And life starts returning to normal…

The tree is up and decorated, there’s only one dead string of lights on it now (artificial, a few years old, came pre-lit — and when we take it down, we’ll strip the lights and put new ones on next year….). Much to my amusement, I have finished my christmas shopping — everything will be in-house by Wednesday, everything that’s already here is wrapped and under the tree, and I’m not going to be in a panic this week.

I’ve also finished my shopping for the trip; going to Yosemite in December in a light “Bay area” jacket seemed insane, so I now own a proper winter coat, and added some clothing to replace a few pieces I decided needed retiring.

And I finished the tech review of Shelley’s book.

So I can finally relax a bit and enjoy the holiday; I still have stuff at work to do, but it’s in good shape right now (all the critical paths are elsewhere, temporarily), but I can finally start thinking about writing more and doing things on my list that are for me and less on finishing out committments to others (first stop: some revisions to www.siliconvalleybirder.org).

And I think the first thing I’m going to do now that I’m off of everyone’s critical path for now is — well, sleep. Blogging can wait.

But I did have to gloat about the christmas shopping a bit. I know a number of you out there are grinding your teeth right about now, freaking about getting it all done. We all take out quiet pleasures where we can get them.

I did give myself a little gift today. I was actually looking to see if iTunes had a copy of Christmas Story available for download (unfortunately, no; it’s a bit of a tradition here with myself and Laurie) — but I found that one of my favorite bad films of all time was there: Vincent Price in Theater of Blood. I’m definitely looking forward to wasting a couple of hours enjoying it.

It is in a way the ultimate Vincent Price — he plays a Shakespearean Actor (named Edward Lionheart — doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know about this film?) with a much higher self-view than the audiences and critics have of him. When he’s passed over for an award he’s convinced himself he deserves to wins, he goes a bit bonkers and throws himself off a building to his death.

Or — well, suddenly, the members of the critics guild start dying in weird and grisly ways, each one a variation of a classic death in a Shakespeare play. How — coincidental.

Price does his best at acting bad Shakespeare well. it’s easy to be a bad actor — it’s surprisingly tough to do a good job of acting badly, but here, he pulls it off.

Also found in this movie, when she’s not trying to find and burn the negatives, is Emma Peel. Oh, sorry, actress Diana Rigg as Price’s daughter. I think I just dated myself; guys of my age will get it. the rest of you will be hopelessly confused…

I think it’s hard to enjoy Shakespeare without learning to love Bad Shakespeare. Sometimes Bad Shakespeare is the best there is, in fact. And this movie tops the list of Bad Shakespeare done well

Olivier? well, not exactly. But such a fun way to waste a rainy evening…

Oh and if you like this sort of stuff, anotehr to check out is Vincent Price trying to sing his way through Ruddigore. It’s not on iTunes, but it is on Netflix. it was done by D’Oyly Carte, a group that actually does Gilbert and Sullivan well — but for some reason decided it needed to bring in some name stars for a series of productions for PBS back in the 80′s. Price in Ruddigore is fun, and not all that terrible, but god — William Conrad in Mikado? Also on Netflix, and priceless. Although as long as I’m pushing weird Gilbert and Sullivan (yes, in case you weren’t already convinced, I am a twisted and sick soul…), please, please check out Eric Idle’s 1987 version, set in the 1930′s on the British seaside in a resort. I swear to god, I kept waiting for Captain Spaulding to arrive for his song and dance…

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