Category: Holiday

Follow-Up

Just FYI, I was trying to get Bing Image Creator to show me some magical girls celebrating Thanksgiving, and this popped out.

I like how it seems to have confused her Moon Stick with an orange on a fork, or maybe some unholy fusion of an orange and a stemmed wine glass. I also like how her turkey is nestled in a fruit salad. The generator made several similar images, and in all of them, the turkey is surrounded by fruit for some reason.

A few weeks ago, I tried to get it to show me pictures of Secret Jouju because my daughter is a fan. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been trained on that one.

Childermas

It is still Christmas until January 5th, so this is a Christmas post. Today is Childermas, which commemorates the “Massacre of the Innocents” described in Matthew 2:16–18. Chronologically speaking, it might make more sense to have this commemoration after Epiphany, which is January 6th, but so it goes.

Anyway, in honor of this somber day, I have a picture of myself with Magical Girl Number 2. Recently, we visited The One, an annual event in Enid, Oklahoma, which boasts of featuring the largest fresh-cut Christmas tree in the world. It seems a shame to cut such a stately tree for this purpose, but maybe it gets used for firewood afterward. It certainly is impressive to look at.

Posing with Magical Girl #2 in front of The One.
Posing with Magical Girl #2 in front of The One. The rest of my friends are laughing too, just off-screen.

Merry Christmas

It is okay to say merry Christmas still because Christmas is twelve days, not one.

The blog has fallen into neglect (again) since I’ve spent so much of my time on the publication and promotion of Rags and Muffin, a novel I strongly recommend you consider purchasing for your post-Christmas relaxation reading. But I’m now looking to get back into my regular projects since the promotion is, for good or ill, now largely on autopilot. I am working on a planetary romance, but I think I may be able to crank out a collection of Rags and Muffin short stories before I’m done with that one. Stay tuned.

Christmas was a good time for our family. The magical girls and I traveled up to visit my parents, so the little magical girl had four grandparents to dote on her. She also got to meet her cousins for the first time. She’s a very little baby who recently started the stranger-anxiety phase, so I was worried about how that would go, but she warmed up to them with surprising ease. She adored her older cousin, who’s five, though she merely tolerated the younger one, who is about her age, and she occasionally cried when he touched her. She doesn’t like being touched by other babies.

My wife is currently planning the baby’s first birthday party with a Filipino enthusiasm for social gatherings. I worry that the baby is going to cry the whole time with so many strange people visiting our house. Although she was unusually calm for the first several months of her life, she’s reached the point where every little thing that happens to her is high drama. So the birthday is coming at an innoportune time in her emotional development. But so it goes, I guess.

Magical Girl Jack-o’-Lantern Carving

In which I again attempt to carve one of the world’s most famous silhouettes.

Jack-o’-lantern carving is a newly established annaul tradition in our house. Last year, I attempted to carve the famous silhouette of Sailor Moon. It proved too much for my modest skills, and the result was a total loss. This year, despite my wife’s derisive laughter, I made a second attempt.

Pumkin-carving equipment and Sailor Moon stencil.
I gather my tools and my beer and prepare.

We got our pumpkins earlier this month. Like last year, we bought them at the local “Pumpkin Patch,” which is not actually a pumpkin patch but an annual event, like a miniature theme park, where pumpkins are showcased and sold. I didn’t post photos of the Pumpkin Patch this year because all the photos I have include my daughter, and I’m trying to keep pictures of her on the internet to a minimum.

At the start of the jack-o”-lantern making process, I cut a stencil out of paper, a process that probably took an hour. I didn’t save the stencil I used last year, but I was able to find it again with a quick internet search.

Peeling up the cut stencil.
Cutting out the stencil.

Applying the two-dimensional design to the pumpkin’s surface is always a challenge. It’s important to maneuver the paper to keep Sailor Moon’s limbs and the crescent moon from getting distorted.

The stencil on the pumpkin.
The stencil applied to the pumpkin.

Once I got started carving, I realized that I would be better off doing this as a two-tone design. Someday, I may be able to cut this intricate design all the way through the pumpkin, but not this year. Instead, I picked off the skin and much of the meat so the light could shine through.

Sailor Moon picked out of the pumpkin.
I picked out the figure first.

After I finished Sailor Moon’s figure, I cut out the moon shape. This was the most dangerous part as the long curve of the moon weakens the pumpkin considerably.

Sailor Moon pumpkin design complete.
The design is complete when the moon is carved out.

Here, you can see my finished jack-o’-lantern alongside my wife’s. She chose a simple design, but she had a good reason: We were having a party that evening, and she had a lot of other tasks to complete while also pumpkin carving.

Two handsome pumpkins.
Two handsome pumpkins.

Happy St. Valentine’s Day

“>Magical Girl Concept for Dungeon Hunter Champions” by Xuexiang Zhang.

Happy St. Valentine’s Day. In case you don’t know, this holiday is in celebration of a Christian saint and martyr. The earliest hagiography has him martyred under Emperor Claudius II after he tried to convert the emperor to Christianity. A later hagiography asserts that he was executed specifically for marrying Christian couples, and another legend has him sending a love letter to his beloved, possibly a jailer’s daughter. Some of this may be fictional, but it’s possible that multiple Valentines were conflated, and it is also common for real, historal saints to accrete legendary material over time. His feast’s day is associated with romance in part because of a folk legend that birds mate on the fourteenth of February.

