was, but today it was about up to my knees.
Around 3 AM someone came and did a shitty job of plowing the street, leaving four foot high mounds of snow piled up about two feet out from all of the cars.
I spent about four hours this morning shoveling out the sidewalk and the car. I shouldn't have any trouble getting out tomorrow morning, but I'm not so sure about my chances of getting back in tomorrow evening.
I'd like to think that after seeing that even with record amounts of snowfall the world didn't come to an end, civilization didn't collapse, and we're not living in some Mad Maxian hellscape people will have learned that there's no real need to panic the next time the forecast calls for some of the white stuff, but that would be uncharacteristically optimistic of me.
While I was digging my car out some kid with a shovel came along and expressed his dismay and disappointment over the fact that almost all of us on the street were digging ourselves out, thus dashing his dreams of making some money. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he was better off not trying to make money by trying in vain to move around massive amounts of snow with a garden shovel.
In any case, I haven't really posted anything of substance for a while - Though for that matter, have I ever? - so I figured I'd post some updates.
On Wednesday night Scott and I headed to the theater for the RiffTrax LIVE! Christmas Shortstravagana, which was, as expected, freakin' hilarious. They riffed on some really bizarre old Christmas-related (and not-so Christmas-related) short films, including this bizarre fever dream of a tale about the importance of not abandoning your old beloved toys in favor of the shiny new stuff you find under the tree on Christmas morn, and really bad, really creepy animated version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
I'd had to go in to work early that day for a meeting, so I planned on leaving early as well, which made things kind of a pain, as the RiffTrax LIVE! event didn't start until 8. Ultimately we decided to just go to our respective homes after work, then meet at a restaurant near the theater before it started.
Thursday I worked from home in order to be present for the delivery of my new washing machine. I got a call from a recording a bit after 8 AM telling me that the delivery guys would be here in a half an hour. Exactly one hour later they showed up.
They were undaunted by the task of lifting the machine over the toilet, and had the old one removed in a matter of minutes.
There were three guys on the truck, and one stayed outside to unpackage the new machine while the other's hauled out the old one. Once they got outside, one of the two had this to say to the third: Hey Juan! [A long string of Spanish] toilet! Hahahahahaha!
While they were doing that, I cleaned the floor in the bathroom as best I could, and then they easily lifted the new machine (seen below) into place.







They then tested it to ensure it was working and were on their way. The whole process took about ten minutes.
Friday I left work early, hoping to be able to swing by the comic shop and to pick up a few groceries before the panic-stricken horde had time to descend, but apparently they started much earlier in the day, and while the snow had yet to fall, people were driving as though the roads were covered in snow and ice. When I - finally - got to Target, the place was a madhouse.
Even though I'd left work a half an hour earlier than usual, I ended up getting home an hour later than usual.
Madness.
(Madness? THIS. IS. NoVA!)
I spent most of Saturday doing not much of anything, though at some point in the afternoon I was surprised to hear my doorbell ringing.
It was my neighbors' youngest son, who had trudged through the snow to deliver some Christmas cheer:



And that brings us pretty much up to date.
I've got four more days of work - though I suspect my boss will tell me to work from home on Christmas Eve - and then I'm done for the year.
I have no particular plans for the time off, but not being at work will, quite possibly, be the greatest gift of all.

