Merry Crapmas

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. And he’s sitting on my neighbor’s lawn in an inflatable helicopter. This is wrong.

I get the inflatable lawn ornaments. There’s just something about having a huge Santa standing in the middle of your grass. Then, come January, he folds up to nearly nothing to store away until next year.

It gets even better if you put Santa on a timer. This way every morning Santa slowly rises, swaying one way then another like a drunken sailor on shore leave, until at last he is fully erect and waving to the passing cars. Every night just after dark, the timer clicks and Santa starts to bob and weave again, finally passing out in a puddle of his own vomit. OK, the vomit part is just my imagination at work, but if you’ve ever watched an inflatable Santa call it a day it doesn’t take that much imagination to see him as passed out drunk.

The problem with the inflatables is that no one seems to know when to stop. Down the block last year was an abominable snow woman. At least, I think this is what it was. I lacked the courage to knock on the front door and ask why their snowman had a clear set of breasts, but no bra.

This year, at a different house is Santa-in-a-helicopter. I’m sorry, who thought this one up? I am thoroughly convinced that some Lillian Vernon employee said, ‘Boss, all we gots is Santas and Helicopters.’ and the reply was ‘limitations like that shouldn’t stop Christmas lawn art!’

To add to the problem, there is a complete Nativity scene about fifteen feet away.

You probably already figured out that I am not the most religious person, but why do I have more respect for your religion than you do? How do you become the kind of person who puts a Nativity scene on your lawn, but moves it out of the way for some bargain basement Franken-Santa inflatable???

And what will next year bring? Oh, I know there will still be snow globes with merry-go-round ponies and stars and elves in them. But what will the leftover combination be? My money is on Easter Bunnies with Santa hats and baskets with presents in them. This is sure to confuse small children everywhere.

For our yard, I don’t think I’m going to wait for the sale. I’m all set to slap a beard and hat on our inflatable St. Patrick’s Day leprechaun. He’s over six feet tall (one of the major points of appeal that pushed us to buy him) and he’s holding a beer mug! This way, when Santa passes out at the end of the day it’ll look realistic.

Remember, you’ll want to get a good head start on warping the holidays for next year. Be sure to purchase your leprechaun right after St. Patrick’s Day - this is when the party stores have the best prices. And just shoot me an email, I promise to direct you to the right places for the Beard and Hat conversion kits.

Merry Crapmas to all!

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=santa+helicopter&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=2196346991&ref=pd_sl_7zoyxi8znv_b

http://www.google.com/products?q=inflatable+santa+lawn&hl=en&show=dd

The end is nigh(ish)

We are here! Dec 21st 2008 -
I hear you saying ‘so?’

But know this, 12-21-12 is the end of the world. The Mayan calendar predicts this. All great religions see the end of the world as coming in 2012. Well, all the good religions anyway. And why would you want to be a part of a creed that has no impending doomsday scenario? Where’s the fun in that, really?

So, you’ve got four years left before the poles switch, the ascension occurs, and the human race goes extinct. What are you going to do with your time?

That’s a big question. Do you stop going to work? Spend your days plying your family and friends with fond farewells and try to play as much golf as you possibly can?

Should you sell your water-front property? Between global warming and the polar shift, water front property should be a lot less valuable in five years. The market may be soft now, but think how soft (or even underwater) the ground will be in five years.

There are so many things to do before facing the end of the world.
Let’s start with The Basic Apocalypse Readiness Check-list:
1 - make certain that you have a survivable low point in the house to weather high winds, tornadoes, things of that ilk.
2 - make certain that you have a survivable high point in the house to weather floods and such.
(It doesn’t really matter if your area is at risk for these kinds of disasters. Who knows what will happen when all this goes awry?)
* Sidebar - there is no advice for California. I am sorely afraid that the old Lex Luther drop-California-into-the-ocean plan may come to fruition here. Notice how I moved far away from the state . . .
3 - keep plenty of canned foods on hand. You can also get MREs, or Meals Ready to Eat at Military supply stores. If you have any questions regarding the debatable tastiness of the MREs simply ask any military person you know.
* Freeze-dried ice cream is also a great thing to have on hand for end-of-the-world scenarios. Just keep in mind that the labeling is correct about the ‘freeze-dried’ part but not the ‘ice-cream’ part.
4 - keep plenty of drinkable water on hand. You should have one gallon of water per person per day for the duration of the planned siege.
* because the ‘siege’ will be until the end of all time, you should realize that your life span after December 21st will be measured in gallons per person per day.
5 - don’t bathe in your drinking water. If you want to continue to be able to be near the ones you love during this time of crisis, bathing water is a must. Keep non-drinking water on hand to encourage cleanliness at the end.

