It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (The Paul Oakenfold Mix)
December 7th, 2005 - 8:03 pm
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The Paul Oakenfold Mix. Dang, Steve, you just got 18.34% hipper in my estimation.
And, admittedly, my estimation of your hipness is rather small beer, as they say.
Cor! I was just thinking the same thing. At least 19%.
Someone has waaay too much spare time on their hands!
I would like your indulgence to post something here that is a little off topic but really on target.
Thank you.
A DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS POEM
The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.
The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
a lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
“What are you doing?” I asked without fear,
“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!”
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..
To the window that danced with a warm fire’s light.
Then he sighed and he said “Its really all right,
I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.”
“It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I’m proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at ‘Pearl on a day in December,”
Then he sighed, “That’s a Christmas ‘Gram always remembers.”
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ‘Nam,’
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.
I’ve not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he’s sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue… an American flag.
“I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.”
“So go back inside,” he said, “harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I’ll be all right.”
“But isn’t there something I can do, at the least,
“Give you money,” I asked, “or prepare you a feast?”
It seems all too little for all that you’ve done,
For being away from your wife and your son.”
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
“Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we’re gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with that we will trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.
Totally off topic for my blog….
….but you need to see this anyway. It’s an incredible Christmas light display, set to music and controlled by a computer. (It doesn’t say that, but to me it’s obvi…
That would give me a real headache.
Very impressive light show. However, it’s also kinda seizure-inducing.
Shut down due to traffic accident? I’m on the wireless innerweb right now and can’t verify by downloading the video…
Actually in the EDM community Paul Oakenfold is considered ‘a complete sellout.’ And any mention of him, that isn’t derisive, is considered totally un-hip.
Hispters find it a complete injustice that he commands $50+ tickets for admission, while someone like Ben Sims can barely fill a mid-size basement club.
(I don’t necessarily share in their anger, just saying.)
This one could easily win awards for most amazing christmas display and most horribly annoying neighbor all at the same time.
What a nightmare it would be living next door.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.
Very sad
On the other hand, I would love to see te controller boards he brewed up for this.
Oakenfold? That’s so Matrix-soundtrack. Look, anyone whose album art can be located by a sharewear iTunes plug-in is a SELL-OUT.
If I lived next door to that… whatever it is… I’d last about five minutes before getting out ye ‘ol gas can, and chasing it with ye ‘ol zippo.
I watched just the first tiny bit, had to go tuck the kids in bed and didn’t watch the rest and I *still* had dreams about it. In my dream it was actually a civic display viewed from one of the bridges over San Fracisco Bay. Too weird.
I wouldn’t want to live next to it either, but I couldn’t help but think that it must have been a lot of fun to create.
would have to be a community project that only happened one night. otherwise I’d lynch the guy whose house it was, and I think that I’d likely have helped to set it up if it was a one time only thing.
just like those people that go all out with the lights so that people drive by their house from all over. absolutely horrible! lights should be impressive, especially in conjunction with the neighbours, but not IMPRESSIVE!
the display was soundless. the sound could only be heard through an fm radio. so the neighbors at least weren’t bothered by the noise. the lights on the other hand…
the display only was on for two days before it was voluntary shut off.
Adventures of a first-time homeowner, pt. 5
This weekend’s project is hanging Christmas lights. Yes they’re Christmas lights; not “holiday” lights, not “festivus” lights, not “chrismahanakwanzica” lights. Christmas lights.
I was checking out the roof overhangs around the garage and found th…
My only quibble is that the “Peace Through Superior Firepower” logo visible in some of the sequences has the B-52′s wings set too far back.
TO: Stephen Green
RE: Wrong
It reminds me of a genetcially modified airport night approach visual aid cross bread with the Death Star.
Interesting? Yes.
Christmas? Hardly….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. But only a christian would say something like THAT.
P.S. My approach is to adorn the surrounding foliage with lights in celebration of their type.
Leafless – white.
Evergreen – green.
Anything with red berries – red added. That’s the holly and the low spreading japanese thing too. Then there’s the unidentifiable shrub that has no leaves, but lots of red berries on it, this year.
Perwinkle – blue. Amongst the English Ivy on the east side, it’s a very nice mix.
The 100+ year old double-blossum becthal crab apple at the corner gets the REAL light show; 15 strands of 8-function random whites. Traffic slows to observe….
Wow.
Again: WOW. Via Vodkapundit…