Happy Saturnalia

I'm just sitting here drinking my traditional Christmas milk tea from a vending machine, so I thought I'd post some marginally Christmas related links. First, apparently Christmas in the Alps is way awesomer.

That's some pre-Christian era stuff, but since this is CHRISTmas, how about some news related to terrible Christian allegory books/movies. Yeah, I'm talking about Narnia, from everyone's favorite racist/sexist, C.S. Lewis. If you enjoyed these books or the movies, bad news, because production on the third movie seems to have hit a little snag. They'll probably find somebody else to make it, but one can only hope they don't leave out any of the brilliance of scenes like this one. I realize that movie came out some time ago, but I don't really pay attention to that kind of thing, and I only recently heard about the hilarity that is this bear.

I guess the bear has become something of an internet phenomenon. It's not quite as good as this milkshake bit, but it's pretty good. Because I'm in the giving Christmas mood, here's a milkshake remix for you, too.

I realize these clips have nothing to do with Christmas, so here's another good Christmas song. And another one from the same guy, though this version is probably better. And yet another one. And something from Otis Redding. Finally, I'm sure oldies stations in America have played this into the ground by now, but I don't exactly listen to those here and it's good once in a while. Alright, that's it. Happy Festivus.

Holiday

People like Christmas music. I play it for kids and ALTs when they're drunk. The ALTs, not the kids. I can't do this, though. I read this to a class, even the same version of the book, though not in such a cool voice. Yesterday I went to a kindergarten dressed up as Santa Claus. I am working on Christmas, if you can call it work.

If You Try Sometimes

I've been listening to the Rolling Stones a bit lately, this album and this one. Both of them are part of the Stones' four consecutive huge albums stretching Starting with 1968's Beggar's Banquet, but Exile is generally regarded as their best work. Let it Bleed is also generally perceived as great, but not generally as great. I think that's messed up. Reason #1 and reason #2. There are plenty of reasons, though, including the artwork. Sorry about the crappiness of the second link there, YouTube was being particularly lame about this song, which is weird because it's kind of super famous. It's also a favorite of Pops, if I recall correctly, so a shout out there.

Robert Xgau, famed music critic and pretentious jerk claims it took him 25 times listening to Exile to really get what the Stones were doing with it, but as much as I like his particular brand of concise, harsh and arbitrary criticism, I think he's wrong on this one. The album is basically just a bunch of crap put together over the course of a few years with no real direction in mind, so there's really not that much to get. Sometimes that works out really well; see The White Album, for example. Sometimes it just leads to a garbled mess, which is what I think Exile is, though as it is old Rolling Stones, it's at least a delightful bluesy mess.

Octopuses

Octopuses are totally bayd. Hopefully that links right. If I were an Octopus, I'd call me gus.

Santa Approves the Following Beers

The Future of Drink Technology is Now

Did you ever notice how on Star Trek, every time they drink Saurian Brandy or Romulan Ale or anything else, it's always some crazy color? Even that milk that Luke is drinking in Star Wars was blue. Yet almost all of the things we drink, aside from fruit juices, fall squarely into two categories: clear and brown. So, we have to conclude that at some point in the future (or, alternately, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away), people are going to start inventing all sorts of colored drinks.

Behold, the future:


That's blue ginger ale. Suntory, what will you think of next?