Some Yultide thoughts posted in advance

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We’ll start wiht My Kindertrauma:: Seth S. on Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (’77). Made my “unseen” list over half a dozen years ago. The Ex was excited. She remembered it fondly from her childhood and was looking fwd to seeing it. I gave it a 1.8/10 and never have to see it again.

The Twelve Days of Christmas: Theories, Versions, And Comedy. A few watchable gems. 

Not my cuppa but a pleasant read. Christmas for Grownups

The Real Story Of St. Nick And Other Tips For Parents Looking To Improve On Secular Santa

Celebrate your way. Enjoy the good stuff.

Third set of five

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from 1989! National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Not a fan but it makes the list EVERY year. And I always manage to find something new. Dropping it from 8.8 to 7.1 though.

Then we jump back to 1947 with Miracle on 34th Street. HATE movies with bad courtroom procedure and this has it in spades but c’mon. Natalie Wood is adorbs. Maureen O’Hara. And filled with faces and voices that informed our viewing for decades. 9.2

Muppet Christmas Carol. It’s IS actually a pretty good telling of the story. 9.5

Christmas in Connecticut. Another oldie but a goodie. Was redone in ’92. Probably oughta check that out one season. 9.5

And finally The Nightmare Before Christmas. Keep wanting to drop it but it keeps making the list. 6.4. I can’t drop it much further in good conscience. Maybe others will

Also managed to watch the Dragnet episode The Big Little Jesus. Dad’s favorite. Actually TWO episodes. One in ’53 and one in ’68. Identical scripts near as I can tell.

I may roll in the Art Carney Santa Clause Twilight Zone episode later as well. 

Thursday kickoff this week

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So I’ll be wearing my Saints sweater to school tomorrow. Rocked the “ugly” Griswold Family Christmas sweater (with matching socks!) Not capping the Bowls ’cause between the transfer portal and turning pro it’s damned near impossible – except for the big four which I capped a few weeks ago.

Saints currently sit at #18. Rams likely to win by about four. Not the end of the world but you can SEE it from there. Cowboys/Dolphins is the most watchable game IMHO. Jags likely to beat the Bucs. Lions should beat the Vikings. Colts not likely to beat the Falcons but might be fun to watch. After that it’s ugly.

49ers over the Cowboys in the NFC. Ravens over Bills, unless Tay-Tay’s boyfriend gets back on track. Dolphins right there lurking. 

Holiday break coming and not a moment too soon!

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And the holiday is Christmas. Let there be no mistake about that. The celebration of heavily armed Jews is already well under way. Winter Solstice still five days off (although it IS the last day of our school.) Zarathosht Diso is the 26th. So Christmas it is.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: ‘B’ is for below grade level (and chronically absent). “Achievement is down and absenteeism is way up, yet report cards show the same grades — or higher — as before the pandemic, concludes False Signals, a new report by EdNavigator and Learning Heroes. No wonder ‘families believe that everything is back to normal or will be soon.’ No wonder demand is low for tutoring and summer school.”

“My fifth-grade science project was to type everyone’s blood in my class. My oldest son’s fifth-grade science project, four decades later, was the equivalent of number-painting a comic book.”

I keep hoping we’ll get there. The problem is SO obvious to me becasue I don’t have an Ed. degree. K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Fed up with horrible student discipline, states bring back suspensions, expulsions.

CAN’T IMAGINE WHAT THEIR PROBLEM IS – THEIR UNION DOLLARS ELECTED THOSE OFFICIALS:  Teachers are quitting in droves because they’re scared of student violence — and a lack of punishment.

Dropping this here. The Intellectual Life: Hope for the Rest of Us Tl:dnr: No matter how many letters follow our names, no matter how we spend our time from nine to five on Monday through Friday, we, too, can lead an intellectual life. Sertillanges urges us to “learn to make the best use of that limited time; plunge every day of your life into the spring which quenches and yet ever renews your thirst.” May we all learn to plunge ourselves into that spring no matter our age, occupation, or vocation, whether our intellectual playground is the classroom or the lecture hall, the home or the courtroom. 

’24: the second five

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Sadly I’m watching too many previously unseen’s this year. So it is with Toy Story That Time Forgot. The GOOD news is it was only 21 minutes. And not a BAD idea: exploring the difference between a child imaginative game play and that sold by many toy companies. Witness the box of random legos vs the “build the Millennium Falcon” sets. Escapes with a 6.2 due to some lucky matchups. 

Then there’s the Disney 1932 ‘toon “Santa’s Workshop.” Cute. Walt’s thumbs are all over it. Seven minutes of 2.6.

Jon Favreau’s Christmas effort Elf was up next. Not bad per se. I’m just not a Will Ferrel fan. He was in town last week, btw. To see his soccer team lose the MSL title to the Crew. 4.8

Two more modern efforts to finish up this installment. We’ll start with the 2019 Hulu version of A Christmas Carol. Flickchart lists twenty movies by that title alone, never mind all of the versions using OTHER names (Scrooge, etc.) 9.5. Just watch it if you haven’t. But not with the kids.

