It's Christmas time for the Jews!

It's the most wonderful time of the year, or so the song goes. There's snow on the ground, every radio station is blaring christmas music, and every christmas special ever made is on tv. That's all fine and good for those who celebrate christmas, but what about the rest of us? How do the Jewish people celebrate Christmas?

First, We celebrate a holiday know as Hanukkah. There are about 50 different was to spell hanukkah and even more ways to enjoy it. We celebrate this holiday for eight night to remember the miracle of the maccabees winning a great battle and the oil in their lamp lasting for eight nights. We spin derides, eat latkes, and light the menorah. As I am writing this I am celebrating the eight and final night of Hanukkah. Hanukkah and Christmas only coincide every few years so when their not together we have to find other things to do.
Next, we eat Chinese Food!!!! That's my favorite part! Every Christmas day my family either orders in or goes out for chinese food. In fact, Christmas day is one of the busiest days of the year for chinese restaurants and you will almost never see one closed on Christmas. How did this tradition start you ask? Well I'll tell you... I have no idea! But I sure do love it!
Finally, We go to movies. One of the only places open on Christmas day (besides chinese restaurants) are movie theaters! So while you're opening your presents we are watching the newest release. And if your really good, and have a huge purse like I do, it's possible to eat chinese food while at the theater.
So this year when your celebrating with your families be happy that you now know how people of other people spend the same holiday.

Scary Theatre

I am addicted to weird shows.  I guess you could call them Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror genre shows.  I love them all.

There are old ones:  The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Star Trek (Original), Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica...

There are old/new ones:  Star Trek (Next Generation, Voyager, Deep Space Nine, Enterprise), V, Outer Limits (Remake)...

There are new ones:  Lost, The Event, Fringe...

I love them all.  I even (I'm embarrassed to admit this, so please don't tell anyone else) sometimes love watching those old B-Horror flicks (or are they C or D flicks?).  You know the ones.  Black and White movies interrupted by badly costumed people with little or no acting skills, who are themselves interrupted by scenes of theatre crowd heads with belching, farting, nose picking crude and rude dudes.

Okay, so that's the part where I go burn popcorn in the microwave.

But sometimes, those old silly, can't possibly happen, Giant Blob-vs-Giant Bat movies are the perfect thing for a rainy or snowy, cold or damp, dark or dismal, afternoon or evening... curled up under a warm blanket on the couch, with a sympathetic dog or cat - or both.

Just the thing to make me forget, for a little while, that I have a paper due and I can't think of a thing to write for it.

I love trying to figure out the puzzles of the good ones.  And the bad ones?  Sometimes it's nice to be able to see something someone else published and think, "Criminy!  I can do better than that!"

3D, death to boring!

I'm obsessed with anything 3D. I think it started when I was really young, maybe there were some 3D glasses in the cereal box, and maybe I hung out with the back of that cereal box decoding things with my cool glasses for far too long. Maybe I wore those glasses everywhere. I excitedly waited to see stuff in 3D and sadly everything was in boring ol' 2D. My childhood was dimensionally a disappointment.

But today that is different.

I think my 3D lapse happened last year when I saw Avatar in theaters.

First of all, the glasses aren't the same. They are like freaking Buddy Holly glasses; you could wear them anywhere and not look like a blue/red lensed freak.

Second, oh my gosh! Everything is so altered. I literally felt like I was in Pandora because it looked like these blue creatures were right next to me. Simple things in the movie, like water droplets actually looking like they will spill on you, took me over the edge. I mean it was a total experience. Mind blown.

And lastly, I thought it was like the best thing that ever happened to me. For 2 hours I was having a blast in my fantasy world and then I took off my glasses and I realized that I was in a crappy theatre with my dad and sister.

So what do I do? I see it a couple more times in theaters. I always pay the extra 5 bucks to see it in 3D. Then I get totally over it and don't even think of it for 3 months. BAM! Avatar comes out on DVD and then I'm like, "oh yeah, that movie was awesome. I'm totally going to pay money to have that forever."

I get home and pop it in.

Is this even the same movie? This sucks. I need glasses.

The use of 3D technology has been around since the 50s, but with now with computer technology available, the quality and quantity of 3D images is amazing. There are some haters out there (like people who can't see in 3D), but I feel like the majority of people are riding this 3D bandwagon with me.

Today everything is in 3D. Everything. Movies. Comic books. Pornos. Websites. Crest Whitestrips (which what does that even mean?) Teams of people are working to take 3D even further. 3D Video games & Computer games are going to be developed our lifetimes!

So point being, if you made a movie about something bogus like Sarah Palin clipping her toenails, I'd probably see it... if it was in 3D.