The Twelth Post of Christmas: You know what, go have a Merry Christmas Eve

No further comment. Merry Christmas to all.

The Blirnteeth Post of Christmas: Guess Who Can't Count to 12?

Hi Everyone,

Hey. Let's play a fun game! It's a math game! So get out your slide rules, dust of those abacuses (abaci? abacus'?). This game is called Counting Days on a Calendar! So you'll also need to get out your calendars (calendi?). Ready? Here we go!

1) Find December (any December will do!)

2) Now point at something with your index finger (To avoid awkward misunderstandings, be sure to use this finger)

3) Now find December 24th, Christmas Eve. Point at it.

4) Now count with me, beginning on Christmas Eve (24th) and going backwards. Ready? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12! Alright, we're done!

5) Now, find a flux capacitor, go back in time to about two weeks ago, find me and tell me that if I want to do a 12 days of Christmas thing, and I want the last post to be on December 24th, the night before Christmas, I should start writing those on December 13th.

So, yes. I am officially ahead of myself and an idiot. I do have two more things that I wanted to write about for the last post, but I also wanted to do that tomorrow night. The chances of anyone actually reading it tomorrow night? Slim to none. But I'll try to get it off early. It'll be worth your Christmas while. And to build it up even more, I promise you that it will make you laugh, and cry and it will heal you of that terrible gout you've suffered all these years!

The Eleventh Post of Christmas: One More Mocking Day Before Christmas!

Today (Saturday the 22nd) is the 11th day of Christmas, which means that today is the day when you should be showering your true love(s) with eleven pipers piping. If it's late Saturday night and you have failed to do this, then it doesn't matter that you have already given them or what you have wrapped under the tree: you have sold them all short. This, in not so many words, is the underlying meaning of the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” It might be more implied, that love=presents, but this is the message nonetheless (everyone sing along!! "Four calling birds, no less, are to-tally required, to make it anywhere with me!").

With the help of catchy (if confusing) Christmas songs (“Why would anyone even want ten lords leaping?”), stores and companies churn out dozens of holiday themed commercials every year, ripe with catchy sayings, slogans and, (dare I make a bad Christmas pun?) jingles (ha!) . Also, the word "churn" is appropriate for some of these ads because that's exactly what they do to your stomach upon viewing them. To be fair, only one of the three, most irritating ad slogans (see below) is really Christmas-exclusive: the other two can be heard all year round. These are by far not the only slogan offenders, but they are the ones that kept coming on today before and during the bowl game.

And without further ado, my least favorite ads campaigns of the season/year:

1) Kay Jewelry: "Every kiss begins with Kay!"

A double whammy! First off, this premise makes absolutely no sense! None, whatsoever. Every kiss? Second, there is a tune that goes along with it so it becomes ingrained in your brain, eventually incorporating itself right into your DNA.

There are at least three Christmas themed TV commercials. One has the dad prompting his son to read an adapted version of "The Night Before Christmas," probably called, "The Trip to the Store When Dad Postponed Retirement and Car Payments to Get Out of the Dog House" and then the dad slips something diamondy into mom's hand. Another one involves diamond giving and kissing (always in that order) at a green light in traffic. How romantic!

Every kiss begins with Kay? Really? That's the premise you're sticking with. Every commercial (and this is all year round) has a couple, usually a middle aged, yet attractive, married couple exchanging the jewelry. They invariably kiss after handing over the rocks. Have these people never kissed before this? Do the women think: "Well, you've worked and supported us for fifteen years now. And the diamond wedding ring was pretty good. I guess I can kiss you now. Just don't let word get around that I'm that kind of girl, ok?" A more accurate ad would be, "Buy your wife something from Kay and she might kiss you, but we're not promising anything, so don't get your hopes up."

"Every bout of nausea begins with Kay Jewelry commercials!!" See, how ridiculous sweeping generalizations are, Kay Jewelry?!

2) Jared Jewelry Company: "He went to Jared!"

Wow! Two horrendously irritating jewelry ad slogans! Terrific. Again, these ads run all year long. In fact, now that I think about it, I can't think of any particular Christmas themed Jared ad. And yet they are all the same. The ads always involve a mass of people noticing or hearing that someone received some fabulous piece of jewelry, hearing that it was purchased at Jared and then repeating, over and over "He went to Jared!" You can literally hear the forced exclamation mark in their voices. Remember the song "Fish Heads?" Remember that? "Fish heads, fish heads, rolly-polly fish heads . . ." The Jared commercials are like that only more so. Also important the way that the people repeat the catch phrase, and wide-eyed, ridiculous expressions on their faces, shows their particular emotion: "He went to Jared!" (impressed with fine taste in jewelry store). "He went to Jared!" (either indicating disgust with their own, inferior spouse who failed to go to Jared, or inappropriate, almost lustful attraction to someone else's husband/fiancé). "He went to Jared?" (impressed that man is not a paraplegic deaf/mute I suppose).

3) McDonald's Gift Cards: "Get everyone what's on their list"

Not much to say here (except if it wasn't for McDonalds, there would be a jewelery store monopoly on ridiculous and lame Christmas jingles! If you weren't so obese and breathing so heavily, I'd hug you right now Mickey-D's!).

