It is Christmas time in Bosleyland . . .

The tree is trimmed with bright glossy orbs of preserved reindeer eyes, and fine ornaments are chiseled from their still moist bones. Beneath the tree, boxes of all sizes wrapped up neatly in smooth recently tanned reindeer skin.

"Ho, ho, ho!" Bosley hears as he dozes in his arm chair. Cyanide milk, arsenic cookies have been laid on the table. A double barreled sawed off shotgun sits in his lap. He watches the embers in the fireplace and grins, as the wafting smell of fresh meat pies fills the air.

"Come on down you son-of-a-bitch," he whispers, and pumps his gun.

Down the chimney the drunken merry old elf comes like a clumsy, morbidly obese, sneak thief. Stocking, hanging heavy, sway like murders on the gallows.

"Hey Kringle, smile for the camera," Bosley says with a grin, one arch of an eyebrow raising up, as he lets buckshot fly.

"Ha!" Santa grunts and dives to the side. The stockings, hung with such care, tatter to shreds.

"The one and only," Bosley says and empties the other barrel with a soft beady bang.

"I hate to tell you kid," Kringle says, "this isn't the first gun I've seen today." He takes a surprisingly nimble flying leap toward Bosley who steps back as the jolly fat elf flies through the air. "I thrive on the Christmas misery," his stinking body slamming into Bosley. "How do you think I get so fat? On the laughter of children? On goodwill? Oh no."

Bosley squirms from underneath him and suddenly decides a standing shooting star press might be in order, and slams himself down.

"Hear that Kringle? That's not the crunching of snow."

"Suck it, Gravel," he says and rams a hammy fist into Bosley's delicate glass baubles. "I'm a juggernaut. I can't be stopped." He stands, towering. "Each bit of senseless consumerism, each dollar we go in debt, each shinny rock---"

Bosley stands now and wobbles.

"I'm going to send you back to hell," Bosley says.

"That's the Christmas spirit, my boy," Kringle says as Bosley pounces, pounding and fierce.

"This one is for more crap from China to end up in our landfills, this one is for horrible cookies, and drunken dysfunctional relatives ... all the annoying in-laws!"

Bosley works his fists up and down like pistons while he sits on the fat man's chest. "And this one is for all the driving, and the shitty weather."

Kringle, believe it or not, is grinning.

"But that, my boy, is the true meaning of Christmas!"

Bosley looks down at rosy cheeks, the black eyes, the broken teeth. A sense of wonder and revelation fills Bosley's chest.

"Misery! Suffering! That's what it is all about!" Bosley says.

"Yes!" Kringle says, "That's it! Do you see beautiful it can be now?"

Bosley wipes a tear from under his eye as he takes out his trusty pocket knife, and tests the blade with his thumb.

"Yes, oh yes ..."

The tree is trimmed with bright glossy orbs of preserved reindeer eyes, and fine ornaments chiseled from their still moist bones. And beneath the tree, boxes of all sizes wrapped up neatly in smooth recently tanned reindeer skin. Cyanide milk and arsenic cookies on the table.

And up on the top of tree sits Kringle's head with a toothless grin.

Bosley smiles and pokes the fire; the head of Kris Kringle on the top of the tree, and says, "I hope all you folks on my LJ flist have a wonderful holiday ... and to all a goodnight!"

Holiday debuggery

We know there were a few kinks with the holiday promotion. We've been working very hard to get them ironed out. If you have a paid/permanent account, keep on sending those coupons. Here's an update:

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• If you tried to redeem a holiday coupon and had trouble using a gift certificate to cover the balance of an annual paid account, we identified the root problem. If this happened to you, you can now use your holiday coupon together with your gift certificate.
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Tweaks

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Give a little extra!

We're pleased to report that we've already sold over 100 virtual red ribbons in honor of National AIDS Awareness month. Remember, for each charitable vgift you purchase for $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to fund the development of an HIV vaccine. Once again, we thank you for your generosity.

Celebrate with holiday vGifts!

Stop by the Virtual Gift Shop and share some holiday magic with your LiveJournal friends.

Photos of the week

We're back with more dazzling pictures from around the world. Congrats to marlenemcc, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our fourth photo contest. We hope you'll click over to LJ_Photophile poll and tell us your picks in pics!

