Bryce Moore's Blog, page 232

Adventures in Roofing

We finally decided to get part of our house re-roofed. If you’ll recall, I discovered the shingles breaking off about three months ago. The roof is high enough and at a steep enough pitch that I didn’t want to do it myself. “Died trying to save money on roofing” isn’t something I’d like marked on my tombstone, thanks very much. So we had several companies put in bids, and we decided it was too expensive to be done right away. But then one of them (the most reasonable one) cut their asking price by a quarter (I guess because they needed the work?) if we’d start sooner rather than later, so we agreed.

Anyway. Long story short is that it’s finally happening at my house. I got home yesterday to see fresh plywood magically appeared where yesterday old shingles had been. (We already had two layers of shingles, so they had to both be torn up in order for a new layer to be put down. Shingles weigh a lot, ya know? The problem? The roof was originally done in cedar shingles, back in the 1800s. Cedar shingles were just nailed to long pieces of wood attached to the rafters–and when the asphalt roof was put on, no one bothered to put plywood up, so there were still huge 2-4 inch gaps between the boards.)

So I was very happy that this was all happening, and I wasn’t having to do any of it.

Except remember those four inch gaps? Yeah. Well, I knew that some pieces of shingles might fall inside the house as they were tearing them off, because they could slip through those gaps. So Denisa and I went up and moved our insulation around to make sure it didn’t get junked up. I came home and headed up to the attic, a little surprised by how little mess two layers of asphalt shingles make when you tear them off the roof.

Then I saw inside the attic, and I discovered where all that mess had gone.

There was a layer of snow, ice, and shingle remains 2-6 inches deep.

“Denisa!” I called out. “I’m gonna need some help with this!”

TRC and DC pitched in, and it took us all over an hour and a half to get the place cleared out. Something like 20 loads of shingles and snow and ice. And speaking as the guy who took 40 bags of shingles, snow, and ice down three flights of stairs, that stuff is heavy. And wet. And messy.

“Should we call the roofer and complain?” Denisa asked.

“Definitely,” I said. “And it’ll come better from you than me.” Because I’m awful on the telephone. I admit it.

“Should I call him once I calm down?” Denisa asked. She was pretty irate, having just spent 100 minutes shoveling shingles, snow, and ice in a cold, stinky attic.

“No,” I said. “Call him when you’re upset.”

She did, and they were very apologetic. I guess they hadn’t realized just how much stuff had gotten in there. They said they’d clean it up themselves for the other half of the roof, so yay for that.

In any case, the job should be done by Friday–hopefully with much less snow melting into my attic. (Not sure yet how much slipped between the floorboards up there. We might have some leaks come spring . . . ) Always an adventure when you’re doing home renovation. Even when you’re not the one doing the renovations, apparently.

If You Think There’s Nothing to Watch on Netflix, You’re Doing It Wrong

I’ve spent a good number of blog posts reviewing lots of great movies and TV shows to be found on Netflix. However, I continue to be surprised when I read comments on various news articles focused on Netflix. (Maybe I should just be surprised I’m reading the comments sections. I typically avoid them.) People seem to consistently complain that Netflix has “nothing good on.” That its streaming collection is a full of junk and garbage that no one in their right mind would want to watch.

If you want to argue that there are some awful shows and movies on Netflix, I won’t bat an eye. There definitely are. But here’s the thing: it’s the same case everywhere. Subscribing to cable or satellite? There’s a ton of awful programming. But guess what? Netflix is $8/month for streaming. I have no idea how much you pay for cable or satellite, but I’m willing to bet you’re paying a lot more.

I’m a self-confessed movie and tv show junkie. I watch a slew of programs and films, and it’s rare that I watch a repeat. I’ve been without satellite for years–getting by on an almost exclusive diet of Netflix Instant. And I almost never watch a show that was a waste of time. A show I regret having seen or spent time on after it’s over. I consider myself to have fairly good taste (but really, don’t we all?), and I still have a Queue that’s over 100 titles deep–and I’m adding more titles to it all the time.

(In fact, I just recently finally canceled my disc rental plan–the last defense I had when I worried I’d have nothing to watch. I actually watch so few movies via that service that it just stopped making sense. It’s $60/year.)

