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Christmas

A Blue Beetle from Australia

Jan 1st, 2010
by Dan.
28 comments

Due to me working over Christmas and a few other reasons, my family have decided to exchange gifts on New Year’s Day this year. So later today Kerry, the kids and I are going over to my Mum’s to meet up with my brother, sister and their respective partners.

I’m hoping that someone has been considerate enough to buy me a new Xbox – but seeing as though we’d set a maximum cap of £15 I think it’s unlikely. If they really loved me enough they’d have made the effort to find one that cheaply though, so I’m going in with expectations deliriously raised. I can’t see how that could possibly go wrong.

But even if my family do hate me so much that they won’t even spend measly £15 on a new Xbox 360, at least I know that someone cares about me.

No, not my wife. She’s only with me for my money and my raw pulsating sexuality.

Yesterday morning a couple of eagerly anticipated parcels arrived from Australia. Lee, my antipodean pop-culture guru and fellow Midnight Movie Club member had sent me a present. Hurrah!

And a damn fine present it was too. In fact it was the best kind: thoughtful, cool, and something I’m really glad to have but never knew I wanted.

For those of you without the necessary geeky genetic makeup, it’s a Blue Beetle action figure. You may scoff, but it’s an incredibly well thought out gift.

And so to show Lee my thanks I recorded the following video for him. It serves a duel purpose: Not only does it express my gratitude for his very generous gift, but it also serves as a warning to him that it’s probably best we don’t attempt a podcast when I’ve got my kids in the room. Behold, total anarchy (the breaks in the film are where I turned the camera off to beat my children round the head):

And speaking of podcasts: our second Midnight Movie Club supplemental podcast is available to download now. To quote Lee over on our blog:

Honestly this week’s podcast reaches what I consider to be a new low.

Which is hard considering this is only its second week.

We’re unprofessional, we giggle at rude words that mean different things in other countries, I marginalise the Star Wars fandom, we stay completely off topic for at least 98% of the time.

It’s a shambles and I beg you not to be sucked in to listen.

With salesmanship like that how could you resist.

To be fair to Lee though it is rather rambling and overlong, but I had a real laugh making it and enjoyed listening back to it so I’d still argue it’s worth a go. We’ve both made a pledge that future podcasts that will be tighter and no longer than 20 minutes, so even if you find the latest episode a little too wandersome you should still subscribe to us on iTunes.

I’m going to back off a little on promoting the Club here from now on, although I’ll still mention it when I think there is something you should see over there. I’m sorry if it’s grated on you, but it’s something that I’m currently very enthusiastic about – and what’s a blog for if not to enthuse about your passions?

Seeing as though everyone else is at it…

Dec 24th, 2009
by Dan.
9 comments

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The kids absolutely love this. We must have watched it around twenty times. Strangely enough it’s starting to wear a little thin for me.

Anyway, I’m unlikely to be around here tomorrow so I’d just like to wish you all a happy Christmas.

I’ve even got you a present!

Lee and I are still very excited about our new joint blogging project and have taken it to the next level – podcasting. The first ever edition of The Breakfast Bar is available to download right now.

Head on over to the site and get yourself a copy, it’s bound to be a collectors item in a couple of years time. You can even subscribe to us in iTunes

Snow Days

Dec 22nd, 2009
by Dan.
32 comments

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It’s looking increasingly likely that we’re going to have a white Christmas this year, which is bloody typical because I’m working it. While everyone else is tucking into their Christmas diner I shall be sliding around on abandoned streets trying not to crash into parked cars.

Still, working or not, I have to admit that snow at Christmas is still pretty cool. I know the US is currently struggling with it’s own snow apocalypse, and the paltry three or four inches we’ve had over here in the last few days is pretty small fry to the REAL snow others are getting. For example Jon from Daddy Scratches‘ Twitter stream has been full of profanity tinged complaints about the weather:

daddyscratches All of you warm-climate residents who keep lamenting that you’re missing out on the snow: I just spent two hours shoveling. Fuck you.

So yes, I know that in the grand scheme of things we’ve only had a shower. But the UK doesn’t cope well with the snow – we only get it every couple of years or so, and so we haven’t the infrastructure for it. Even a light scattering can have entire roads closed and schools declaring snow days left right and centre.

And I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. The entire country grinding to a stop makes the snow more special somehow. More of an event. Mind you, I could just be saying that because I’ve not had to try and get to work the last few days. I’m going in for a late shift this afternoon so my attitude may well change.

The chickens certainly aren’t particularly impressed. I left the door of their coop open all day yesterday and judging by the lack of footprints outside it not one of them took the plunge and ventured out. All they do is sit huddled in a corner and sulk. Goodness knows how they would be coping if I hadn’t put a solid roof on the run, the wimps. They aren’t going to get very far in their quest for world domination if they can’t cope with a bit of snow.

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The other residents of our household however have been having much more fun, staying out until dusk playing:

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A Christmas Conundrum

Dec 3rd, 2009
by Dan.
63 comments

I was all set to write a post about how I’m going to struggle getting into the Christmas spirit this year. Then I had a quick trawl through my archives to see if I’d used the smutty “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” gag before (I have, twice), and realised that every December since I started this blog I’ve written a post about how I’ve been struggling to get into the Christmas spirit. So I suppose there is nothing new there really.

Apart from this year, for the first time since I’ve had children, I’m going to be working on Christmas day. From 1:30pm until 11pm to be precise.

To quote the ever perceptive Tricia Honea who responded to my complaints about the situation on twitter, this “Sucks balls”. In fact I might even go a little further than that. I think you’ll find Tricia that it actually sucks great big hairy monkey balls.

Still, I work in a 7 day a week, 365 day a year service. Somebody’s got to do Christmas day and I’ve been pretty lucky in avoiding the duty up to now. Plus, as Lee pointed out to me on Google Wave (I hope I’m impressing you all with my web 2.0 credentials here) at least I’ll get some karma points for doing it.

Still sucks monkey balls though. Plus due to various family members being away, working, or not doing Christmas this year, Kerry will be on all on her own with the kids after I leave. Even more ball suckage.

So we’re thinking about moving Christmas.

I’m not working Christmas Eve or Boxing Day, so either of those would be good. I mean the kids aren’t going to know. It should be easy enough to fool Amy with a bit of creative advent calendar fiddling, and Evan’ chooses to name his days according to who’ll be looking after him rather than any archaic conventions based on obsolete gods (is it Daddyday today or Nurseryday?).

But still, moving Christmas? Is that acceptable? I mean we move the kids birthdays to convenient weekends, but that’s small fry compared to messing with the big X. Although, thinking about it, there’s no reason we shouldn’t. We’re not in any way religious, and even if we were it’d make no difference as Christ was supposedly born some time in January anyhow. And don’t other nations make more of a big deal about other days in December rather than the 25th? I know Arjan gets his presents from Sinterklass on the 5th of December.

So what do we think then? Move Christmas and then try to pretend the 25th is just a particularly good TV day, or stick to the rules and try and cram as much seasonal cheer into the morning before I have to go sit miserably in my office?