For more fantastic user content, we'll meet you under the cut. ( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for reading. Here's wishing you the very merriest of holidays. We'll see you next year!

Dead Bait is reviewed at Fangoria  and yours truly is mentioned by name ... I guess Fangoria is a magazine about horror stuff or something?! ;)

My friend Rachel has an awesome painting for sale at ebay ... would make a nice (late) xmas present for anyone who loves teh fairies. :D

First review of The Movie is up ... check it out here.

And if you haven't already .... join The Movie Facebook fan page here! Promotions and free copies coming soon!
Hope your holiday are pleasant thus far, no matter what they might be.   (Personally I'm waiting for that Festivus miracle that happens every year.)

Look what I bought at Borders on Monday! They're Jane Austen notecards! 16 cards, an assortment of four different designs, each with a Jane Austen quote on the front.

And I thought that while I was sharing my latest aquisition with you, I'd see what other sort of classic author merchandise was available. Except that I got so caught up in looking for Jane Austen stuff that I never got around to looking for anything else. (Although I do know that StagePlays.com sells William Shakespeare playing cards.) So behold my Jane Austen findings! If you're an Austen fan who will soon be looking to spend your Christmas cash, might I offer the following suggestions:

First we have the Jane Austen Journal, and also a Jane Austen Puzzle, both companions to the notecards I bought. The journal looks especially cool. I used to use journals a lot, and I would have loved this one. It's filled with Austen quotes at the tops of the pages. I never use journals these days, but this would still be such a novel thing to have.

Related to these are the Jane Austen notecards available for pre-order, themed around individual Austen novels. Notecards for Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice will be released on March 2, 2010.

I also stumbled across two nonfiction books which look quite interesting. First is A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen. Even more fascinating is Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen. I mean, wow. Who knew?

The notecards and such make such cute little novelty items. I put mine on display on top of my TV, and once we're finally moved into the new house, I've got a spot all ready for my favorite classics, and you can bet that these cards will find a home among them.

So I'll see you all after Christmas! Have a happy yuletide!

So...How many books are you giving this year for Christmas?

My total is 14 so far, plus a Borders gift card. I'm still not finished shopping, though. I'm going out to try to finish today.

But have a gander at the beta trailer for my novella "Anima Venti" (a Shadowfire Release)



And help yourself to a scone:

Some of the everyday foods we take for granted were at one time the fare of the elite. It's hard to imagine these foods as feasts for kings, but here are a few items which in days gone by were available only to royals and the rich.

Chocolate Of all the once-elite foods, this one's history is perhaps the most well-known. Chocolate was at first a drink, then a candy. Walking through the fairgrounds sipping hot chocolate from a styrofoam cup, though, it's hard to believe this drink was once a delicacy.

Marshmallows An Egyptian treat, the original marshmallows came from a mallow plant that grew in the marshes. Pharaohs and queens enjoyed them, but the anonymous hoards who built their tombs could only imagine their taste. If only they'd havd high fructose corn syrup, they could have made the imitation marshmallows we eat today (and put in our hot chocolate. Who knew that Swiss Miss with marshmallows was such a hoity-toity beverage?).

White Bread Weird, right? But because creating white flour requires more processing--a laborious task in the old days--it became the bread of the upper crust (I love puns!), who wouldn't touch wheat or rye, which was considered paupers' food. This, combined with the medieval aristocrats' view of vegetables as pauper food as well, is probably why medieval peasants were robust and plentiful, while the rich were sickly and had reproductive troubles.

Bananas And other tropical fruits. It took a lot longer to ship things before the Industrial Age, and you know how quickly bananas spoil. So getting hold of a banana was no simple task--and any task that's not simple is pricy.

So the next time you enjoy a peanut butter and banana sandwich on white bread with a hot chocolate and mini-marshmallows, get out the fine china and linen napkins...and drink with your pinkie up!

Get to know My Guests. Want to know who's checking you out? You can now view the 100 most recent, logged-in users who visited your journal during the past 30-day period with My Guests. For those who prefer to fly under the radar, you can update your My Guests privacy setting here.