And yet CNN writes idiotic articles bemoaning movies that are being taken out of Netflix’s catalog (and then even dumber articles noting when movies are being added). Newsflash, people: Netflix takes movies out and adds movies all the time, typically at the start of each new month. And then on each of these articles, we read gems of insight in the comments section. Insight like

Thank goodness for the bootleg sites; otherwise, I’d have to waste my money on Netflix that doesn’t even have any good movies.

Ugh. Don’t get me started. In any case, I thought it might be helpful to once again go over how to properly use Netflix. Because there’s a right way and a wrong way, peoples. Ready? Here we go.

Rate movies. Seriously. Go on to Netflix, and rate a ton of movies. The more the merrier. The more information you give Netflix on what your tastes are, the easier it’s going to be for it to guess what you’re going to like or dislike. As of this instant, I’ve rated 2,169 things on Netflix. It’s gotten to the point that it almost never guesses wrong for a movie I’m going to watch that I haven’t seen yet. I can’t say how it works for people who don’t rate movies on the service, because I’ve never been silly enough to be one of those people. The ratings suggestions are one of the prime tools for the site. Use them.
Give up the perceived need to see a specific movie or title, and embrace the idea of watching a genre or subgenre. Netflix is very frustrating for people who want to watch something very specific–a certain movie or show–because there’s no guarantee that it’ll have that specific movie or show. That’s how the cookie crumbles. If you want to watch that movie or show, subscribe to the disc delivery service. It’ll get it to you in a couple of days. Don’t use Netflix Instant. Being mad that the service doesn’t have it, and then going into a rage because Netflix “has nothing good” just reminds me of people who come into my library and get upset because we have “nothing.” We have tens of thousands of books and magazines and DVDs. We just *don’t* have the one thing you happened to be looking for. smh
Ignore Netflix recommendations. Seriously. I have no idea what algorithm the site uses for this junk, but it’s dreck. Why in the world do they recommend movies that they think I’m going to give 2.3 stars, when there are movies in the same category that they think I’m going to give 4.2 stars? This makes no sense to me. If I could wish anything, it would be that Netflix would improve this aspect of its system. I’d love a way to just limit the movies I see to films it thinks I’ll give 3.5 stars or more to. Have it be a toggle button, so I can turn that feature on or off easily. (Sometimes I really want a stupid movie. What can I say? I’m like that.)
Use sites like Instantwatcher, a lovely site that highlights new movies on Netflix. It also lets you search their offerings by many more facets than Netflix itself does. Arrange by Rottentomatoes’ rating, or NYT rating, or MPAA rating. There’s also the excellent hackingnetflix, which highlights new offerings on disc and streaming.
For Netflix itself, add movies and show to your Queue using the online version of the site. This lets you sort movies by estimated rating. Go into the genre you’re interested in checking out, select a subgenre if you like, and then sort by Highest Rated. Bam! All the best movies come to the top. So much easier than trying to do it through one of Netflix’s apps. Note that these ratings are individually tailored to YOU (because you went and rated a ton of movies, right?) They’re not aggregate estimates. I love that.

Just following these four simple steps, Netflix has never let me down. I realize perhaps my own experience is unique, but I doubt it. Anyone out there have bad experiences–and followed this guide’s advice–who’d like to differ?  Let me know in the comments.

The Moral of the Idiotic PR Woman

I don’t know how many of you saw this story over the break, but I did, and I made a note that I wanted to blog about it when I had a chance. Well, here’s my chance. The basics are simple. A PR executive was heading off to South Africa. Before she got on the plane, she tweeted a message/”joke” to her 200 followers. “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”

Read that over one more time, and just appreciate how she managed to pack so much  idiocy into less than 140 characters. It fails on so many different levels, in so many different ways . . .

Anyway. She got on the plane, and some of her 200 followers noticed what an idiotic tweet that had been. They brought this to the attention of others, and the news spread, until Buzzfeed picked it up. From there, other media peoples noticed it and spread the word. Suddenly 100,000 tweets were talking about her–and all before her plane had landed in South Africa. (For a more complete account, read about it here.)

She lost her job over that tweet.

