It’s been a terrible year and a bizarre holiday season, but the Lego Advent Calendar delivered traditional Christmas cheer. I think we all needed this.
I’m glad I opened the calendar. I had fun. Sorry for all the He-Man talk. (DID YOU KNOW HIS MOM WAS FROM EARTH? SHE WAS AN ASTRONAUT!)
And now the calendar must be emptied, the final surprise revealed.
We know what’s coming. It’s… Continue reading
We’re not having any family or friend holiday parties this year, and yet the amount of things that need doing is just as long. It’s the mystery of Christmas. Even when no Christmas exists, there is still Christmas.
I am mildly stressed. Though holiday stress is not the same as Covid-19 stress. Holiday stress is a tickle behind the ear. Covid-19 stress is a brick to the throat.
How are you doing? Are you taking care of yourself? Drinking water? Getting sleep? Seeking revenge on those who wronged you?
I hope today’s Lego item helps us all manage.
It’s… Continue reading
It’s a dark winter night. The air is as sharp as needles. I’m on my eighth cup of coffee as I sit in my car waiting…and waiting. The radio crackles and cackles a Christmas song sung by a long-dead crooner. I wait. Merry Christmas? We’ll see.
The waiting is the job. The chasing? That’s the fun. It’s been two hours without a sign. But I know better than to give up. I check my watch. I check my pistol. I check my knife. It’s habit.
Then a flash of headlights. I hear the wet grumble of filthy street snow as the weighty van approaches. I stiffen. And then I relax. No good getting tight. You get tight, you get killed. That’s the rule.
The van stops. The driver steps out. I don’t know him. And if it all goes as planned, I never will. But sometimes the plan fades away in the fog of a discharged firearm. Not today. Today is a good day.
I see what I need to see. I see it all go down. I’ve seen enough. I start the engine. I drive away casually. No cause for alarm. I reach my favorite pay phone, the one at Reggie’s Diner where the food all tastes like nicotine and regret.
I send a dime into the phone. A woman’s voice answers on the first ring. This dame is frantic. I tell her to take a drink. I tell her to take a breath. And I tell her what I saw.
I saw the package. And her item has been received by the local post office. It should arrive tomorrow
It’s gonna be a merry Christmas…for someone.
And I go back out into the night. Another box to hunt. Another gift to spot.
I’m a package tracker.
It’s the job.
I don’t carry a badge. I carry scars. And a scanner.
Excerpt from my hard crime novel Death on a Doorstep: The Gavin Hurlock Files.
Anyway. Lego!
Today we get… Continue reading
Spend this week however you’d like.
Go all in on the holidays. Do nothing at all. Bake cookies. Bake leftover pizza. Read quietly in bed. Binge Schitt’s Creek. Sit in the dark drinking room temperature coffee. Start to suspect your neighbor of treason based on the number of times he checked the mail which correlates directly to the number of times you’ve been stung by a bee. Make brownies. Sing carols. Shout carols. Whisper carols.
Whatever you do is good and great. You don’t owe this holiday anything.
You don’t need to go shopping. You don’t need to wear the special pajamas if you don’t want. You don’t need to count the number of shingles on your neighbor’s roof and in doing so decipher coordinates to “The Mongoose.”
You do you.
I do I.
And I do Lego. Today we find…
I’ve read 25 books this year. My goal was to read 12. I crushed my goal like a beer can! And then I crushed a real beer can! And I screamed, “Literature!”
By far the best book I read was Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry. I began this 1,000-page cowboy epic at the beginning of the pandemic when everyone was saying we’d need to stay indoors for two entire weeks in March.
Two weeks. Hahahahahahahaha…ha…[sobs softly]
Lonesome Dove was a great escape. I cannot recommend it enough. Even if you hate westerns and cattle, it’s a wonderful work of storytelling.
More highlights of my reading challenge include Susan Orlean’s The Library Book and Wool, by Hugh Howey.
The other books I read this year were all different shades of “just okay.” But I enjoyed reading them while I was reading them. Does that make sense?
I’m aiming for 21 books in 2021. That’s doable…considering some of the “books” I read in 2020 included a Goosebumps and an Incredible Hulk graphic novel.
You can follow my reading journey on Goodreads. It’s a horrible site that seems to be designed by a dog sniffing at keys on a keyboard, but it’s a simple tool to keep track of what I read so that my life has some value.
I AM THE THINGS I CONSUME!
The Lego Advent Calendar is coming to a close but there are still surprises to discover! Today we find… Continue reading
Star Wars is in the air. I won’t dare spoil The Mandalorian, but this season has been wonderful. I loved it. Merry Christmas to me!
