"The Snowmen" is blowing every DOCTOR WHO fan's mind right now!!

HOLY &#@$!!!

I was prepared to write up a review of 2012's edition of what has become a much-anticipated holiday tradition: the Doctor Who Christmas special. And then showrunner/writer Steven Moffat louses it up by making everyone's job at writing about it ridiculously almost impossibly hardcore crazy difficult.

So on this side of the pond "The Snowmen" just finished transmitting on BBC America.

Good. Lord...

"The Snowmen" has done what no other Christmas special before has done: it has sent Doctor Who COMPLETELY off the rails like a highballing freight train. The lever is broken and the brakes are GONE, bay-bee!!

Halfway through the story I was already set to declare "The Snowmen" to be not only the best Christmas special we have yet seen, but to be one of the best Doctor Who stories ever. This was a Doctor (Matt Smith) we have never witnessed before in any incarnation: tired, world-weary... and dare I say apathetic? Smith has steadily been turning the Eleventh Doctor into a far darker character than we've become comfortable with. The tragic events seen in "The Angels Take Manhattan" have taken their toll on the man who was once savior of worlds.

It also didn't hurt that we got to see the return of Madame Vastra and her associate/wife Jenny, and Strax (who had such wonderful wacky and trigger-happy lines in this special that many on Twitter are demanding that he be the next companion for the Doctor).

Then there were the Snowmen: perhaps the most nightmarish and twisted villains we have seen in any Doctor Who story in recent memory. And there could have been no better actor to give them life and a voice than Ian McKellen. Richard Grant also brought a sinister presence as Doctor Simeon.

So let's get down to brass tacks: "The Snowmen" as a story all its own blew the minds of everyone watching tonight. But then there was that last half or so hinting at something else amiss.

And then came the last few minutes...

JEEBUS CRIPES CRISPIES WITH MILK AND BROCCOLI!!!

Doctor Who is now totally off the chain. And so begins the era of Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara: perhaps more than any other companion in nigh-on fifty years of Doctor Who, set to be a major enigma in the already-enigmatic life of the Doctor.

This will go down in history as the Christmas Night that melted the gray matter of Doctor Who fans across the globe. And there will be NO end to speculation between now and when the show returns in April for the second half of the current season.

"The Snowmen" gets an unprecedented FIFTEEN Sonic Screwdrivers out of a possible five from this reviewer. Yes, it's that good.

Best. Doctor Who. Christmas. Special. Ever. Must. Watch. Again.

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To a very many people...

To friends in far places,

To friends not forgotten,

To friends never to be seen again within the circles of the Earth,

To friends who will ever be cherished across the the years, until we meet again at last on that distant shore,

To friends who will be loved always, though they may never know it...

Merry Christmas.

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"It wasn't us Protestants, honest!"

This evening I had the opportunity to do something that I've wanted to do for most of my life: attend the Christmas Eve Mass at a Roman Catholic Church.

I am very happy to report that it was as beautiful as I had long expected it to be. Although I am not Catholic, nonetheless I came away from the experience feeling that God had ministered to my spirit in a way that I have needed Him to these past few days especially.

That, and it was a pleasure to celebrate the birth of Christ with my Catholic brethren. Turns out that just about all the Christmas hymns were those that I had already grown up with :-)

Here's a photo I shot just before the Eucharist tonight at St. Veronica's...


The church was packed solid! We had to sit in one of these three adjoining hallways that had been furnished with extra chairs. St. Veronica's has, I think four Christmas Eve services in order to accommodate everyone.

And then there's what happened later, which at least one person described as the "most thrilling Mass ever!"

As the Eucharist was nearing its end (this one little kid gave me a REALLY crazy look when he saw that I was still sitting down and not getting up at all to take part in the Eucharist)... that is when the fire alarms went on all over the church!! So the priests had to administer the Host to the last few parishioners with loud noise and flashing lights all over the sanctuary. The alarm could be delayed for a few seconds before going full-blast again, so some poor deacon was in the back of the building frantically deactivating the fire alarm every few seconds, trying hard to not miss a beat.

A group of parishioners were coming back to where we were sitting after having the Eucharist. And... I tried, Lord knows I tried to hold back folks, but I just couldn't help myself...

I blurted out "It wasn't us Protestants, honest!"

Turns out that in the narthex at the entrance of the church, where some of the overflow crowd was sitting, a baby accidentally pulled a fire alarm lever.

So this is how my first Christmas Eve Mass at a Roman Catholic Church ended: with two fire engines arriving at the scene...





Not quite how I always envisioned a Christmas Eve Mass to wind down, but exciting all the same :-)

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It's Christmas Eve and the snow is falling

Awright, so it's hard to make out in the pic... but trust me, it is snowing at my location. And at a pretty good clip too! Maybe we'll get a White Christmas. There was one in Reidsville two years ago. Where I am now, perhaps a chance for an even bigger one.

Oh yeah, no traditional Christmas post this time as in years past. May be some pretty neat stuff that I'll be putting on the blog the next few days :-)

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Tammy's first Christmas

Don't ever let it be said that anybody in this wacky family lacks for gifts on Christmas!

This pic is actually a few days old, but I wanted her to go ahead and start enjoying it. Here is Tammy - now a very psycho eight-months old - with her new doggie bed :-)




She's come a long way from the bed she made on her first day with us...

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"Astoria!!"

After dinner tonight (which may or may not have been in celebration of today being the Festivus holiday) Kristen's sister-in-law Melissa presented me with a gift: her rendering of one of the many memorable moments from our trip to Oregon this past June...



That's Uncle Bob and yours truly, when I suggested we drive from our rental house in Hood River all the way to the Pacific coast. Because that was when Astoria was having its annual Goonies Weekend and I always wanted to see the house from that movie.

Alas, we did not make it that far. Maybe we'll be there in 2015 for the big party they're already planning for The Goonies 30th anniversary :-)

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Raggin' on Rudolph

Two thoughts about the reindeer who went down in hist-o-REEEEEE...

1. If Rudolph's nose is THAT bright, and also such high-energy because of its intense red hue, assuming it's radiating out the lumens of at least the running lights of a commercial airliner and that it's shining right at his face...

...Rudolph should be totally blind by now!! Even one trip around the world would have been more than enough to burn out his retinas.

I hope Santa sleeps easy with this on his conscience.

2. Johnny Marks wrote "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in 1949 as part of a publicity campaign for the Montgomery Ward's department store chain.

Just think: if the company had insisted upon royalties every time that song was played or performed or sung in public by school choirs and Brownie troops, Montgomery Ward's would still be in business!

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