And from last year, Violent Night. Santa defends a wealthy family from a gang of international thieves. I gave it 6.9. It IS moderately interesting but doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be and therefore tries to be everything. Likely to make the list next season … and likely to drop. David Harbor appears to have fun as Santa. John Leguizamo chews the scenery. And Columbus’ own Beverly D’Angelo is not aging well. Will be VERY happy to see her at the height of her powers in Nat Lamp.

Not much pigskin to cover these days

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BOTH of my FFL teams vying for their respective Conference titles. Both are currently favored in what promise to be close matches.

Saints won, which is nice. I’ve got them ranked 20th in the NFL but tops in the South so we’re holding out hope. They’re roughly 4+ points better than the G-Men so keeping it alive. I figure a 28% chance right now. We’ll boost it to 35% if they best the Gints and 41% if the Packers win the Bay of Pigs and Panthers suddenly wake up and beat the Falcons. 

The last few seasons the mustache plan hasn’t seemed to help so perhaps I’ll continue beardless this year.

49ers and Cowboys. Chiefs (if they aren’t offsides) and Ravens. Injuries are walloping a lot of the rest of the top tier of the league. Health will be a deciding factor down to the wire. 

As the FFL playoffs take off

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we still have the other ranks to consider.

WJHS had THREE all-state players! QB, WR made first team and another WR as second team. The QB was a Sophomore! So kudos there.

OSU is on the move and NOT in a good way. The only thing I hate more than NIL $$$ is the Transfer Portal. BOTH coulda been designed better. Neither were. I’m gonna take tsun by 4 1/2 to 5 over Bama. Texas by 3 1/2 to 4 over the Huskies, then tsun to win it all. Georgia by 4 1/2 to 5 over FSU in the WE’RE PISSED Bowl. Oregon will dismantle Liberty in the We Were ALSO overlooked Bowl. MY top four? tsun, Oregon, Ohio State and Texas, followed by PSU, Bama, Georgia, Oklahoma, THEN Washington and THEN FSU.

Saints edging closer to elimination. Kinda a continuing status for them. No winning record opponents remain. CAR this weekend. They’ll win that by 8+. I’m giving up on the Eagles. Cowboys and Niners in the NFC. Ravens and Chiefs in the AFC.

Enjoy what remains of Autumn!

The beginning of the holly jolly movie posts

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And no I cannot bring myself to include Die Hard OR Batman Returns. No. I just cannot do it.

We’ll start off with TWO doses of Dickens: 1935 and 1938. The ’38 version is my favorite, what with the Lockhart family and all. But I dropped it a few points last year and a few more this year. It’s STILL a 7.5.

A mere three years earlier the ’35 version is a bit different. Special effects kept to a minimum. Scrooge’s dinner is quite different. And there are some changes in the pacing at the end. 6.3

1945 gives us Star in the Night. A short directed by Don Siegel. Yes, THAT Don Siegal. A nice little short with a handful of familiar faces delivering a pleasant little Christmas story you can see coming for days. 6.5

We throw back to 1902 for a silent short of The Little Match Seller. More of a curiosity. 1 out of 10?

And we avoided the Wookies again this year but dipped our toe into the Guardian of the Galaxy “holiday” special. It’s ALL about Christmas but we can’t CALL it Christmas but that’s the holiday it’s all about. Not Easter. Or Arbor Day. Christmas. And it wasn’t awful. But it WAS only a 2.6 and won’t be revisited.

NOT a good week

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The Phantom Touchdown. The Saints doing Saints things. Moving on.

No Buckeyes game to predict this week. Wolverines will romp the Hawkeyes. Top four? tsun. Georgia. Ohio state and Oregon. But that’s not who goes to the playoffs. Washington and Florida State are undefeated with a reasonable schedule so they’ll go, unless. Ducks beat the Dawgs opening the door for Oregon to go. Louisville can’t hang with FSU. So there you have it. Closest thing OSU has to a chance is a Louisville upset.

Meanwhile, in the NFC South … the Saints drop to second and the Panthers fire their coach. I STILL think the Saints win the division though. They’re likely eliminated from the #1 spot this coming weekend. We’ll be cheering against the rest of the division, and pulling for the Chiefs over the Packers, the Cowboys (ack) over the Seahawks, and the Dolphins over the Commies. I CANNOT root for the Steelers over the Cardinals. So there’s the Lions this week. Win-able …. by a normal team. We’ll keep it close but lose by 1-3. No remaining winning records on the schedule! 10-7 and we’re in! Hosting the Cowboys.

Stop laughing.

Chiefs and Ravens. 49ers and Eagles.