On the Second Blog Post of Christmas

In which we come in under the wire with mangers and monsters.

Quick update:  The house finally got decorated inside and out.  Carrie's crappy string of Christmas lights are still up but we added to it the tree and some garland around one of the windows.  Tim got a bunch of lights up on the outside of the house, you're welcome Duke Energy.  He did not get the hole dug for the tree, which surprised no one.

Growing up there were a lot of Christmas traditions around the Milligan household.  For example going to pick out the Christmas tree.  Usually the weekend after Thanksgiving we would bundle up and head out to some tree farm on the outskirts of Lafayette to go tree hunting.  For a few minutes we would walk around together the four of us, but then, inevitably, we would head in different directions looking for trees.  Everyone had their own vision of the perfect tree.  My sister, usually, wanted one that was a little smaller, my dad liked them to be tall,  mom was looking for one where ornaments could hang down, and I would look for one that had the strongest overall "Christmas tree vibe."  I imagine you can discern a lot about a person based on what they are looking for in a tree¹.  Eventually we would settle on a tree that came close to what we were all looking for and we would cut it down.  After we had the needles shook out of it we crammed it into the car and headed home.  The tree normally would sit in a bucket of water for a week or two before it went up² then decorating would begin.  My dad always put the lights on and then my mom, sister and I would put up ornaments, taking turns putting them on the tree until it was fully covered.

Another tradition that my sister Sarah and I had was to organize the nativity scene.  Years ago my grandparents gave my dad and all his siblings and their families nativity sets from a church sale.  I don't remember how long ago it was, but it had to have been a while because I don't remember a time when we didn't have them.  Every year my sister and I would position and reposition the figures until we got it just how we wanted it, then we'd probably move it again.

When my grandparents passed away all of the family came together to help organize the house and decide what needed to be saved and what could be sold or given away.  While going through the house I came across a cigar box, inside the box was the same nativity set that they had gotten all of their kids.  No one else wanted it so I took it home with me and now I have my own nativity scene to mess with endlessly.  All of the pieces are the same as the one from home with the exception of the manger.  My parents have a fancy one with a wooden star at the top and a palm tree, mine is the cigar box³.  But it is still great.

I think the neatest thing about this nativity scene is that the figures are all hand carved, or at least they look hand carved.  So what if Jesus looks like he had a teenager's head on a baby's body, check out these wisemen.  They are looking pretty nice.

In other Christmas news.  I watched Gremlins recently for the first time.  Which is hard to believe but true none the less.  My friend Tim "Tony Gonzner" Gosnell suggested that it was more Christmasy than Die Hard.  Now I don't know if I will go that far.  But it was entertaining, and that counts for something.  I don't think it will make the yearly rotation of must watch Christmas movies, I am glad thought that I watched.  I'm equally glad that Mrs. Deagle dies, she got what was coming to her⁴.

As promised here is the next movie on my list of must watched Christmas movies.  As you may remember the season, for me, kicks off with Die Hard.  The second movie that I watch is Elf with Will Farrel.  This movie, I imagine, will create much less controversy than Die Hard will.  It is most certainly a Christmas movie what with Santa, elves, claymation puppets and caroling.  My favorite line in the movie is probably, "You sit on a throne of lies."

Here are some facts that you may or may not know about Elf.  It was directed by Jon Faveau who also directed the two Iron Man movies.  Buddy's supervisor elf in Santa's workshop is played by Ralphie Parker⁵.  Zooey Deschanel is very cute.  Has some incredibly talented actors in it: James Caan, Bob Newhart and Ed Asner to name a few.  I can't watch this movie and not smile the whole way through.

Bye Buddy, I hope you find your dad.
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¹ We'll leave that for someone else to do.
² This was to appease my dad who hated the fact that we got a tree so early.
³ Which, ironically, it probably more like what the real manger would have been like, cheap and small.
⁴ I also called it that the characters who got crushed by a snowplow would miraculously end up okay.
⁵ Come back next week if you don't know who this is.

On the First Blog Post of Christmas

In which we get back on track with some holiday cheer.

I don't know what it is about the fall, but apparently it is just a blog post wasteland for me¹.  This post will either represent my only post for the month of November or a first post after missing an entire month, depending on when I get it online.  I really did not get things taken care of in the "post every week" category.  Oh well, enough lamenting.  Despite it not yet being December it is officially the socially excepted Christmas season.  As a lead up to the most commercialized of Holy holidays I am going to be writing a series of four posts about different Christmas-y topics.  Think of it as your online, eccentric Advent wreath, but with less fire, not on Sundays, and more profane².