The idea behind these commericals is that you give people McDonalds gift cards and they use them to buy the fatty, arteriole clogging food that they are addicted to.

I'm not altogether sold on the idea of gift cards as it is ("See I put some effort into this! I had to go all the way to the store to get this card! Now you can go back and do the thoughtful shopping that I was too lazy to do!"). And since most cards are straight across exchanges for the value (i.e. there is no discount for buying a gift card, a $50 gift card purchased for $45 or something), I really cannot imagine a situation where it would be any more meaningful to just give someone the cash. If the gift card says, "Hey I know you like CDs, so I got this gift certificate to Media Play!" than cash says, "Hey I know you like buying things and not using your own money!" which I think is a more honest and universal feeling anyway. It also amuses me that the commercials show the gift cards being given to people you only have causal contact with anyway: dry cleaner and paper deliverer (or something). In both of these professions, why would they not prefer a $5-10 tip instead?

And a gift card for McDonald's? Ewww. I'd rather eat the eleven pipers piping.

The Tenth and a Half Post of Christmas: A Clarification and Apology

I see that once again I need to vow to only use my powers for good, instead of evil. In a moment of weakness, I seem to have forgotten that vow (which has been my New Year's Resolution every year for as long . . . a long time).


In a previous post (there have been a bunch lately, haven't there?), I mentioned that a friend of mine had 1) teased me for not liking the song "Christmas Shoes," and 2) attributed my being single to that fact. She was kidding and I knew she was kidding and it was totally cool that she was kidding because my best friends know that they can make fun of me whenever they want. (You did know that you could tease me all you want right? Wrong. I was lying. Don't do make fun of me. It demeans us both. But mostly me. Which is worse).

Well, since I really didn't have anything else to write about that day, I decided to pretend to be offended and post some goofy pictures. I recently went back and reread it, and I really didn't do such a good job of pretending to be offended. Without being able to make sad, simpering, self-depreciating facial expressions and whimpering sounds, I really came off like I was mad and upset and hurt (I believe this means that I was a lot like most of disaffected, single college students who write blogs. Stay tuned for my dark, soul-crushing emo poems!). Again, let me repeat that I was not at all offended by this person pointing out that I'm probably single because I can't bring myself to like "Christmas Shoes" and other painfully cheesy songs. There are books that can be filled with reasons why I'm single! Why limit the reasons?! So I'm sorry if I made anyone feel bad! I'll be more careful and try to keep the sarcasm and verbal irony reigned in. . . . Unless it's funny. You see, I'm using sarcasm and irony to avoid the point. I'm sorry if I seemed upset or offended. I was not. I hope we can put this all behind us and move on to the funny pictures that I found:

Graphic pictorial demonstration to follow:

This is how I am perceived to respond to teasing.

This is how I feel most often. I mean, I freakin' Google pictures of cats, people!! I must be a happy person!

And for the single ladies out there, this is the sensitive, adorable side of me you would love to get to know better.

The Tenth Post of Christmas: A Practical Idea (that lets you be a cheapskate and a procrastinator!)

This is an honest to goodness idea that I think would be both beneficial to everyone involved, and also let you postpone an unpleasant task till a much later date!

Hmmm, I 've spent the last few minutes trying to think of a good example of postponing something unpleasant and having it being beneficial to everyone. The only example I can think of is this: I used to work as the weekend custodian at an outdoor, yuppie shopping center here in Provo. One day, the sandwhich and custard shop was going to dispose of a huge ten gallon vat of used cooking oil/grease when the wheel caught on something and it spilled onto the sidewalk, thereby ceasing to be the problem of the sandwhich and custard shop but also my problem. (Related question: How on earth does a sandwhich and custard shop generate almost 10 gallons of grease? I don't know but it put me off the thought of custard for a while).

(this is a picture of some fat/grease cleaning device going to town on some grease. It looked just like this, except I had a shovel and a squeegee)

Here's what I decided to do: It was a cold day outside and I thought, rather than try to scoop up all of this liquid grease, why don't I wait for a bit and let it coagulate? So I put up some cones (in case people didn't notice the huge, yellow-gray oil slick on the sidewalk)(more accurately, it appeared to be and literally was a "fat slick") and sat back and waited. After a while, it thickened up (a little anyway) and was easier to scoop back into the bucket and wheel it away. Everybody wins! (Except I did have to scoop up lots and lots of grease. On the plus side, the kid whose fault it was gave me some free sandwhich coupons and also I got to tell this cool story!)

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So what's the big idea? Well, it's actually appropriate that the example story was about fat because the idea is all about Christmas treats that everyone buys, makes and shares with everyone they know. Whenever I go home for the Christmas holidays, there is an entire corner of the kitchen devoted to the piles of chocolates, fudge, cookies, marshmellows, Chex-mix, carmel popcorn, cheese popcorn, yogurt popcorn, candies, carmels, pretzels and whatever else has been dropped off at the door this year from the Johnsons, Howells and Browers. (I think soon people will just start buying bags of really expensive sugar, or really fancy butter).

