I suppose I must be the only geek in the world who is staying away from the new Star Wars trailer today. Just as I've stayed away from all the others. Which is really quite rare for me. I'm excited about the new movie. I can't wait to see it! But though I usually watch trailers over and over again, just this one time, I want to go in knowing nothing. In possession of no spoilers, no expectations... and let it all wash over me.

The magical pregnancy hormone that made my hair thick and lustrous has run its course. And, unfortunately, my scalp seems to be making up for lost time and shedding everything I didn't lose while expecting. I am finding hair everywhere. And given I'm the only long-haired person in this household, there's no doubt about whose it is. (When I was growing up, there were four of us with long blond hair in the house. No one could be blamed. Now there's just me.)

This hair loss is being moderately compounded by the facts that I have minimal time in the mornings, so my hair ends up just being clipped back loose for the day, and that Squiddle's grab reflex has really started coming into play in the last week or so. "Ow, no, let go. That's mommy's hair. You have your own. Let go." But I knew that this phase was coming, and it's the reason I've only been wearing stud-type earrings for a few months now. Yanking on long hair is one thing. Yanking on dangling earrings, that's another.

In spite of, or perhaps because of, my work-to-home-life stress ratio, I've been recording and watching Dragons: Defenders of Berk. I'd watched the first couple episodes of the first season and not been too impressed, but then I saw some images from the second season that made me want to give it another try. Thus far, I have not been disappointed. There is internal continuity, which, hallelujah! Though I don't entirely like the downgrading of Snotlout and the twins to the levels of stupidity they are in the TV series. But, whatever. I fully own my geekishness to the point of admitting I fangirled as much over Susan Blu being the voice director as I did over Mark Hamill voicing Alvin the Treacherous. And the new trailer for the second film came out this week! Wonderful Husband had received word ahead of time that it contains a massive spoiler, and managed to find a spoiler-free version, which I watched. I very badly want to see this film, and hope it can live up to the original.

If the dominant category on your gift list is lots of books? And you get lots of books? And this makes you happy? Then you just might be a bit of a geek.

My family traditionally does a huge Swedish smorgasbord on Christmas Eve, and Wonderful Husband and I exchanged gifts with them then. I think my inlaws didn't end up too shocked. This year I finally got brave enough to try the various types of preserved fish, and was pleasantly surprised. Which is not saying they're something I would like to eat all the time, but they're no longer something I'll actively avoid.

Christmas morning I went back down to my parents' home to, as requested by my mother, divvy up a couple huge boxes of linens left by my late grandmother. I let my sister have first dibs on most of it; I pick up nice linens fairly often at estate sales, and additionally have been a homeowner longer, so I'm more set up for such things. In the afternoon Wonderful Husband and I went with his family to see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. The pacing felt odd, but other than that I thought it was a pretty good film. I also think Stephen Fry was having the time of his life playing Mycroft. ^_^ We got a slew of trailers, including John Carter, which now I want to see though I reserve the right to snark about Avatar, Battleship, which I am ALREADY snarking about how much it's "borrowing" from Transformers, and The Dark Knight Rises, which I've already talked about here. Since we'd had a heavy meal the night before and we weren't fancying our chances at a restaurant on Christmas, I did a simple French herb chicken in the crockpot while we were at the theater. Sadly, it wasn't the best iteration of the dish I've ever made, but at least it was edible.

And today it was my turn to cook. I wanted to do a British-style Christmas dinner for the combined families, so I baked a ham and roasted a turkey and made mincemeat pies and roast parsnips, carrots, and potatoes, and steamed Brussels sprouts and peas, and we finally iced the Christmas cake and of course the Christmas pudding was already done and just needed white sauce. And on top of that, my sister leaves to go home tomorrow but her birthday is on Wednesday, so we got a cake and ice cream for that and gave her her birthday present today. And now it's all over and done and we have a fridge full of leftovers and probably two racks worth of dishes still to be washed. 'Tis the way of the season.

And tomorrow we take my inlaws and introduce them to our latest restaurant find, Lucille's. Particularly since Wonderful Husband's dad really likes a good barbequed ribs....

Just watched the trailer for G.I. Joe: Retaliation. The commentary went something like "Wait, didn't I see this in the first Transformers film? Is this directed by Michael Bay?" "Isn't this the same premise as the Renegades cartoon?" "Three-dollar theater. If that." "Literal wirework. Didn't we see this at that freebie chibi Cirque du Soleil performance at SDCC?" "Wait, WHAT? Bruce Willis? Is this a crossover with R.E.D.? It could only improve things!"

In short, not very likely that we'll go see it.

Okay, I've just watched the new Transformers 3 trailer a couple of times (was not able to until now, for varying reasons), and am mostly ending up with one thought.

Apparently it's been long enough since 9/11 that we (wherein "we" means the movie industry) can get away with doing things like that to skyscrapers....

Though time has dulled the reaction somewhat, I wonder if my generation will ever stop reacting to that particular image set. I don't think our instinctive recoil will ever fully go away, though, and I think that Michael Bay is deliberately using it for shock value. Because sinking an aircraft carrier in 2 was a horrifying act, but didn't have the same impact that just this trailer does. I suppose part of it is because "skyscraper" equates with non-combatants while "aircraft carrier" doesn't, and that more of us have been in a skyscraper than have been on an aircraft carrier, and can therefore imagine ourselves inside more easily, but I still think that most of the shock value he's going for is in that 9/11 reaction.

And I'm not sure if I'm horrified about that, or if it has been enough time to start picking at the scabs on the wound.