Oh, Right

Oh, right; I have a blog.
So on Sunday I ventured out to Home Depot to check out washing machines, and a good time was had by all.
Well, some.
Okay, there was no good time to be had, quite frankly, but the fact remains that I went to Home Depot and spent more time - which is to say any time - than I wanted to looking at washing machines.
Those fancy steam wash systems were ruled out right away, as they were too damned expensive ($1,100? Do you realize what kind of computer I could buy for that much money?), so I started looking at some of the cheaper models.
While the plan was to get something that would fit in the current location, I did think about future remodelling plans, so I had an eye on the front-loading type that can be adapted to be stackable with a compatible dryer, but they were all pretty expensive.
(Note: as there were no deals, I'm not changing the layout any time real soon, and the old one still works, I didn't look at dryers)
I was, after mentioning that it's just me at home, initially pointed towards some small, cheap machines, but given how long I sometimes go without washing clothes, I do need a decent capacity, so I started looking at more expensive models.
Ultimately I decided that a front-loader probably wouldn't work that well in the downstairs bathroom, and that if I do remodel upstairs I'd have enough room for a side-by-side washer and dryer anyway, so I focused on the top-loading variety.
The girl working there pointed me in the direction of a GE model that was relatively small but, lacking an agitator, had a decent capacity, and was Energy Star-compliant and had some fancy water-saving feature that evidently works in such a way that the agitator isn't necessary for about $550.
She then discovered that there was an identical model for $100 cheaper, though she wasn't sure why it was so much cheaper. After looking at the label I determined that it was cheaper because it lacked some of the complex washing mode combinations, but WTF do I care about any of that?
So that's the one I opted to get.
I'm working from home on Thursday so that I can be here for the delivery, as otherwise I would have had to wait until next year.
I've been assured that the delivery people are required to do whatever they need to in order to haul the old one away, so here's hoping they don't balk at the task of lifting it over the toilet to get it out (and to do the same when it comes to installing the new one).
In the meantime, I had enough clean clothes - with the addition of the new ones - to get me through until them.
So that's that. For now.
I'm still getting used to having the bedroom furniture. I used to keep all of my clothes in the closet, so it's been an adjustment in the morning to remember that my socks and underwear are now in the dresser and that I don't have to immediately go to the closet after showering and drying off.
The dresser has also given me a place to charge my cell phone that's far enough away from my alarm clock that its signal won't cause my alarm clock to randonly let out a blast of static, so I've also had to adjust to not having to put it in the office at night, or retrieve it from there in the morning.
On Friday we had a team (everyone who reports up to my boss' boss) holiday get-together. It was just like the one we had last year, and was even at the same place.
We did this gift exchange thing ($20 limit) in which all the gifts were put on a table, everyone picked a number, and then we went in order to select a gift. If you didn't like the gift you got, you could swap with anyone who had a lower number than you.
I was number 3.
My gift was a Starbucks insulated mug thing and some coffee...the perfect gift for someone who doesn't drink coffee. The mug itself is fine and useful, but the coffee that came with it, not so much.
Still, being number 3, my only swapping options were a CD of holiday music performed by popular artists I don't like and some sort of desktop puzzle/toy thing that looked boring, or lottery tickets.
I decided not to swap in the hopes that someone after me would want to take my gift away from me.
No such luck.
My gift contribution was this 1.3 MP digital camera I found at Target that can also be used as a webcam. The person who picked that opted to swap for the lottery tickets.
When it was my boss' turn to pick a gift, she decided to swap what she'd gotten for the camera.
However, when it was her boss' turn, he decided that he wanted the camera.
So my contribution ended up being the most popular/most traded. Yay me!
As for the lottery tickets that I decided not to swap my gift for, one of them turned out to be a $50 winner.
However, I'm convinced that in some bizarre perversion of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, if I had swapped for the lottery tickets, there wouldn't have been a winner.
That's what I have to tell myself, at least.
Tomorrow night Scott and I are going to another Riff Trax Live event, this time with special guest "Weird Al" Yankovic.
Thursday, as mentioned, I'll be working from home (and no, that's not "working" from home; I find I get more work done when I work at home, actually), then Friday is just a standard Friday, then a weekend that will be over as soon as I blink, then four days at work, and then I'm off for the rest of the year, burning off this year's leftover vacation time.
And that's pretty much all that's been/will be going on.
I've been even more tired than usual lately - went to bed before 9 last night - and haven't had the energy to do much in the way of blogging or drawing or really anything other than getting sucked into watching movies on HBO and Cinemax.
Think I'll see what's on now...

