I love Christmas specials. Charlie Brown, Frosty, and even A Christmas Story. I love them all. In case you wanted to know what Christmas specials are going to be on and when, here is your schedule.
ANIMATION:
• "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 30, CBS. A shy reindeer battles the Abominable Snowmonster and finds that his vibrantly colored nose makes him a hero, not a misfit, when Santa Claus needs a guiding light.
• "The Happy Elf," 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2, NBC. Harry Connick lends his voice and original songs to the story of Eubie the elf, who must rescue the unhappy town of Bluesville. The voices of Carol Kane, Lewis Black, Mickey Rooney and Rob Paulsen also are featured.
• "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town," 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 2, ABC. Fred Astaire was the narrator for this 1970 tale about how Kris Kringle (Mickey Rooney) overcomes a ban on toys in his native Sombertown and ends up becoming Santa Claus, the world's biggest toy distributor.
• "I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown!" 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9, ABC. Rerun, younger brother of Linus and Lucy, gets more than he bargained for when Snoopy the beagle invites his brother, Spike, for a visit.
• "Rugrats Chanukah Special," 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, Nickelodeon. Grandpa Boris and his old rival, Shlomo, perform in a play about the holiday's meaning and, with the help of the babies, find a way to reconcile.
• "Frosty the Snowman," 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, CBS. Jimmy Durante narrated the tale of the brave snowman pursued by evil Professor Hinkle on a mission to rescue the North Pole. Followed at 8:30 p.m. by "Frosty Returns," narrated by Jonathan Winters.
• "A Rugrats Kwanzaa," 8:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 26, Nickelodeon. When Aunt T. arrives to celebrate the Kwanzaa holiday with the Carmichaels, little Susie learns what it means to honor "the legacy of our great people," and what greatness comes from.
• "Arthur's Perfect Christmas," 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 24, PBS. Elwood City is abuzz with plans for the perfect holiday, whether Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, but everything doesn't go as planned for Arthur, D.W. and their family and friends.
• "Chanukah Stories," airing on PBS stations in December (check local listings). Two children's books, "The Tie Man's Miracle" and "Moishe's Miracle," were adapted for this special, featuring Jami Gertz and Bob Saget.
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MOVIES:
• "Holiday Inn," 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 4, AMC. Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire star as two showmen whose New England country inn, open only on national holidays, becomes a success. The classic tune "White Christmas" was introduced in the 1942 film.
• "Recipe for a Perfect Christmas," 9 p.m., Monday, Dec. 5, Lifetime Television. Bobby Cannavale, Christine Baranski and Carly Pope star in a romantic comedy about a fledgling food critic whose scheme involving her mom and a restaurant owner doesn't go according to plan.
• "It's a Wonderful Life," 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10, and 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 24, NBC. Frank Capra's classic 1946 fantasy about troubled George Bailey (James Stewart) and his enlightening angel,Clarence (Henry Travers).
• "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas," 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10, ABC. Jim Carrey stars as the unpopular Grinch in the film based on the Dr. Seuss book. Christine Baranski and Jeffrey Tambor co-star.
• "The Santa Clause," 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, ABC. Tim Allen stars as a man who becomes the unwilling successor to Santa Claus and has to quickly learn the ropes. Wendy Crewson, David Krumholtz and Peter Boyle co-star.
• "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," 8 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18, NBC. Life on the road isn't easy for Clark Griswold ( Chevy Chase) and family, but at least his Christmas bonus is coming. Beverly D'Angelo co-stars.
• "Christmas Lights," 9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 23, BBC America. Two lifelong friends — and rivals — become locked in a holiday house decoration contest that gets out of control and ultimately forces them to reflect on what really counts. Robson Green and Mark Benton star.
• "I'll Be Home for Christmas," 9 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 24, ABC. College student Jake ( Jonathan Taylor Thomas) is on a homeward holiday trek, determined to win back his girlfriend and get a '57 Porsche, to boot.
• "Finding John Christmas," 9 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 25, CBS. Valerie Bertinelli, Peter Falk, David Cubitt and William Russ star in the tale of a woman whose search for her long-missing brother brings her together with a newspaper photographer and a helpful angel.
I found an alarm clock that has a nap time feature. Just like I wanted. I guess the folks at GE read my blog.
So I had an eventful day. My mom got me an Amazon gift certificate for my Birthday. Trouble was she sent it to the wrong e-mail. I couldn't retrieve it. No prob. Just go to the account the help desk says, and reenter your credit card info, and it'll be sent again. There was no Discover radio button, so she couldn't enter her credit card info.
I was mad, because I really wanted to use it to get Sirius radio. Then my dad comes in, after having forgotten my birthday yesterday, with a card, and $50. With the Grant burning a hole in my pocket I decided to go to the store, Radio Shaq, I figured I could get an idea for what I wanted to get as far as my radio. Low and behold they had the very radio I wanted, for less than Amazon, plus $50 in rebates from Sirius, and $50 in instant savings from Radio Shack. Whoo Hoo!! It only ended up costing me $79 out of pocket, but I'll get $50 back in several dozen weeks.
So I set the thing up, which took mere minutes. I then went to activate the thing. Word to the wise, don't do this by phone. Odds are you will get some guy who cannot understand english. He messed up my name, email, userid, and password setup. After 5 attempts at trying to upload the important data to the radio, I finally got someone who understands American grammar, and got the problem resolved.
I will post later with a detailed review of my Sirius service.
I had another really weird dream last night, and no they weren't "Pizza Dreams", maybe bad coffee dreams because I had a cup of coffee from a gas station on my way home from State College.
