As I write this, it’s been almost eight hours since the Winter Solstice passed. (It was at 10:03 UTC.) Here we are, the first official day of winter, and it’s not looking good for a White Christmas:
Not only no snow, but it friggin’ rained this morning!
Not good at all. Unless you hate winter and shoveling!
I don’t really have a post today, but I do like to commemorate what I see as the only really important holiday of the year: The Winter Solstice and the (eventual) return of the Light.
I don’t mind there being no snow. It’s easier this way, although I do enjoy going out and “playing” in it (read: shoveling my sidewalk and driveway, which I really do enjoy).
I’ll be dog-sitting my pal, Bentley, for ten days in January, and I’m hoping the weather stays this decent. We usually experience our annual “winter thaw” in mid-January (and then it gets nasty again in February), so I’ve got my fingers crossed for some good dog-walking weather.
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Regular readers might remember my Hail, Yes! (redux) post from August. We got some good sized hail:
I put those stones in my freezer, and they’ve been there slowly sublimating ever since.
They’re down to a mere pebble of their former glory:
Yes, there were three. Bentley ate one. I gave it to her as a snack after a warm walk. Ever watch a dog try to eat an ice cube? Priceless.
I figured they’d done their time in my freezer, so, since it’s been chilly enough for them, I let them return to the wild. Put them outside so they could play.
Apparently they ran off. I looked for them a few hours later, but there was no sign. They may have been attracted to one of the frozen lakes in the area. I assume they’re having a good time.
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It would be pretty ironic if the only winter we see is that bit way back in October (huh; exactly two months ago today):
We’ve been snow-free ever since. No snow for Thanksgiving. Mother Nature has only a few days left if she intends to stage a White Christmas.
And I have to say, there is something very lovely about the falling snow… the first few times it happens in a season. Kinda starts to get old, though, after that.
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Apropos of absolutely nothing whatsoever, this (fairly) recent xckd cartoon, as so many of them do, really summed up my feelings about horror movies.
The extra joke popup text for this one reads:
“”Isn’t the original Jurassic Park your favorite movie of all time?” “Yes, but that’s because I like dinosaurs and I WANT there to be an island full of them. If John Hammond’s lab had been breeding serial killers in creepy masks, I wouldn’t have watched!” “Wait, are you sure? That could actually be good.” “Ok, I WOULD watch the scenes where Jeff Goldblum tries to convince a bunch of executives that the park is a bad idea.””
Which explains why I like some horror movies. For instance, I’ve enjoyed the Alien and Predator movies. They’re not my favorite sort of thing, but they’re okay.
(I do like that, unlike certain other kinds of violent thrillers (cough, Marvel, cough, Star Wars), horror movies are more personal. I don’t have to watch thousands die for my entertainment.)
As I’ve said before, I’m not big on dinosaurs, so the Jurassic Park movies didn’t do a lot for me. (The first one was pretty good, I thought.)
I did like The Cabin in the Woods. That’s my kind of horror movie (to the extent any horror movie is my kind of movie). Small and personal, a mystery behind intent. Not just monsters, but motivated monsters. I’ve also really enjoyed the Final Destination movies — those (at least the first few) are really clever, and I like the lack of a physical nemesis.
On the other hand, I’ve never been a fan of slasher movies. I’ve never seen any of the Freddie, Jason, or whatnot, movies. Just no interest.
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Speaking of movies, I’ll leave you with The Art of Self-Defense, a 2019 film starring Jesse Eisenberg. I really enjoyed it (and will review it soon) and recommend it to anyone who loves small dark comedies.
I thought it was going to be more like American Ultra, an off-kilter action movie that I really loved. Self-Defense is nothing like that, but it turned out to be one of those little gems that delights. (I try to avoid knowing too much about a new movie or book, so I had no idea.)
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On that note, welcome to the official start of Winter. May this holiday season warm your spirit and bring you joy.
And take heart! The Sun-eating Space Dragons have been run off to hibernate. The Sun will heal and bring forth Spring and Summer once again.
Seems like a really good time for a party!
Stay safe, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.
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Logos con carne 
December 21st, 2020 at 12:42 pm
Oddly, xkcd is the only web comic I read anymore. Randall Monroe has become my Gary Larson (and the latter has come to seem dated to me). So many xkcd cartoons speak volumes to me!