Christmas at Casa de Feltigan is always an event, and trust me when I tell you it has a lot more to do with the Felton half of that equation as opposed to the Milligan half.  Tim has this intense Christmas...I'm trying to think of a word that would be a better fit than lust, but I don't think it exists...Christmas lust that I'm pretty sure he feels all year round but really flairs up pretty much as soon as he starts digesting his first Thanksgiving meal.  Granted, it is not as extreme as some people, but it is pretty out of control.  Last year the minute Tim and Carrie got home from Thanksgiving lights and trees were flying up all over the place, so I expected much of the same this year.

However, things didn't quite work out that way.  When they got home Tim straightened up the perpetually disorganized extra bedroom to create a "Christmas staging area."  But before any real work could begin (like bringing boxes down from the attic) we had a business meeting to attend to and the season four finale of The Venture Bros. to watch.  I knew that if we didn't get some kind of decoration up, and fast, Tim would probably have a nervous breakdown, only address Carrie as Mrs. Claus, and stay up all night hugging his knees and humming Christmas carols with Christmas stocking for shoes and wrapping paper for clothes.  In order to satiate him I retrieved the carved Nativity set³ from the attic and assembled it on our bookshelf.  With Tim temporarily calmed we retired for the night, visions of sugar plums may or may not have danced in our heads.

Monday, according to Carrie, was "tree day."  Tim and Carrie, being homeowners now, decided to go with a live tree that we can plant in the yard when we are done with it.  When I got home from work I discovered that the tree had indeed been purchased and was sitting on our back porch, so step one was accomplished.  Whether or not it actually survives and is planted in the ground will surely be a test of the Felton's ability to follow through/take down Christmas decorations before the thing dies.  Also, as the ground will certainly be frozen by the time the decorations come down on Valentine's Day (the inside ones, the outdoor lights will likely be up until April at the earliest) hole digging will be an interesting challenge.

Speaking of lights. outdoor Christmas lights are Tim's favorite thing⁴ and I am sure that he wanted to get them up as soon as he could on Monday.  But wait!  Double disaster strikes.  Disaster number one, rain.  It started raining yesterday shortly after Tim got home from work.  For those of you who have never put up Christmas lights a combination of rain, ladders, and electricity is not optimal.  Now you may be thinking, why doesn't he simply go to the aforementioned staging area and begin the aggravating process of detangling and checking lights.  I'm sure he would have were it not for disaster number two...the flu.  Tim decided that last night would be a great time to come down with some kind of flu bug so he worked himself up a nice fever and even decided to throw in some vomiting for good measure.   I think secretly he just wanted to have the bed to himself last night but Carrie hadn't done anything annoying enough to be banished to the couch.

So now it is Tuesday, Tim has likely spent the day at home trying to feel better.  He might have put more Christmas stuff up, otherwise I will have to prescribe him a dose of Christmas music and eggnog to keep him from going over the edge.  Once Tim is done regular vomiting and can get to making it look like Christmas vomited all over our house, I will snap some sweet pics to show you.

While my Christmas passion does not run as wild and free as Tim's might I still have a few traditions of my own that I always incorporate.  One is that there are four Christmas movies that I will always watch every year without fail.  And since I will be writing four blog posts and there are four movies it seems to follow that I tell you about one movie per post.  These are not in the order of quality, or how much I enjoy them, but rather the order that I will watch them in.

The first Christmas movie I plan on watching is always my favorite to suggest when people bring up wanting to watch a Christmas movie: Die Hard.  Most people will immediately discount this as a viable option which is absurd. 

• Fact: Die Hard takes place at a Christmas party
• Fact: Die Hard takes place on Christmas Eve⁵. 
• Fact: the Die Hard soundtrack includes four Christmas songs.
• Fact: Die Hard features a terrorist in a Santa hat, which leads to one of the film's great lines.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KShj0gPAH0g

So here is what we know.  Die Hard is a great movie.  Die Hard is a Christmas movie.  Therefore: Die Hard is a great Christmas movie.  Other reasons why you should watch it include: Bruce Willis making the jump to the big time, that homely woman Snake (of Wizard People, Dear Reader fame) makes his film debut⁶, lots of gun fights, the scene with McClane in the bathroom is what got him cast in 12 Monkeys, jokes about the FBI, Twinkies, Carl Winslow, and more gun fights.  It's the most action packed Christmas movie ever and I will be watching it, very soon.

Yippee-ki-yay, motherfather⁷.

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¹ August/September/October blog post totals for '09 and '10 = ten out of a possible 24.
² Profane in the secular sense of the word, thank you religious studies degree.
³ More on that later.
⁴ Ask him about his proposal to Carrie.
⁵ Combine these two facts and you get one poorly planned Christmas party, and that's not .
⁶ That would be Alan Rickman, who I have never been disappointed in as an actor.
⁷ Edited to maintain the singular use of the word profane to describe this post.