So I thought, rather than having one more thing on your list of things to do during the holidays, and also add to your friends and neighbors collective, ever expanding love-handles, why not 1) get a nice card (you usually do this anyway). 2) Write your holiday wishes and include 3) a promise that their expected Christmas treat will be postponed until a time when they will really enjoy it and then 4) pick a month somewhere down the road when you actually will go to the trouble of dipping those pretzels, baking those cookies or picking out that fancy butter. And that's it! Oh, and then 5) when May rolls around, you actually have to follow through and go do those things and drop off their treats.

I don't see a down side to this plan. Nobody gets any gifts from neighbors in May (or June, or pretty much any time other than Halloween and then you have to go and ask for them), so you know they'll appreciate having only your tasty goodness to savor. You also have one less thing to worry about during the holidays and one less thing to spend money on (not that money is easier to come by later . . . ).

Also, your neighbors will definitely remember it forever if you followed through. You'll stand out even more among all of other neighbors competing for their love and affection (that's the real point of all this isn't it). And finally, if things get busy and you just happen to forget to follow through . . . well, who's going to remember anyway? In December they think, "Oh that's a nice gesture," and never think twice. If you do remember, why that's double the brownie points! And speaking of brownies, I hope the Howells made some this year because man, they do not skimp on the mint chocolate chips.

(I added an extra good picture of brownies to take your mind off that picture of the fat and oil spill clean up earlier. Sorry about that.)

The Ninth Post of Christmas: Raging Nog-aholic

I'm a big fan of egg nog. So much so that when we were freshmen, my roommate dubbed me a "raging nog-aholic." And not a holiday season has gone by since then that it hasn't come up! Huzzah for running gags!

When they first start selling it in supermarkets I'll usually get a quart and polish it off that same day/night, just for celebratory purposes. For some reason, they usually have a batch put out for Halloween (with a witch picture on it. Go figure), and then the egg nog disappears until the week of Thanksgiving. One year, this same roommate (fueling the flames of my compulsive addiction) excitedly told me of some Easter egg nog that he'd just seen at the store (the witch had been replaced by eggs, just as the celebration of the occult was replaced by the good news of the rabbit that lays chocolate eggs).

What, may you ask is this years' current up to date egg nog consumption amount? Well, I might be off, but my calculations put me at 3 gallons and one quart. Yikes. In the spirit of full disclosure, I had a half gallon of that in a 20 hour period. Specifically the last 20 hour period (Note: it was actually a low-fat variety, with actually about 1/4th of the fat as normal. I looked at the empty carton when I was throwing it away) Believe me, I am not proud of this fact, though I did enjoy every delicious moment of it.

Finally, to give you an idea of the effect my raging nogaholism (and my unchecked consumption of heavy whipping cream, sugar and processed egg product) has on me, please observe the undoctored photos of myself as seen below:

My abs, October 26th, 2006.

My abs, January 3rd, 2007.

The Eigth Post of Christmas: Funny Pictures (that's all I've got!)

The alternate title for this post could be "Guess who might be running out of ideas?" Well, not me! That's who!!

However, I decided to take things a little easier on myself today and have spent a total of . . . (35 minutes at post time) writing this. This is partially due to the final exams that are happening this week. So far I've taken my finals in Remedial Juggling- Two Balls or Just One Club

and English 89-the Works of Richard Scarry.

I just have two to go: Philosophy 112- Deciphering Fortune Cookies and Physics 25- Watching Balloons Stick to Our Hair.

But if I'm being honest with myself (which I hardly ever am) today's laziness also because of this comment which I received from someone I didn't think would even read these.

She jokingly (I hope!) took exception to my good-natured-teasing/full-out-mocking of the song "Christmas Shoes" in yesterday's post.

She writes: "So I just heard "Christmas Shoes" on the radio :)You are one heartless person!! Every girl loves that song!!! No wonder you're still single... " Ouch!!!

To be fair, she went on to say that no, she was in fact kidding. And then, after an appropriate pause, indicated with the '. . . .' she tells me that I do, in fact, have some qualities, which she went on to list in full (all three of them). But, Ouch! A thousand times, ouch!!!

And so today I take things easy, and pretend that I take offense at this person's comments. And so, perhaps you can leave the buzzing, unhealthy glow of the computer and do something that can truly bring the Christmas spirit. Or perhaps you can let me know what Christmas songs you dislike (or like if the case may be). Be definitely before that, you can scroll down and check out this funny comic that I made, all by myself! It's a Christmas miracle!

The Seventh Post of Christmas: Rating Your Lousy "New" Christmas Song

Oh no!! What do you do?!! You were minding your own business listening to your favorite Christmas music on your favorite play-nothing-but-Christmas-songs-beginning-in-October, when all of a sudden something scary happened: you heard a "new" Christmas song. What do you do? How do you respond?! It sounds like it could be an old favorite, but you worked your way through those in mid-November, so you're sure it's not. You thought it was Dean Martin, but then you heard an electric guitar, so it could be Michael Buble, Harry Conick Jr. or (in his wilder moments) Josh Groban. The lyrics sounds similar, but the girl singing it sounds out of breath, almost to the point of being asthmatic. Which of the myriad of the virtually identical, gossip-fodder, human-waste-land-of-a-female-pop-singer could it be?! Let's calm down people. As a public service, we present a newly released help sheet that you can use to determine the General Christmas Song Value Rating Score (GCSVRS). (This can then be charted on the Lame-ness Matrix to find it's Eye-roll-itude and Gag/Vomit Estimation). Enjoy!