Now, I’m not here to defend the woman. It was a totally boneheaded thing to say, let alone tweet. And coming from person who’s supposedly “with it” when it comes to public relations, it gets even worse. That said, I read about her experience and I couldn’t help but feel a tad fearful. I’ve got 200 or so Twitter followers. I hardly feel like the things I tweet or blog about are going to make national headlines anytime soon. And so it’s easy to lull myself into a false sense of security, thinking that what I say or do online doesn’t really matter. I’m not someone really important. Who would care about little ol’ me?

And yet at any point, I could make a colossal blunder, insert my foot into my digital mouth, and the repercussions could be severe.

Did she deserve to lose her job? I’d say because of the nature of that job, yes–she did. A PR exec should show a better understanding of the power of social media, regardless of your audience size–not to mention to have a clue when it comes to things that are inappropriate to joke about in private, let alone public. But 20 years ago, this never could have happened. She might have made a stupid joke to the wrong people, but that joke couldn’t snowball out of control like this.

For me, it’s just a reminder that anything I do or say can and will be used against me online. How do I avoid making a huge blunder like this woman? It seems obvious: don’t be an idiot. But when you’re writing a blog post a day, tweeting back and forth between friends and relations, making snide remarks about the internets, it becomes really easy to forget that there’s really a huge audience out there–an audience waiting for the next person to make a big blunder so they can collectively do the Nelson:

And I think we, the internet, have become too ready to play Gotcha with people. Too eager to find the next dupe we can point at and feel superior to. People do stupid things all the time, every day. Maybe we all jump aboard the Nelson wagon because we hope that by doing that, no one will notice the stupid things we’ve been up to lately.

Which leads me to another question: is it still bullying if the victim “deserves” it?

Downton Abbey 4.1 Review

Hard to believe Downton Abbey has started up again already. (I know–to many of you, it’s been an interminable wait. But for me? I think it took this long for me to get over the stunt they had to pull at the end of last season. Hey Dan Stevens–how’s that acting career launch working out for you? Leaving Downton to have a supporting role in Night at the Museum 3? What a great call. Maybe you can star in a Beethoven movie after that.)

Still, time heals all wounds, and I began to get excited for the show a month or two ago. (I realize that the show’s been available to stream for quite some time, since it was broadcast over in Britain ages ago. I choose to avoid those streams, mainly because they fall into a gray area, legally speaking. Also, I believe there’s something to be said for everyone watching the show at the same time. I like the idea of me watching along with a lot of other friends, even if those friends are scattered across the country.)

I wasn’t sure, however, how the show would work without its main central couple. (Warning–as always, there be SPOILERS ahead.) A half hour into the opening, the answer was clear to me: Downton was never about Mary and Matthew. It was always just about Mary. Things that happened to Matthew concerned us because we worried what they would do to Mary. I was never really worried about Matthew, however. Think about it. The show jerked Matthew around like a fish on a line–he’s paralyzed! He’s engaged! He can walk! He’s unengaged! It was like a live action adaptation of the Hokey Pokey. But Mary has been constant. She’s presented with different scenarios, and she’s reacted to those scenarios. (I for one will be really irate if they give her a sickness of the week at some point.) In any case, life without Matthew was juts fine, because all I was really worried about was whether or not Mary would come out of it okay. With that said, here are a few more thoughts on last night’s double feature:

The maid shrew is back? Well, I suppose it had to happen, seeing as how O’Brien cut and run. (Another victim of the actress deciding she was done with the show. Honestly. Those Downton show runners have as much trouble keeping actors as the Crawleys have keeping family members alive. I wonder if there’s a connection . . . ) And it makes sense that she’d be circling the waters, looking for a chance to get some hot loving action with the ex-chauffeur again. I’m just hoping that ex-chauffeur has half a brain (for once) and doesn’t take her up on said offer.
Thomas is back to his old tricks, and I’m very happy to see it. The show needs some nefarious villains, and he pulls it off admirably. Things would be far too boring without him, the little snake. That said, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the nanny (up until her last little comment, that was)–she was simply Thomas bait for the show. It was like he was skeet shooting with her. He told the writers, “Pull!” And seconds later, one sacked nanny. I wonder who will replace her, and if she’ll last any longer.
That said, sometimes I’m disappointed that a lot of the show hinges on Lord and Lady Crawley being complete nincompoops. That said, they pretty much *are* complete nincompoops, so I suppose yay consistency?
Mary–I was very pleased with how they handled her plot line. It felt true to life–to the character we know her to be. And the way the whole family and staff responded to it was again right in line with everything else. Also very happy to have her back by the end of the episode. One and a half episodes of broody Mary is quite enough.
The fallout from Matthew’s death was handled well across the board, really. His mother’s reactions. The letter from him. Carson’s speech to Mary. This is Downton at its best. No need for wildly inventive plot lines. Just characters being characters.
Carson and his old thespian pal–A fine plot, if predictable. That said, I would have been very upset if Carson hadn’t shown up at the end to see his former nemesis off. If the surprise death of Matthew at the end of last season’s heart-warming Christmas special taught me nothing else, it’s that I appreciate the show when it’s being consistent, not surprising. Sometimes the predictability is a welcome thing.
Anna and Bates–this is a good level area for them. Please please please just keep this at this level for the rest of the show. No more surprise murder accusations. No infidelity. No long lost children. Just let them be happy together. Or else!

Too many other little plots to mention here, but I’ll end by saying that overall it was a very strong episode. A return to season 1 form, and it left me very hopeful that the rest of the season would be as strong. But enough about what I thought of the show. What did *you* think?

Writing Update: Plotting a New Book

It’s been a while since I’ve given any sort of a real update on my writing. Not because I haven’t been doing any, but mainly because I’ve been in sort of a switched mode from my regular routine. I finished a draft of THE MEMORY THIEF a month or so ago, and my agent is currently reading it closely for another edit. Still some issues to iron out. I have some ideas on how I’d like to revise GET CUPID, but I’ve been purposefully giving myself some time away from the novel before I start in on them in earnest. And then this is the time each year when I write my Holiday Newsletter to go out to family (and be posted on the blog later–they just (finally!) went out yesterday, due to some snow we’ve been having up here, which messed up our mailing plans).

So my current projects that I’ve told you all about are all in various stages of “waiting”ness. (Don’t get me started on TARNHELM. I still love the book, and most of the editors I heard back from enjoyed it, too. But they had similar books in the pipes, or they worried the audience would be too small, or they just haven’t gotten around to reading it, or they didn’t like it, or–or–or . . . Perhaps this is a book I’ll just epublish. I haven’t had that conversation with my agents yet, and I’m not sure if that’s something I really want to do. Wait a minute. I thought I told you not to get me started on TARNHELM? Where was I?)

Ah yes. The waiting game.

So that means that it’s time for me to be starting a new book. and starting one I am. (What will hopefully turn out to be my 12th finished novel. There are four others that were started but set aside in varying degrees of Not Done.) I’m still in the plotting phase right now, and that’s a process I still struggle with. Of the 15 books I’ve worked on, 11 of them were written off the cuff. I just sat down and started typing. All of those were my earlier efforts, and they all were such a huge pain to revise that I swore never to do that again. What this means is that I don’t have nearly the amount of practice plotting that I should have. Such is my lot in life.

What’s this next book about? I’m not entirely sure at the moment. I know there are some psychics involved, and I’m leaning toward the inclusion of a sinister investment firm and some spy hijinks. I’m also looking at doing two viewpoint characters again–something I haven’t tried since book #3 (WEAVER OF DREAMS). And one of them would be a girl, a POV I haven’t written since . . . books #1 and #2 (INTO THE ELEVATOR (Worst. Title. Ever.) and THE BLOOD COUNTESS.)

But at this point, it’s really just at the brainstorming stage. Putting ideas down on paper. Looking at building block basics of plots and how to tie them together to make a cohesive whole. If any of you out there have some schweet plotting tips, I’d love to hear them. I’m all for learning from others, especially if it saves me from some floundering.

Anyway, I’ll keep at this until I hear back on MEMORY THIEF, and then I’ll do another draft of that. At that point, I’ll shoot for finishing the plot of this next book, and then either move right on to writing it, or else move over to a GET CUPID revision. I feel bad that it’s been three years since VODNIK was accepted for publication, and I have no other books heading to a bookshelf near you. I only have one that’s been on editors’ desks. My hope is 2014 changes that statistic a fair bit. I’d like to have two more floating around the offices of New York before the year is out.

