Sean Daily is an English major from New Jersey now living in Las Vegas, the Other City of Lights. "I consider 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' to be comfort reading, I like the al pastor tacos at Tacos Mexico and I count among my literary influences the Chainsaw from 'Doom'. 'RRRRRR! You don't like that, do you, Mr. Undead Marine! RRRRRR!'"
Shanoah Alkire is our Discordian at large. "Born in Santa Cruz, I grew up in Grass Valley and the Bay Area, and now lurk in Las Vegas. My literary influences include Ray Bradbury,
Lewis Carroll, and Douglas Adams. I also program as a hobby,
and currently maintain the Gtk port of Angband. You can find
a rather old bio of me here."
That is generally one of my traditional Christmas songs, actually. Trouble was, I’d already played most of them last year.
So, the war is over? Let’s see what Bob Marley says about that. This is his song, War, which is based on a translation of a speech Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, made to the United Nations in 1963. The Rastifari religion, in fact, was founded entirely around Haile Selassie.
Just as a general reminder that I like Japanese rpg game music, I thought you might enjoy this piece. It’s from Atelier Viorate, and is titled Beneath This Blue Sky. If the game title sounds familiar, it’s the game Gust did right before Atelier Iris 1. Unfortunately, they haven’t localized anything before that point for English, so we don’t get to play it (Except for people who speak Japanese, anyways).
OTOH, that might be for the best, given what happened with Ar tonilico 2. Very good game; lousy localization. Wonder if they’ll get Ar tonilico 3 right? Of course, I’ve already heard that you’ll gain power levels in it by having your (attractive female) characters strip, so I don’t know what that game’ll be like anyways…
Well, Shanoah, I know exactly what I want to post today. I’ve been saving this one for a while. Parents may want to watch this before they consider substituting their kids’ first-round draft pick gifts for socks.
Song by Nat King Cole and animation by Paul Rayment (site here). And if you think you’ve seen his animation on this blog before… perhaps you have.
Here we are, Christmas Eve has passed, and we’re on to Christmas Day. And hell if I can really think of anything Christmassy I want to post. If I think of anything, I’ll put it up. In the meantime, here are some singing sheep[1]:
It’s Christmas eve, which means all the good little Christian boys and girls are eagerly awaiting Santa Claus, and the all the good little non-Christian boys and girls are eagerly awaiting getting squat this year. Many of the good little non-Christian boys and girls are also poor and going to go to hell when they die, I hear.
Speaking of Santa Claus… unless I miss my guess, TNT is going to be having their “24 Hours of A Christmas Story” marathon tomorrow. Now, I like A Christmas Story. However, 24 hours of anything can you sick of it real fast.
And that’s a shame, because A Christmas Story is possibly the best anti-Christmas movie made until Bad Santa. Parts of it are very sweet, but other parts…
Well, just check out Ralphie’s magical visit to Santa.
The Vatican, on behalf of Pope Benedict XVI, made a statement trying to establish and safeguard the name, image and any symbols of the Pope as being expressly for official use of the Holy See unless otherwise authorized.
Yay, trademarks. So they want to prevent us from using the name Pope Benedict XVI unless authorized, or this symbol:
So, no saying Pope Benedict XVI here. We’ll have to be careful not to say Pope Benedict XVI accidentally.
Hmmm… Catchy name, isn’t it? Pope Benedict XVI…Pope Benedict XVI... Pope Benedict XVI…
In any case, there’s apparently this tradition that whoever wins the show “The X Factor” also gets the top of the music charts for the UK for Christmas. And there was a grassroots campaign this year to overseat that, and make a Rage Against the Machine song the top of the charts.
And it worked. So here is a remixed version of the song, Killing In the Name of… Pope Benedict XVI.
Ah, well, if we’re going to do the whole American Irish in New York thing, we’d be remiss to leave out New York Girls. It’s been covered by a lot of groups, including the Kingston Trio and Steeleye Span. The version I chose to play here, though, is being played by Oysterband.
After all, not only is this a good version, the video is entertaining. It was shot in New York in 1989 featuring the New York Ukranian Community Polka Club with Oysterband.
I’m sure this is how some New Yorkers Christmas goes. And what would Christmas be without polka?
Well, like we were talking about today, Shanoah, Jesus could be one hell of a stage magician. Hell, he’s got the long hair already. Just throw on some black eyeliner and an ankh necklace and voila! Criss Angel.
Anyway, we’ve had the Pogues’ Fairytale of New Yorkon the blog before. But, see, we haven’t had it during Christmas (I think),so it’s cool.
This is from a live performance in 1988 on Saint Patrick’s Day. And, hey, Shane McGowan sounds like he’s completely potted. What a surprise. In case you’re having trouble following him, you can always follow along with the lyrics at the Pogues’ site here.
Keep in mind, this song is Christmas for more people than you’d care to think.
