This may be the first video-less Random Thursday (barring one link) since I threw the first one together–that’ll teach y’all to send me stuff I can’t share in public!
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Don’t Leave Hobbiton Without it!
The first part of The Hobbit, which I might have mentioned once or twice over the past year and a half, opens around here this Friday. My friends and I are planning to wait for a week or so until we can hit a matinee and actually hear the movie over the squees and/or groans of fellow Hobbiteers.*
It’s been a long wait already—to tide myself over, I’ve been following the vblog of the production, which includes a great feature of the twelve highly-individual dwarf characters, whom even Peter Jackson gets confused at the read-through (“Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, Dwalin, Fili, erm, Dasher, Dancer, Comet, Cupid . . . ?”).
Luckily, the LOTRProject has us hopeless geeks fans covered:
The Lord of the Rings Project has even more cool stuff on its website, including timelines, maps, population stats, and an amazing genealogy of Tolkein’s characters.
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Don’t Forget!
You have until this Tuesday at Midnight CST to post your skewed holiday poems or lyrics in the comments of the
Chrishanukwanzmadanfestivus Poetry Contest post (or e-mail ‘em to me)
for a chance to win a fabulous prize, suitable for regifting!
So far, there are two names in the hat and one ineligible, ‘cause she’s family.
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Brakes on, brakes off
Around the dinner table Tuesday:
“What’s for dessert, Mommy?” asked Sunny.
“Not sure,” I said, “But I want pie. Do we have any of that mint pie left?”
“Nope,” said Watson.
“I want pie!” said Jane.
“Watson,” I whined said. “If I give you twenty bucks, will you go buy me—I mean, us—a pie?”
“Yeah, right,” she said.
“Pie sounds good,” said my MIL. “If you wanted to go.”
“Um. I don’t really have enough gas—”
“I’ll loan you my car keys,” I said.
Watson paused. “Janie? If I give you twenty bucks and your mother’s car keys, will you drive down to the Village Inn and buy a—”
“She can’t reach the pedals, yet,” I said.
Jane stood up. “Sunny, come with me!” she said, to much laughter.
Sunny’s eyes bugged and she put out both hands to ward off her sister.
Watson did the same. “Okay, kid—this one is the brake,” she said, waving her right hand. “And this is the gas . . . ”
No, we didn’t let them—we forced my husband go last night . . . He brought back a festively decorated chocolate cream instead of mint, but we forgave him.
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Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean. . .
Speaking of holiday songs, after hearing “The Christmas Song”—the “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire” one—every single time the car radio is on, my opinion of the song has changed, just a bit.
You know those lines, Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe / Help to make the season bright ? It occurred to me, while waiting on an on-ramp for bridge traffic to sort itself out that this wasn’t a simple, innocent nod to tradition.
But just in case, I checked:
“Janie? Mistletoe is poisonous, right?”
“Yes, Mom.”**
See? It’s a murder plot.***
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Looking for some Holiday Serenity?
Here you go:
Click on the image for a step-by-step Making Of !
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Last Minute Lie
Blame Siobhan—this hit my inbox just before I hit Publish:
Quack.
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*They’re used to ignoring me at movies. I’m apparently an “active watcher,’ though I maintain that the bruise on Watson’s arm that mysteriously appeared after The Bourne Legacy was Janie’s fault.
**Her full answer: “Yes, Mom. But you don’t have to eat it.”
*** Feel free to use it for the contest.
Earful of Cider 