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Some places are already playing Christmas music and nothing but Christmas music. This is rather early, I think, for that. The inclusion of the occasional winter tune might be acceptable, but full-on Christmas music shouldn't happen until after Thanksgiving if it happens at all. My problem with Christmas music isn't that I don't like it. It's not even necessarily the repetition, though by now there ought to be enough tunes that repeats shouldn't need to happen frequently, and that's counting by title rather than by performance. It's the poor quality of every b-list,c-list, d-list... z-list quasi-celebrity cover of tunes that have been better by better. While White Christmas might not require Bing Crosby and Here Comes Santa Claus might not require Gene Autry, they are destroyed by various wannabes and also-rans putting their undesired mark on them. One thing I will agree with the bletcherous Beavis and Butthead on: "Michael Bolton can make anything suck."
I know there are some radio stations with an all-Christmas format, but the places where one encounters this most are stores that have Muzak or such (no commercials save what the store adds) and those seem to be sanitized of the more interesting Christmas and Winter tunes, such as Christmas At Ground Zero.
Now I'm pondering the interesting not-so-standard Christmas and Winter tunes. I know of a few:
Christmas At Ground Zero - Weird Al Yankovic
Happy Hairy Hippie Santa Claus ("You bet your sweet bippy Santa Claus is a hippie...")
Rusty Chevrolet - Da Yoopers
My Car Won't Go - Da Yoopers
I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas - Yogi Yorgesson
A Christmas Carol - Tom Lehrer
I'm Spending Hanukkah In Santa Monica - Tom Lehrer
Any others that wouldn't be all that likely to played in a store, but might provide some welcome relief if they were?
I woke to an outdoor temperature of 25 F or so and snow on the ground, at least in the grassy places. Roofs were white with snow, but streets and roads were not. They did have a bit of a glaze of ice on them. The snow was just a bit more than enough to be noticed, with lawns a mix of green and white as the grass poked up through the snow even in the deepest parts.
At Riverssance I ran out of battery for the digital camera on Saturday. I figure I'm apt to do that again at MFF (and elsewhere) and with only the one battery that's not good as recharging takes some time and isn't always convenient. Fortunately the batteries are not very expensive.
I've also gotten used to having backups of data. I might not have needed them (yet) but it's nice to know they are there. When I transfer the pictures from the camera's memory card to the laptop and then wipe the card for space, the pictures are only on the laptop. That's probably good enough, but I'll be more comfortable with a backup. Okkay, that's justification for what comes next, though I will admit to just plain wanting to have a certain something.
The upshot is that yesterday I ordered a second battery for the camera and a 4 GB USB flash stick. I figure 4 GB should be more than adequate for storing a convention's worth of images and that size can now be had for significantly less than $100. I'll probably getting another CompactFlash card for the camera as well.
It's rather disconcerting to be sitting at a stoplight and seeing via the rear view mirror that the car behind you is approaching... sideways. Fortunately it stopped before getting too close, and fortunately there wasn't much traffic so it was a fairly simple matter for the driver to get things straightened out.
Saucer sleds
9 May 2003 16:00It seems a few folks have looked at the modes of transport list and wondered just what a saucer sled is.
It is exactly what it is named: a sled in a saucer form. Specifically it is a small dish, usually with a couple rope handles attached. In the last 20 years or so these have been plastic, but before that they were solid metal, typically steel. One sits cross-legged in the bowl of the dish and holds the thing to oneself (or oneself to the thing) with the rope handles, or else just holds on to the edges. This is done at the top of a snow-covered hill. When pushed (or it can be rocked if close enough to the edge of going) it coasts, no, accelerates, down the hill.
Unlike a regular sled, there is no front or back. Front is which way you face, back is the opposite. And since the thing has axial symmetry (from the snow's point of view) one can find oneself going downhill frontwards, backwards, sidewards, or any spinning combination. Steering? There is none. You check downrange first and hope. That, is, the passenger (certainly not pilot!) ought to do that. More likely a kid will just go... and have at least one memorable wreck. Remember the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon about the dangers of a toboggan? Riding a saucer sled is like that, only without the certainty of facing in the direction of travel.
Oh, and a good bump or sudden change can launch the whole works into the air, with a whole 'nother kind of spin. That is how the more spectacular (and painful) wrecks happen. Letting go merely means you and the sled can collide in the resulting jumble.