"The War On Christmas" Explained

I Never Get Tired Of This

Getting Into The Spirit

Sometime around 2 AM on Wednesday morning I found myself half awake and wondering, “What’s that noise? And where is that breeze coming from?”
Driven by curiosity, I forced myself fully awake and discovered that my ceiling fan was on full blast.
This was puzzling enough on its own, but became even moreso as I fumbled in the dark in search of the remote. After all, if I turned it on – via the remote, which is the only method – I must have done so in my sleep, and given the difficulty I was having with finding the remote while fully awake I can’t help but be baffled at the thought that I was somehow more adept at finding and manipulating the remote while not actually conscious.
So I don’t what the hell was happening there.
Yesterday I headed down to Manassas to spend Christmas Eve at Scott and Stacy’s. I brought along the Riff Trax version of the movie Crossroads – the Britney Spears movie, not the Ralph Macchio one – as my way of repaying their hospitality with something dreadful.
And – apart from the various scenes featuring Britney prancing around in her underwear – it really was dreadful.
After that we watched Krull, as it’s been years since I last saw it, and, really, why not?
This morning found me on my way to Manassas once again for Christmas breakfast. While there, I got this from Scott and Stacy:



For the record, that’s Starfire.
I commented that at least this time around I don’t have to worry about Kathleen breaking Starfire’s fingers off the way she did with the Black Canary figure I got from them last year.
While I don’t have much Christmas spirit, and I was not visited by any spirits in the night – unless it was a spirit that turned on my ceiling fan, but that was a little too early on Christmas Eve morning to be a very well-timed visit – I did get some Christmas spirit in the form of seeing The Spirit this afternoon.
The earliest show was 2:15, and given that by 11:30 we’d finished the breakfast, everyone else there was eager to get into some sort of gameplay to pass the time. Because I didn’t want to suck the fun out of the room, which was rapidly filling with dog hair that was starting to overpower the generic Zyrtec I’d taken, and I had to give my family a call, I decided that I would head home and just meet them at the theater.
There wasn’t much traffic on the road yesterday or today, but driving still managed to be annoying, as the people who were on the road were uniformly driving well below the speed limit. I don’t know if they were all just being hyper-cautious for fear of being pulled over in some holiday sting operation, or it was just that the more reckless and aggressive drivers had decided to take a couple of days off, but either way it was irritating as hell.
Though I left for the theater with what I thought was plenty of time to spare, I didn’t get there until 2:00. I wasn’t expecting the theater to be as packed as it was – at least not that early in the day – and neither, apparently, was the theater management.
The people working there were overwhelmed, the ticket kiosks weren’t working, and between buying tickets and a drink and some candy I spent nearly 20 minutes standing in line.
When I got there, Scott and Casey were nowhere to be found. I thought about calling them to ask if they wanted me to just buy their tickets for them, but this thought didn’t occur to me until I was near the front of the ticket line, and the theater is a total dead zone for cell phone service.
I saw them come in while I was at the concession stand and met up with them while they were getting their snacks.
We ended up missing all of the previews and the first couple of minutes of the movie.
As for the movie itself, there’s been a lot of hate for it online for months now, as with The Day the Earth Stood Still, and as with that movie, once again, I don’t get it.
What the hell do you people want? I mean, seriously, The Spirit was a hell of a lot of fun. Sure, it looked a lot like Sin City, but personally I don’t view that as a bad thing.
Admittedly, in his comics work, for years Frank Miller has been showing signs of, to put it delicately, being bug fuck insane (The goddamn Batman, I’m looking at you…), but this movie had the right kind of Miller insanity.
I suppose that’s the problem with the haters; if you aren’t wired in such a way as to appreciate Miller’s sense of humor, then yeah, the movie is going to fall flat. But if that’s the case, what the hell are you going to see it for in the first place, or even bother reading about it and watching trailers?
I mean, there is no force on earth that could compel me to see Marley and Me – multiple showings of which were sold out today, by the way; when Scott mentioned that I said, “People are…well, you know what I think about people” – so I don’t see any point in agonizing over how awful it’s going to be and subjecting myself to the torment of watching clips or reading about it just so I have something to bitch about on some forum.
On the other hand, apparently a lot of the online outrage is a result of how much the movie differs from the source material. The Spirit is considered a classic, and its creator, Will Eisner, is a legendary comic book icon. In fact, one of the highest industry honors is the Eisner Award.
I can’t really speak to that, as my exposure to The Spirit on the printed page has been limited to seeing pages reprinted in articles about how great The Spirit is. I’ve meant to read more, but, well, I haven’t.
Beyond what I’ve read about The Spirit, my only other exposure has been the god-awful 1987 made for TV movie – which was undoubtedly a failed pilot – starring Sam “Flash Gordon” Jones in the title role.
So basically, this is what I know about The Spirit: it had a lot of femme fatale characters with goofy names who pranced around in skimpy outfits, the main character was a cop who died and somehow returned to life, one of his principal adversaries was someone called The Octopus, and he had a horrid, racist caricature of a kid sidekick named Ebony White.
As far as the movie goes when it comes to those elements, it’s check, check, check, check, and thank god, there was no Ebony White.
So…what’s to complain about?
But, if you don’t like it – even if you preemptively don’t like it – you don’t like it, and, so, whatever. Good for you. Storm every forum you can find and unload all the bile you need to.
I, however, enjoyed it immensely – as did Scott and Casey – and that’s just how it goes.
And for the record, Scarlett Johansson is positively inhuman in her hotness, and I wouldn’t mind having a photocopy of Eva Mendes’ perfect ass.
So yeah, I think it was a good directorial debut for Frank Miller, and the perfect vehicle for him, but I do hope that if he moves on to other projects he’ll move away from the Sin City style a little, as a little really does go a long way.
As a random aside, regarding that 1987 Spirit movie, I distinctly recall having difficulty setting up the VCR to record it. We had just gotten a satellite dish, which added another layer of complexity to setting the VCR to record, which was already complicated enough. In those days there was no such thing as on-screen programming. Setting the VCR to record at a specific time involved turning this array of weird little plastic dials into the correct position to set the time, date, and channel.
Anyway, that was my Christmas Eve/Christmas. I hope yours were at least as good.