There are all kinds of things still to be done. You have only for years to build a shelter to house your entire family (comfortably?) until the world is a safe place to live in. Remember, the Basic Apocalypse Readiness Check-list only covers minimalist survival. You’ll likely want things like beds, entertainment, and communications devices so you can talk other survivors into checking out the ‘surface’ and reporting back to you. Without this, someone in your shelter will have to make the foray into the unknown and (hopefully) return to tell you all about it. It’s far better to have a patsy to do the early recon; communications systems will help ensure this scenario.

If you are looking for a handy guide to survival shelters, may I suggest “Blast From the Past” with Brendan Fraser (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124298/). Whether or not you enjoy the comedic value of the film, there are excellent ideas for survival shelters in the movie.

And last but not least, what else do you have to do before the end comes? Each of us must look deep into our own hearts. Is there someone we need to forgive? Someone who needs forgiveness from us? A wrong that must be righted? There are deep soul searches to be conducted.

Remember, you have just four short years from now to do what needs to be done. Me, I have to go shark diving and parachuting. Because, hey, if something goes wrong, my family will survive for that many more gallons per person per day!

Not easy bein’ green - Part 2

There are bigger and better ways to ‘go green’ than just by saving plastic bags. Cities are starting to catch up with recycling - which is in hot debate about whether or not it saves any money. Nashville (where I live) now recycles plastics up to #7! Lordy, almost no one recycles #7!

There must be a caveat . . . Yup. They don’t take plastic bags. These have to be the easiest thing in the world to recycle. I swear I could melt a few down on my stovetop in an old pan and make something useful out of it. I’d do it, too, except for the poisonous vapors it would release. And right there on the bag it says ‘please recycle’ and ‘#2’. So why won’t Nashville take them??? We are left to recycle them by . . . (*gasp*) using them again! (Give me a moment, I have to shake that thought off!)

There are big ticket items that can be bought more wisely, too - you know, the next time you’re not in a recession - like fuel efficient cars, energy saver fridges, dishwashers, etc. Personally, I’m holding out for a hybrid mini-van and a fridge that I can open the doors and cool the whole house in the summer.

There’s also a big push towards ‘green construction’, which a friend of mine is certified in. Apparently, often it’s not the materials that are different, but the way that they are assembled, and some methods to reduce waste. But, there are some things that are different.

There are recycled countertops. Beautiful pieces, really, made out of shards of broken (recycled) glass. I’m encouraging my father to get those when he re-does his kitchen. And there are toilets that have two different strengths of flushes. So you can flush according to what you put in there. But I have to wonder if there is also an alarm or a loud, taunting voice. There might as well be one. Like no one’s going to realize that scary loud whoosh of water through the pipes means you just dropped a deuce!

My contractor friend recently added a second story to his own home - and you can bet it’s green. He and his wife just had their first baby a few months ago (sounds like a good time to plan major construction on the house!) So they have been really excited about some of the new products they have found.

I get it. He’s in construction, she’s his wife. But they practically glowed about a spackle that had no volatile compounds and was so safe he could do the walls with the baby right there. This is the right time to put in energy saver appliances, and they are going all out. All the way out to the insulation. Which they swear is an organic foam that fills the cracks completely and won’t let a smidge of air escape. They say it’s so safe you can eat it. And some days they are so excited about it, that I think they will. (I’ll write again and let you know how that works out for them.)

But for any of us not currently adding a second story onto our house, what can we do?

Well, we can save gas by driving less aggressively. Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. We can save money and energy by putting fluorescent light bulbs all through our houses. They don’t burn out for ten whole years. Unless, of course, they pop and die like mine do. We can put recycling in the bin. If you paid just a little more attention, you could keep a huge portion of your trash out of the landfills. Except, of course, if you live in an apartment, which almost no city provides recycling for.

