Archive of entries posted on December 2013

So, what did you get for Christmas?

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It’s been a few days. You’ve had time to recover. Somewhat.

DennisTheMenace

Now that the mess is all cleaned up … or at least pushed aside so it’s not completely in the way … let’s share our Christmases. I want to know what you got for Christmas.

I’ll start.

I got time with the children, and with my grandson.

My son and his wife live in Brunswick, in coastal Georgia, about 20 minutes from his mother (X1). He worked every day but Sunday and Christmas, and I managed to spend some time with him, but not a lot. They were doing the thing where you spend one evening with one branch of family, another with a different branch, and so on.

My daughter, her husband, and son live near Boston, where my son-in-law is now attending business school. He’s a former Army officer. They are spending the holidays (Solstice, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, St. Basil’s Day, the Epiphany, and whatever else is going on) in southeast Georgia. I drove over last week and spent several days there. I haven’t had the opportunity to spend much time with my youngest grandson. He was born in Germany last year when his father was stationed there. I had the chance to visit when he was only a couple of weeks old. I saw him in July at my birthday when they moved back stateside. They’ve been in the Boston area since then, and this was the first face-to-face visit since the summer.

He was a little wary, and always clung to “Mama” and “Dada” when I approached. It wasn’t just me. He did his grandmother (X1) the same way sometimes, too. After a couple of days, though, he didn’t mind me holding him. And, the day after Christmas, when his mother and father wanted to go to the movies, he and his Papa got to spend some time together. We took turns pushing his stroller, walked around the mall for a while, shared a sandwich, and played Talking Tom on the iPhone. He likes it when Tom screams after you punch him in the foot.

After taking him back to his Granny’s house, we played for a little longer. When it got to be late, I said my goodbyes … he told his parents and grandmother “bye bye” and walked to the door with me. That was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. The next day, his other grandparents were driving down to St. Simons, and they certainly deserve to spend time with him without my gumming up the works. So, that concluded the Glynn County portion of the trip.

Afterwards, I thought back on the time I got to spend with him, with the children, and with the rest of the family. I smiled, but then uttered the words that are often happy words, but on that day, seemed so sad: “Siri, drive home.”

I had a good Christmas.

Now, tell me about yours.

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Link of the Day: The Liberal Version of the Moral High Ground

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[High Praise! to Les of Nuking Politics]

Conservative Celebrity Says Hateful Things

Not NSFW, exactly, but since it discusses some things that liberals AREN’T offended by, it mentions things that are… let’s just call it “unsavory”.

[Think you have a link that’s IMAO-worthy? Send it to harvolson@gmail.com. If I use your link, you will receive High Praise! (assuming you remember to put your name in the email)]

lolbama! Part 167

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Submit entries to lolterizt@gmail.com

Meanwhile, pass ’em around, spread the love, and if you make your own, don’t be shy about dropping a link to your pics in the comments. The more, the merrier.

From Smilin’ Jack:

From Smilin’ Jack:

From Smilin’ Jack:

From Travelwise42 of Wise Up:

My favorites from the submissions using last edition’s uncaptioned picture:

From Amer-I-Can:

From Hatless in Hattiesburg:

From Katy:

From Katy:

From Katy:

From VelvetElvis:

From VelvetElvis:

From walruskkkch:

This week’s uncaptioned picture for you to play with:

PRODUCTION NOTES:
#1: When creating lolbama! pictures, please caption with either black or white text, as colors like red and yellow tend to blur badly when I compress the images.

#2: Standard image size for these posts is 350px wide by whatever high. If you can have your images 350px wide before you caption them, I won’t end up shrinking your captions into illegibility when I re-size the images.

MAKE YOUR OWN: The free lolbuilder from I Can Has Cheezburger.

STYLE NOTE: Short captions are usually better. Your goal is 10 words or less, with humor value tending to increase exponentially as the number of words approaches 1.

IMAGE SOURCES: Lots of great Obama pics to be found at the White House Flickr page.

Send your submissions to lolterizt@gmail.com and – if they aren’t obscene (IMAO is a PG-13 site) and don’t suck too terribly bad – I’ll post them for you. Remember to include your name (and blog URL, if applicable) so I know who to thank.

Classic Doctor Who Season One

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IMG_0525I mentioned a this past week that I was watching the classic Doctor Who episodes. Harvey asked me to let him know if I found any redeeming qualities in them. After watching Season One, I’ll give my impressions and perhaps answer his question.

I mentioned that I was only able to watch some episodes, since not all are available.

Turns out there are more of those than I thought. Hulu carries many episodes from the first season, but some episodes are missing from their lineup. Some, Hulu just doesn’t carry (not sure why, but there’s probably a good reason). Some simply no longer exist, after the tapes were destroyed. But, it seems, the Doctor Who world (that is, the shows legions of fans, not Gallifrey) won’t let a silly thing like episodes not existing stop them.

Here’s the deal. While Hulu carries 23 episodes from Season One, a total of 42 were made. Of those remaining 19 episodes, 10 exist, and 9 are lost/destroyed. But, I’ve watched them all. Kind of.

Turns out that DailyMotion has a lot of episodes available, including those missing-from-Hulu ten from Season One, plus two others that were reanimated by the BBC; those look like some of the Japanese cartoons you’ll see on Adult Swim. That left seven missing episodes. Some fans have obtained the audio (the videos were destroyed, but audio tracks still exist) and made movies using stills from the missing episodes.

All that means I’ve now watched all 42 episodes from Season One.

To answer Harvey’s question, I’m not sure if there are redeeming qualities. But, I find the show oddly appealing. It’s a little silly at times, cheaply made like most TV from that era, particularly British shows. Some shows are played for laughs, others try to be serious.

One of the criticisms I read of The Reign of Terror series was that it expected the viewer to know some actual history about the French Revolution. And any show that treats the audience as if they’re at least half-way intelligent can’t be all bad.

In the first season, I learned why the TARDIS always looks like a Police Call box (the thingy that makes it change appearances to blend in with its surrounding broke after it landed in 1963 London), saw the Doctor’s first encounter with the Daleks (I still they they look silly, with the plumber’s helper coming out the front), heard him give a full name for himself (“John Smith,” but he wasn’t serious), and learned that the Aztecs spoke with British accents.

Redeeming qualities? Other than expecting the audience to have a little bit of sense, there’s not much. But that, in and of itself, is head and shoulders above just about everything you see on TV today.

I’ll watch at least another season of cheesy episodes. But, unless you really want to hear about it, I’ll keep the reviews to myself.

For now, excuse me. I have a TARDIS to catch.