Some of it has to do with ad-bloat on sites. SMBC, for instance, is a site I can’t stand anymore because of all the cruft on the page. Ugh!! (And, to be honest, the site never spoke to me like xkcd does.)
December 21st, 2020 at 1:44 pm
How’s this for a Solstice celebration: Kīlauea, on the Big Island of Hawaii is erupting again! (See posts Kilauea, Hawaii, USA: Wow!, 2018: Hawaii Gets Bigger!, and Cooled Lava Hellscape for more about the 2018 eruption.)
Yesterday evening (10:36 PM HST), the USGS HVO issued USGS HVO Information Statement—Magnitude-4.4 earthquake on Kīlauea Volcano’s south flank. That was the start. There was an earlier report of a magma intrusion, and from what I could tell, the magma was above the level of the water lake in the crater.
The HVO also issued Photo and Video Chronology – Kīlauea – December 20, 2020, which has imagines and more details. As it turns out, the magma erupted from the crater walls (in three spots) and flowed down into the lake. It boiled off the water, so how there is a lava lake, once again, in Halemaʻumaʻu crater at Kīlauea summit.
Today they issued Photo and Video Chronology – Kīlauea – December 21, 2020. This one has some daytime photos, which is nice.
The question now is whether this is just a tempter tantrum on Pele’s part, or the start of a new sustained eruption. The area has never entirely calmed down since 2018, and it seems magma has again filled the chambers below the summit.
December 21st, 2020 at 1:54 pm
December 21st, 2020 at 4:00 pm
December 23rd, 2020 at 11:42 am
December 21st, 2020 at 3:09 pm
Happy Solstice Wyrd! Hope you get snow when you want it. I’m pretty sure all we’ll get down here is rain (par for the course). Hope the holiday season brings you joy as well!
December 21st, 2020 at 3:10 pm
Stay safe and dry, Mike!
December 21st, 2020 at 3:17 pm
Freddy Kruger’s story has some interesting twists on nightmares.
Another comic I’d recommend is Nathan Pyle’s Strange Planet on instagram. Some very clever uses of scientific names to describe ordinary things: https://twitter.com/nathanwpyle/status/1103391667598569472
Kilauea, pfffft. Give me a Toba, or Krakatoa, anyday.
December 21st, 2020 at 3:59 pm
Heh, sure, if you want a good ass-kicking! The nice thing about Kilauea is one can get more up close and personal with Pele. I was enraptured during the 2018 eruption — spent a lot of time on a live webcam feed with chat; really learned a lot.
I’ll have to pass on all things Twitter or Facebook. I never had the former and deleted the later many years ago. Neal Stephenson has referred to the combined mass of social media, email, streaming TV, etc, as “the din” (social media he calls “the miasma”). The older I get, the more I like quiet. (Hence avoiding websites with ads. I pay the extra so they don’t show up here!)
I did want to see the Freddy and Jason movie, but never got around to it. From what I’ve heard of the Freddy Kruger stories, they do sound a bit above the norm.
December 21st, 2020 at 4:04 pm
Nathan Pyle’s Strange Planet comics can be viewed through image search.
Yeah, I enjoyed watching Mmmmagmmma destroy those homes and pour into the ocean. Let’s see, cold ocean water, firehose, pumps, one might have been able to create a hardened lava double berm to channel the MmmmmagMmma.
December 21st, 2020 at 4:08 pm
I think you’re severely underestimating the amount of heat in flowing lava. Even completely immersed in the ocean, it’s still red hot and flowing for quite a while. 🙂
December 21st, 2020 at 4:21 pm
Prolly…
Twitter, gram, fb, they’re nothing to fear — just use them as tools. Like twitter for instance, killer photos of Kilauea.
December 21st, 2020 at 5:36 pm
Ha! Tain’t fear; it’s loathing.
Life is a series of pros and cons, right? So my summation of the pros and cons puts those things firmly in the cons. (I blame them, in part, for the 2016 election and for a lot of the socio-political BS.) I’ve never missed by FB account nor ever had much desire to join Twitter. I just won’t be a part of it. Too much against my principles.
The best Kilauea pics come straight from the horse’s mouth, the USGS. 😉
December 23rd, 2020 at 3:08 pm
Got my Christmas wish. We’re having a blizzard!