Please answer the following questions (truthfully) regarding the music and/or lyrics and/or musician:

General Questions:
1) Is the song catchy? (If yes: +1)
2) Is it catchy because you’ve approximately ten-thousand (10,000) other artists have recorded it before? (If yes: -30)
3) Is the song a “re-tooling” of a song that needed no improvements at all? (If yes: - 5)
4)Do you find yourself thinking repeated during the song, “Hmmm, I used to like this song (If yes: -15)
5) Is the song “Silent Night” by Coldplay, (with his creepy, atonal voice) which I just this moment heard while researching this post and found extremely repellent? (If yes: -20)
6) Is the song an "old favorite" that no one really ever liked to begin with? ("Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," I'm looking in your direction)(If yes: -5)
7) Is the song “Frosty the Snowman?” A song that was overdone twenty minutes after the first time it was EVER done? (If yes: -50)
8) Is the song a catchy-hip-fresh-jazzy new song that appeals to everyone and is so gosh darn fun :) that you just can't help but hate it with a violence that surprises even you? (If yes:-10)
9) Is the song "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays" by N'Sync? (If yes: I will hunt it down and kill it slowly over a fire . . . . also: - 75)

The Music and the Musician Questions:
10) Is there music accompaniment? (No points awarded: that should be a given)
11) Is the music a big-band or jazz group that sound like high caliber musicians that create a rich or toned quality to the song? (If yes: +10)
12) Are most of the instruments synthesized i.e. created by a keyboard or computer? (If yes: -35)
13) Is there a synthesized “bridge” (instrumental solo or break) in the middle? (If yes: -45)
14) Is there a solo by an unexpected and out of context instrument (for example in a nice lyrical piece, is there a huge, slappy blues guitar solo?) (If yes: -10)
15) Are any of the musicians Kenny G? (If yes: -55)
16) Is the song in a country style? (If yes: continue on)
17) Do you know The Author personally and are willing to inflict personal harm on said Author? (If yes DO NOT continue on!!)
18) Did you know that your country Christmas, by virtue of being in a sappy overly sentimental style and being about a typically overly sentimental time of year is therefore unavoidably a lame song? (Whether yes or no: -100 points)

Sentimentality:
19) Does the song include a chorus of children? (If yes, continue on)
20) Is the song “Happy Christmas (So this Is Christmas)” by John Lennon? (If no: -10)
21) Does the song contain children reading letters to Santa/making CB Radio or scratchy telephone calls to family member/talking in cute little baby voices about love? (If yes: -15)
22) Does the song tell the story of a young child? (If yes: continue on)
23) Is that child the baby Jesus? (If no: -5))(continue on)
24) Is the child an orphan or does the child have a very sick parent? (If yes: -10)
25) Does the child want to buy a Christmas gift for their parent before they (the parent) dies and thereby teach someone (and all of us) about the true meaning of Christmas? (If yes: -200)
26) Did they seriously go and make a movie (!!!) that is a sentimental, romantic comedy starring Rob Lowe based on that song? (If yes: -300)
27) Did you not realize that I think that the song “Christmas Shoes” is the most trite and gag-inducing Christmas song imaginable? (If no: . . . you know what? If the answer is no, you’ve got enough problems of your own without me taking points away)

The All-Important-Questions:
28) Do I* like this song? (If yes: +10,000)
29) Do I* dislike this song? (If yes: - 25,000,000, and there shall be no forgiveness, no in this nor in a thousand lifetimes!! I* have spoken!!)

*Note: the I mentioned above indicates, me, I, The Author. If you have any questions or concerns as to what constitutes a good Christmas song, he will gladly, happily, effervescently clear up any confusion you might have.

The Sixth Post of Christmas: Hallmarks of the Season

Our yearly statistical analysis shows that once again, Americans bought more cards last Christmas season than for Valentines Day, Mother's Day, both Veteran's Days and Dia de los Muertos combined. This finding came as a shock to noone, but for the sake of accuracy, our statistics division will now run another set of diagnostic surveys . . . bum bah dah . . . hmmm . . . . " . . . you can say there's no such thing as Santa, but as for me and Grandpa . . . " Ah! Yes, the new results are in and they completely corroborate our original findings. Except that we've also discovered that the eco-friendly e-Cards that were launched for Earth day this year directly resulted in the clearing of 18 billion acres of rain forests (which were used to burn enormous piles of poached ivory. On top of glaciers). Our statistical department is surely in line for a massive promotion next year.

But back to Christmas cards. We've also noticed (our statistics division is pretty busy this time of year! It's how they can afford to send their kids to better schools than yours!), that most Christmas cards are either 1) overly sentimental, usually with some soft Christmas landscape or a house with lights that wish us "The Best This Holiday Season," 2) silly or hokey, sometime tying together cartoon drawings of winter/cold weather animals (penguins or polar bears) or snowmen doing or saying "Holiday Season" things (ice skating, wondering what Kwanza means etc.), or finally 3) showing Santa Claus in an embarrassing or compromising position, usually involving a chimney (no more explanation should be necessary as there are thousands of these cards in existence). Do you, the Yuletidily minded consumer really deserve more of this Holiday drivel, printed on cheap card stock and sold in bulk for a ridiculous mark up? The answer (thanks statistical division!)? A resounding yes!!!

