If you like ballroom dance at all, I highly recommend this relaxed, fun, and affordable event. Put it on your calendar for next year. It looks like New Year’s Eve is on a Saturday in 2011, the championship could be before the Gala Ball on Thursday – Saturday, or after Sunday through Monday.

I hope you all rang in the new year with similar joy and fun. Happy new year!

Well, managed to offend the good pirate Winter Badger with a poorly considered letter, for which I be truly sorry… and then discovered by messenger that repairs to me favorite swimming hole will be delayed indefinitely. Not a very smart day.

Things be looking up considerably once I had a nice long walk to grab some grub, lavish a lingering gaze on a wench or two, and make way back to ship… Me new spectacle lenses are in, and the apothecary is installin’ them now. Soon, I be sailing the calming seas fer home port and a gathering of fellow bilge rats to share some grog and prepare for a boarding party the first full weekend in October.

In case ye be wonderin’ what all dis chatter amongst us privateers is about, please feel free to examine me letter of marque…

talklikeapirate.com September 19th!

I see from the 2008 local observances list that my former co-workers over at AOL are observing the day with big plans; prepare to be boarded!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta

Details and update after the fold…

Last week was delightfully quiet at work, so I hooked up an old desktop PC with Windows XP Pro (corporate install image) and have been slowly building it with useful and defensible software. It was also a very short week because we took two days off to compete at Yuletide Ball. A huge thanks to Ann, Dan, and Pranu for nudging us to go to this great event, and a huge thanks to Darryl and Michele for letting us go with their studio: The Ballroom Studio of Centreville. Erci danced a solo (aka: showcase) with Pranu, a Waltz. She also did competitive heats with Darryl and with me. Ann and Dan did fabulously, and we did well on Saturday (American Rhythm) but I woke up Sunday with a muscle knot in my neck and did less well in our American Smooth heats. We had a fabulous time, and I got a surprise benefit of getting to dance with Susan who needed a stand in for David who was sick (sorry David!). Maxim Kozhevnikov & Yulia Zagoryuchenko did a thrilling dance show with an stunning Jive routine. I can’t think of a better way to bring in the new year than being with a bunch of friends dancing and having a great time.

We’d have loved to take our instructors from the Tysons Corner Arthur Murray studio, but they could not attend (pout). This event was our first non-Arthur Murray event and there were a lot of similarities, but also some differences. There was a lot of fantastic dancing, both competitive heats (like a freestyles) and solo routines (like a showcase). There were several studios present, from all over the Eastern seaboard, but also as far away as Pheonix, AZ and Missouri. The studios were mostly unaffiliated, but some were from Arthur Murray franchises in other states. The biggest difference is that we students are free to dance with other students (in both heats and solos) and sometimes students dance with teachers from two or more unrelated studios. I really like that aspect, as we have long wanted to dance competitively or do a showcase with friends at our local Arthur Murray studio but not been permitted to. We’ll continue going to our local studio as we love our teachers there and many, many of the students; but we will also be taking lessons at some other studios more regularly to add some variety.

Today we started the new year right with a fantastic New Year’s day gongyo (chanting) and meeting with Fair Oaks Area Soka Gakkai in Centreville for the first time ever (much closer to home, woo hoo!). We heard a wonderful experience and made strong determinations for the new year. We had a yummy lunch with Richard and Howard at Minerva in Chantilly before coming home to feed Bailey the cat and process the laundry from Yuletide Ball.

Happy New Year! Be safe, warm, and share compassion with all those around you this winter.

Basically I think Neely has this pegged on the nose:

1. many Americans are concerned about the over commercialization of Christmas
2. most Americans are not concerned about wether a store has “Happy Holidays” or “Merry Christmas” on their posters
3. most healthy Christians are not offended by the phrase “Happy Holidays“
4. most non-Christians are not offended by the phrase “Merry Christmas“
5. the few people who are concerned, are really more concerned that they no longer control the public holiday, the family, the social compact, and the center stage than they are about the true meaning of Christmas
6. the last week of December is probably not the anniversary of the birth of Jesus, that is more likely to be sometime in September, though we probably will never know
7. the last week of December is the proper time to celebrate many holidays, but especially Yule and Saturnalia, so let the parties begin!

The date many Americans celebrate as Christmas was first set in 395 by an early Christian Church that desperately wanted more converts. They figured that by setting a major Christian holiday amid the widely popular pagan celebration of Saturnalia, conversion would be easier for them to attract converts. It also coincided with the traditional Northern European celebration of Yule, which has to do more with the darkest days following winter solstice. Puritans did not celebrate Christmas because they were horrified by the free use of clearly pagan symbols (holly, drinking heavily, gift exchange).

