{"id":5325,"date":"2024-12-21T12:05:43","date_gmt":"2024-12-21T19:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=5325"},"modified":"2024-12-21T12:50:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T19:50:52","slug":"odd-christmas-lots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=5325","title":{"rendered":"Odd Christmas Lots"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul><\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TRexManger.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"TRexManger\" style=\"display: inline; background-image: none;\" border=\"0\" alt=\"TRexManger\" src=\"http:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/TRexManger_thumb.jpg\" width=\"540\" height=\"563\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Be careful with your art and writing, making sure it can\u2019t be misconstrued. (See above.) In the original draft of my story \u201cWhale Meat\u201d (which I wrote when I was 18) I used the word \u201cfrot\u201d as the name of a magical power. I thought I invented the word. A friend later took me aside and told me what \u201cfrot\u201d meant. I gulped and changed it to \u201czot.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>My old friend Lee Hart took a forgotten 1844 Charles Dickens Christmas story, trimmed it down some, and modernized some Victorian archaisms. <a href=\"https:\/\/sunrise-ev.com\/poems\/thechimes.htm\">It\u2019s free and very much worth reading<\/a>. <em>The Chimes<\/em> is a short novel (about 20,000 words) so budget some time. I did a copy\/paste into a Word .docx, so I could control the type size for the sake of these old eyes.<\/li>\n<li>While we\u2019re talking Christmas stories, just a reminder that my Christmas story \u201cThe Camel\u2019s Question\u201d is still available for 99c on Amazon. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/?p=5318\">More on the story in this entry<\/a> from a few days back.<\/li>\n<li>While troubleshooting my Lionel ZW train transformer, I ran across a nice article on the ZW, which Lionel sold from 1948 to 1966. I may try to repair my ZW, though it won\u2019t happen in time for Christmas this year. Or I may just hunt around on eBay until I find another one.<\/li>\n<li>(Not Christmas, but timely): The Altair 8800 personal computer, the one that began the desktop computer revolution, <a href=\"https:\/\/dfarq.homeip.net\/altair-8800-kits-went-on-sale-december-19-1974\/\">went on the market 50 years ago last Thursday, on December 19, 1974<\/a>. I found it at the same site with the ZW article. Other interesting stuff there too.<\/li>\n<li>Our favorite spiked egg nog is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.safeway.com\/shop\/product-details.960536247.html\">Van Der Haute Egg Nog Traditional<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.besttastingspirits.com\/review-van-der-haute-traditional-eggnog-liqueur\/\">Review here<\/a>. We get it from Safeway, because Total Wine doesn\u2019t carry it, nor Fry\u2019s, though I won\u2019t claim that no Kroger grocery does. Jewel-Osco carries it, if that\u2019s your local store.<\/li>\n<li>If you\u2019re mulling the issue of spiced holiday wines, consider <a href=\"https:\/\/www.totalwine.com\/wine\/red-wine\/red-blend\/firebrand-spiced-red\/p\/194431750?s=&amp;igrules=true\">Firebrand Spiced Red Wine, which Total Wine carries<\/a>. It\u2019s a sweet red with cinnamon, vanilla and fruit flavors that most people would consider a dessert wine. There is no vintage year on the label, which for wines of this sort really isn\u2019t an issue.<\/li>\n<li>Sarah Hoyt recently published a book of four SF-flavored Christmas stories, called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Christmas-Stars-collection-Short-Stories-ebook\/dp\/B0CNSJSZHJ\/ref=sr_1_6?crid=2ND1TPBS21ZJC&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ZYoZ7O-GzhmIpUHesKz3UBrqvIz9Jz0EIX0Q2hUWUBB3E3itlGZEN7YQSI1khVrlu2RRJLemu0MxIxjj7zAisBqMd-WPCqLVxG7_9Bieipq43mPU8HZw-OMhENTKySTSmgnodOrlmEa8auuiHzRjsBl1enigngGXnjLjPsEzvdzQ7kjuF8fonTkv5U4dCLxyBMDZewq4IaM1r9mwlEWb2ikfTy5xwfRv1YgY1KUchBQ.ZUKUH6Y6n84blBW4jyfS6kEelzn9HACorc19vAkY8M4&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=sarah+hoyt+books&amp;qid=1734720396&amp;sprefix=Sarah+Hoyt%2Caps%2C266&amp;sr=8-6\">Christmas in the Stars<\/a><em><\/em>. $2.99 on Kindle. I bought it but haven\u2019t read it yet, although I\u2019ve always enjoyed Sarah\u2019s writing. And it\u2019s making me wonder if there\u2019s an AI SF story I could spin about Christmas. I haven\u2019t written a short story since 2008, so it\u2019s about time.<\/li>\n<li>Some of my older readers will know why lead tinsel was a forbidden pleasure back in the 50s and 60s. Well, you can buy it on eBay. Just search for \u201clead tinsel.\u201d No shortage of choices. (It seems like the Germans may still use it!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Be careful with your art and writing, making sure it can\u2019t be misconstrued. (See above.) In the original draft of my story \u201cWhale Meat\u201d (which I wrote when I was 18) I used the word \u201cfrot\u201d as the name of a magical power. I thought I invented the word. A friend later took me aside [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[177],"class_list":["post-5325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oddlots","tag-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5326,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5325\/revisions\/5326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contrapositivediary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}