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This set of Christmas cards comes from our "Companies, Organizations, Groups, Mobs and Cartels" series, each representing not only the warmest wishes for the holidays, but also the pandering and smug superiority of Corporate America and her younger, poorer, uglier sister, Special Rights Groups. Enjoy!


Card#1:

Inside: Pardon us. Being richer than you makes us a bit silly this time of year.

or

From your friends at Franko, Bellstein, and Jacobs. (If you don't know anything about our company or what we do, we certainly aren't going to waste time telling you in Christmas card.) Happy Holidays!

Card #2:


Inside: 'Cause the Christmas Spirit is a FIGHTIN' Spirit!

or

This Christmas Season, let us each remember that our Rights are a Privilege. Not a Right.




Card #3

Front: Happy Christmas and New Year (below) Thanks for not having me or my family on your dinner table!

Inside: Instead, choose our genetically superior, far more delicious cousins, the GeniTech Brand Gene Therapy Lamb Family! When you think delicious lamb, think GeniTech! There's "mutton" like it!!

or

Let's keep sheep where they belong! On our jackets, gloves and lining our slippers! Buy your Holiday gifts at Laramie Fine Leather Products!




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So Happy Holiday Card giving to all. Our Statistics Division reports that we'll be back real soon with another new and exciting set of Holiday Cards! In fact, they're telling us that we're due back three weeks ago tomorrow and then back again perpetually one second into the future! See you then!

The Fifth Post of Christmas: Mr. Kreuger's Christmas

No jokes here today. Even if I wanted to make jokes (which I do with frightening regularity), I couldn't make fun of the movie Mr. Krueger's Christmas. This is a movie that most of you are probably familiar with (since most of you are people I coerce into reading this banality). It was produced in 1980 by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint and starred Jimmy Stewart. The basic plot line of the twenty-five minute film is that Willy Krueger is a widower custodian and the music that he hears on Christmas Eve from carolers, the radio and record player, all cause him to day dream about various grandious Christmas experiences, and all of them involving the music of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

To be honest, I think that some of the montages are a litle corny, but only in sense that they are dated. But Jimmy Stewart is excellent. I always want to do more for people who are alone at Christmas time after this. There is one scene, the climax of the movie, that makes the movie especially meaningful and it's all thanks to the amazing acting of Jimmy Stewart. I am not a crier, but this scene chokes me up every time I see it. I am not exaggerating either, it happens every time.

Here is a low quality YouTube post of the movie. Please take the three minutes that you didn't spend laughing at funny stuff I didn't write at go to about time 17:20. You'll be glad you did.




My favorite line: "I love you. You are my closest, my finest friend. And means I can hold my head high, where ever I go. Thank you. Thank you."

Merry Christmas.

The Fourth Post of Christmas: The Things I Don't Want You Buy For Me From Sky Mall Magazine (Part 1?)

We all know that I've made bad choices in the past. I know that I've bought holiday sweaters for my dog and/or cat. I know that I still have that crystal unicorn collectible in a box in my basement and I hardly every talk to him anymore (I'm sorry Wonderdasher . . . I just need some time to move on . . . ). And please don't bring up my shape-of-a-British-phone-booth CD and tie organizer. No, I still haven't been able to sell it on e-Bay. But it will hold my unfolded clean laundry in my corner quite nicely for now, thank you.

But I'm trying to move on with my life. I need to get off of the SkyMall Magazine wagon. No more. No more. And there is so much you can do to help me. Well, just one thing. I don't need any more useless, gaudy and ridiculously overpriced . . . stuff. To be sure you get the picture, I've made a short list of things that you definitely, definitely, ABSOLUTELY cannot buy me. Well, if you want, you can. Ok, ok, just one! Maybe two.

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Warm Whiskers Neckwrap

Because why just keep your neck warm when you can keep your neck warm with a cute kitty cat! People won't even have to know that you are a week girly-girl who needs a neck warmer because they'll think you just wanted to wear such a cutsey, cute little, kitty-witty cat.

As an added bonus, it hearkens back to the good old days of women wearing dead fur around their necks! Win-win! No, better yet, win-win-win!!

Price: $39.95

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Hogan vs Andre the Giant Photo

Truly, thunder rumbled and the gods themselves did quake that memorable day when for some reason or another SkyMall bravely looked backward into the terrifying, apocalyptic past of professional wrestling and brought forth this mighty tribute to Herculean strength and stretchy, stretchy costumes. Overpriced you say? I say, Hogan vs. Andre: Priceless!!

Price: $190.00

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Skateboard Simulator

I wish I had time in my busy, 9 to 5, work-a-day humdrum existence to add a little spark, a little pop a little, oh I don't know, a rail-mung dropping into a 5-0 grind before ramping up to hit a sick Crookie Monster. You know, just to liven up my day a bit. But who has time for skateboarding and cool skateboarding lingo? I do! Gnar! Hammer! Ender ender! The easiest way to break into the "cool" world of "hip" young skaters who "probably won't amount to much"? The SkyMall Skateboard Simulator! Hop on ride those rails and if you put down enough pads, you probably won't break anything!

