Of the many holidays we celebrate here in this country, I hate Christmas the most. And not because of some anti-religious sentiment toward the event that the holiday is supposed to stand for, but for much of the same reasons I dislike Thanksgiving: The over-commercialization of it all.
Christmas ads start before the previous holiday (Thanksgiving) is even over. And retail sales begin literally hours after the official close of that day (i.e. "Doorbuster" sales at 4AM), now dubiously known as "Black Friday." People have actually died in their effort to join the mad running of the bulls that is the crowd fighting through the doors at the local Wal-Mart. Then again, I guess the best way to celebrate Christ on his birthday is to go join him, right? Now THAT'S Christmas Spirit!
I hate the endless retarded Christmas music in every damn store. I can't even go buy a bottle of booze at the local corner store without having Jingle Bells ringing in my head, which requires a purchasing second bottle to drown out (now maybe I see the reason for the music). Whoever first decided to play Christmas music for 45 straight days in a retail outlet should have been shot...repeatedly...with frozen reindeer shit, or some such thing befitting of the season they apparently love so much.
It probably doesn't help that the weather is always crappy during the holidays. If Christmas were in, say, July, I'd probably enjoy it a touch more (I'd still be disgruntled at the established norm of overspending on superficial shit for gifts). Every walk across a crowded Wal-Mart parking lot is a foot-wetting trek through oil-soaked slush mixed with sand, rock salt, and the occasional ad flyer and loose receipt. The sky is perpetually gray and usually dropping some form of cold, incessant precipitation that chills you just enough to really piss you off, which you then take out on the cashier that was hired the week before and thrown into the shark pit with no idea what to do other than "page a manager" when there's a problem with the register. People spend beyond their means just to provide little Timmy that $200 Wii or Xbox console he doesn't need and which will just make him fatter and more socially inept than he already has become playing his now-obsolete Playstation II (which cost another $200 two Christmases ago). Then these same people bitch and whine about having too much debt and beg for congress to step in and do something about it. Maybe, instead of bailout checks, congress should abolish Christmas and eliminate some of the problem at the root.
But then there would be no reason for a month full of Jingle Bells. Wouldn't want that now, would we?
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Thanksgiving
The time for food, family, fellowship, holiday cheer, and above all, gluttony. How did this holiday morph into what it is today? Families grossly overspend just to serve one meal consisting of more food than two of their families can eat. They buy decorations, and place settings and food and more food, and then they stress out in their effort to make sure everything is just perfect and it strains relationships and when everything is finally put on the table, they pay a little lip-service to a god they may or may not really believe in, let alone honor outside of the three main holidays set aside to recognize him. Then, they overindulge in every way possible because, after all, that's what Thanksgiving is all about right? Eating until you're ready to puke, sitting around lazy for a while and then eating some more. For what? To show we're thankful? Thankful for what? For credit cards that allowed us to consume the equivalent of a month's worth of groceries in one sitting? For the advertisers and societal brain-washers that convince us that we have some sort of obligation to spend more in order to make everything just perfect lest we face a year of damnation or a loss of respect from family members or some such consequence?
Yes, it's good to be thankful, but once again, the commercialization of this holiday has clouded it's original meaning to the point that it is completely lost on most people now.
Yes, it's good to be thankful, but once again, the commercialization of this holiday has clouded it's original meaning to the point that it is completely lost on most people now.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Great White Hope?!
Really?! Everybody knows you're thinking it, but this is the kind of thing you DO NOT want to say publicly...unless you're Sarah Palin. Then it wouldn't surprise anyone.
Advertisers are avoiding the Crazy Tree
Looks like an awful lot of advertisers want to avoid getting hit by the rotten fruit falling from the Crazy Tree. Somewhere between 20 and three dozen major advertisers (including Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Travelocity) have insisted their ads not run during Glenn Beck's show on Fox News (here's one article on it). Why? Because he took his anti-Obama rants a touch too far and apparently really alienated some people. Seriously guys, cool off a bit and start making some intelligent, fact-based arguments and maybe you'll scrape up some semblance of credibility before 2012. Fail, and you're doomed to another four years of barking up a dead crazy tree.
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Dying Party
Seriously, what is the deal with the frenzy that the health care issue has caused? I see on the news where people are screaming and yelling at congressmen in "town hall meetings" or whatever you want to call them. Then there are people out there claiming that the new legislation promotes euthanasia (or as Sarah Palin put it, "Obama's Death Panel") and takes away Medicare, and...you name it, someone has made the claim. I even heard that the new legislation has Nazi influences. Euthanasia? Nazis? Really?
Obviously, by sheer merit of there being so many conflicting claims of what the legislation actually posesses within its pages, there must be some misinformation out there. But why? Who makes up those faulty claims? And who perpetuates them? Why?