Let’s see if I can do it!

Wii U Review

Santa was kind enough to bring our family a Wii U for Christmas, and now that we’ve had it set up and running for a week or so, I thought it might be helpful for some out there to hear what the family thought of it thus far. (In other news, we now have a vanilla Wii that’s available. Shoot a message to me if you’re interested.)

If you’re not up on the whole video game system scene, allow me to inform you. The big three makers have now all come out with new consoles. You’ve got Microsoft’s XBox One, Sony’s Playstation 4, and Nintendo’s Wii U. Microsoft and Sony cater much more to the bleeding edge, hardcore gamer crowd. Nintendo is more for the kiddies. (But since I have kiddies, that’s just fine by me.) The Wii U is totally new–it’s not an add-on for the Wii–something Nintendo has done a horrid job of communicating to consumers. (It doesn’t help that they branded all their Wii add-ons, as “Wii ______” Wii Balance Board. Wii Fit. Wii Sports. Wii Music. You name it. So why are they surprised when people don’t understand that Wii U is something new? Dingbats.)

The Wii U has beefed up graphics, still does all the motion control of the Wii, plays Wii games (in addition to the new Wii U games), and has this huge tablet-like controller.

Right off, there’s one thing I loved about the system: the fact that I didn’t have to buy a new slate of controllers so my whole family could play. It comes with that huge honkin’ tablet thing, and then it also connects to all Wii controllers, meaning that from day 1, my entire family could play. (Up to five people can play games on the console at the same time, which is pretty sweet.) I also loved that it could play those old Wii games. Yes, I lost the ability to play even older Gamecube games, but such is life. (I would be thinking about a new PS4–if they were backwards compatible with older games. They’re not, so I’m not.)

The big tablet controller thing was an unknown to me. Why in the world would it be a good thing? It’s huge. Would it be uncomfortable? I already have an iPad–do I need anther tablet thing? In my experience, it’s been a blast so far. It lets you play games that just wouldn’t be possible without it. For example, there’s a game in Nintendoland (a great Wii U game) where one player has the tablet and plays the part of a ghost in a haunted house, and the rest of the players play ghost hunters. The player with the tablet can see where he is and where everyone else is. The other players can’t see the ghost (on the big TV screen). It makes for some great experiences, all in the same room. There’s another game where one player is Mario and runs from everyone else. It’s a lot of fun–much more fun than I anticipated it being. I look forward to seeing how it’s implemented in other games. (That said, because it’s so very different from other consoles, I’d be surprised if ports of big name games really take advantage of it. I imagine this’ll be something only Nintendo puts to really good use . . .)

The graphics on the games are polished, but since all I’ve played is Mario-esque, the graphics really don’t make a huge difference.

There were some hiccups getting everything up and running. Nintendo’s network was down for the first few days after Christmas, and it needed to be up for the Wii U to download a big update. That was irritating, and I understand their e-shop was down, too–meaning people couldn’t buy games online for the system. But overall, I have no real complaints about the system.

In a nutshell, if your family is in the market for some fun family video gaming, consider this console a possibility. I certainly would recommend buying it over a Wii at this point. It plays all the Wii games, and as more Wii U games come out, it’ll be more and more the go-to choice for Nintendo gaming. That said, there aren’t a slew of games out for it just yet, so consider holding off on upgrading to the system if you already have a Wii. More games are on the horizon.

Anyone else out there get one and played around with it? What are your thoughts?

The Top Ten Most Popular Posts of Mine from 2013

Here we are, the end of another year. And what better way to celebrate than to take a walk down memory lane and see what were the posts that interested the most people over the past year? Since that’s something I was going to check out anyway, I figured it’d make a nice blog post. Two birds, one stone–that sort of thing. Ready?

Starting the list off at number ten was my response to the use of the word “Gypsy” in Pacific Rim. I admit in hindsight that the post came across as much harsher than I intended it to be, but sometimes I get upset, and that’s what the blog is here for. To help me snap my thoughts into focus. On a happy note, the screenwriter heard about the issue and . Very well handled, and nice to see awareness raised.

