Hooray! It's November 1st!
This is the day where I switch my television from defaulting to Home & Garden TV to defaulting to The Hallmark Channel. Now, for those of you not in the know, The Hallmark Channel is home to more crappy original Christmas romance movies than any other network. Period. Which is why their annual "Countdown to Christmas" marathon is one of the best things ever. This year they produced thirty-seven new holiday movies. THIRTY-SEVEN! That's up from 33 in 2017, 28 in 2016, and 21 in 2015.
The films are always the same story.
Well, maybe they're not always exactly like that... but they are all a lot like that. And you have well over a hundred to watch each season.
And I am totally addicted to them. Mostly because I can have them running while I'm working. They're so brainless that you don't have to pay much attention to them to know what's going on. And it's not like you can miss anything, because the story is all the same. I mean, just look at this shit...
Can you tell them apart? I've seen all of them and I can't!
If you don't get The Hallmark Channel... or you live outside the USA, you might still be in luck. Netflix has seen what a raging money-maker Hallmark has on their hands, and has invested a huge chunk of money in producing their own slate of Christmas movies.
Last year they had a phenomenon with A Christmas Prince, but my favorite of theirs is The Spirit of Christmas...
As is typical, the guys they find to act in these movies are so brutally hot that they have me questioning my sexuality. Daniel the Ghost makes my ovaries explode...
And now, if you'll excuse me, The Hallmark Channel Countdown to Christmas is in full swing and I have to make sure my DVR is set to record everything.
How's Maine? Maine is cold.
I didn't have a car until noon, so I skipped breakfast at the hotel and decided to have pizza at Otto in downtown Portland. They make a Butternut Squash and Cranberry pie that is one of my favorite things. And it totally delivered...
While eating I got to watch a woman let her baby stab the wood table repeatedly with a fork. When she noticed me watching, she took the fork away.
Then gave the baby a knife to stab the table with.
I don't know that it was an improvement, but okay.
On my way back to my car I saw two pumpkins on the sidewalk, assumably waiting to be tossed in the trash...
I guess the magic of pumpkin spice has passed. They look to be in great shape, so somebody should totally save them and make pie.
The hour trip north was boring, which is the best you can hope for when driving in Maine during winter. After checking into my hotel, I look out to see that the Androscoggin River has once again closed down for the season.
Here was my view from last year, around this time...
And here we are now...
Exciting, I know.
Since there's not much to do while I wait for my job to start, I've been getting some work done and catching up on Facebook. It was while looking through the latter that I ran across a video of Christmas tree shearing. It's fascinating to watch. Relaxing even. Very zen...
Depending on size, these guys can shape 2,000-2,500 trees per day! They don't say how many ninjas they could slash their way through. Oh well.
As exhausted as I am, I suppose I should take a nap before starting work at midnight.
Or search YouTube for more Christmas tree shearing videos.
One of those two things.
It's all I want.
It's so easy to come down on how monetized and commercialized Christmas has become. The holiday is a major money-maker for retailers and they never seem to let you forget it. But, every once in a while, you come across something that makes you loathe the season just a little bit less.
This is some real Christmas magic right here...
That's one Santa who has earned his sleigh-bells.
To all those who celebrate...
Time for two of my annual Christmas traditions!
First... breaking my Little Drummer Boy Challenge fast with Grace Jones...
And then... checking to make sure Alex Honnold is still alive (he is).
If you celebrate the holiday, I hope you have a Merry Christmas!
If not, have a great December 25th!
And no matter what holiday you call your own this season, thanks for dropping by!
This morning I got a ride to the airport not knowing if my flight would be canceled or not. Freezing fog back home limited visibility to a quarter-mile, which is well under what's required to land. Add that to the fact that last night's flight was cancelled, and you can see how sitting at SeaTac was a somber affair for me. At least the airport was relatively calm thanks to it being Christmas and all.
But, by the time my flight was to leave, the fog had lifted, so we took off under a "weather advisory" which means the plane would return to Seattle if it couldn't land. Lucky for me the visibility was over ten miles, which was plenty, and we were on the ground before I knew it.
It's a Christmas Miracle, I suppose.
Despite the high price of a last-minute ticket, I ended up being very glad I flew instead of drove. The mountain passes have been all kinds of messed up since I left, and the route I would have driven over Stevens Pass ended up having some fatalities due to heavy snowfall (and is currently closed).
And here is where I settle down for a long winter's nap.
At least I hope so.
If I can just get a decent amount of rest... a mere six hours of sleep, perhaps... that would truly be my Christmas Miracle.
Hope your holiday was a happy one!
Every year NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) tries to diffuse their scary image as the harbinger of a nuclear attack by tracking Santa as he travels the world delivering toys to all the good boys and girls. Well, those who still believe anyway.
This year, a little drama was unleashed when NORAD dumped Google Maps as their map provider and went with Microsoft's Bing Maps.
