Elf<\/a> Band Aid – The Making Of The Original \u2019Do They Know It\u2019s Christmas?\u2019<\/a> A<\/p>\n Holiday Baking Championship<\/a> A-<\/p>\n Die Hard (1988): 20 Things You Never Knew!<\/a> Giving away my stolen christmas tree<\/a> How A Fake Band Made A Christmas Classic – The History of Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses<\/a> Shrinking<\/a>, season two A<\/p>\n St. Denis Medical<\/a> B+<\/p>\n A Man On The Inside<\/a> This show will make you laugh a lot. It will give you the feels. It will probably make you cry. It is so full of heart and life. It shines a light on a part of our world – retirement communities – that most of us spend no time thinking about until we have to. Brilliant TV. Fortunately it looks like there will be a season two. Oh, and just another reminder that Danson is the greatest comedic actor in TV history.<\/p>\n A+<\/p>\n Hit Man<\/a> C+<\/p>\n Extraction 2<\/a> B+<\/p>\n David Letterman | The GQ Video Cover Interview<\/a> Swingers<\/a> There are so many elements that make this movie great – even with the allowance for it being nearly 30 years old and a bit out-of-date – but what stuck out to me in this viewing was how it never runs out of steam. The final 15 minutes are just as funny and well-written as the first 15.<\/p>\n A<\/p>\n Top Gun: Maverick<\/a> A, A, C<\/p>\n English Teacher<\/a> B+<\/p>\n Dead on Arrival: The Soyuz 11 Disaster<\/a> Jon Favreau interview on \u201cSwingers\u201d (1996)<\/a> Sacha Baron Cohen Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters<\/a> Why the B\u201352 is outliving newer bombers<\/a> Dramatic low level flying bomber footage (1943)<\/a> The Oberg Color Film Footage of Pearl Harbor – December 7, 1941<\/a> How this Van Life Pioneer Set Up His Perfect Off-Grid Camper<\/a> A Journey Into New York\u2019s Basketball State of Mind<\/a> Mt. St. Helens: The Gary Rosenquist, AI interpolated landslide and eruption sequence<\/a> 2025 Moon Phases – Northern Hemisphere<\/a> Star Wars: rare behind the scenes \u201cThe Empire Strikes Back\u201d<\/a> Picking up a new car that my daughter likes<\/a> I Drive The Lucid Gravity For The First Time!<\/a> I Drive The Audi Q6 E-Tron For The First Time! A Better Electric SUV Than Q4 & Q8<\/a> Rather than post all the photog stuff I watched, here are the ones that stuck out most.<\/p>\n Bad Weather, Good Photos?<\/a> You\u2019re Wrong About<\/a> A-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Holiday Shit Elf Christmas Vacation A Christmas Story Die Hard Assorted SNL holiday sketches A\u2019s all around. Band Aid – The Making Of The Original \u2019Do They Know It\u2019s Christmas?\u2019 Not a true documentary but rather a collection of the raw film shot on November 25, 1984, the day the vocals were recorded for this holiday classic. A remarkable view of a moment in time that became eternal. A Holiday Baking Championship Surprise winner! After looking like a total doofus the first couple weeks, home baker Steven came out of nowhere to capture the title. Thanks to both the way the calendar fell and our new DVR limitations, this was the earliest I\u2019ve ever finished the show, a full week before Christmas. A- Die Hard (1988): 20 Things You Never Knew! Best of the Die Hard OBSESSION | Brooklyn Nine-Nine Topical. Giving away my stolen christmas tree Beau Miles holiday bullshit! How A Fake Band Made A Christmas Classic – The History of Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses Wonderful summary of the history of a wonderful song. Movies, Shows, etc Shrinking, season two A terrific second season puts this in the running for best show on TV. It continued to avoid the trap so many shows in its vein fall into: being too cute and satisfied with itself. Each week had many deep, genuine laughs. Most episodes had touching moments. A couple were incredibly moving. This was a show we looked forward to each week and were seldom disappointed by. It is an A++ cast that share fantastic writing with us. Repeating something I\u2019ll say below about another show: the world would be a better place if we had more programs like this. A St. Denis Medical A couple more new episodes this month. I think it\u2019s still finding its way, but remains solid. As I don\u2019t watch any other sitcoms on regular TV, I have to assume that they are all garbage based on how many good reviews St. Denis receives. I see promise, I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s in the league of the shows that came before it yet (The Good Place, The Office, Parks & Recreation, etc.) B+ A Man On The Inside Goddammit, those sons of bitches Michael Schur and Ted Danson have done it again!!! An utterly delightful show. I\u2019m convinced if we had more people with the emotional intelligence of Schur making TV and movies and music, this country would not be the hateful mess that it is. Alas\u2026 This show will make you laugh a lot. It will give you the feels. It will probably make you cry. It is so full of heart and life. It shines a light on a part of our world – retirement communities – that most of us spend no time thinking about until we have to. Brilliant TV. Fortunately it looks like there will be a season two. Oh, and just another reminder that