Chairs, paella and…eating babies???

A few days ago, it hit me–Christmas was almost here!

I remember waking up on the 20th or 21st, looking over at the pile of gifts for the family I’d picked up weeks before, and realized I had nearly missed the holiday.

Luckily, companies like UPS exist because of people like me.

Roommate Adrian and I went through our days in December with little holiday fuss. Work was work, the number attached to the days or the greenery around the lampposts and signs didn’t play much into our routine.

He did break down and drape a string of white lights around the bookshelf. It sat next to the windowed wall, thus showing a twinkle of spirit to the outside. It would suffice.

The remainder of the lights wrapped around an adjoining chair and, with the addition of one of Sarah’s bowed teddy bears and a smattering of presents, I arranged a very sharp-looking Christmas chair. Festive. Subtle. Perfect.

Uber peep Santino flew in on Christmas Eve to spend the holiday with me. Always good times with that guy. He had to bring some work with him, busy as he is, filming and editing a thousand projects; and fate saw fit to crash his computer’s hard drive upon arrival, which grounded any work efforts for the time being.

So came Christmas day, with Adrian up north at his brother’s and Sonny and I rousing in the morning-ish. I thought I’d make some paella–a Spanish dish I’d come to adore from a few holiday’s spent with Sonny’s family. It was a tradition with his crew and, I thought, would compliment our oddity of holiday.

The day after, we began our quest to repair his computer–finding a service center, tucked away in an office park, willing to rush and fix things within a day, as a late Christmas present to Sonny (as under warranty, mind you, so a generous spirit was encouraged).

In the evening, Sonny and I decided to head out to see the latest sure-fire classic “Alien verses Predator 2.” I’d looked up initial reviews of the thing–including a whopping 13% score at RottenTomatoes.com. We both knew it would be pretty bad, but, as avid fans of the original movies (not necessarily the scores of sequels, since), we had an innate sense of duty to see it.

Well…yeah, pretty bad.

It reminded me of a 10-year old boy trying to tell a scary campfire story. All the subtlety of a rock concert and the flair of a club-footed moose. Whereas the old-school originals were terrorizing and creepy enough to be ensconced as pillars of the genre, the franchises both have been reduced to campy side-shows, with all the allure of C-list celebrity has-beens.

However, to ensure the movie lives on in water-cooler conversations and commentaries, the director saw fit to throw outright offensive scenes at the audience, including killing the token black guy (again?!), having a horrified young boy watch his father die before being dispatched himself, and the new habit of said Aliens to feed on the unborn babies of the mothers in a hospital maternity ward.

Wow. If you can’t be enthralling, just up the shock value, I suppose.

Regardless, I can see why some countries would prefer if American forms of entertainment stayed within our borders.

So, with that, Merry Christmas?

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