Number nine is the popular Scrooge-based post–the one about how I don’t send out Christmas cards. Surprisingly, I still got a slew of cards, so apparently you all didn’t hold my scrooginess against me too hard. Not that I’m going to send cards out next year, either. But still.

The eighth most popular post was my summary of the Jodi Arias trial. The one where she ended up being found guilty for murdering the man who converted her to Mormonism (and did a whole lot of much less savory things, but we won’t go into that right now). Of course, the sentence is still tied up in courts, and who knows when that’ll be ironed out. Yuck.

Number seven? My thoughts on the NSA government snooping scandal. A scandal which has only deepened as the months have drawn on. No happy ending in sight here–my general feeling now is to accept the fact that I’m being snooped on constantly, and it’s a sad state of affairs when I feel like I need to accept that as the status quo. Not sure how to change it though . . .

The most popular family related post I had (and the sixth most popular post overall) was the little piece I put out when MC was born. Also the shortest popular post, which means clearly for me to have more blogging success, I need to have more children. Ideally on a weekly basis. Maybe that should be a goal for next year . . .

The fifth most popular post was that Duck Dynasty kerfluffle. One in which I ended up predicting that this would just be a PR move by A&E to get more attention to their duck show. Which indeed seems to have been the case. It’s like firing someone on a Saturday morning, and then rehiring them a few hours later. Sheesh.

Then comes number four, a discussion on the need to separate the art from the artist. I enjoyed writing this post and the discussions that followed. Still feel the same way, but I recognize not everyone does, and I understand where they’re coming from.

Number three was my post about the Mormon church’s new approach to dealing with controversial issues like racism and polygamy. Namely, to write detailed, historically accurate posts and put them on the church website for everyone to read and learn from. It’s such a no-brainer to me, and I’m very glad they’re finally doing it.

Clocking in at the second most popular post was this piece on hypocrisy and some religious conservatives. I’d actually forgotten I’d written this one, and it was a pleasure to reread as I prepped for this post. It’s a great feeling to look back at your writing with totally fresh eyes and realize you really like what you’ve written.

And finally, my number one most popular post: a discussion of how Mormons approach missionary work. Wowzers. This one got a lot of comments going on Facebook and the blog alike. It wasn’t one that I thought would generate a lot of interest. It was just a discussion I’d had with my brother, and I wanted to write some more thoughts down.

Looking over the year, it’s been an interesting one to say the least. I can never tell ahead of time what everyone will be drawn to on the bog and what they won’t. Some posts I think are fantastic, and hardly anyone sees them. Others I view as throwaways, and then they see a ton of traffic. (“Ton” being a relative term, but still. . . .) Another thing I noticed? The views for my blog after my new website went up are overall better than they were before. I think the writing has stayed consistent, so I have to say that it must be due to the new site. Huzzah!

In any case, it was an eventful year, and I’ll be interested to see what things lie in the future. Thanks to you all for your comments and opinions. The blog has become one of my favorite things I do each day. Bring on 2014!

Introducing Your Children to the Moonwalk

I forget exactly how it happened. It’s not like the Moonwalk comes up in my everyday conversation, you know? But somehow on Saturday, I dropped the word into a sentence. (Maybe it was “I’m going to Moonwalk over to the fridge and eat some more fudge.”) And as soon as TRC heard the word, he had to know what it meant, which makes sense. It has the word “moon” in it, and he loves space, so . . .

I ended up showing them this clip from 1983, where Michael Jackson first introduced the move.

It takes a while to get to it at last–a lot of Jacksonesque dancing ahead of time. And that left tons of time for my kids to ask questions. (Because DC didn’t want to be left out of the viewing experience.) They were more than a little skeptical at first, and why wouldn’t they be? There’s a grown man dressed in a sequined suit and one sequined glove and sequined socks and pants that were too short, gyrating across the stage. Some of the questions asked in that first bit: “Is that a boy or a girl?” “What’s wrong with him?” “Where did his other glove go?” And basic observations: “He twitches a lot.” “He spins a lot.”