A Christmas Reminder

Remember kids....



...unwrapping your presents is half the fun.
Merry Christmas from Threshold!

Batman Night (Plus: Fishnets!)

So apparently I started a new tradition last night and henceforth Christmas Eve shall be known as Batman Night in the Heimdall household.
It started out with me deciding that I should get kind of into the spirit of things and watching the Christmas With The Joker episode of Batman: The Animated Series.
That episode has one of the greatest Batman lines ever. Robin, convinced that it’ll be a slow night in Gotham on Christmas Eve, makes a deal with Batman that if they go on patrol and nothing is happening, they’ll head back to Wayne Manor, enjoy a delicious Alfred-prepared meal, and watch It’s a Wonderful Life.
Batman says, “You know, I’ve never actually seen that. I could never get past the title.”
(One of my other favorite animated Batman line comes from an episode of Justice League Unlimited adapting Alan Moore’s excellent Superman story For The Man Who Has Everything. He and Wonder Woman are on their way to a private celebration of Superman’s birthday. Wonder Woman comments on how difficult it was to find an appropriate gift. Batman says, “Yes, it’s a difficult question: what do you get for the man who has everything?” There’s a pause, and then, horrified, Wonder Woman says, “Bruce…you didn’t get him a gift certificate, did you?” Batman responds in an offended tone, “Of course not!” Then, a little more weakly, adds “I’m giving him cash.”)
After that I decided to watch Holiday Knights, another holiday-themed episode from later in the series’ run. Watching that made me want to watch Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, the animated movie. That actually maintained the Christmas connection, as while the move itself doesn’t have a holiday theme, it did open in theaters on Christmas day back in 1993.
Watching that made me want to watch Batman Begins, which I did.
So it was an all-Batman night for me.
I don’t think I have anything else Chrismas-y to watch, unless you count the video of the photoshoot from which I pulled the reference image for my Christmas Eve picture, which, all things considered, probably isn’t the most appropriate Christmas video.
(I will just say that there are several other girls besides Eve in the photoshoot/video, so make of that what you will. I had been thinking about drawing a picture that featured Eve with her arms around two of the other similarly-clad girls and titling it Ho Ho Ho, but it would have been too much work and the other girls aren’t nearly as hot as Eve.)
Though all of the anticipation that accompanied the prospect of Christmas morning in my youth is long gone, I still traditionally have a difficult time getting to sleep on Christmas Eve, so I actually ended up being up until sometime after 2 with all of my Batman watching.
This morning I was off to Scott and Stacy’s for Christmas brunch, where I finally got to open a gift.
Scott had gotten me an Adam Hughes-designed Black Canary statuette (seen in the midst of unleashing her “Canary Cry”) from the same Women of the DC Universe series as the Power Girl statuette I got him when he got his new job. So now once I have my cubicle at my new job I’ll have some geek bling for it:


“I said, ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS AND STOP STARING AT MY BREASTS!’”


“No, I don’t know how my waist can possibly support my upper body.”


The Benes’ Eye View.


From this angle she looks like she’s preparing to catch Ollie’s “trick arrow,” if you know what I’m saying. (Hint: I’m talking about oral sex.) Coincidentally, it also looks a lot like the majority of the thumbnail previews of many of the video files on my hard drive.

He was torn between getting me the Black Canary statuette and getting me the Zatanna statuette, but the Canary won out due to the odd expression on Zatanna’s face, what with her tongue sticking out and all. Either way, fishnets, so I’m happy.
Of course, if they’d had it, he would have gotten me the Catwoman statuette, which would have been very cool.
Still, I have no complaints. I’ve always liked the Black Canary – except when she was presented as a strident, feminist cliché during the Giffen-Dematteis run of Justice League – and I really came to like her when she was handled by Gail Simone. Of course, Gail’s deft handling of the character worked against her, as she made Black Canary so popular that DC editorial took the character away from her to make her the current head of the Justice League and to give her a title of her own (shared with new hubby the Green Arrow).
I’m actually still waiting on a couple more presents, as my sister Kim got my address wrong, and presumably at some point today I’ll be getting one from Kathleen (and giving her one).
For some reason I’ve been getting flooded with MySpace friend requests today. I usually get a few a week, which I pretty much always ignore, as they are invariably just spammers, and I don’t actually spend any time on MySpace anyway, but they’ve been coming in non-stop.
Oh well, it gives me the illusion of popularity, which is important when you’re a jerk that no one likes. I think I’m going to make a T-shirt that says, “I’m the jerk that no one likes,” and include the text of the Emily Deschanel fan forum rant on it.
What can I say, apart from once having a commenter here call me a “whiny, pathetic buttwad,” I’ve never really been flamed – that I know of – on an Internet message board, so it feels kind of like an honor, albeit a dubious one.
Once I got home from brunch (I left just as they were preparing their marshmallow guns for battle and the grim specter of all-out marshmallow war was looming over everything. As a conscientious marshmallow objector, I could not in good conscience stay to watch the puffy, sugary mutually assured stickiness of their insane war. Marshmallow war is, after all, hell.) I called my sister and talked to her and her brood, then gave my mom a call. It’s a good thing I punked out and just gave money, as I was going to buy my mom a DVD player, but the grandkids got her one.
My plan to buy my nephew Jeremy a PSP for his graduation got shot down, too, as he got one today. His response: Get me a DS.
Because, you know, an X-Box, a Wii, a PS3, a PSP, and who knows what all else simply are not enough gaming systems.

A Very Threshold Christmas

Merry Christmas from Threshold!



And in the spirit of peace on Earth, Merry Christmas to fans of Emily Deschanel everywhere from the jerk that no one likes!

Shadow Boxing (Plus: Yay!)