Who: Republicans mostly.
Why: 1) because they're pissed that, if this passes, and works, they won't get credit for dealing with a f***ed up system when they should have (i.e. sometime between 2000 and 2008)...and 2) because if this passes, and works, their already floundering party will be rendered completely irrelevant and they'll have next to zero chance of regaining any significant political power for at least a generation.
That's just my opinion - formed largely on the basis that with every new effort, the Republican party looks more and more desparate. Rush Limbaugh sunk so low (as if "lower" was possible) as to claim the Dems have Nazi ties; Fox News had some guy in a "Crazy Tree" with a whiteboard basically claiming Obama was a Communist; and Rep. Virginia Fox (R-NC) was shown on C-SPAN claiming the legislation promotes euthanasia. And to think some people buy this crap...and still vote for the people who make it up.
All the while, these same people are doing everything in their power to prevent the single most beneficial piece of legislation this country (and maybe world) has ever had the opportunity to put in place to solve an awful lot of our problems: The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Through this bill, we could create millions of jobs in the clean energy sector, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and actually make strides toward combating global climate change. That one bill has the potential to pull us out of the recession by creating jobs that cannot be outsourced, transition us to a clean energy economy, break our slavery to oil-producing nations (another benefit to the economy), and start addressing the single biggest threat to the human species we've ever faced. But the Republicans fight tooth and nail to prevent this bill from passing.
Even if the Republicans do get their way, and Obama fails...it will be too late for them to do anything about it and their party will collapse anyway...only it will bring the rest of the country with it.
Obviously, by sheer merit of there being so many conflicting claims of what the legislation actually posesses within its pages, there must be some misinformation out there. But why? Who makes up those faulty claims? And who perpetuates them? Why?
Who: Republicans mostly.
Why: 1) because they're pissed that, if this passes, and works, they won't get credit for dealing with a f***ed up system when they should have (i.e. sometime between 2000 and 2008)...and 2) because if this passes, and works, their already floundering party will be rendered completely irrelevant and they'll have next to zero chance of regaining any significant political power for at least a generation.
That's just my opinion - formed largely on the basis that with every new effort, the Republican party looks more and more desparate. Rush Limbaugh sunk so low (as if "lower" was possible) as to claim the Dems have Nazi ties; Fox News had some guy in a "Crazy Tree" with a whiteboard basically claiming Obama was a Communist; and Rep. Virginia Fox (R-NC) was shown on C-SPAN claiming the legislation promotes euthanasia. And to think some people buy this crap...and still vote for the people who make it up.
All the while, these same people are doing everything in their power to prevent the single most beneficial piece of legislation this country (and maybe world) has ever had the opportunity to put in place to solve an awful lot of our problems: The American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). Through this bill, we could create millions of jobs in the clean energy sector, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and actually make strides toward combating global climate change. That one bill has the potential to pull us out of the recession by creating jobs that cannot be outsourced, transition us to a clean energy economy, break our slavery to oil-producing nations (another benefit to the economy), and start addressing the single biggest threat to the human species we've ever faced. But the Republicans fight tooth and nail to prevent this bill from passing.
Even if the Republicans do get their way, and Obama fails...it will be too late for them to do anything about it and their party will collapse anyway...only it will bring the rest of the country with it.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The speed of time
"As you get older, time just goes by faster."
I've heard some variation of that very statement many, many times in my life. So has everyone else probably. But until late, I never put much thought into it; I just blew it off like every other snippet of profound prophecy my elders attempted to impart upon me. Because, really, the statement makes no sense. Time cannot go by faster. There will always be 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and sixty seconds in a minute. 86,400 seconds in a day. That doesn't change. Period.
But something, somewhere, somehow, does change with a person's age...or at least with my age anyway. Obviously it's not time that changes - it's a person's perception of that time that changes. Why that perception changes, I don't know. If did, I would maybe then be able to reverse the progression of that perception change. Then again, if I could do that, I'd probably not only win a Nobel Prize, but I'd take away that little aspect of clarvoyance which elders currenly posess.
It's cliche to say I know, but not that many years ago, the days seemed almost endless. I would do so much in one day that I'd eventually lack for things to do, at which time I would succumb to boredom or relaxation, much to my chagrin at the time. But what I wouldn't give now to have the ability to exclaim, "I'm bored" or to be able to feel at ease and accomplished enough to fully relax - to just sit back knowing full well that I don't need to do a damn thing.
Those not-so-distant days lent themselves to seasons that seemed to last for eons. Oh how many things I could do in one summer! Weekend tubing trips down the river were commonplace, as were long days on the island, or whatever else that suited my fancy at the time - I had time to do it. And if I couldn't do it one day, I could do it the next, or on any of the long days to come. If I felt social, two phone calls would rustle up any number of friends I felt like hanging out with. If I felt reclusive, I had more than plenty of time to find a secluded campsite somewhere and just escape everything.