Denisa and I tried to defend our taste in “coolness” from when we were kids. I mean, when I was a kid in the eighties, there was no doubt in my mind that Michael Jackson was awesome. Why? He just was. One glove? Awesome. Sequins? Awesome. It was strange looking at something that had happened so long ago (30 years now!) and viewing it through the eyes of my children.

For the first long while, it looked like the slice of pop culture was going to end in defeat, with my children concluding yet again that I had no idea what in the world “cool” was. My one last hope was that the thing that started this all–the Moonwalk–would save me. Because if there was one dance step I ever wished I could do well in my entire life, it was that. When I was a kid, the Moonwalk was about as awesome as you could get.

And so I kept telling TRC and DC to just wait. Keep watching. And they were full of doubt and skepticism.

Until we got to 3:37 in the clip.

“Whoa!” they said in unison. “Show that again!” And again. And again.

Because while missing gloves and sequins and gyrations might go out of style, some things remain the same: the Moonwalk is just a darned cool move to watch. Period. Don’t believe me? Why don’t you ask Bill Bailey and his audience back in the 1950s?

Jump to the 2:01 mark to see what I’m talking about. And according to the never-wrong-Wikipedia, the move dates back as far as Cab Calloway and the 1930s. There’s your bit of trivia and awesome all rolled into one for the day.

Why Groundhog Day Might Be Better Than Christmas

Let’s get the religious argument out of the way right off the kicker. I’m not here to say that Groundhog Day is more important than the celebration of Christ’s birth. (Though I might argue that Christmas these days is about more than the celebration of said birth. But today’s blog post isn’t about that, and it would take me too long to get into it at the moment . . .) No–for my current purposes, I’m just looking at the expectations we all have of any particular day. When I get up on a work day, I have an idea of how that day will go. Breakfast, writing, eight hours of work, home to breathe for a bit, then help kids with homework, make and eat dinner, catch a bit of a movie at night, and off to bed to repeat it all the next day. Typically I’m right.

I have different expectations from weekends. I want to get more done, have more fun–it all depends on the weekend day in question. Whatever it is, I have an idea of what the day is supposed to “be like” before it happens. My feeling on that day then swings on how closely it held up to expectations. Did I get everything done I wanted to? Did I have a good time? Great time? That sort of thing. An average weekend day might be an awesome work day–depending on what I thought I’d get out of it.

Holidays have some expectations that can reach staggering heights, and none are worse offenders at this than Christmas (for me, at least). Think about it–it’s something we start building up to right around Thanksgiving, although my son reminded me yesterday that the buildup actually starts around December 26th. (Seriously. It’s the day after Christmas, and he was already plotting what he was going to ask for next year.) Other holidays have lower expectations. Thanksgiving (for me) is all about eating too much food and then watching football and being a bum. I’ve got tons of practice doing that, and so my Thanksgivings are typically awesome days. Fourth of July? Blow stuff up and eat hamburgers. Easy peasy. Halloween? The expectations are rising, but even still, it all boils down to getting and eating candy. Valentines Day can be a minefield of expectations, but it hasn’t been for me. Denisa and I aren’t like that.

But then there’s Christmas.

Take a minute and think about everything this day is supposed to be. You’ve got to provide a stunning, childhood defining day for your children, all the while making sure they don’t forget the “real meaning of Christmas” and turn into present-hungry piranhas. You need to figure out good, thoughtful gifts for a slew of family. You need to write Christmas cards and send them off to everybody and their brother (or else face their wrath, it sounds like). You need to reach out to all your close loved ones and make sure they feel loved, and you need to prep and consume a real humdinger of a dinner. Oh yeah–and then there’s Christmas parties that must be awesome, and a Christmas Eve that needs to be out of the park, too. And don’t forget decorations and all the rest of that shopping. And wrapping wrapping wrapping. And make sure to see all the great Christmas movies. And–and–and–

It’s a day with huge expectations. (I realize it might not be for you. Please don’t rub it in.)

What I’m trying to say is that to even meet those expectations, you need to have a home run. To exceed them? Good luck. Christmas is the summer blockbuster of holidays. It’s the day that everybody expects to be awesome, and if it’s just excellent or really cool, then the disappointment can feel sharp.

