Okay, the week-long Year-End Party starts here, and now!

[capri0mni]

To kick things off, here are some ice-breaker questions. Since my intention is to focus on The Happy, they're all questions about favorites. Since this party will last seven days, there are seven questions:

1. What is your favorite holiday--any holiday--memory? It could be the holidays people usually mean when they say: "Happy Holidays!" or it could be Halloween, or Arbor Day, or Star Wars Day, or Thursday the 20th, or your best friend's birthday, or... whatever.
   
   
2. What's your favorite treat to eat when you're in a celebratory mood?
   
   
3. What's your favorite holiday song? (And yes, my definition of "holiday" covers anything you want it to)
   
   
4. Do you have a favorite YouTube channel? If so, what is it?
   
   
5. What was your favorite piece of media from 2018? (It could have been produced this year, or any year. It could have been mass-produced and sold to the public, or it could have been a bit of privately made ephemera, like a doodle in the margin of a page, whatever.... Just something you've seen this year that you really, really like)
   
   
6. What's your favorite cryptid?
   
   
7. What's your favorite meme?

---

My Answers:

1. When I was in high school, our eccentric art teacher decided to teach an elective where we built a giant, hollow, paper mache dragon, big enough for the nursery school and kindergarten kids to climb around in and on. And this would be "The Dragon of Winter." And, come May Day, we, as a school, would take the dragon out to our soccer field and burn it, to usher in the life-giving power of the spring. On May Day, all afternoon classes were cancelled, and we spent the last 2 hours or so singing songs, and watching Morris Dancing (our physics teacher was the member of a troupe), and dancing 'round the May Pole. It culminated with our biology teacher, in a mask, jogging out from the woods behind the soccer field with a bow and arrow. And shot a flaming arrow into the dragon. The first arrow was a dud. The second arrow was a dud. The third arrow resulted in the expected bonfire, and from the flames, buoyed by the hot air, a "dragon ghost" made of white rice paper (iirc) rose from inside the giant dragon we had made. And our biology teacher made a pose like this: \o/

2. Chocolate brownies, topped with whipped cream.

3. GLOUCESTERSHIRE WASSAIL

Wassail, wassail all over the town
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown
Our bowl it is made of the white maple tree
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee

So here is to Cherry and to his right cheek
Pray God send our master a good piece of beef
And a good piece of beef that may we all see
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee

And here is to Dobbin and to his right eye
Pray God send our master a good Christmas pie
A good Christmas pie that may we all see
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee

So here is to Broad Mary and to her broad horn
May God send our master a good crop of corn
And a good crop of corn that may we all see
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee

And here is to Fillpail and to her left ear
Pray God send our master a happy New Year
And a happy New Year as e'er he did see
With the wassailing bowl, we'll drink to thee

And here is to Colly and to her long tail
Pray God send our master he never may fail
A bowl of strong beer! I pray you draw near
And our jolly wassail it's then you shall hear

Come butler, come fill us a bowl of the best
Then we hope that your soul in heaven may rest
But if you do draw us a bowl of the small
Then down shall go butler, bowl and all

Then here's to the maid in the lily white smock
Who tripped to the door and slipped back the lock
Who tripped to the door and pulled back the pin
For to let these jolly wassailers in.

4. So hard to choose! Right now, it's Tom Scott for short form essays, and Philosophy Tube for long form essays; Warning: that second YouTuber does not shy away from blue language, or difficult imagery, but it's all in service to exploring ideas.

5. I finally saw the animated movie "Megamind" this year, and I really liked it, and think it got unfairly overshadowed by "Despicable Me" when it first came out.

My favorite bits of media that were actually released this year were the new Doctor Who theme music for Series 11, and the new visualization of the Time Vortex, in the same.

6. It's a toss up between Santa Claus and one whose name escapes me that's a fur-covered snake with the head of a cat (or a cat with a snake's body, depending on how you look at it)

7) I'm showing my age, but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the hamster dance (used to be on a GeoCities website, now preserved as a YouTube video

Comments

[vilakins]

What is your favorite holiday--any holiday--memory?
I'm not sure I have one, just a generalised feeling of delicious anticipation.

What's your favorite treat to eat when you're in a celebratory mood?
Gingery chocolate. Not that it's easy to find.

What's your favorite holiday song?
Snoopy's Christmas! I've loved that all my life.

Do you have a favorite YouTube channel?
Not really, but here's my current favourite vid.

What was your favorite media from 2018?
I dunno, video?

What's your favorite cryptid?
Nessie!

What's your favorite meme?
Absolute unit.

Cheers!

[auresse]

Thanks for sharing your video! I laughed my head off. The animation is great. the stars are both exceptionally handsome.

[capri0mni]

1. Yeah, I have those, too.

2. I was going to suggest Divine Chocolates. But Divine Chocolate NZ looks like a very different store than Divine Chocolate USA ...

The former sources chocolate from all over, and no mention of farmer-owned cooperatives. And the latter is all about the fair trade, farmer-owned cooperative in one country. And the latter also has orange & ginger chocolate.

I think the problem may be shipping: chocolate melts in the mail in the summer. And if you're shipping between the northern and southern hemispheres, it's going to be summer for at least half the trip... :-/

3. *searches for that* That's nice. At first I thought you were talking about the jazz music that was the soundtrack for the animated Christmas TV special "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (Which is also very nice, in a different way)

4. LOL!

5. I meant: what was your favorite piece of media?

6. Nessie's nice. I almost mentioned Champ -- the lake monster in Lake Champlain, Vermont.

7. I like Absolute Unit. But I like cat unit memes better than politician units.

Thank you for this

[jesse_the_k]

That video is A+++ -- and I have no idea what the source(s) are.

Re: Thank you for this

[capri0mni]

Agreed. Those animators and movie makers were having far too much fun... (yeah, I know: no such thing as "Too much fun"

Re: Thank you for this

[capri0mni]

If you're really curious, here's the Wikipedia article on the books that inspired the film franchise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Train_Your_Dragon

I've only seen the first animated movie, and was really impressed with its depiction of disability, of all things, as a thing that happens, and not treated as a de facto tragedy.

(I rented it and watched it streaming on YouTube).

I've not read the books, which, I understand are quite different. But the book series has its own, small, and dedicated fan base.