Snow and Light.

Hope y’all had a safe and merry christmas. Berk and I are still in Norfolk, where we (like many) enjoyed a surprisingly white Boxing Day. Santa brought a sleek new digital camera to replace the clunky, floppy-disk model I’ve been lugging around since the 20th century, so expect more Flickr-integration around here in the near future. I also received some nice new threads as befitting a soon-to-be-thirty-year-old, some quality time-consuming games (most notably Halflife II and KotOR II, or, as I’ll be referring to them, January and February), and an assortment of DVDs, books, and assorted other media I’ve had my eye on. (And, if you’re keeping score, Berk procured his share of bones and bacon-smelling items too…although he’s spent much of the week trying to pick a fight with the inflatable moose head I gave my mother.)

This year, my brother also introduced a new element to the usual family fare of poker, Scrabble, and Halo/2: electrocution, by way of Lightning Reaction and Shocking Tanks, two electrifying games soon to be banned in a state near you…Ouch.

Trailer Park Xmas.

Hello all…I finished up the end-of-term grading yesterday evening, at which point Berkeley and I started settling in to the christmas spirit down here at Murphy Home Base in Norfolk. Here’s hoping everyone out there is having a safe and merry holiday season, and that you get something better from Santa than Dubya’s warmed-over right-wing judges.

Also, if you’re looking for some trailers to tide you over, here’s Leggy & Liam battling freedom-hating infidels in Ridley Scott’s crusader pic Kingdom of Heaven, Russell Crowe trying to out-Seabiscuit Seabiscuit in Ron Howard’s Cinderella Man, a slew of A-listers vamping and vicing in the Robert Rodriguez version of Frank Miller’s Sin City, MTV Films butchering another needless remake in The Longest Yard, and creepy undead kids claiming yet another victim in Boogeyman. Enjoy, and happy holidays, y’all.(Aragorn pic via Fark.)

Ask Prosser about head.

BBC airs some behind-the-scenes footage from Hitchhiker’s Guide, which includes our first looks at Arthur (Martin Freeman), Ford (Mos Def), Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), and a big-hair Zaphod (Sam Rockwell)…They all look good, although I was thrown by Zaphod’s lack of second head (Apparently, it’s in his nose…yeah, I don’t get it either.)

The Berk Knight.

Gratuitious dog-blogging: Somewhere amid the blur of final papers, blue books, christmas schmoozing, prospectus revising, and freelance projects that have filled up the past week or so, my visiting brother finally managed to get Berkeley to sit still in the Batman costume I bought him a few years ago long enough for me to take a picture. Please, nobody call the ASPCA.