Bonus: Every time you look down, you'll be reminded that, thanks to SkyMall, you're "radical"! "Dude"!

Price: $59.95

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Phew! Not asking for stuff is hard work. But keep in mind there are so, so many other things that you should definitely NOT get me for Christmas from SkyMall catalogue. I'll keep you posted.

The Third Post of Christmas: "Little Dumber Boy"

(the following was an overheard conversation)

"Honey, I just don't see what the big deal is!"

"Again, it's just a really, terribly, bad idea!"

"I still don't see how that's a bad idea. It'll get them into the Christmas spirit!"

"Really, Steven? Really?! Can you think of one single time, one single person, who just having gone through such an long and ardous experience would think that that would put them into the Christmas spirit?"

"Well, they wrote the song about it didn't they?"

"That's my point!! Nobody ever really stopped to say 'You know what? If a boy came in and did that right after I had just had a baby, I would smile politely and thank him for his thoughtful gift.'"

"Sharon, he was a poor boy. A poor boy. It was all he had!"

"I worry, I really worry, about the boy who, walking into a filthy stable and seeing a mother in the state she must have been in, thinks to himself, 'Looking on in reverent silence at the newborn King would be good, but banging out a smokin' hot riff on my drum?!! That's exactly what this situation calls for!!' Honestly, Steven, you show me that boy and I'll show you someone our tax dollars should be providing programs for."

"Sharon it was all he had and it was just a gesture!"

"And I'm telling you that if it had be ME after Chelsea was born? . . . Well, I can think of several gestures I would have shot right back at him."

". . . " (mumbling)

"Of course I'm overreacting, Steven! It's my only sister's first child! It was a thirty-six, a THIRTY-SIX HOUR, delivery! AND I've been telling you no the entire drive over here, and if you don't stop playing "Wipe Out" on the nurse's counter right now, and take your snare drum back to the car, you will not live to see our child open her Christmas presents!"

(quietly to self) "Pah-rum-pum-pum-pum, Rum-pum-pum-pum, Rum-pum-pum-p-aaACKHH."

"Nurse, one to visit room 3405. When he gets up, please take his sticks out of his mouth and tell him that he can wait in car."

Twelve Posts of Christmas #2: Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Chinchilla?

For today's Christmas post, I wanted to share with you a very special story, one that has been told in my family for years and means more and more (or less and less) as time goes by. This story of course, is the story of the "Christmas Orange." I found at least three versions of the story, each with large, but essentially unimportant detail changes: in one the orphan tracks mud in the house, in one he starts a fight, in one the orphan is a girl etc. The story is almost always the same and if you are like me, you've heard it ad nauseum (as in "it makes you literally nauseous"). So I made a few minor adjustments, as you will hopefully notice below.

When I have replaced words (with a very simple Find/Replace function), they appear in bold. When I have added or embellished (for the sake of ludicracy and commentary), I put those in italics. (Note: For a more direct comparison, read along to this version. I think you'll enjoy). If you are strapped for time, just read the first, second and last paragraphs. Feliz Navidade.

Gil was nine years old with tousled brown hair with watery blue eyes as bright as a drowning angel. For as long as Gil could remember he had lived within the walls of a poor orphanage. He was just one of ten children supported by what meager contributions the orphan home could obtain by defrauding off-shore holding companies. There was very little to eat, but at Christmas time there always seemed to be a little more than usual, and the orphanage seemed a little warmer. But more than this, there was the Christmas chinchilla!

Christmas was the only time of year that such a rare treat was provided and it was treasured by each child like no other food: admiring it, feeling it, prizing it and slowly enjoying each juicy section. Truly, it was the light of each orphan's Christmas and their best gift of the season. There was an orange tree in the back yard of the orphanage, but all of the orphans were sick and tired of them, and mostly threw them at passing cars. How joyful would be the moment when Gil received his chinchilla!

Unknown to him, Gil had somehow managed to track a small amount of mud through the front door, muddying the new carpet, the new carpet that the orphanage decided to buy before shelling out money for decent Christmas gifts. The punishment was swift and unrelenting, not to mention a complete overkill, though it sets a nice tone for this story: Gil would not be allowed his Christmas chinchilla! It was the only gift he would receive from the harsh world he lived in, (besides a crushing sense of worthlessness and a proclivity toward alcoholism), yet after a year of waiting for his Christmas chinchilla, is was to be denied him.

Tearfully, Gil pleaded that he be forgiven and promised never to track mud into the orphanage again, but to no avail as that surely would ruin the touching ending of the story. Gil cried into his pillow all that night and spent Christmas Day feeling empty and alone. He felt that the other children didn't want to be with a boy who had been punished with such a cruel punishment. Maybe, he reasoned, the gulf between him and his friends existed because they feared he would ask for a little of their chinchillas. Gil leapt to several other overblown conclusions that were no doubt included in this story to make absolutely sure that we were empathizing with the poor orphan bereft of his chinchilla. Gil spent the day upstairs, alone, in the unheated dormitory. Huddled under his only blanket, he wondered why the author kept including details about how miserable Gil's life was: unheated dormitory, little to eat, only one blanket. He wondered if readers would sympathize with an orphan who wasn't suffering as much as an orphan could possibly suffer. Probably they could not.