On A Glimpse Backstage

In which we find both apologies and teases.

Clearly I have failed in goal to write once a week.  In fact I’m lucky that I got this post written in the month of October.  If I let you down I apologize¹.  In my defense, that last post took a lot out of me blogging wise.  Also, most of my creative abilities have been diverted elsewhere.

You may or may not know but during college (and just after) I volunteered for, and then was employed by, an organization called Young Life.  Young Life is a youth ministry program that is designed around building positive relationships with kids, regardless of what their beliefs are, and sharing with them what we believe about God.  When I came back to Bloomington I joined that adult committee that helps to keep Young Life in the area running.  Last fall we² decided to start a new tradition of having a fall weekend for the Young Life students of Greater Bloomington³.

This is all to say that this year at the fall weekend I will be, along with my friends Kristen and Tim, running that program.  Which mean planning and leading various games and activities and, if not most importantly for us certainly the most time consuming, we have to come up with characters and write story lines for them.  It’s a bigger undertaking than you might realize.

So, since that has been taking up so much of my time I thought I’d give you a peek into the world that Kristen and I have been creating.


Stats:
Current length: 28 pages.

Number of characters: 5 (though one is just Carrie)

References to pop culture: Twilite, Scooby Doo, Youtube, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, Lady Gaga, Facebook, $5 Footlong, Neil Young, The Young and the Restless, Twitter, Teen Wolf, Inception, CSI

My favorite line #1: “Stop creeping Carrie out you skeez.”

My favorite line #2: “Google it!”

The number one thing that you need to know about the program is that we come out very, very excited to be apart of Twilife Mini-Camp 2010.

I may add more later, but probably not.
peace
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¹ Actually, you don't pay for this so I apologize for nothing.
² That would be me, Jeff, Tim and Carrie.
³ Eastern, Edgewood, Bloomington North and South, Brown County, and Wyldlife.

On Festivals of a Musical Nature

In which independent troubadours regal us with beautiful melodies…and sweet guitar riffs.

A few years ago some dudes that I know decided that they really like making music.  They also enjoyed it when other people listened to the music that they made.  So in an effort to make their music available to the masses (or at least to a few hundred people) they decided to start a record label.  And thus, was Crossroads of America Records born¹.

As they toured around the region they met some other like minded individuals and soon new bands were added to the label.  Time passed and bands came and went.  One day these fine young men decided that it would be really awesome to get all of the bands on the label in town (Bloomington) together and place a really sweet show or series of shows².  And thus, was XRA Fest born.

So now here we are, one week away from XRA Fest, Bloomington’s only two-day independent music festival³.  And I really think you should go to it.  The first night is Friday, September 24th at Russian Recording⁴, the second night, predictably enough, is Saturday the 25th at the Bishop⁵.  Who will be playing at these shows?  Glad you asked, let’s run down the roster.

Friday, 8:30 pm, Russian Recording

Alexander the Great




Metavari




Frank Schweikhardt

 


Either/Or
 

Saturday, 9:00 pm, The Bishop

husband&wife

Rodeo Ruby Love

Brother Stephen

Homecomings & Vollmar

Osteoferocious

So there is your line up.  Still not sold?  I asked Rodeo lead singer Zach Melton what he was most looking forward to at this years XRA Fest.  Here is his response: "I am mostly excited about seeing Frank Schweikhardt play at XRA Fest because it's the only time he's actually quiet."

If that doesn’t get you to the show I don’t know what will.  Oh wait, I do. FREE TICKETS!

CONTEST ALERT:

One of the goals of this post is to raise awareness, and attendance, of XRA Fest, and I will need your help.  So I am going to bribe you with two free passes for both nights of the Fest.  To be entered into the drawing all you have to do is re-post, tweet, or link this blog on Facebook.  Once you have done that just leave a comment on this page with your name, a link to where you shared it, and your email or mailing address.  I next week I will draw a name from all those who entered and contact that person.

Go forth and spread the word.

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¹ This, and other facts found throughout this blog, may be fabricated.

² Can two shows be a series?

³ This may be a total lie.
⁴ 1021 S. Walnut St Bloomington, IN
⁵ 123 S. Walnut St Bloomington, IN

On a Fun Day at the Cineplex

In which we investigate a marvelous moviefilm.

So I have been working on a pretty intense and thoughtout¹ blog post since last Wednesday.  However, it has been slow going and I felt the need to get some writing done.  Plus I wanted to share some love for the movie that Tim, Carrie, and I saw today.

For the last three week I have been asking Tim and Carrie to go with me to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.  It was never a matter of them not wanting to go, but rather finding the time to make it happen.  I have been jazzed to see this movie for months now, loyal readers may remember that I talked about it back at the beginning of the summer.

