WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?

Finally! My partner talks about this non-stop every holiday season and literally pauses the movie to back out and watch this scene from the extras section every time she re-watches it (and I love her for it ❤) and I've seen reddit threads going back several years now discussing how Disney has talked about adding it back into the movie on D+. Seemed like it was maybe just forgotten, but it's finally happening!!

If you don’t start leaking out of your eyeholes during at least ONE song from the Muppet Christmas Carol soundtrack, then I have some CAPCHA’s for you, cuz you ain’t human.

My weaknesses are When Love is Gone, Bless us All, and It Feels Like Christmas.

I also maintain that whoever made the decision to CUT the When Love is Gone scene from the movie was Evil Incarnate. It gutted one of the most emotional scenes in the movie and broke the flow terribly.

In case you’ve never seen it:

ETA:

APPARENTLY Disney+ is finally making things right and will have the FULL (“Director’s Cut” psssh!) available starting DECEMBER 9th!!! FINALLY

"Cause when the lights are down, There's no more to say, Love is the real pain, An internal revolution in our minds"

When The Lights Are Down, by Kamelot

December 20, 2010: The blizzard of the century is on its way.

So are the aliens.

JD 2455550.52 / December 20th, 2010...

It’s five days till Christmas, and the day before the 2010 Winter Solstice. The biggest pre-Christmas blizzard seen for decades is heading straight for the New York metropolitan area. But in one small corner of the Town of Hempstead, everyone’s attention is on other business. That’s because there’s a party tonight at Juan and Marina Rodriguez’s house… and the guest of honor is a being from four hundred light years away who looks a whole lot like a Christmas tree.

The motive force behind the festivities is the redoubtable Carmela Rodriguez, intent on her longtime plan to fulfill one of the great wishes of the wizard known as Filif—to finally get him into a full set of Christmas decorations. The two-day party that ensues (with an epic sleepover in the middle) brings together a cast of old and new friends to eat, drink, exchange presents... and deal with a local holiday-season problem in a very wizardly way.

This 35,000 word novella is a canonical work in the Young Wizards universe and takes place between the events of A Wizard of Mars and Games Wizards Play. ...And at Ebooks Direct, you can now get it in a single package with the How Lovely Are Thy Branches Advent Calendar—a collection of twenty-five "behind the scenes" scenes that don't appear in the original work.

Contains:

Toxic vintage Christmas lights

Tales of why you should always shake the eggnog jug

Examples of finding just the right present

The revelation of unusual kinks

Headhunting for the intergalactic catering industry

Weird musical theater

And the answer to the ever-controversial question: What the heck is a mochteroof?

Get the How Lovely Are Thy Branches Christmas Package at Ebooks Direct for just $2.99!

These works also appear as standalone volumes in the "All The Wizardry" bundle.*

...UK readers: As usual, with regret, please note that due to Brexit, Ebooks Direct can no longer sell directly into the UK. (More details here.) However, if you're UK-based, you can obtain the Kindle print or ebook versions of Interim Errantry—which contains How Lovely Are Thy Branches—from Amazon.co.uk.

Meanwhile, if you've already got these items, or they're not up your alley, would you consider reblogging this so that others who might be interested can see it? Please & thank you!

Ok, but now how about they codify this into law so it's not so easy to flip back and forth just based on who is currently appointed to the FCC :/

electoral-vote.com

FCC Reinstates Net Neutrality

Click on the map for the article

Hi Seanan! The Glasgow Worldcon just sent out the instruction email today to remind people to nominate things for the 2024 Hugos. With the ... everything ... that's going on with the Hugos right now, are you still wanting your works from last year nominated? And if so, is there any place you've listed which works of yours are eligible for which categories, and which you'd most like nominated? Thank you!

What happened with the Chengdu Hugos was a travesty, and I am heartbroken, on a whole bunch of levels. For the people who were unfairly left off the ballot; for the losers; for the winners. There's an asterix on that award now, and none of the people on the ballot are responsible. We didn't do anything wrong.

That said, I truly and genuinely love the Hugo awards. Like so many writers in the SF/F community, I grew up reading past winners and dreaming of one day having an award of my own to hold and hug and go to bed with at night (I don't actually do that--it's a foot-tall metal stick, I would hurt myself). And then, in high school, I became the foster child of a working Hugo Administrator, who taught me how to run the awards myself, so I'd always have a place in fandom. I love the Hugos. The awards themselves are not to blame for the bad behavior of the 2023 administrators.

What I have eligible and would truly love to see nominated:

Best Series, October Daye. Best Novella, Lost in the Moment and Found. Best Short Story, "Family Game Night," Magic Story. Best Graphic Story, Soul and Stone, Boom! Comics. Best Related Work, Overwatch: Declassified. Best Game Writing, Magic: the Gathering, Wizards of the Coast.

And please consider Grace Fong, Amy King, and Emily Smith for Best Fan Artist, and Manda Cherry for Best Fan Writer.

Honestly might be my favorite "behind the scenes" content ever, I tend to watch this every few months just for fun.

Ood Sigma's dancing is...it just feels correct. Paul Kasey is a treasure.

Also I'm pretty sure Tennant is IRL a massive Proclaimers fan so seeing his reaction to meeting them in this is so precious ❤️

who else remembers the entire Doctor Who crew dancing to 500 miles with David Tennant because it’s the purest thing you’ll see today

What is this about the tumblr staff wanting to sell art data to midjourney?

An ex-colleague of mine mentioned yesterday that there may be contacts between Automattic and midjourney in that direction, but nothing is public yet and I don't have any more info. They probably won't have anything specific to share either, since they left the company weeks ago too. That being said:

I have no reason to doubt my ex-coworker word, they are a trustworthy person.

Tumblr's CEO has been absurdly enthusiastic (comically, even) about AI, and is a big fan of LLMs and 'AI' companies.

A deal with midjourney could solve tumblr financial issues (not the same company, but openAi is paying up to 5 million/year to news companies to use their content as training data... tumblr generates several orders of magnitude more content than any newspaper or any media company and it only would need a 20 to 30 million per year deal to be profitable)

So I don't have any extra info yet, but I'm keeping my ears open.

it’s december 1 where’s the christmas tail kitten bring him to me

Apparently they're selling post content to train AI now so let us be the first to say, flu nork purple too? West motor vehicle surprise hamster much! Apple neat weed very crumgible oysters in a patagonia, my hat. Very of the and some then shall we not? Much jelly.