This is not to say my Christmas was bad this year. I had a great Christmas. Real blast. But then I compare it to today. I’m taking the day off, and so my expectations were slightly heightened, but not that high. And I’m going ice fishing, Denisa’s taking TRC skiing, I’m going to go to a Magic draft, and then I’m going to top the day off by watching the BYU bowl game. It’s going to be a great day (at least it has been so far . . .)

And it didn’t take me a month of prep to pull off.

Which brings me to Groundhog Day. My love for the holiday is well known, and I think one of the reasons for it is that the expectations of the day are so low. Pretty much nil. Watch the movie, eat some sweets, the end. Groundhog Day is willing to be whatever I want it to be. It can have a huge party, or not. It can have special food, or not. I never feel an ounce of guilt for having missed a special Groundhog Day treat. It is what it is.

And it’s lovely.

Maybe the lesson to be learned here is deeper. Maybe it’s about celebrating the holidays more simply, and not expecting so much out of myself or any one day in particular. But those are deeper thoughts for a deeper day.

I’ve got fun things to do. This day’s got a lot to get done, after all.

Happy day after the day after Christmas!

A Homemade Christmas

Denisa and I wanted to switch things up a tad this year. The kids are definitely getting old enough that they really ought to be participating in the whole gift *giving* scene, as opposed to straight up gift receiving. But at the same time, we didn’t want them to feel like they had to buy expensive gifts. They’ve got a limited budget, after all. So after some brainstorming and discussion, we came up with a plan. We exchanged names, and everyone had to make something for the other person. No buying allowed.

This seemed like a grand plan, at first. I envisioned the kids getting parents, and the parents getting kids. It didn’t quite work out that way, of course. Denisa got DC, DC got TRC, TRC got me, and I got Denisa. And that’s when it hit me: I was going to have to actually make something for my wife. And for some reason, that was more than a little daunting.

The cop out would be to write her a story, I supposed. But there were a few things I didn’t like with that idea. First off, I’d already written my Christmas story for the year, and there’s only so many short stories I have in me at once. I had very little in the way of desire to write another, and I was totally out of ideas. Second, even if I had an idea, it would take me too long to get it to a point where I was happy with it enough to give it to my wife.

I’ve written poetry before, and I could do that again. But once again, I didn’t really love that idea. Yes, it could win points on the sappiness scale, but I didn’t really want to go for sappy. I’d have to keep thinking.

In the end, I came up with quite a few ideas that Denisa would like, but the one I went with and followed through on was putting all of our home videos onto DVDs, sticking them in a case, and wrapping that up. We have a fair number of videos from over the years, but they’ve always been on mini-cassettes or on my computer’s hard drive. Actually watching them has been something that was hard to do, ironically. So this was something I could do that would let her see videos from the last 13 years or so–and let the family see them, as well.

As with all things technical, it ended up being a lot more difficult than I’d planned on. (Writing a short story would certainly have taken less time.) The videos were in an outdated format that I had to convert over to a different format with one free converter I found, then use another free converter to get it to a DVD format, and then find a DVD creation program for the final step. And in the end, I had to buy a converter anyway. (Moral of the story? Save yourself some time in the long run. Pay the $15 and make life easy on yourself. I probably took four or five hours rigging a “free” approach, meaning that even if I’d been able to avoid buying a program, I still would have basically paid myself $4/hour to do it for free. Silly Bryce.)

That said, the final product went over fabulously. Easily Denisa’s favorite Christmas present of the year. How did the other presents fare? TRC made me a Magic the Gathering card holder–he came up with the idea himself, and executed it all on his own, though I think he realized after the fact that everyone else had spent a fair bit more time on their presents than he had. That’s okay–there’s a learning curve. Denisa made DC two new headbands that she loved, and DC made TRC a Magic the Gathering dice bag that he adored.

In the end, I’d say it was a very successful experiment, and one that I plan on repeating next year. It was great to see everyone thinking of what they could make other people, and to see kids sneaking off to rooms to work on their creations. And it was very nice to sit back with the fam on Christmas Eve (when we opened the homemade presents) and watch some home videos from nine years ago.

Good times.