Danson is the greatest comedic actor in TV history. A+ Hit Man I think I was confusing this with another movie – The Fall Guy probably – with a brief title that looked kind of dumb but actually got decent reviews. This was not that. Every element felt like a 75% effort: the scenes that were supposed to be funny only got \u00be of the way there. Same for the suspensful scenes. Same for the sexy scenes. Script could have used some zhooshing. C+ Extraction 2 Like the first, an almost perfect action movie. Checks in under two hours. Minimal plot\/mission, so the writers don\u2019t have to get too cute. Then roughly 80% of it is people trying to shoot\/blow each other up. Bonus for bringing in Idris Elba and setting us up for another edition in a year or so. B+ David Letterman | The GQ Video Cover Interview Dave is an American treasure. Swingers How long has it been since I watched this, in full? Twenty-ish years, I bet. It is one of those movies that faded away after I got married and had kids, as it speaks to a very different part of my life. Sure, I referenced it plenty, but even those quotes faded in time. YouTube randomly spit out an interview with Jon Favreau from when the movie was first released, which got me thinking I should watch again. I couldn\u2019t find it on any streaming platforms we pay for so I grabbed the DVD at the library. It was one of those really poor library DVDs that seems like it was produced overseas from a bad copy. Still, it was fun to revisit Mikey, Trent, Sue, Rob, and Charles. It brought back a lot of memories from my \u201csingle days,\u201d as I once called them to S\u2019s great laughter. There are so many elements that make this movie great – even with the allowance for it being nearly 30 years old and a bit out-of-date – but what stuck out to me in this viewing was how it never runs out of steam. The final 15 minutes are just as funny and well-written as the first 15. A Top Gun: Maverick Oceans Eleven The Bounty Hunter A collection of movies we watched as a family with our Christmas guests. Maverick remains the perfect, modern action flick. I could watch Oceans 1000 times and never get sick of it. The Bounty Hunter? Well, it was a random pick from the Netflix menu screen. Thin story, some bad acting, but it does have In Her Prime Jennifer Anniston running around for 90 minutes in a tight tank top, short skirt, and very high heels. She knew how to give the fans what they wanted. A, A, C English Teacher Ahh, the series that has a limited number of episodes (eight) that are short enough (all in the 21\u201324 minute range) that you can knock the whole thing out in a few hours. Even better that this is super funny. That said, I don\u2019t think this is a universal show. The humor is often dark and cutting. The main character has lots of flaws so you aren\u2019t necessarily pulling for him. There\u2019s a lot of culture wars content, and it definitely leans one way, which will annoy 30\u201340% of its potential audience. But I really enjoyed it, especially the first 3\u20134 episodes which were a little funnier than the back half. B+ Shorts, YouTubes, etc Dead on Arrival: The Soyuz 11 Disaster Scary space shit. Jon Favreau interview on \u201cSwingers\u201d (1996) Ron Livingston on Swingers Vince Vaughn Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters Swingers content. Sacha Baron Cohen Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters The Vaughn entry above was good. This one was incredible. Why the B\u201352 is outliving newer bombers It\u2019s absolutely wild that not only are B\u201352s still operational, the ones currently in service will have nearly 90 years of service logged when they are finally expected to be retired. Dramatic low level flying bomber footage (1943) Kind of cool. The Oberg Color Film Footage of Pearl Harbor – December 7, 1941 This doesn\u2019t quite live up to expectations, but still a fascinating time machine to one of the most important days of the 20th century. How this Van Life Pioneer Set Up His Perfect Off-Grid Camper A little different than the other Huckberry Homes vids. A Journey Into New York\u2019s Basketball State of Mind Good stuff from The Ringer\u2019s hoops crew. Mt. St. Helens: The Gary Rosenquist, AI interpolated landslide and eruption sequence This is when AI is cool. 2025 Moon Phases – Northern Hemisphere 2025 Moon Phases – Southern Hemisphere Jason Kottke posted this with the observation that blew his mind, and in turn blew mine: the moon looks upside down from your normal perspective if you cross from the northern to southern hemisphere. Or vice versa. Wild! Star Wars: rare behind the scenes \u201cThe Empire Strikes Back\u201d Nine-year-old me would have thought this was the coolest thing I\u2019d ever seen. Picking up a new car that my daughter likes Some quick Beau Miles bullshit. Hopefully there\u2019s more to this next month. Car Content I Drive The Lucid Gravity For The First Time! Looks incredible. Get back to me when they release a vehicle that checks in at about half the cost of the Gravity. I Drive The Audi Q6 E-Tron For The First Time! A Better Electric SUV Than Q4 & Q8 As usual, Audi does some things amazingly well, and does some other things amazingly oddly. Photography Rather than post all the photog stuff I watched, here are the ones that stuck out most. Bad Weather, Good Photos? A Day In Cincinnati Exploring One of the World\u2019s Most Beautiful Countries SantaCon, London, 2024 The Most Important Kind of Photography Podcasts You\u2019re Wrong About Trying to mix up my pod routine a bit and Overcast recommended this. I listened to the episode about Dungeons & Dragons, which was fun. The host and guest made some great observations about how weird the whole satanic panic related to D&D was. D&D kids were generally good kids with good grades who liked to read, who didn\u2019t do drugs or get into trouble. \u201cSo they must be doing something wrong, right?