Whoever would have thought that Microsoft could be joyously quirky and magical? Well, Microsoft marketing executives clearly because the tech giant’s ad for their successor to Microsoft Paint, Paint 3D, is as whimsical, sweet and idiosyncratically fantastical as you could possibly ask for. Springing from the fecund imagination of Continue Reading
On 12th day of Christmas … I listened to Warmer in the Winter by Lindsey Stirling
There are quite a few festive things that, right at home in the depth of a northern hemisphere winter, are almost comically out of place in a southern hemisphere summery Christmas. Take chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Or walking in a winter wonderland perhaps? Or even dashing through the Continue Reading
Now this is Christmas music: 10 favourite festive tracks + 5 fab indie covers
When you’re a Christmas tragic such as myself, one of the key ingredients to falling headfirst, and utterly, completely and absolutely so into the festive spirit – it begins sometime around the end of November, ending only on Boxing Day or in my case, considerably after that – is music, Continue Reading
On 11th day of Christmas … I finally read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, published on 17 December 1843 to almost immediate popularity and acclaim, is one of those books that is so happily ubiquitous that you feel as you must have read it. So intimately familiar with the story are we, thanks to countless reinterpretations on TV Continue Reading
Movie review: Wonder Wheel
If there is one consistent theme in much of American popular culture, it’s the Manifest Destiny-inspired notion that anything is possible in the land of the free and the home of the brave. This idea, while borne of some truth, is in many ways more ideal than reality, a Continue Reading
On 10th day of Christmas … I read A Die Hard Christmas picture book
Way back in 1988 when I first saw Die Hard, which is as much a love letter (albeit a violent one) as an action thriller – you may recall that John McClane (Bruce Willis) is in L.A. from New York where’s he’s a cop to see his estranged wife Continue Reading
Feeling festively frazzled? Watch this soothing short film of Mojave Desert ghost towns at night
SNAPSHOT SKYGLOWPROJECT.COM presents Mojave Forsaken — a timelapse journey through ghost towns of the Mojave Desert and the magnificent night skies there. Flanking the infamous Death Valley to the north, west and east, once-booming mining towns of Bodie, Cerro Gordo and Rhyolite now sit in decay at mercy of Continue Reading
On 9th day of Christmas … I listened to Gwen Stefani’s “You Make it Feel Like Christmas”
As a recording artist, it makes sense that you’d be tempted to go Full Throttle Retro Festive when it comes to putting together a Christmas album. After all, consumers of festive tunes know what they like, and what they generally like is for your album of Christmas songs to Continue Reading
Movie review: Star Wars – The Last Jedi
There comes a time in every franchise, even one as venerable and deeply-loved at George Lucas’s Star Wars when the old must give way to the new and the characters we know and love hand over, in this case at least, their light sabres and midi-chlorians and fly off Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The serenity of the Fox and the Whale
Even a Christmas-aholic such as myself has to admit that there are times when the wonderful time of the year also feels like the most unendingly stressful. With pressure, internal and external to get everything in the bag, work and otherwise by 25 December – it’s an arbitrary line Continue Reading