In it I was at my cousin's wedding, and she was visibly pregnant, but everyone knew she was so, except her mother who was in denial.
Then I went to my house, which was actualy now a houseboat and tried to find a dry place to lay some mortar around it, but the water kept coming in and wetting the mortar.
I told you my dream was weird. If you need me, I'll be in some institution somewhere.
CNN was caught doing something that may appear biased. The old guard of cable news company flashed an "X" over the face of Vice-President Dick Cheney during a live news conference. The X only lasted 1/15th of a second and was barley noticible. The screenshot was taken after the tape was slowed down.
At 11:04:45 AM ET Monday CNN was airing Vice President Dick Cheney's speech live from the American Enterprise Institute in Washington -- when a large black 'X' repeatedly flashed over the vice president's face!The 'X' over Cheney's face appeared each time less than a second, creating an odd subliminal effect.
As this DRUDGE REPORT screen capture reveals, while one 'X' flashed over Cheney's face CNN ran a headline at the bottom of its screen: "CHENEY: I DO NOT BELIEVE IT IS WRONG TO CRITICIZE."
One top White House source expressed concern about what was aired over CNN.
"Is someone in Atlanta trying to tell us something?"
Later in an explanation that CNN released they blamed the "glitch" on a "technical problem". If by technical problem you mean blatent Bush hating venom, then yes, I believe them.
Hat tip to News Busters
Dear virus writers and spammers,
I hate you. I don't get viruses, but I still get e-mails with tar.zip attached to it, meaning some ignoramus that knows me got the virus, and I have to contact them and tell them they have a virus.
And to the guy from Zimbabwe.
If I find either of you, I will rip your balls off so you cannot contaminate the rest of society.
Sincerely,
Tom
For those of you in the new car market, I thought you'd find the most recent reliability reports from Consumer Reports interesting.
Read about it here
So I've been thinking about coffee alot lately. My friend wants me to try Gevalia coffee, mainly because he gets a free gift. Since I just purchased a gallon of coffee from DoubleShot Coffee I'll have to wait.
Now I don't know what they did to this coffee, but all I want to do all day now is drink it. It is so freakin good. And it made me realize that I hate Starbucks coffee. I used to drink it a lot, mainly because my alternative is burnt coffee from an exxon, or Micky Dee's, which tastes like the stuff they use to clean the grills.
Starbucks roasts their coffee way too dark. Now I don't like super light roasts, but I think different beans lend themselves to different roasts. Everything Starbucks roasts is dark city beyond crispy. And when you buy it at the store it tastes like they used three times as many beans as they should. Plus it turns my stomach. Too acidic and filled with tannins.
I don't believe I used to like this stuff. But I used to like Coors beer and Phillies blunts, I've since moved up to microbrews and Montecristos.
I'm drinking coffee right now. I ordered it from a place called Doubleshot Coffee. It's a mail order place where you order your coffee, they roast it, and then send it out to you. Very fresh. It comes in gallon containers, which is a lot, but I drink mucho coffee.
The kind I'm drinking now is India Monsooned Malabar. Yummy.
I've been a bad Blogger. Very bad. I haven't keep you apprised of my situation.
This friday, I took a day off and my wife and I traveled to Peddler's Village. A very nice place in Bucks County, PA.
Mostly shopping. Having just purchased a new car, we aren't up for spending millions at the shops, but it was a nice place. My mother bought us a one night's stay at the Golden Plough Inn, on site. It included the room, champagne, cake, goodie basket, dinner, and breakfast.
The dinner we at was at the Cock N' Bull (No jokes please) Since it was part of the package, I got the surf N' turf, and my wife got the king cut Prime Rib. Honest to God. The prime rib was at at least as big as my whole dinner. Very tasty according to her. Though I like most things, I am not a big fan of Prime Rib. I had, for dessert, the best pecan pie I've ever eaten, and she had a apple dumpling.
I would post pictures, but I'm not a picture taker. I have to say, though, that if you get to Bucks County, visit this place. It was very nice.
I voted yesterday, and some intersting things happened. Most notably, we in Pennsylvania voted out one of our Supreme Court justices. We've never done that ever. See after a 10 year term, they run for retention election which basically means they will stay in that place for life. Well last night we voted one of them out!!
I was talking to a coworker this past week at a conference. Over our lunch in between what seemed to us like endless meetings and workshops we discussed our disdain for meetings, and for socializing. The evenings at this conference were filled with ample social time, and since I wore the red staff badge, I was required to attend and nod my head while people talked about the weather.
What we realized while talking is that introverts like us, hate small talk, and prefer quiet action.
It seems to be backed up by this story in the Atlantic.
I had a strange dream last night. In it I was smoking marijuana with Bob Marley.
I wonder what in the world that can mean?
I will be gone the rest of the week, away at a fun happy conference.
I came across this news story and it backed up what the sales lady said when we were buying our Honda. She said that the rival Chevy dealer across the street sold 25 cars in October, compared to the Honda dealer which sold nearly 200.
While Japanese rivals nearly all produced sales rises in the US market, General Motors posted a 23 percent decline from a year ago to 257,623 vehicles. Ford said its October sales were down 26 percent to 199,847. DaimlerChrysler sales were not as bad, but still fell three percent to 183,163 cars and trucks.
I love Chili. Unfortunately I don't always have time to make it from scratch. I tried the Cambell's Chunky chili, which I thought tasted like socks soaked in oatmeal, so I was a little reluctant to try other canned or jarred chili.
I tried the Bush's homestyle chili, and I was surprised, It was excellent, and almost like homemade.
