Page 29 – Burning the midnight oil at noon

24 Days of Quarantine Fun – Day 18: Drink!

Alright guys, this one’s easy. It’s the last Friday before Xmas Week, and you’re probably more than a bit stressed. I mean, maybe not for the same reasons as you would be in any other year, but the lockdowns and restrictions are getting us all bummed out. Next week is going to be… well, probably relatively quiet. But imagine that it’s not 2020 and we’re heading into the whirlwind that is the week before Xmas.

Back to the point: It’s Friday! Tonight, your only job is to sit back, put your feet up, and get yourself sloshed. Okay, maybe not sloshed, but get yourself a nice buzz-on and let your troubles melt away. Pop on some of those holiday specials/movies that you’ve picked out, and just forget the world for a while. Unless, of course, you have issues with alcohol. In which case maybe just brew yourself a nice cup of tea or something. It’s not quite the same, but it’ll do in a pinch.

Me, I’ve got a big box of beer to work through. It’s been a really long time since I bought a case of beer, and Lockdown Xmas seemed like the perfect time. Even outside of this time of year, it feels so nice to crack a beer or two on a Friday evening to celebrate making it to the end of another week. Knowing me, though, I’ll probably spend most of my night nursing the first bottle and pass out on the couch by 9:30.

24 Days of Quarantine Fun – Day 17: Exercise!

You know, it’s getting to that time of year when you just want to stay inside as much as possible, and holiday gatherings abound with way too much food. Well, maybe not so much the gatherings this year, but you get what I mean.

The point is, make sure that you take the time to get some exercise in, whatever shape that may take in the Year of the Lockdown. Exercising regularly is important for keeping your bod in good shape, but it’s also good for your state of mind. You might be going a little stir-crazy, stuck alone at home all the time, and stressed out by the frigid weather. Working out can definitely help to put you in a better head space and kill some of that “down time” that I’ve been hearing so much about.

Of course, you’ve probably guessed that I’m writing about exercise specifically to give myself an outlet to talk about Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise. And to that, I say, you’re absolutely correct.

24 Days of Quarantine Fun – Day 16: Video games!

Oh me gosh, finally.

Video games! They’re something I know! Though not necessarily something that’s overly holiday-related. At least, not at a high level. Once you start drilling down, there are definitely a ton of things that I could use this blog post for. But I’m gonna pick two.

Firstmost: Find a game you like, and just play the snow level. This is going to be pretty cut-and-dry in most cases, as a ton of games have a wide variety of stock themes for different stages or worlds, and almost always there’s an ice/snow level. Most of the times those even incorporate jingle bells into the background music, because they make any song feel more wintry.

My personal choice would be Freezeezy Peak from Banjo-Kazooie. It’s a snow level with a giant snowman dominating the bulk of the stage, but also you have presents and festive trees and other holiday-type things strewn about around his feet. Several of the stage’s challenges involve interacting with these elements in some way, like one that has you keeping little light bulbs safe as they work their way towards a tree to light it up. It’s about halfway through the game, so you’ll have to play a bit to get there, but I think it’s a really good level for getting into the festive spirit.

Secondmost: Find a game that reminds you of the holiday season and play that. We all subconsciously tie tastes and sounds and smells to events in our life, and video games are no exception to this rule. For the last few years, when the holiday season rolls around, I always get a hankering to play either Xenoblade Chronicles X or Pokémon Picross, as those were both released in December of 2015 and tie very strongly to pleasant memories I have of that particular Xmas. Sometimes I also have little memory flashes of Silent Hill: Origins, which I got as an Xmas gift in 2007, started playing that very same day, and then never played again. Not because I didn’t like it, of course! Probably just because I was busy with other things and it fell off my radar. I kind of want to try to start playing it again this Xmas, but we’ll see. My PSP… doesn’t see much action these days.

Anyway! Video games! Play them! Possibly try to make them relevant to the season in some way or another!

24 Days of Quarantine Fun – Day 15: Arts and crafts

Living in a tiny condo with very limited storage space, I’ve had to scale back pretty significantly on how many holiday decorations I have. I’m down to one big plastic tub each for both Halloween and Xmas – a far cry from the much more plentiful decorations I had when I owned a house.

I don’t know how this really relates at all to my topic for today, but that’s the intro I wrote. It’s somewhat related, but not really enough to be an actually good introduction. I’ll keep it anyway because I’m a crap writer and I want to make sure that people know that.

Anyway! Today’s goal is to root around your living space, find some craftable materials, and make yourself a new holiday decoration. Me, I’ve got a big pile of cardboard, some coloured construction paper, a bag of cotton balls, and a sharpie. What could I possibly be playing at here? It doesn’t at all seem like I’ve pre-planned a very specific project for this blog entry. No, sir.

It’s Cardboard Santa! Golly gee! How incredible!

All goofing aside, I had a lot of fun with this. I haven’t done crafts since grade school, so it was something completely out of my wheelhouse, and it’s fun to do different things once in a while. As long as they don’t require very much in the way of time or financial commitment, of course.

24 Days of Quarantine Fun – Day 14: Go for a walk

I know what you’re thinking – I’m out of ideas and sick of writing these daily entries. You’re… not entirely wrong.

But this is a real thing that I’m advocating! It’s not just filler like Elf Bowling was! I think that taking a half hour out of your day to go for a winter walk is such a nice, relaxing activity. And you may very well need it after a stressful Monday at the office. I know I often do.

