Masters of Christmas

I'm hoping everyone passed through Christmas unscathed. On our end, only one immediate family member in the hospital. Nothing terribly serious, but big enough to need to be in the hospital. We're still waiting for a affliction-free Christmas one of these years. That would be nice.

The holiday is certainly the entire season, as the day itself is generally not half as fun as the all-around Christmas atmosphere. Even so, I received some cool stuff this time around. The main piece being a new computer—which, although I selected and purchased (and eagerly await) it, was greatly assisted by my parents and my wife.

Oh yeah, and I got another season of He-Man, some good music, and other Christmas sundries. Too many damned cookies, though.

12 Things of Christmas

1. I proposed to Marisa under the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree (I think it was their largest tree to date) three years ago. It seemed pretty unimaginative, for me, but it still worked out: she was happy and we did get married, after all.
2. A few years ago I put together the song "Blitzen the Red-Nosed Reindeer," with a little help from Harry Connick Jr. If you're interested in hearing it, let me know.
3. Several years ago my brother—clutz that he is—knocked over (more accurately, pulled down) my mom's mantle display, a tangled string of garland, lights, and figurines. Each item crashed down individually in a rain of Christmas mayhem. Classic John LaSala. I'd pay good money to have had a good video recording of that.
4. One year Marisa's mom dressed up as Santa and went around to the tenants in their house, wishing everyone "Meri Kissmas and Api New Ear!" Her Mom speaks Italian and Spanish only.
5. Marisa's cat, Misty, once jumped up onto their tree to attack an ornament and brought down the whole tree. I suspect this is a common feline/Christmas occurance among cat people.
6. In 2001, Wizards of the Coast statted out Nicholas the Gift-Giver in D&D mechanics. The short version is that Santa Claus is a human 13th-level druid, 5th-level cleric, and 3rd-level rogue. Who'd have thought?
7. A homeless lady—who later turned out to be a missing statue of Mother Mary transformed into human form!—helped MacGuyver learn the True Meaning of Christmas™ in the 1989 episode "The Madonna."
8. When I was 4, we lived in Belgium. We went to see St. Nicholas, and I didn't like whatever present he gave me (can't remember what it was), so I got upset and my mom took me back to him to exchange the present with something else. What a little jerk.
9. Some Earth children and a robotic puppy helped Skeletor, briefly, to learn the True Meaning of Christmas™ in the 1985 He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special.
10. Last year I wrote the lyrics for Frosty the Warforged, and then had the nerve to share it with my fellow Eberron authors this year. And then I went and made an animated .gif out of the accompanying image. What's wrong with me?
11. Scrooged is one awesome movie.
12. In Italy there is a tradional folk character called La Befana, who is much akin to Santa Claus (Babbo Natale). She's a witch-like, broom-riding, toothless, housecleaning crone who leaves candy in socks for children and coal for bad children. There's a song that goes with it, in which La Befana is described, and which concludes with her being only "your mother," after all. Then there's a festival wherein an effigy of La Befana is constructed, then burned. So they're...er...burning their mom? Italians are weird.

Share a holiday thought!

Dark Castle

Maybe it's a side effect of growing older, but I've been thinking this year more than any other how much I miss the early computer games. The only game console I ever had was Atari (never had Nintendo, or Sega Genesis, and certainly none of the fancier ones out today), so computer games have always been predominant in my mind. Specifically, for the Macintosh my father brought home one day in the mid-80s. Among the handful of wonderful games—that was probably as influential to my imagination as He-Man was—was a game called Dark Castle.

The premise was simple: you play a young peasant guy, Duncan, and you enter the castle and defeat the Black Knight because, presumably, he's bad. You pick up bags of stones and throw them at just about everything you can—dodging guards, rats, vultures, mutants, gargoyles, the flaming eye, dragons, and...brooms—until further into the game you gain the ability to turn your rocks turn into fireballs. In the end, you could beat the Black Knight by entering his throne room and pulling five chains that crumbled the pillars beneath his throne. When the fifth pillar cracks, the Black Knight stands up and shouts and then topples into a pit.

Of course, he came back in Beyond Dark Castle.

I know this isn't as interesting to anyone else, but dang...I miss that game. They made a colorized version of it later but it's still only for Macs and I never did go back to Macs. Sad.

So if you could bring back any game from your childhood, what would it be?

What's Black and Red and Fun to Read?

Until yesterday I was excited about getting the Monograph book thingy of Josh's design. But now that I have it, I'm what I believe dignified philologists call stoked. This thing is really top quality, the perfect size*, and as you can see in the image above, looks good under a Christmas tree.

*It's not as small as a mass market, not as cumbersome as a hardcover novel. It's like a handbook or something. And completely filled with nonsensical and yet well-orchestrated creativity. I'm not really as much a visual art enthusiast as I once fancied myself, but I really dig the art in this book.

More than anything, it makes me wish I had a lot of money so I could buy a copy for just about everybody I know and like. But I can't. So all I can do is say that if you're willing to pick this thing up, you won't regret it. Plus my brother's "bio" section had me actually LOLing (which doesn't happen as often as LOL is used).

To Josh: This book came out great, better than I expected. Kudos to Josh for pulling this thing off.

Endings

Nothing compliments a cold December day (the only kind I like) like hardcore Mayan action-adventure! Even since I started researching for my work in the DCC world gazetteer, I've been interested in Mesoamerican cultures and myths. I got to invent some new fantasy cultures based on the Aztecs, Mayanss, Incas, etc. So Apocalypto is really right up my alley, which I shall be seeing tonight.

And all the stuff on the news right now about Mel Gibson? Come on. People really need to pay attention to their own lives.

Edit: The movie was excellent. If you can stomach a bit more violence and gore than most movies, it's well worth seeing. Especial on a big, big screen. Note: try not to sit too close; I myself didn't have a choice.