A clip from my favorite Christmas movie, White Christmas… Bing Crosby singing White Christmas. I love this beautiful, simple version of the song. Enjoy!
This is not your typical rendition of one of the more tedious carols of the season. Hang on for the awesome shift at minute 2.
Okay, it’s an ad for the Gap of all places… but it’s 2 years old and amusingly executed.
Bonus music today! Random Acts of Culture! The Opera Company of Philadelphia and many area choirs got together to sing in Macy’s. The organ featured in the event is the Wannamaker Organ, a National Historical Landmark and an impressive 101 year old instrument with 28,500 pipes. I love events like this and I’m reminded that I miss singing.
Tasha is snoring as she sleeps in the sunbeam on my desk. Even though she’s no longer technically a kitten (and never was, according to Monster Cat), I still think of her snoring as “little kitten snores” and, of course, adorable. The other two tails… er.. cats are sacked out on the chair.
Yesterday, I survived the grocery store! I went over early afternoon thinking that it would be less chaotic. I’m sure it was less chaotic than it will be today but the store was still rather packed. Lines were short at checkout at least! But I have everything I need to make pies and such for the holiday.
I have a rather serious book problem. Putting a book down is difficult, even if it’s not a terribly good book. I found a new feature to using an iPad as an eReader last night: the battery can run out and kick you out of your book thus making you go to sleep by 3 a.m. I think, perhaps, I should never start reading on my iPad unless there’s less than 20% of the battery power left. Sure, a real book doesn’t run out of power and cut you off in the middle of a page… but I think I might need the harsh cut-off to stop reading sometimes.
I’m not sure why I resist the holiday season up until Thanksgiving every year. I try to deny the inevitable and then, when I finally accept the holidays are upon me, it feels like there’s so little time left between “now” and the end of the year. I’m starting to consider what I’ll be baking for holiday gifts and feeling like I’m already behind. Some of that feeling is legitimate since I need to take at least 2 quick trips down to the office in VA before Xmas.
Lastly, if you are offended by the TSA’s latest, ineffective and intrusive security measure, please consider signing the ACLU’s privacy rights petition. There are better, more effective security methods out there. Let’s train TSA personnel to interview people (such as they do in Israel), let’s pay them a little more, and let’s stop taking off our shoes. I guess I’m lucky we haven’t had a “bra bomber” yet, but I’m thoroughly uninterested in being groped by a stranger or scanned by potentially unsafe technology. No, I won’t be flying this year.
The holiday season is about to throw us into fast forward, so, to slow us down a bit, here’s my favorite cover of a certain John Lennon song. I can’t listen to the John Lennon version anymore but I love this one.
In honor of The Beatles finally being available on iTunes, I am not posting The Beatles. I don’t actually like The Beatles all that much, honestly. However, I adore some of the covers of their music.
So, today I present young men wearing too much makeup doing an exquisite cover of Eleanor Rigby.
Rolling into Friday, we need some friendly notes from The Cure…
It’s hard to go wrong with the Chieftains AND Great Big Sea! This was on the Chieftains’ album “Fire in the Kitchen” (1998) – one of my favorites. Enjoy the rich bass and baritones!
Extra tunes in honor of Halloween! A different sort of monster today… with Lego.
The work trip to Virginia was productive… and provided more reasons to go to Virginia for more work. Figures. It’s a 2.5-3 hour drive depending on traffic and time of day. I may try to do down and back in one day next Wednesday.
I came back last night to a very sick Fop. Poor Fop.
For the record, 2 years ago I worked for Pfizer and I’m still trying to get my spam filter to recognize the pharmaceutical spam again.
I have many photos of Crown… I will get them sorted and put up a couple of sets (the short set for quick browsing and the extensive set for procrastination). I had a lot of fun taking pictures with the big lens and the day was gorgeous. The final fights were disappointing and did not, from my personal perspective behind a camera and as a non-fighter, seem clean, decisive or honorable on the part of the victor. As a former coworker was fond of pointing out, with a certain wise tone, “This too shall pass.” I was impressed by most of the rest of the day though. I saw some incredible fights and watched people with great skill have a great deal of fun. (For the uninitiated, this Crown event was the crown tournament for the East Kingdom in the SCA. The fighters wear medieval and renaissance reproduction plate, chain, leather and plastic armor and compete with various rattan weapons to become the next King or Queen of the East. When I post photos, this explanation will make more sense.)
Tis the season! Time for some Nightmare before Christmas!