Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

This is so fun and original that it deserves to be famous. I will forever wonder -- why did they change the "We're a Couple of Misfits" song to "Fame and Fortune" just one year after first airing? The new song degrades the story, is not animated as well, and isn't as fun or clever. Sure, it's a little shorter -- is that why? No one seems to know what motivated this change. The DVD has the original song. Hooray for DVDs! The Rankin/Bass studio must have been a very fun place to work.

I love it when Santa hears the elf song, and then just says, "It needs work. I have to go."

And I know it's juvenile, but I giggle every time he says "Every year, I polish up my jingle bells for eight lucky reindeer." Somehow, I don't think that would have made it in nowadays. Sorry to infect you with that unwelcome meme.

Achievement Unlocked

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much achievements mean to people -- and Sabrina Haskell pointed me to Achievement Unlocked, which I finished, just so I could say that I did. It shouldn't have been as much fun as it was!

A Colbert Christmas

This was a little too snarky for my taste, but I absolutely loved the Colbert / Stewart duet of "Can I interest you in Hanukkah?"

Best Cartoons of the Year 1964

I bought this in a weird little bookstore in Ocean City, Maryland a couple years ago. It has some really fun cartoons! One of my favorites is a gag on the newly invented carphone -- a fellow in traffic is talking to his wife: "I'm approaching exit 8, dear. You can put on the potatoes now." I wonder what gags now will become normal in the future?

A Miser Brothers Christmas

This unexpected sequel to "The Year Without a Santa Claus" (I'm not counting the boring "The Year with a Santa Claus" or the confusing "The Year with Two Santa Clauses") was suprisingly good! I really thought they would mess things up by over-modernizing, or by making the characters unlikable -- but they did none of that! They were amazingly true to the Rankin/Bass aesthetic, right down to timing, animation details, and camera movement. It had Mickey Rooney and George S. Irving in it, for goodness' sake!

Gears of War

Okay, I didn't really finish this, but I think I played all of it that I'm going to. I played it at the insistence of Lisa Brown, who party wanted to show me how good it was, and partly as part of a campaign to make me engage in things that I think I'm not going to like. I was shocked at how incredibly well designed it was. The interface for taking cover is absolutely amazing -- I have never felt safe playing an FPS before -- here I felt like my character was doing sensible things, and that I could think for a minute and plan a strategy. There has been talk about the fact that more women play Gears than they do the average FPS. Cliffy B. says it is because the story has "heart". This seems to be nonsense to me -- I think women probably like playing because it has a great co-op mode, and because the cover system lets a player really feel in control of the gameplay. I'm not much for FPS's, but I'd think about playing this one again!

On a separate note, it really made me wonder about the FPS aesthetic -- a ruined world filled with people who look like football players... why does this very American theme keep repeating? I have a theory, but it is complicated, and probably wrong.

Glimmer Train Stories #55

I used to be hooked on the glimmer train. I read every issue for years when I lived in LA. Somehow, after I left, I didn't want to read it anymore. I think maybe the depressing stories helped balance out LA's endless summer. If you've never been on the glimmer train, it might as well be called "wistful stories of depressing poverty", for all the stories are wistful, and most of them are authors writing about something sad happening to someone poor (usually them). At least this issue had a funny story (wistful, yet funny). In LA I could read a whole issue in a month or two. In Pittsburgh it took me three years to get through this one. Though I must admit I looked for a new issue when I was back at the bookstore. Wistful stories in a beautiful binding and a custom bookmark? I can't resist.