I find that the best times to go out are either early in the morning, or somewhere after dinnertime, when fewer people are out and about creating a ruckus. Natural calm and quiet tend to make for the best walks. The evening is especially nice for a winter walk, when the sun is down and there are lots of decorative lights to enjoy. Even just the regular streetlights and whatnot can lend a calming iridescence to the snow-covered landscapes.

This is all assuming that the weather is decent, of course. You go out on a windy day and you’re going to have a bad time. But if there’s no wind, you could feasibly go out when it’s like -15 and not be too uncomfortable. Bonus points if there’s a light snowfall in progress.

I, in fact, went out for a very pleasant stroll on Saturday, and it was the exact day that winter really started to show up. About -6 or so, with no wind and just the lightest of snowfalls. Basically, the perfect day for a walk. If only I had spent more time enjoying the snow-covered scenery, instead of being totally absorbed by Pokémon GO. But such is the burden we bear on Community Day!

24 Days of Quarantine Fun – Day 13: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Earlier this year, there was a massive online outrage over the purchase of the Peanuts specials by Apple. I didn’t follow it too closely, so I think that people assumed this meant that the specials would no longer be shown on TV, and the collective internet freaked the heck out.

But then Apple confirmed that the specials would still be on TV, and the galaxy was at peace once again.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is the only Peanuts special I’ve ever felt compelled to purchase on physical media. Possibly because it’s the only one I would watch annually on TV as a kid. I’m pretty sure I stopped watching it once I outgrew YTV, and that it was completely purged from my mind at that point, because when I started watching it again in recent years, it felt like I was watching it for the first time again.

You probably know the special – it’s about Charlie Brown becoming disillusioned by the commercialization of Christmas, and trying to find ways to properly get himself in the holiday spirit. It’s a little preachy, and I think that every holiday special that came after would project the same general message. By the time 1970 rolled around, “the true meaning of Christmas” would be a dead horse, beaten year-after-year by every holiday episode and special ever made. Or at least that’s my perception of it.

The funny thing is, I don’t know how much I actually like this special. I watch it because it’s tradition, but I don’t really get a whole lot out of it. There aren’t any especially funny scenes, nothing that really makes me feel particularly strongly in any way, not quotes that I feel compelled to parrot out at every opportunity. Mostly I just spend a lot of time thinking about how much time they pad with that same shot of all the kids dancing in the auditorium.

If I had to make a recommendation… Maybe watch It’s Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown, which is the 1990 special. It’s not incredible either, but at least it’s got some jokes. It also has a lot of Peppermint Patty and Marcie, who are my favourite duo of the Peanuts gang.

24 Days of Quarantine Fun – Day 12: DIE HARD

It’s the best holiday movie. I will not waver on this.

Man, it’s DIE HARD. What else do you want me to say? I watch this every year. Though if I’m honest, it’s typically on in the background while I’m baking cookies or doing something else. I don’t remember the last time I sat down to watch this movie with complete focus from start-to-finish, but maybe 2020 is the year. Maybe 2020 will also be the year that I watch Die Hard 2 for the… second time ever?

24 Days of Quarantine Fun – Day 11: Elf Bowling

It’s December 1998. The world is a simpler, kinder place. The internet is still young, and social media is thankfully many years away. My family doesn’t even have the internet yet, so I don’t even know what it’s used for at this point. It’s just a thing that I hear people talk about now and then.

Then one fateful day, my uncle introduces us all to the biggest phenomenon of the decade: Elf Bowling.

24 Days of Quarantine Fun – Day 10: Festive Cookies

Come on. This is basic. Do I even really have to write anything?

I suppose that I could try to give out some ideas on making more creative cookies, but… I usually just go with the classic chocolate chip. Toss some red and green sprinkles on there and suddenly they’re seasonally appropriate. Oh, and when I’m doing a batch just for me, I also apply just the tiniest bit of peppermint flavour. I’m a big fan, but focus group testing has suggested that most people aren’t into it. An unrelated test showed that those same people are big dumb poopy-heads.

Truth be told, I did actually go all out last year. I dyed half of my cookies green and half of them red. I then glued one of each together with some vanilla icing to make really incredible chocolate chip cookie sandwiches. They were probably the best cookies I’ve ever made. And then at both Xmas and New Year’s, everyone proceeded to ignore them completely and I ended up taking them all home to eat myself, resulting in me re-gaining all the excess weight that I’d lost over the course of the year.

And that’s why I’ll never bring anything to family gatherings again.

24 Days of Quarantine Fun – Day 9: Holiday Reading

I don’t know about you, but I sure as heck don’t have any reading material that’s holiday-appropriate by any means. There may be some good holiday novels out there, but in my experience it’s all sappy dreck. So I don’t know why I thought that this was a good idea.

Oh, wait! There’s a faint glimmer of light in the darkness – comics!

Yep, I’ve pored over all the comics I own (which is not many, but probably still more than you would assume), and I’ve found… exactly one special issue. Well, it’s something!

From Hack/Slash Omnibus Volume 4, we have The Gift of Hack/Slash. Now, you’re probably not familiar with Hack/Slash, and honestly I wouldn’t blame you for it. This is a comic series which -to put it very briefly- is about a duo of vigilantes who hunt down “slashers”, which is a cute way of saying “villains inspired by horror movies”. And also sometimes there are crossovers with actual villains from horror movies.

Truth be told, this isn’t really even much of a holiday special. It’s four pages long and you have to squint really hard to see any holiday-related meaning. It’s all in that cover. And that’s all I’ve got.

I did once win a more holiday-themed novel as part of a raffle prize basket, but I immediately gave it to my mom because it was clearly just shlocky romantic nonsense. And I do not tolerate romance in my shlocky nonsense.