Long before there was a World Wide Web, I used to get claustrophobic and kind of manic at the Tysons Corner mall at Christmastime and I was the first person I knew to shop for Christmas gifts online. This year will mark the seventh where I’ve done some of my shopping online and either the fourth or fifth where I do all of it that way.
Amazon
has been my primary shopping venue, but I’ve been looking to branch out some. This year, thanks to NPR, I’ve discovered Mighty Goods, which points to cool stuff all over the Internet. Definitely worth a gander.
OK, last one of these. After this, folks, you’re on your own. Twenty-one days until Christmas and 27 until my birthday, chop-chop.
In other Christmas-related news, check out this online advent calendar. I like the coloring page on December 2.
The creator of “Survivor” is now casting for his new reality show, “Pirates.” Deadline is December 12 — next Monday — and the application apparently includes an audition video, but the application documents are a little vague on that subject.
Now I just need to find my passport, come up with and shoot a video in one week and get lucky.
Oh, and get a crash course in sailing from Dad …
I admit it: I’m a sucker for any television show about journalists. I’m probably the only straight guy in America who mourns the passing of “Pepper Dennis.”
So, when a show about a female sportswriter who’s constantly surrounded by guy buddies hits TBS — “My Boys,” which debuted this week — I’m there.
Jordana Spiro plays an improbably hot sportswriter for the Chicago Sun-Times. (I say “improbably hot” because sportswriters get access to free food at every damn event they go to and, well, they tend to at least nibble. If they’re not going to be appearing on TV, most journalists don’t really look like Jordana Spiro or her male counterparts on the show.)
Like a lot of my female friends, she’s most comfortable around men, whether they be her brother, her old college roommate or fellow sportswriters. As a result, the single P.J. Franklin is kind of a mess when it comes to the dating world, making “My Boys” a sort of “Sex in the City” with less talk about stupidly expensive shoes and more about how P.J. freaks out the guy she’s interested in because she’s not girly enough for him.
It’s pretty good and, apparently, it’s pretty on-base as far as female sportswriters are concerned. I could do without the “Sex in the City”-style voiceovers (their appearance on “Medium” this season has been especially unwelcome), but otherwise, this looks like a show that’s got potential.
Hopefully P.J. will be around a lot longer than fellow Windy City journalist Pepper was.
I’ve had to physically restrain the Hesperia Star’s office manager, Sharon, from putting up holiday decorations before this morning. She’s of the camp that believes that they should go up by the day after Thanksgiving at the latest, whereas I find that the Christmas season shouldn’t start until December. (I blame growing up with advent calendars in the house.)
But today is D-Day (“D,” of course, for “decorations”) and I expect to go into the Star and find that it’s been transformed into Santa’s newsroom.
For my part, I’m bringing in a new mix of Christmas and holiday music on Ye Olde Stolen Music Repository.
Years ago, back when I was in the grip of my Great Theories About Bachelordom, one of the theories was that I needed to have my own holiday music so that I could host, I dunno, swinging bachelor pad cocktail parties or something. (I think I had all of one.) So I set out to start collecting Christmas music, but I didn’t want to get the same old, same old stuff. Every year, I try to get one or two new albums of really cool Christmas music, especially of good takes by popular musicians or great interpretations of classics that stand up on their own merits (like the album of slack-key guitar Christmas songs, for instance).
This year’s mix is an hour and 20 minutes of rock and pop Christmas tunes. Most of them came from iTunes or from CDs I’d purchased, although a few are from a KROQ Kevin & Bean Christmas CD, so those songs may be harder to track down, for those playing along at home.
Here’s the ones available in iTunes:
And the ones that are not, for some reason:
- “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” (Mulato Beat Remix) – Louis Armstrong & Velman Middleton
- “Christmas Wrapping” – Save Ferris
- “Jesus Was a Dreidel Spinner” – Jill Sobule
- “Please Come Home for Christmas” – Unwritten Law
- “We Three Kings of Orient Are” – The Beach Boys
Find those on your own. Ho, ho, ho.
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