My second day of work was a little more craptacular than the first, simply because it involved doing even more of what made yesterday so craptacular, namely “shadowing” some of the existing employees and watching them work.
Now, this is sort of standard for training, and would actually be useful if it weren’t for the fact that, having been provided with no basic explanation of exactly what the people we’re watching are doing, their actions are largely incomprehensible.
Sure, they try to explain as they’re doing it, but that’s not the same as getting an overview beforehand.
But that’s all we did today for the whole day, up until the last half hour when we were brought back into the training room to verify that the logins we had been given for some of the things we’ll need to be able to log in to were working (and to change our temporary passwords for said logins).
Still, the day ended on a bit of a high note. Before heading off to work this morning I sent an e-mail to my potential boss at the job I want to let him know where things stood with me and to ask where things stood with the job.
While I spent the whole day watching someone else use a computer, I had no access to one myself until the login thing at the end of the day, and I can’t get a signal on my cell phone there, so all day long I sat and wished I could check my mail.
Once I was finally able to do so at the end of the day, I found that I had a response to my e-mail. He said that he expects to have final approval before Wednesday of next week, and that once he does they will immediately make me an offer.
(And I will immediately accept.)
So that was cool, and gives me the hope I need to keep gritting my teeth and wading through the crappiness of my new job.
Next week we’ll be doing some actual training in the use of the tools and learning the processes and procedures – which is what we should have been doing this week – rather than just shadowing people, so that should be more tolerable.

The Best Thing Ever Department:
When I wake up in the morning I find myself feeling like Fry in the Slurm Factory on Futurama, croaking in a dry, hoarse whisper that I am, “so thirsty.”
Somewhere along the line I discovered that the greatest thing ever – at least in terms of combating that morning desiccation – is ice-cold, flat 7-Up.
It’s seriously like the nectar of the gods.

Punking Out On Christmas Department:
Last year, in an odd change of pace, I actually bought everyone on my list real, honest-to-goodness Christmas presents, rather than simply giving money.
This year? Not so much, as I mailed my mom a check yesterday with instructions on how and to whom to distribute it.
I just couldn’t come up with any gift ideas for anyone (except my nephew Jeremy, but I thought it would be weird to single him out for a real present, so he’s just getting money like everyone else) this year, so it was just easier to whip out the checkbook. There are a couple of people around here who will probably get actual gifts, though.

The Clear Vision Bubble:
After I managed to kajigger the lenses out of my eyes this morning, my vision was even clearer than it has been. It’s still not at the level that my glasses or regular contacts brought it to, but I can definitely make my way through the world with ease with my reshaped corneas.
It’s kind of like I have this bubble of clear vision around me, the range of which falls just short of what I was able to achieve with wearing corrective lenses. I’m also finding that the bubble doesn’t really shrink throughout the course of the day anymore, and I’m always able to see near objects with a heretofore unseen (no pun intended) clarity.
One of the obstacles to seeing things at a greater distance as clearly sans glasses or contacts is the that I tend to see “halos” around illuminated objects that obscure them slightly, though this is apparently normal, and seems to be lessening.
Tonight will be the first night I sleep without the lenses in, then I wear them again for three nights starting tomorrow, and then I go to the eye doctor’s to get checked out after work on Wednesday.

Back To The Salt Mines

Today is my brother Stuart’s birthday.
It’s also the last day of the carefree life of luxurious indolence that I’ve been living for the past two months.
(By “carefree life of luxurious indolence” I mean to say “stomach-churningly panic-inducing period of financial uncertainty.”)
Yes, tomorrow morning I once more join the ranks of the gainfully employed. Well, “employed” at any rate. Not sure about the “gainfully” part.
Despite all of my complaints, this is actually a good thing, but it is going to be hard to get back into the grind.
It also means that I can afford to give Christmas presents without having to do too much cringing about all the money I’m spending that I should instead be saving to pay bills and buy groceries.
So, even though the job is less than ideal, and it’s going to be hard to get used to not having all of my days free to do whatever I want to with (just because I didn’t do anything with my days doesn’t mean that I didn’t like the idea that I could do whatever I wanted), I guess that, grudgingly, I’m pleased that I’ve reached the end of the tunnel.
I just wish that I’d reached my actual destination.