\u201d seemed to be one argument against D&D. Also, all the demons and whatnot religious types complained about\u2026were the exact things you are trying to destroy if you\u2019re playing D&D! And lots of other just odd stuff that made a select few parents lose their minds and get media attention in the Eighties. A-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-15978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-media","tag-movies","tag-tv"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15978"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15980,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15978\/revisions\/15980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nChristmas Vacation<\/a>
\nA Christmas Story<\/a>
\nDie Hard<\/a>
\nAssorted SNL holiday sketches<\/a>
\nA\u2019s all around.<\/p>\n
\nNot a true documentary but rather a collection of the raw film shot on November 25, 1984, the day the vocals were recorded for this holiday classic. A remarkable view of a moment in time that became eternal.<\/p>\n
\nSurprise winner! After looking like a total doofus the first couple weeks, home baker Steven came out of nowhere to capture the title. Thanks to both the way the calendar fell and our new DVR limitations, this was the earliest I\u2019ve ever finished the show, a full week before Christmas.<\/p>\n
\nBest of the Die Hard OBSESSION | Brooklyn Nine-Nine<\/a>
\nTopical.<\/p>\n
\nBeau Miles holiday bullshit!<\/p>\n
\nWonderful summary of the history of a wonderful song.<\/p>\n
\nMovies, Shows, etc<\/h3>\n
\nA terrific second season puts this in the running for best show on TV. It continued to avoid the trap so many shows in its vein fall into: being too cute and satisfied with itself. Each week had many deep, genuine laughs. Most episodes had touching moments. A couple were incredibly moving. This was a show we looked forward to each week and were seldom disappointed by. It is an A++ cast that share fantastic writing with us. Repeating something I\u2019ll say below about another show: the world would be a better place if we had more programs like this.<\/p>\n
\nA couple more new episodes this month. I think it\u2019s still finding its way, but remains solid. As I don\u2019t watch any other sitcoms on regular TV, I have to assume that they are all garbage based on how many good reviews St. Denis receives. I see promise, I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s in the league of the shows that came before it yet (The Good Place, The Office, Parks & Recreation, etc.)<\/p>\n
\nGoddammit, those sons of bitches Michael Schur and Ted Danson have done it again!!! An utterly delightful show. I\u2019m convinced if we had more people with the emotional intelligence of Schur making TV and movies and music, this country would not be the hateful mess that it is. Alas\u2026<\/p>\n
\nI think I was confusing this with another movie – The Fall Guy<\/em> probably – with a brief title that looked kind of dumb but actually got decent reviews. This was not that. Every element felt like a 75% effort: the scenes that were supposed to be funny only got \u00be of the way there. Same for the suspensful scenes. Same for the sexy scenes. Script could have used some zhooshing.<\/p>\n
\nLike the first, an almost perfect action movie. Checks in under two hours. Minimal plot\/mission, so the writers don\u2019t have to get too cute. Then roughly 80% of it is people trying to shoot\/blow each other up. Bonus for bringing in Idris Elba and setting us up for another edition in a year or so.<\/p>\n
\nDave is an American treasure.<\/p>\n
\nHow long has it been since I watched this, in full? Twenty-ish years, I bet. It is one of those movies that faded away after I got married and had kids, as it speaks to a very different part of my life. Sure, I referenced it plenty, but even those quotes faded in time. YouTube randomly spit out an interview with Jon Favreau from when the movie was first released, which got me thinking I should watch again. I couldn\u2019t find it on any streaming platforms we pay for so I grabbed the DVD at the library. It was one of those really poor library DVDs that seems like it was produced overseas from a bad copy. Still, it was fun to revisit Mikey, Trent, Sue, Rob, and Charles. It brought back a lot of memories from my \u201csingle days,\u201d as I once called them to S\u2019s great laughter.<\/p>\n
\nOceans Eleven<\/a>
\nThe Bounty Hunter<\/a>
\nA collection of movies we watched as a family with our Christmas guests.