I'm guessing that Microsoft paid for the endorsement... one way or another. Just like they do when they buy air time in popular shows like Hawaii Five-0 and Elementary for product placement. Hell, in the case of Hawaii Five-0, they go further than just placement... they pay for actual fucking demos of their products to be injected into the show (I can't imagine how humiliating that must be for the writers and actors).
Anyway, Google, not one to miss out on an opportunity, game up with their own Santa Tracker. But they made it all cute with animations, games, and colorful graphics. I admit it was a pleasant change from the same old cheesy video renders you get from NORAD...
I wish Giant Santa luck on his big ride tonight. Hopefully he has some bottles of 5-Hour Energy to get him through.
Okay. Okay. I take back everything I said yesterday.
Clearly there very much is a "War on Christmas," and Google is leading the charge?
It was definitely a "laugh out loud" moment for me when I read how somebody has posted a complaint to Google that their Santa and Snowman "Emoji" characters look sad, thus destroying the jolly feeling of the holidays...
Personally, I think the snowman looks happy enough with his arms up like that, but okay.
At first, it seemed like Apple was getting a pass because their Emoji characters look happy...
But then somebody brought up that Santa has brown eyes instead of blue eyes so, you guessed it, WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!
Then somebody brought up that the Snowman is wearing a fez hat that is worn in some Muslim countries so, you guessed it, WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!!
I tried to point out that Emoji originated in Japan where most people have brown eyes, but nobody was listening. I tried also to point out that the Snowman wearing a fez is merely an internet tradition based on what got dreamed up by somebody back when the Unicode standard was being created, but nobody was listening either.
ZOMG! THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS IS REAL, PEOPLE!!!
It appears that FOX "News" has been so successful for whipping up a frenzy over a "War on Christmas" that doesn't even exist that even sane people can no longer ignore it.
I say "sane" because you'd have to be fucking crazy to entertain the notion that such a war is happening, or that Christmas is in any danger whatsoever of being eliminated any time soon. And while I have no problem in people believing in imaginary things, the absurd leap in logic required to even conceive of such idiocy is so far beyond rational thought as to be laughable...
When somebody says... "Our government is supposed to represent all people of all faiths, so I don't think it is appropriate that government institutions should be displaying items which celebrate religious holidays of specific faiths." It is somehow interpreted as... "WHAT DO YOU MEAN A POST OFFICE CAN'T PUT UP A NATIVITY IN THEIR LOBBY? THAT'S VIOLATING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF RELIGION!!! YOU ARE ATTACKING CHRISTIANS!!! THIS IS A WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!! Oh, I'm next in line? Give me a dozen Madonna and Child Christmas stamps with baby Jesus on them!"
When somebody says... "I say 'Happy Holidays!' because there are several religious celebrations this time of year, and I want to be sure that I'm including everybody in my well-wishing!" It is somehow interpreted as... "THE HOLIDAY YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT IS CHRISTMAS!!! WHAT?!? PEOPLE CAN'T SAY 'MERRY CHRISTMAS' ANY MORE??? THAT'S VIOLATING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF RELIGION!!! YOU ARE ATTACKING CHRISTIANS!!! THIS IS A WAR ON CHRISTMAS!!! There can't be religious freedom if people are allowed to acknowledge holidays other than Christmas during the month of December!"
It goes on and on.
Sure you can always drag out some nut-job exception, but the vast, vast majority of non-Christians in this country have no problems with people celebrating Christmas. No sane person wants to destroy this kind of personal freedom in a country based on personal freedom.
All they want is the freedom to celebrate their own religion.
Or to not be forced to celebrate any religion at all, as the case may be.
And yet everything always gets turned into some kind of personal attack on the front lines of this mythical battle. Some kid is told they can't wear a "Merry Christmas" shirt to school, so the parents go ballistic and start screaming bloody murder about an attack on their religion and a War on Christmas. And yet... these parents would likely be the first people to condemn a kid who wears a "Celebrate Satan" shirt to school on Halloween who comes from a family that practices Satanism. Granted, this is an extreme example, but it's not misrepresenting the situation. Religious freedom always seems to be a one-way street and, all too often, a battle cry of "religious freedom" is leading the charge when attacking religious freedom. Apparently there's no hypocrisy in saying "You can practice whatever religion you want... so long as it's just mine!"
And, yes, I think sometimes it goes too far. I think it's stupid to call a "Christmas tree" anything but a "Christmas tree" when it's obviously meant to be a "Christmas tree." Political correctness is being taken to absurd levels in an increasingly stupid number of situations. But pointing out stupidity does not a war make.
In the meanwhile, Christmas is everywhere. You can't really escape it.
Maybe people who don't celebrate Christmas should start declaring themselves prisoners of war?
The problem is, those who keep pushing the idea of this fucking idiotic "War on Christmas" don't seem to be taking any prisoners. And why should they when they've got God on their side?
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