Because Star Wars is in the air, I read a Star Wars book this month. Thrawn, by Timothy Zahn. It was fun. Not high-literature, but fun. Lots of spaceships and shoot-em-ups. I don’t really know much about the character Thrawn, but I still enjoyed it.
The last Star Wars book I read was Heir to the Empire, also by Timothy Zahn. I was twelve. It was a big deal.
In the late 80s, Star Wars was not in the air. It was at its lowest point — something barely floating around the pop culture landscape. Like He-Man is today. (Place your bets, folks. He-Man will make a Star Wars-esque comeback in the coming years! It will be bigger than Pokemon! Bigger than Marvel! Bigger than Mank! INVEST NOW!)
We still loved Star Wars in 1989, but all we had were three movies. That’s it. There were no new movies, no cartoons, and certainly not a dozen new, big-budget TV shows on the horizon.
You could watch the three movies, and then watch them again, and then dream about what would happened next. And then we all got bored with our own brains and played Mario Kart.
Star Wars warmed up again in the 90s with news of a Star Wars sequel. It was a book, but it was still a sequel. Heir to the Empire was exciting! It was new! It was real! Finally we could learn what happened to Han, Luke and Leia!
I was pumped. I got the book that summer and remember reading it at the local pool. I read about half of it and got bored and played Tetris or whatever. All I remember about the book is that there was a Wookiee who spoke English. I’m sure the book is good — Star Wars fans seem to dig it — but since Disney torpedoed that whole library of Expanded Universe stories, and because I’ve had 20 years to finish the book but didn’t, I doubt I’ll ever finish it.
I also can’t find my copy. I may have sold it at a yard sale for 50-cents. Don’t tell Mr. Zahn. Or Admiral Thrawn. Hey, their names rhyme!!!!
Lucas, Luke.
Zahn, Thrawn.
That’s something!
Today’s Lego item is… Continue reading
Last night was the 8th night of Hanukkah and the grand finale of the Santa Menorah.
Good time.
I have to keep this short because I need to dig my car out of the snow. I haven’t driven it in two days, so it’s safe to assume an entire family of rodents or bears or feral dachshunds have taken up residence under the hood.
I don’t know why animals are so attracted to my car. My car is the goddamn Snow White of automobiles, summoning creatures of all shapes and sizes. I’ll let you know if I find any poisoned apples or diminutive old men inside. What’s the best number to reach you?
Behind today’s calendar door is… Continue reading
The last movie I saw in a movie theater was Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
The movie was mostly bad.
More importantly, this has been the longest I’ve gone without visiting a movie theater since I can remember. There might be a few months in my life without a movie theater experience, but never an entire year.
When she was “very” pregnant with me, my mom asked the doctor if it was okay to go to the movies so she and my aunt could see Grease. (My name may or may not have been influenced by that film.) So it’s within the realm of reason to say I’ve been to the movies before I was born. And it explains how the hand-jive was encoded into my DNA.
Even with a vaccine, I can’t imagine going to the theater for at least another 6 months, probably longer. And that’s assuming theaters will still exist.
Yes, there are billions of streaming movies to watch at home. But it’s not the same. I miss the big screen, the popcorn, the trailers, laughing together, screaming together, inhaling mucus droplets from dozens of strangers. It was a shared experience. I miss it.
I probably sound like your great-great grandfather lamenting the loss of vaudeville. GET OFF MY LAWN WITH YOUR LOUSY FORTNITE AND YOUR TICKY-TOCKS!
Now that we’re all bummed out, here are some Lego bits and pieces. Today we find… Continue reading
A Nor’easter is approaching.
That’s what they call major snow storms up here in the north eastern region of the country. A Nor’easter. It’s a wildly inventive name. Not even Dr. Seuss himself could create such a nutty name!
We might get a foot of snow, which isn’t much but enough to keep everyone indoors for 24 hours. Snow day!
Though after a year of lockdowns, a single snow day is like baking a single cookie. The ingredients were already out. Might as well add one more to the batch.
Today’s Lego item is… Continue reading
You may ask, “Dan, what do you do with the Lego bricks after December?” And I answer with a sinister smile.
One possible reason the past year has been so off balance is that I obliterated the laws of physics using Lego. And now the gods are angry.
Behold!
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I built this a few months ago.
This unholy sculpture is called a Tensegrity Structure. The push and pull of forces and tension make this balancing oddity possible. It’s a fun experiment to try. Easy too. Just get some Lego and some yarn or string. However, I’m sure befouling nature thusly summons evil and chaos. And for that, I am sorry.
Tensegrity is also cool because it sounds like a new, low-calorie snack food.
I hope today’s Lego Calendar item is as awe-inspiring as tensegrity! Continue reading