Bedtime came, and worst of all (if you didn’t count the food poisoning in their dinner the orphans would violently learn about early the next morning), Gil couldn't sleep. As he climbed into bed from the cold, hard floor, a soft hand touched Gil shoulder, startling him momentarily and an object was silently placed in his hands. The giver disappeared into the darkness, leaving Gil with what, he did not immediately know! Looking closely at it in the dim light, he saw that it looked like a chinchilla! Not a regular chinchilla, smooth and shiny, but a special chinchilla, very special. Inside a patched together skin were the segments of nine other chinchillas, making one whole chinchilla for Gil! The nine other children in the orphanage had each donated one segment of their own precious chinchillas to make a whole chinchilla as a gift for Gil.

The End

Twelve Posts of Christmas #1: Goodnight, my Deer

My Christmas gift to all of you this year is a dosage of satirical wit and an heaping spoonful of undeserved pride in myself. Everyday up till Christmas, you will be treated with a new installment of a short, Christmas-themed piece of writing. I guarantee they'll usher in the spirit of the season (or at least some kind of spirit. Hopefully the kind that is easy to exorcise). If you feel a measure of the Christmas spirit yourself, please leave a comment so that I know you dropped by. It's the least you could do for me isn't it?



The First Day of Christmas: "Goodnight, my Deer"

"So you see," Professor Ericson said to his daughter, as he turned off his PowerPoint projector and sat down at the foot of her bed, "It's unreasonable to think that his nose was glowing at all. The text clearly indicates that the nose was "shiny" and that we (the objective observers) "would even SAY it glowed." The physical state of the red nose probably indicated some type of dermal infection, resulting in overactive sebaceous glands excreting oil on to the epidermal surface. Or maybe swelling, perhaps to due to some kind of tumor or cyst within the nose caused the skin to be stretched tight and swollen with blood, causing both a shiny appearance and red discoloration. In any case, these maladies would not cause the nose to glow or emit any kind of phosphorescent light of its own. In foggy atmospheric conditions, ambient light would be reduced to almost nothing and certainly no more illumination would have been produced from the animal's nose. Putting him, a probably diseased creature at the head of the team pulling the sleigh was a foolhardy error that showed a serious lack of judgement. In actuality, the other reindeer were probably right to shun him."





The Professor placed his dry, chapped lips briefly on Kimberly's forehead and walked out of the room, trailing a long, glistening trail of imaginary reindeer blood. The snap of the light switch was the pull-chord of the guillotine that slid down to behead the last last vestiges of childhood fantasy. And his whispered, "Merry Christmas, sweetheart," rustled through the room like needles skittering over concrete.

Peace on Earth: "You can't spell 'intolerance' without 'tolerance'!"

Note: An entry on religious tolerance the same week as Gov. Mitt Romney's speech on religious tolerance and no reference to that speech? It's true! I don't really have anything to add to his speech except to say that I agree with it. You can watch it here. I am a fan of Mr. Romney. I don't agree with all of his ideas, but I agree with most of them.

As soon as Thanksgiving has come and gone, the holiday season is come upon us. Christmas and his younger holiday brothers, who have been demanding more and more attention lately have come around and it's it's only natural for people to show an increase in love and understanding. Barring that, of course, it's time to show a new, more special intolerance of other people's beliefs.
Of course, I started out mentioned the holiday fervor people get into. Can we look forward to another year of "Happy Holiday's" vs. "Merry Christmas"? Only time will tell. That is, time will tell or I will tell you. Yes. I'm telling you that, yes, we will have more of that this year. Sheesh.

But that's really not the main gist of what I wanted to mention. Two things came to my attention this week, both kind of in random ways that made me think about the existence (and in some cases prevalence) of religious intolerance. They involve the Church of Scientology and the Jehovah's Witnesses.

A BBC report this week discussed a move on the federal and state levels in Germany to declare the Church of Scientology from the country. Currently, Scientology is not recognized as a religion in Germany. Their accusations, that Scientology has "cult-like practices" and are "a threat to the rule of law and 'democratic order'" seem more than a little ridiculous. I openly admit that I know nothing of Scientology besides what I have seen on the first 3 pages of theirs official website and on the long, long Wikipedia entry discussing the religion. And, I will admit, what I saw on the South Park episode about Tom Cruise being stuck in the closet (which was hilarious). In my opinion, Scientology seems more than a little strange, in its claims, in the story of its origins, and in how much latitude they give Tom Cruise to go around being a weirdo and say dumb things.

All that being said, I am a Mormon, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a church that has been openly, at times violently, attacked for its entire 177 year-old life. So I am more than a little hesitant to throw another religion (if they call themselves a church, then they are a church) under the bus and condemn them without 1) knowing anyone who practices of Scientology and 2) without knowing why they do what they do.

