Movies: Non-Christmas Christmas Movies 2010

Since a lot of TV shows are in their holiday season hiatus until January or later, I thought it would be fun to list my top five favorite movies set during the Christmas season without being *about* Christmas.

5.  P2(2008) - This little-known psychological thriller follows a young professional who's simply trying to get out of the office to meet her family for Christmas dinner.  The parking structure seems to have other ideas.

4.  Gremlins (1984) - A beloved cult-favorite of the '80s, a young man gets an unusual pet for Christmas and gets more than he bargained for.

3. Lethal Weapon (1987) - Perhaps over the years we've forgotten that this jam-packed action classic opens with a Christmas carol playing as we close in on a dead body.  The contrast between how Riggs and Murtagh spend their holidays is heartbreaking and sad.

2. Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2001) - This Robert Downey Jr./Val Kilmer vehicle would not have been complete without the sexy Ms. Santa in her outfit.  Okay, well maybe it would have.  Still an excellent flick.

1. Die Hard (1988) - Meeting your wife at the Nakatomi building during a Christmas party?  What could go wrong with that?  The first in a series of high-octane films, they all happen at Christmas.  You'd think he'd learn to stay home.

Knitting: You want *what* for Christmas?

Well the socks are not happening. Not unless I turn insanely obsessive and spend the next four days on them. Hubby is getting a WIP for Christmas.

I really haven't worked on my knitting much. I did make a tremendous amount of progress on the beginner's scarf from my daughter's "Learn to Knit" kit (I'm making a pass through it so I know what's going on when she tries it). It's about halfway done. Honestly, this is one butt-ugly scarf. I'm sure the design team thought the alternating squares of stockinette and reverse stockinette divided by a ribbing section in the middle was "funky" or "hip" but to me it just looks like a sloppy mess in very large yarn. I mean, I think I'm going to have to tell people my kid made the thing for me.

Not much in the way of new TV shows, so the shawl has sat untouched.

As far as Secret Project goes (writing) I seem to have hit a wall. I started writing it in First-person perspective, since I've been out of practice for a long time and I didn't want to set myself up for failure, so I was trying to make this endeavor as easy as possible. I write in first-person perspective every day, like now, so I figured that would make things simple.

What I didn't count on was the fact that my main character is NOT omniscient, so every other character remains a mystery. I mean, she's a sharp-eyed, savvy cookie, but she's not going to know what the other guy is thinking. Or feeling.

So now, forty-odd pages into this thing, and I may have to totally start over in third-person omniscient. Blech. I get hives just thinking about it.

Gaming: Finally!

Well I'm off the Dragon Age: Origins obsession. At last. I guess the fourth and fifth playthroughs are not meant to be, eh?

Although I think the dimming of my enthusiasm had more to do with the somehow inexplicable and sudden deterioration of my machine's ability to render the gamplay at any faster than one frame per second.

I have the Steam version of the game, so it's possible that some new patch was invisibly applied, and they somehow broke the game. Or it may be that my video card is dying. I may never know. But waiting five seconds to watch your guy make one sword pass at an enemy is just four seconds too long, you know?

While looking for my next gaming obsession, I have tried once again to introduce Monkeypants to the fun and excitement of the "Back to the Future" movie series. We've been watching one a night. This time, it was no longer boring for her, and it was intensely gratifying to hear her laughing at Doc Brown's antics, and hearing her try to describe the clock tower scene in part one(easily one of the most nail-biting inducing movie sequences of the last fifty years in cinema) is hysterical.

I do like it when I'm right about stuff. :D I think I have to try to hold back my enthusiasm, and wait to show her the stuff I think is neat until she's ready to appreciate it. It's pretty hard though.

More gifts are wrapped and placed in the pile. Almost everything has arrived, with a few exceptions, but it looks like they'll be here later in the week, so Christmas is in the bag. So to speak. A full accounting of the gifts for MP and Barronius will be forthcoming after the "shredding". I'd call it the "opening of the gifts" but I'm trying for honesty, here. :P