Often times when you are excited to see a movie and you see some previews and hear some reviews you end up walking away disappointed.  Let me tell you, that did not happen with this movie.  It was incredibly well done; funny, action packed, original² with some great actors and a great director.  It is certainly not a movie that is going to be for everyone but if you ever played video games growing up³, or are familiar with the indie rock scene⁴, or like to see bombastic fight scenes that don’t make much sense but are still well choreographed⁵ then this movie is going to have something for you.

I highly recommend that you check it out while it is the theater, you can catch it for $5 throughout the week here in Bloomington.  And as a bonus, if you want, let me know and I will go see it with you.  If all of this doesn’t sell you then I will let my friend Carrie try to.  When we were driving away one of the first things she said was: ‘That was so good.  I want to watch it again right now.’  No lie, but we went to Lowe’s instead.

P.S. In the coming weeks look for the following blog topics (blogics?): biking round the world: or maybe just town; Glenn Beck, Jesus and you; and XRA Fest 2010 with or without interviews.
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¹ Maybe not as thought out as I would like, but definitely thought about a lot.
² As original as a movie based on a comic book can be.
³ Nods to Mario, Zelda, role-playing games, DDR and others.
⁴ “We should totally play a secret show.” “All of our shows are secret shows.”
⁵ I didn’t have a footnote for this one, but I didn’t want it to feel left out.

On Why I Hate Moving But Love My Friends

In which a thing that is normally terrible becomes much less so.

Moving blows.

Once everything is in the new place and it is all set up it's pretty sweet.  But I hate, hate moving.  Boxing up all the nonsense that I have accumlated and tell myself not to get rid of for one reason or another¹.  Carrying said boxes in 95 degree heat.  Trying not to damage, ding or destroy my furniture, or the walls, as I move my furniture out of or into a house.  However, the worst part is cleaning the house after you get everything out.  Mopping floors, scrubbing counters, washing behind the toilet, avoiding electric shock while cleaning a refridgerator², spackling over nail holes...it's all terrible.  Then, when you finish the insane cleaning marathon the landlord tries, and usually succeeds, at sticking you with a bogus charge.  If I wasn't morally opposed to arson I would just burn the place down and walk away.

This year, however, is a little different.  Back in April Carrie and Tim (the roommates) bought their first house.  It was kind of a hole, well that's not totally accurate, it was a total hole.  But it had potential and it backed up against the Rose's house with whom we are trying to live intentionally.  They took possession at the beginning of July and we went to work fixing it up.  You can read about the process here, here and even here.  Carrie is a terrible individual and hasn't finished writing about the renovation project, so if you are looking for closure look elsewhere.  Namely, the next sentence.

We finished, nearly³, all of the projects and were ready to move in the second week of August, which is good because the next weekend we had to be out of the old place.  A few weeks back our friends Seth, Julie and Mark (who live in Columbus, Ohio) invited come college friends to come visit them.  Carrie, Tim and I politely declined since we would be in the midst of fixing the house and/or moving.  So the three of them suggested, why don't we come to Bloomington and help you move.  Which is exactly what happened.  Seth, Julie, Mark, Nick, Ellie, and Kristen all came into town, stayed for the weekend and helped us move (along with some friends from in town who were just as great).  It was an amazing experience, seeing such a generous outpouring of love blew my mind.  On Saturday I had to work at the farmers market Saturday morning⁴, when I got back the old house was empty and almost entirely cleaned.  When everyone was gone by Sunday afternoon Tim and Carrie and I simply had to do some minor touchup stuff and clean out the basement, it was easy.

If every move went that well and was so surrounded by awesome people I probably wouldn't mind it as much.  But our jerk of a landlord is going to stick us with a bogus charge.  Somethings never change.
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¹ You never know when you may have to urge to bust out Cool Boaders 2.
² This totally happened to me two years ago.
³ A few small projects remain, trim and kitchen cabinets are the big ones.
⁴ I'll be there twice a month if you want to come and say hello, and avoid salmonella in your eggs. Also, I might be at the Broadripple market some weekends, I'll let you know.

On the Future of American Cinema

In which we gaze into the beautiful blue eyes of Hollywood and perfection stares back.

Once in a great while a movie comes along that changes the way we look at movies.  A film that takes our perceptions, acumen, opinions, attitudes, even our perspicacity of film and flips it on its head¹.

Movies like Citizen Kane, The Godfather Part 2, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Toy Story and even Avatar² (with its use of 3D) made people rethink the way stories are told.  Whether through narrative styles, special effects or even the medium in which it is shown.

Now we are privy to what will certainly be one of the greatest movies of our generation.  I imagine that it will change not only what we think about film, but what we think about life itself.

Behold the future:


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¹ All of those words are synonymous with one another.
² For the record Avatar was a beautiful and fun movie devoid of any original story.