\nMaverick<\/em> remains the perfect, modern action flick. I could watch Oceans<\/em> 1000 times and never get sick of it. The Bounty Hunter<\/em>? Well, it was a random pick from the Netflix menu screen. Thin story, some bad acting, but it does have In Her Prime Jennifer Anniston running around for 90 minutes in a tight tank top, short skirt, and very high heels. She knew how to give the fans what they wanted.<\/p>\n
\nAhh, the series that has a limited number of episodes (eight) that are short enough (all in the 21\u201324 minute range) that you can knock the whole thing out in a few hours. Even better that this is super funny. That said, I don\u2019t think this is a universal show. The humor is often dark and cutting. The main character has lots of flaws so you aren\u2019t necessarily pulling for him. There\u2019s a lot of culture wars content, and it definitely leans one way, which will annoy 30\u201340% of its potential audience. But I really enjoyed it, especially the first 3\u20134 episodes which were a little funnier than the back half.<\/p>\n
\nShorts, YouTubes, etc<\/h3>\n
\nScary space shit.<\/p>\n
\nRon Livingston on Swingers<\/a>
\nVince Vaughn Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters<\/a>
\nSwingers<\/em> content.<\/p>\n
\nThe Vaughn entry above was good. This one was incredible.<\/p>\n
\nIt\u2019s absolutely wild that not only are B\u201352s still operational, the ones currently in service will have nearly 90 years of service logged when they are finally expected to be retired.<\/p>\n
\nKind of cool.<\/p>\n
\nThis doesn\u2019t quite live up to expectations, but still a fascinating time machine to one of the most important days of the 20th century.<\/p>\n
\nA little different than the other Huckberry Homes vids.<\/p>\n
\nGood stuff from The Ringer\u2019s hoops crew.<\/p>\n
\nThis is when AI is cool.<\/p>\n
\n2025 Moon Phases – Southern Hemisphere<\/a>
\nJason Kottke posted this with the observation that blew his mind, and in turn blew mine: the moon looks upside down from your normal perspective if you cross from the northern to southern hemisphere. Or vice versa. Wild!<\/p>\n
\nNine-year-old me would have thought this was the coolest thing I\u2019d ever seen.<\/p>\n
\nSome quick Beau Miles bullshit. Hopefully there\u2019s more to this next month.<\/p>\n
\nCar Content<\/h3>\n
\nLooks incredible. Get back to me when they release a vehicle that checks in at about half the cost of the Gravity.<\/p>\n
\nAs usual, Audi does some things amazingly well, and does some other things amazingly oddly.<\/p>\n
\nPhotography<\/h3>\n
\nA Day In Cincinnati<\/a>
\nExploring One of the World\u2019s Most Beautiful Countries<\/a>
\nSantaCon, London, 2024<\/a>
\nThe Most Important Kind of Photography<\/a><\/p>\n
\nPodcasts<\/h3>\n
\nTrying to mix up my pod routine a bit and Overcast<\/a> recommended this. I listened to the episode about Dungeons & Dragons, which was fun. The host and guest made some great observations about how weird the whole satanic panic related to D&D was. D&D kids were generally good kids with good grades who liked to read, who didn\u2019t do drugs or get into trouble. \u201cSo they must be doing something wrong, right?\u201d seemed to be one argument against D&D. Also, all the demons and whatnot religious types complained about\u2026were the exact things you are trying to destroy if you\u2019re playing D&D! And lots of other just odd stuff that made a select few parents lose their minds and get media attention in the Eighties.<\/p>\n