This Valentine’s Day has seen significant winter weather across much of the country. Here where I live, we were anticipating a bigger storm than we actually got. The predictions were so bad, my church encouraged parishioners to stay home this Sunday, which we dutifully did, though the actual “storm” turned out to be much milder than some considerably worse blizzards I’ve been out in when I lived farther north.

Staying home, however, gave me opportunity to cook brunch for my wife. She had recently used a bunch of egg whites in a recipe, so I decided to use the left-over yolks to make hollandaise sauce and serve eggs Benedict. It turned out reasonably well, though I don’t think this photo does it justice:

Eggs Benedict with potatoes O'Brien.

In any case, I am still working on preparations to produce volumes 1 and 2 of Jake and the Dynamo in the next few months. Being stuck at home does have its advantages. So stay tuned.

Merry Third Day of Christmas

Image by Yumikuamku.

Merry Second Day of Christmas

Merry Christmas

I can only pop in for a moment. Today is the day the wife and I are celebrating Christmas since she has to work tomorrow. We spent much of the day making Christmas dinner. It was actually kind of nice, it being just the two of us, because we’re still newlyweds and we thought of this as a trial run at cooking a large meal. Not having guests meant it didn’t matter if we screwed up.

We made a ham with a bourbon molasses glaze, mashed potatoes, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, and a pavlova. This is my third experiment with hollandaise sauce … and the first time I’ve made one that came out well, which might tell you something about my cooking skills. On the whole, it was a success, so maybe when we are able to have guests over, we’ll be ready for prime time.

Merry Christmas

I have a movie review coming soon, but I’ve had trouble getting to it. I spent today doing several needful things around the house, including assembling the crib for the new baby.

My wife, who’s a nurse, got an emergency call into work, so after she left, I went ahead and prepared the ham we’re having tomorrow for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, she has to work on Christmas day, but she’s supposed to have tomorrow off, so we’re planning to have our Christmas celebration then. Of course, it’s just the three of us this year, but fortunately, we have a lot of fun together when it’s just the two of us.

Where I’m at, it’s well after nine now that I’m done with my tasks, so I intend to spend what time I have remaining on my manuscript, which has been time-consuming, but which is also nearing completion.

Part of the reason it’s time-consuming is that it’s increasingly obvious that my laptop is on its last legs. I’ve known that for years, but I’m probably not going to be able to put off replacing it much longer. It took about half an hour to get it to turn on without crashing so I could write this. Even so, one of my favorite shortcuts, Ctrl + Left Arrow, has mysteriously stopped working even though the left arrow key and the control key are clearly both operational … I might reboot again when I’m done writing this to see what happens.

Replacing this computer isn’t really in the budget right now, but even my wife has agreed that this machine is ridiculously slow and unreliable.

In any case, merry Christmas, and although I’ll have a review later, maybe on Christmas day, for now, enjoy this image of Christmasy magical girls.

An Account of a Visit from a Magical Girl

Featured image: “Mahou Shoujo Madoka☆Magica Magical Girl Madoka Magica #900086” by SubaruSumeragi.

I think it’s time to bring back this classic. Merry magical-girl Christmas to all!

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the town,
Lots of girls were a-stirring, to beat monsters down.
So they stalked all the baddies that threatened mankind,
For to blast them with magic and kick their behinds.

They crouched in the dark by the chimneys with care,
Or slipped across rooftops—villains beware!
One might wear a kerchief, and one has a cap,
But they all got short skirts, what you think about that?

Then at City Hall, there arose such a clatter,
That Plum Fairy Lyssa soon checked out the matter.
A monster showed up with a roar and a flash,
So Lyssa transformed and got ready to bash!

When what to her wondering eyes should appear,
But a slavering, fanged, and bloodthirsty deer?
’Twas Rudolph! Whose terrible, powerful nose,
Had at last warped his mind with its horrid bright glow!

Our Lyssa, however, so eager to brawl,
Quick leapt like a gymnast atop of a wall.
“Stop there, evil monster!” she said with a scoff,
“You’ve attacked us on Christmas, and that ticks me off!”

The Moon Princess blest her with power and might,
That she might be quick to kick butt in a fight,
To halt evil crooks in the midst of a crime,
Or to battle vile creatures beyond space and time!

Now punch him, now bludgeon! Now blast him with pow’r!
And yet his eyes glowed with a menacing glow’r!
Now kick him, now stab him, now strangle and blitz ’im!
That deer is no match for this young doe-eyed vixen!

At last Rudolph gasped and lay dead at her feet,
As his bright ruby blood ran out into the street.
“I’ve vanquished the creature,” the Plum Fairy mused,
“But why then do I feel as if I still should lose?”

In leapt Marionette, the famed robot girl,
With her magical pencil, which she gave a twirl.
“Young Lyssa, my dear, you have fought well and brave,
But killed poor Rudolph, whom you know you should save.”

“Well, no one has once taught me any of that,”
Said Lyssa, perplexed. (On the ground she now spat.)
“To fight off the monsters that threaten our world,
Is the constant hard job of a magical girl!”

“We fight for mankind, that is certainly true,”
Said Marionette, whose cold fingers turned blue.
“But always remember that we serve the Light—
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a clean fight!”