Clichéd Cynicism

December's suddenly disappeared, whoops. Usually by now I've watched all the films (or as much as I can), gone through my first litre of eggnog and listened to Phil Spector's festive offerings at least a dozen times. Not sure what's happened this year though, bit of a bugger really. I LIKE this time of year, or I at least TRY to, but it seems to be getting more difficult each time.

Ah well. I made a tentative start yesterday by listening to Barenaked for the Holidays, went out for a festive get-together of sorts, and this evening I've watched the 1987 Spitting Image Christmas special and How The Grinch Stole Christmas. It's a bit late to start any sort of seasonal marathon here (in the spirit of this one or this one), but there has to be an effort, at least.

How about some "highlights" from the Christmas 1987 Hamleys magazine?

Carry on, if you want, to revel in the true meaning of Christmas (as in, toys)...

Bowel-shifting

Every year since 1995, or at least whenever I've remembered or been able to, I try and find/purchase Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror, an annual anthology of "spooky" Simpsons comics. This year's was a bitter disappointment (in that it wasn't funny at all), but that's par for the course with The Simpsons these days.

Anyway, in that very first issue eighteen years ago, this page was in it:

That's Matt Groening listing a load of things that spooked him during his developing years. I'm going to have a go at doing that now! Probably the last opportunity I'll have to do something "thematic" for this month, so it's back to the comics after this. But just for now, here's as many things as I can remember that frightened, confused, perturbed or caused mild discomfort to me over the years...

Xmas 2012 - That was good!

Well, here we go - it's nearing midnight on New Year's Eve, and I'm indoors with only the axolotl as company. No complaints there, it's been the same for four years now. Take advantage! I can be noisier than usual, what with the neighbors all being elsewhere or otherwise awake. Ho ho!

And speaking of Ho Ho, the busiest few days in the life of Mr. Claus have just passed by.

Yep, it was a good one. Read on if you're interested. If not, happy new year to the lot of you, see if 2013 can be made any more interesting than 2012.

Creaking Floorboards, or Why My Back Is Hurting

So, I've had twelve days off work just now. Bit of travelling, bit of fun, bit of adding to the pile of stuff...

Yeah, just a bit...

Desirable Things I'm Not Likely To Own

Presented here are several, several things that'd be great to have, but it isn't very likely in the immediate future. All of them either NEVER show up anywhere, or if they do show up, they sell for crazy stupid prices. So, unless I either become a millionaire somehow or get VERY lucky, these'll only remain as JPEGs on my hard drive. At least I've got my health etc (although I did wake up this morning with the taste of blood in the mouth, oh my!). 

Oh, and I've been collecting these images for years, without noting where I found most of them. So if you recognise any of your own pictures in this lot, let me know and I'll be sure to give you a bit of credit.

To start with, and so that the page doesn't look empty before being clicked on "properly", here's the Astral Moat Monster from Thundercats in TWO variations!

Classy stuff, yes? And it only gets better. Let's see what else...

The Postman Brings Things

Today, like most days, the postman had some things for me. Those things will now be looked at.

Guide to Economic Survival

I've seen this done on other blogs, so why not on my one too? These are some of the things I've acquired over the last few weeks.