We ran into most of La Belle Company and many more active and former SCA members at yorkshirelad and melaniesuzanne‘s party. Ran into kfitzwarin for the first time in years (I have always had a crush on her), and her new (to me) and very cool husband. The hosts for this party have a fabulous apartment, and it was decorated beautifully. Sadly, we did not stay long enough because we wanted to spend some time at sutragirl‘s work party.

We finished Saturday evening at the Marine Scene party over at Tom and Tina’s beautiful place, where their neighbors had re-positioned their decorative deer. Fajitas were awesome and much tequila was enjoyed, and the folks at Marine Scene play a pretty cut-throat white elephant gift exchange where a bottle of Patron was stolen 4 times after it was opened!

Sunday we had the monthly La Belle Company meeting and maille tailoring workshop. Tom showed off his fabulous new Landgraf long sword from Albion. After the meeting, a few of us stopped by Steve and Nadyne’s annual holiday gathering where we got to see how much Katherine, Helen, and Gordon have grown! Yet more current and former SCA friends (there is a bit of a theme here, but I have not figured it out yet). Insert usual medieval martial arts discussion and study of fight books (Fiore, Talhoffer, etc.) as you will.

Bah Humbug.

I usually tell people not to buy me anything, and only to give things to me that they made themselves.

This year I don’t feel so grumpy about it, and I am not sure why.

I still feel that people who carry any debt at all other than a mortgage on their home and a car loan should not be buying holiday gifts for others. If you owe your bank anything each month, pay them off. Stop the blood-suckers from bleeding you dry. That comes before giving gifts in the list of priorities.

However, for those who are living debt-free, I am feeling a bit relaxed about the whole holiday gift-exchange thing. Perhaps I am inspired by the ever-lovely prehensile_wit, who suggests that we all go pre-order copies of Serenity so that Joss can make more shows like Firefly and movies like Serenity! What a brilliant idea! I’ve already ordered two copies – and someone will be lucky this season (or shortly after, I a such a cheapskate than I went for the free 5-9 day shipping option).

Here is my real wish list:

World Peace. I know that is a lot to ask for, but I believe we can do it one person at a time. Do something to make someone around you happy. Happy people are a huge step in the right direction, and a world full of happy people is a peaceful world. So, think a bit – and focus on helping someone who is unhappy find a little happiness this season.

That’s really about it. I could list many other things, but let’s focus on this one first.

Spanglish good clean fun. I have been wanting to catch this for ages, and it finally came up on HBO and got captured on the Displayer for viewing. I normally do not like Adam Sandler, but he managed another decent role here, and Paz Vega is amazing as Flor.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon looks to be beautiful, but our Netflix copy was scratched on arrival (that does not happen very often, only about three out of 60 discs so far), and it had to go back only partially viewed. It looks to be beautifully shot depiction of Francis of Assisi. though some of the costumes look a little anachronistic.

Rome (the HBO and BBC series) is really shaping up to be awesome. The physical settings, clothing, and material goods are 95% spot on dead accurate, which is astonishing for a mainstream production. I guess having so many great living history groups in England is really helping producers get this stuff right finally. There are some occasionally glaring anachronisms, but they are few and far between (stirrups!?). The show is making a point of graphically portraying a society with social morals very different from our own, and I love that about it. There have been scenes with full frontal male nudity, and scenes were servants and slaves of the great magnates of Rome stand by ready to serve their masters while their master have passionate intercourse. The raunchier side of Rome is show perhaps a bit too much, but I think they may be catering to a demand from their audience. I confess I was slow to warm up to this series because I saw it as bumping Carnivale off the air (grrr!) – but I have to confess Rome probably has much wider appeal.

24 was playing all day on Friday, and it is quite riveting, I was getting hooked by the end of the day. I totally missed this when it was in it’s first run, but wow the acting is great (though I saw several continuity and logic flaws that I’d probably have not noticed except for the all day marathon nature of my viewing them). Great stuff, I may have to find season two someday when I am home sick.

Donnie Darko – WOW! I cannot believe I missed this in on screen or even in the first rental runs of the DVDs. My SciFi buddies who saw it let me down by not making me go see this awesome causal time loop adventure. Stunning, beautiful, and artistic the way Dark City is, but far more intellectually engaging. If you have not see it, go rent Donnie Darko now. If you liked Being John Malkovich or Memento or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you will like Donnie Darko too. Thanks very much Katrina for raving about Donnie Darko, I would not have seen it but for your recommendation.