So, see? There’s plenty we can all do to make a better tomorrow. And sometime tomorrow we’ll realize how to get it done.

Not easy bein’ green - Part 1

Okay, actually it is fairly easy to be green these days. Or at least greener.

There are a lot of things we can all do without much effort. And most of us aren’t doing them. Some things there are really no good excuse for: Like using plastic bags. Every grocery store and its’ brothers all sell those cloth re-usable bags for 99c.

Just think, Kroger gives you 4c credit every time you use one of your own bags! This means in a mere 27 trips you will have paid off your bag. (I’m counting the 9c of tax in there, too.) In that same 27 trips you will have discovered that your cloth bag holds twice as much as a single plastic bag, and never needs to be double bagged. Was this accounted for in that 4c? Or am I getting gypped?

Nevermind. I’m saving the environment. And I can sling my grocery bag over my shoulder, can you? As South Park so aptly put it, I am no longer creating ‘smog’ I have moved up to creating ‘smug’. Five more baby ducks will survive to adulthood because I brought my bags today. And I got 20c!

In that same 27 trips to earn back the price of your bags, you will also walk an extra five miles. ‘Huh?’ You say, ‘how is that?’ Some of you are better at this than me and you will never make the extra five miles, but me, I clock the time: Going back to my car to get the bags out of the trunk.

I started to give my kids a quarter every time they remembered the bags, thus greatly increasing my number of trips before the bags are paid off, BUT greatly decreasing my number of trips back to the car. Unfortunately, my kids suck at it as bad as I do. Basically, I’m never going to earn back the cost of the insulated bag for milk and ice cream, but I will continue being smug.

There are other things to do, too. Sara Snow, on ‘Get Fresh’, (https://www.singledad.com/home-and-cooking/articles/Sara_Snow_s_Simple_Steps_to_Live_Green_1214980981.php) tells us to unplug things. Everything. My Dad’s a physicist and he disagrees with Sara. He points out that non-transformer plugs don’t draw a current unless the thing is on. So who cares? And you sure don’t want to unplug it while you’re using it.

But what about transformer plugs? (Those bulky black boxes that make it impossible to plug anything into the other socket in the outlet.) I hear they’re evil! Some conservationists/granola-nut-jobs call them ‘vampires’ because they suck so much energy.

I was going around the house unplugging them while my father laughed at me. He said the hairdryer might draw 2c of electricity in a month. Well, I’m joining up with Sara Snow then: I want my 2c! Again, (*sigh*) this is followed by a sentence that starts ‘unfortunately’.
Unfortunately, there were only 4 things to unplug. I can’t unplug the phone. It doesn’t even work without the base plugged in, let alone take messages. I won’t unplug my computer because I would go clinically insane waiting for Windows to start up every time I sat down. Sometimes Yahoo is just too slow for me. And I understand that we should unplug the TV every night before bed - Sara wants to know who is watching TV at 3 AM. TiVo is, that’s who! I can’t miss an old episode of ‘House’! So TV stays plugged.

But I’ve done what I can. I’ve reduced my electric bill by 96c per year!
Ahhhh, the satisfaction of a job well done.

Fly your flag and throw your shoe!

It’s time to take a moment and fly your flag. No! Not your freak flag! Your American Flag. Wipe a tear from your eye, stand tall and proud. Everyone should live in a country so great.

This is what Americans have long believed. It was okay to not be democratic. It was okay if your women had no rights. You were allowed to be not-as-good-as-us. We were simply holier than thou and proud of it.

It was also okay to be small, backward, have a monarchy or women who didn’t shave - anything! But now, it’s only okay to be those things if you aren’t after us. The Jihad came at us with a big bad strike and we went apeshit.

I know others out there have recognized the sublime irony in our strike - a fervent, almost religious, lash out at those who didn’t harm us because they were in some small way associated with those who did. Yes, we went Jihad right back on them. Of course, this is to prove what a bad idea Jihad is. Gotta love it.

Now, I’m not saying that anyone is right or wrong here, nor that anyone has deserved what they got. No, I get the distinct impression that those who deserve some ‘getting’ are the only ones who aren’t getting it. But Americans, as a people, were wrong. We have the right to vote, we have some control over our government, but we often chose not to vote. For some reason ‘The Hills’ is more important than the presidential debate. What’s really sad is that some poor idiot - who really needs a Living Skills class rather than his/her own TV show - will read this and think ‘Hey, that’s cool! We got a shout out!”