Introducing My Stats. If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can now see detailed reports on how many people are visiting your journal, friends pages, and entries (wherever they're posted on LiveJournal). You can also view data on comments and RSS requests. My Stats is only available to Paid and Permanent account holders, but you can upgrade anytime. (FYI, an annual subscription costs less than a large pizza with everything on it, PLUS it's rumored to make you lose weight in your sleep!) For additional details on this feature, read this article in paidmembers.

Get ready to check your vital statistics!. To begin, mouse over Journal in the upper nav bar and select My Stats from the dropdown menu (Horizon) or select My Stats under Journal in the side bar (Vertigo). If you're using another design scheme, you can visit My Stats directly. You'll find My Guests on the My Stats tool bar.

Happy holiday promotion!

We're delighted to tell you about our holiday coupons, which will help you share the love with your LiveJournal friends! If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can send up to 10 LiveJournal Basic/Plus users a $10 coupon for an annual paid subscription now through January 15th, 2010. Recipients can upgrade for $9.95 (instead of $19.95) for one year by enrolling in our automatic payment plan or make a manual payment of $15 (instead of $25). Please note that these coupons are not transferable and cannot be used to renew existing paid accounts. If you're a Paid/Permanent user, you can send out your holiday coupons now!

Tweaks and Enhancements

1. The search is on: We've replaced our default search tool with one from Yandex, a leader in search engine technology. This means you'll get smarter, more granular results! To get started, enter your search terms and click the Go button to the left of the Find box on the upper right of the LiveJournal header. This will take you to the search landing page where you can further refine by Entries, Comments, People & communities, and FAQs. You can also access the search page directly.
2. Whitelisting: We've released a new option to help you moderate your busy communities more efficiently. If an entry contains a link to a whitelisted (i.e., trusted) site, it will be posted automatically without need for moderator approval. If a post contains a link that is not on the whitelist, you'll be prompted to approve. To access this option, please visit settings for any community you maintain and select the third option in the Community Moderation box (located in the lower left-hand corner). Click the enable link to custom-edit your community's whitelist, which has been prepopulated with trusted domains. You can manually add or delete URLs in the text box. Please note: If you're the maintainer of an unmoderated community, you may see the radio button for this setting checked, even though it's not active. This is a known issue. Please select whichever option you prefer and click Save Changes at the bottom of the page. If you're happy with your current settings, then no need to do anything!
3. TMI, dude: We've added some fun FREE sponsored vgifts! You can send up to 50 TMI vgifts to mutual friends (btw, you cannot send free vgifts to communities). If you're a Paid/Permanent user and you want to view sponsored gifts, click Show sponsored gifts on your homepage or visit the sponsored gift page. These vgifts will only be available through Wednesday, December 23rd.

You can view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Until next time, stay snug!

Isn't it amazing how great writing ideas can hit you all at once? How they can fly through your brain so fast that you can barely keep up? So far this month, I've worked on some great revision ideas for Hex, written a brochure for my theater group, rewritten the content of my theater group's website, made some awesome notes about the book I plan to write after I finish Hex, and did some beginning brainstorming for a Christmas play. And yet still no ideas for any interesting blog posts. What gives?

Anyway, I figure that my duty as a writer is to pay attention to those writing tasks which could eventually advance people's aspirations--either mine or my theater group's. So while I apologize for the sporadic content of late, I feel that it's been for the best. Besides, as Christmas draws nearer, most of you will be too busy to read my ramblings, anyway. So I guess it all works out.

My schedule is finally evening out and life is returning to normal. Things are always crazy during the final two weeks of rehearsal before opening night. But our Christmas play opened last night, which means now all that's left to do is perform. No more set building, costume sewing, backstage organizing, etc. What a relief.

Since I usually write my blog posts up in advance, I'm afraid I've got nothing right now. The aforementioned craziness of my schedule recently means that I've not even written on my novel in a week, let alone written any blog posts. But I should be back to my usual content on Monday morning. And after posting on Monday morning, I will do nothing but work on Hex all day. Well, other than feed my children and that sort of thing. No TV, no internet, no talking on the phone. Just progress on Hex!

So that's where I am right now. See you all on Monday!