But it's not that way now. I have to schedule tubing trips weeks and months in advance and build my busy schedule around that. I take time off work to work on something else. The days pass by faster and faster and before I know it, summer fades into fall, then winter, then spring and the cycle repeats itself with only the occasional realization that the weather has changed and the supposed season of "fun in the sun" has not only arrived but has snuck half past me without my even taking the plastic off the windows. And all of a sudden I'm struck with the harsh realization that I've spent more time on the toilet in the past year than I have on any floating apparatus, plastic or metal. "Fun" must now be planned, scheduled, prepared for, and had within a set timeframe that never seems long enough and all the while, the things that I "should be doing instead" are screaming at me from the back of my mind guilting me into not fully enjoying my time off. Impulsiveness is no longer genius, it's now irresponsible and cumbersome. And given the challenge, I would have to think long and hard about which two phone calls to make to round up a group of friends - and those calls would likely lead to one voicemail and one raincheck.
What happened? When did life get so hectic, so full of trivial crap that won't mean mean anything in five years, which will seemingly pass by in the time it took to tube down the river five summers ago. When did I choose to take on so many activities that I no longer have the luxury of saying, "let's float down the river today" and instantly have a dozen people in river garb holding rubber tubes and a case of beer standing in my driveway. And if this is just the natural progression of life, how do I buck the trend? Because in the back of my mind, the river calls for me, but I find it perpetually harder to hear over the screaming honey-do list.
I'd search for the answers to these questions myself, but I have to paint the kitchen cabinets tonight.
I've heard some variation of that very statement many, many times in my life. So has everyone else probably. But until late, I never put much thought into it; I just blew it off like every other snippet of profound prophecy my elders attempted to impart upon me. Because, really, the statement makes no sense. Time cannot go by faster. There will always be 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and sixty seconds in a minute. 86,400 seconds in a day. That doesn't change. Period.
But something, somewhere, somehow, does change with a person's age...or at least with my age anyway. Obviously it's not time that changes - it's a person's perception of that time that changes. Why that perception changes, I don't know. If did, I would maybe then be able to reverse the progression of that perception change. Then again, if I could do that, I'd probably not only win a Nobel Prize, but I'd take away that little aspect of clarvoyance which elders currenly posess.
It's cliche to say I know, but not that many years ago, the days seemed almost endless. I would do so much in one day that I'd eventually lack for things to do, at which time I would succumb to boredom or relaxation, much to my chagrin at the time. But what I wouldn't give now to have the ability to exclaim, "I'm bored" or to be able to feel at ease and accomplished enough to fully relax - to just sit back knowing full well that I don't need to do a damn thing.
Those not-so-distant days lent themselves to seasons that seemed to last for eons. Oh how many things I could do in one summer! Weekend tubing trips down the river were commonplace, as were long days on the island, or whatever else that suited my fancy at the time - I had time to do it. And if I couldn't do it one day, I could do it the next, or on any of the long days to come. If I felt social, two phone calls would rustle up any number of friends I felt like hanging out with. If I felt reclusive, I had more than plenty of time to find a secluded campsite somewhere and just escape everything.
But it's not that way now. I have to schedule tubing trips weeks and months in advance and build my busy schedule around that. I take time off work to work on something else. The days pass by faster and faster and before I know it, summer fades into fall, then winter, then spring and the cycle repeats itself with only the occasional realization that the weather has changed and the supposed season of "fun in the sun" has not only arrived but has snuck half past me without my even taking the plastic off the windows. And all of a sudden I'm struck with the harsh realization that I've spent more time on the toilet in the past year than I have on any floating apparatus, plastic or metal. "Fun" must now be planned, scheduled, prepared for, and had within a set timeframe that never seems long enough and all the while, the things that I "should be doing instead" are screaming at me from the back of my mind guilting me into not fully enjoying my time off. Impulsiveness is no longer genius, it's now irresponsible and cumbersome. And given the challenge, I would have to think long and hard about which two phone calls to make to round up a group of friends - and those calls would likely lead to one voicemail and one raincheck.
What happened? When did life get so hectic, so full of trivial crap that won't mean mean anything in five years, which will seemingly pass by in the time it took to tube down the river five summers ago. When did I choose to take on so many activities that I no longer have the luxury of saying, "let's float down the river today" and instantly have a dozen people in river garb holding rubber tubes and a case of beer standing in my driveway. And if this is just the natural progression of life, how do I buck the trend? Because in the back of my mind, the river calls for me, but I find it perpetually harder to hear over the screaming honey-do list.
I'd search for the answers to these questions myself, but I have to paint the kitchen cabinets tonight.
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