OK, item number two. This came in the form of a comic strip titled "The Crisis" that was written (poorly) and drawn (poorlier) by a fundamentalist Christian named Jack T. Chick. This particular comic details the crisis of a young girl being taken to the hospital and needing a blood transfusion. However, her parents are devout Jehovah's Witnesses and their religion forbids accepting blood from others because they feel that the Bible forbids it.

I suggest that you read "The Crisis." Marvel at the rising intensity of the action as The Christian hospital staff (the right kind of Christian mind you. Jehovah's Witnesses consider themselves Christians) bewail the foolish beliefs of the parents. Sit up at the edge of your seat as, in a last ditch effort to save the girl, they send the hospital chaplain in to talk to the panicking parents. Raise your eye-brows as the chaplain mentions to the parents (while their daughter lies bleeding and dying in the other room),"There are several things I disagree with in your beliefs." Feel a chill runs up your spine as two dark-suited Jehovah's Witnesses (are these some kind of enforcers? We can only assume that they are!! Wow!!) are dispatched from Watchtower headquarters after receiving "a print-out on Doug and Donna. . . [Donna] is the weaker of the two . . ." Their mission? To remove the child before she can be saved so that she can be saved (see how I used the same word for two different meanings there?).



The foregone dramatic conclusion is of course that the chaplain, in less than a half-hour, succeeds in not only getting permission for a blood transfusion before its too late but also in convincing Doug and Donna to reject the primary tenants of their religion, accept Jesus as their Savior and become saved (Doug's poorly drawn expression is priceless)! The dark suited Witnesses arrive just too late ("Foiled again! If it wasn't for you cursed Christians!!")(that's not a real quote from the comic, but it practically could be). The icing on the cake in my mind is the 'Saved Certificate' at the bottom of the comic that you can print out, read, check a box and thereby receive salvation in the kingdom of God. Good stuff.

Here's my final soap-box: I strongly believe in the value of religion to produce good people. I also believe in sharing what I personally know to be true with other people because of the good that it has done in my life. But I think that that invitation needs to be offered in simple and humble terms and not in aggressive or mean-spirited ones. And being intolerant of others? Even if others are intolerant of you? In the end, all of us are trying to do the best that we can. And if we can't work together in trying to keep this world a good place to be, then we have completely missed the point of any and every religion out there.

Happy Holiday's everyone.

Funny things that that I wanted to pass along

Unintentionally funny:

This is someone's description about themselves from Facebook. The good stuff is at the end, but don't skip down first. You'll be glad you didn't.

i hate when people say they are from Boston and they're like from a suburb
thats near boston and(lol) is nothing like boston.....you have to have lived in
the dirty bean to know how it is( if you dont know what the "dirty bean" is then
you definateley shouldnt say you're from their) HAHAHAHAHAH j/k actually im
not

(To alleviate concern that I'm that creepy guy who goes trolling around Facebook, I happened to be looking for a Nelson Mandela quote and this girl happened to have it. I read what she had written about herself and wanted to share it with others. I was also curing cancer at the
same time. At a soup kitchen. I'm a good person.)


Intentionally funny:

"You know what I love about the O. C.? The diversity. Between upper-middle class and upper. My people. Is there anything more annoying than the poor? Always complaining? 'Oh, I can't afford a two-bedroom town house for $600,000!' Good! Move east! That's what the Midwest if for. For people who gave up on their dreams."

"A leopard can carry two times it's body weight into a tree. I don't have a joke for that yet, but it is accurate. And just in case you hate my stand up, you can leave saying, 'You know, at least I learned something.'"

- Daniel Tosh

(Kitten asleep in bowl of food: Unintentionally funny. Posting it here: intentionally funny)

A picture is worth a thousand boastful words.

I realized something extremely harrowing and important just now: the picture I posted of the BYU vs. Utah game in the weekly photo was much, much too small. So to make up for my gross misjudgement, here are some photos that I took, ones that you can enlarge, save as your desktop background, or have imprinted on your tombstone. They show the one, two and seven minute progression of the fans rushing the field after the game.

Honestly, though, the game ended 17-10, and just seeing the final score doesn't really explain a few things about the game. I think this was the best matched Utah vs. BYU game in years. BYU's statistics (twice as many passing and rushing yards) really show that they played the better game and should have clearly been the winners, not just the almost heart-broken losers. There were no touchdowns until the final quarter of the game (ridiculous on the part of both teams). Utah's march down the field to score their touchdown was very well executed. The fact that I think BYU's offense could have stopped them several times doesn't detract from the fact that they came the whole length of the field to score.

As much as I loved (and went hoarse shouting because of) the miraculous 4th and 18 pass from the Cougar's own 16 yard line, I can't believe the Cougars let themselves get into such a dangerous position to begin with. . . . All in all, I'm ecstatic that BYU won (and will be playing UCLA in a rematch in the Las Vegas Bowl game). But like, last year's game, a solid thumping of the Utes would make us all happier than bringing us down into the dregs of despair before coming back to win. Enjoy the photos (that mean's you Kara and Melissa).















The field, some 60 seconds after the game ends.




Two minutes after game end.



Seven minutes after game end.

Good times were had by all (or at least 90% of the crowd anyway).