*sigh*

In the re-wording and backtracking the government has done, the war on Iraq has changed from being a ‘war on terror’ to an almost attempt at ‘Americanizing’ the country. I mean, we can’t prove they did anything wrong except be not-as-good-as-us. Only now, we’d already opened the can of whoop-ass and we desperately needed someone to shake it at.

So, Welcome, Iraq, to the twenty-first century. The time where we take over your country and turn you into a democracy so you can be as good as us. We won’t take the time now to ask what becomes of us when you get better at it than we are. (Japanese electronics anyone?)

George Bush should be proud. Regardless of what he originally intended, he has succeeded at Americanization even if the Iraqis don’t like it. His visit a few days ago yielded a shoe being tossed at his head. The Iraqi Prime Minister sat quietly and still-faced as the shoe came flying through the air right at W’s head. W, by the way, had to duck to not get beaned.

That kind of aim takes practice. I’m glad to see he gave the Iraqi people the opportunity for such pastimes. It’s all over folks. They don’t need us any more. We can get our troops out of Iraq!

Throwing your shoe at the head of a foreign leader? Why, that’s as American as baseball and apple pie!
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=11096193&ch=4226716&src=news

They’re dropping like Sci-Flies!

First it was Michael Crichton. The man who wrote Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain - and may or may not have hired ghost writers to churn out some more recent pieces like Next - has passed on. (Don’t get mad at me about the ghost writers comment. I’m just repeating gossip. The fact that a lot of people didn’t think his latest works were his best only makes it jucier.)

Now Forrest Ackerman is gone, too. He is credited with having coined the term ‘sci-fi’ and finding such literary sci-fi greats as Ray Bradbury. He had a huge collection of, shall we say, paraphernalia and opened his home to the public, like a museum, every Saturday.

I have to assume the man believed in forces beyond this world in order to throw open his doors once a week and believe that the visitors wouldn’t do his things any harm. And that his wife wouldn’t do him any harm, either. And, no, it wasn’t his wife that killed him. I think.

I have to admit that all this has me nervous. Something is after sci-fi writers. So I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Crichton, Ackerman . . . (It’s sci-fi, three shoes is appropriate.)

I find myself looking over my shoulder in public places. I mean what about all the smaller authors that maybe don’t make national news? What’s their morbidity rate? And why isn’t anyone putting the clues together!?!?!?

Please excuse my outburst. I’m sorry. I just let my imagination get a little carried away for a minute, there.

But that’s okay. It really isn’t about me is it? I mean, after all, I write thrillers. I get that it’s a fine line of distinction, but it’s one I’m hoping will keep me alive through the coming dark times for sci-fi writers.

I have to say that I am sorry to see Crichton and Ackerman go. They were the giants who founded the industry and they leave a grand legacy that someone among us will have to step up to carry on. But it seems the even the grand masters themselves were not able to defy science and medicine in the end. Or were they . . .

Big thumbs, tiny heads

All right, I saw the movie Wall*E and it was cute. At some time in the far future, people have become fat blobs who are no longer able to stand up because their bones have become weak and useless. Everything is done for them: they no longer even speak to each other.

As I said, it was a cute movie, until I realized the day is fast approaching where we wake up and realize that Wall*E was wrong. We will become a species with huge thumbs, weak legs and teeny tiny little shrunken heads.

No! You protest. We are becoming a species with a useless pinky finger and big heads. Like the aliens. But, alas, this is not going to be the case.

There was a time where you would die if you didn’t know how to build a fire and boil water. And - don’t get me wrong - I’m glad that time has passed. Because during that time you were likely to die, period. We now have clean water, toilets that flush (Hallelujia!) and women have an alternative to dying during childbirth and leaving the husband alone to figure out what to do with the child/beast. (Praise be to all you women who want ‘natural’ childbirths, but you won’t see me doing something just because ‘people have done it for thousands of years’. Horse and buggy, anyone? Really, get a better argument.)

But here’s the downside: we are getting phenomenally stupid. When I was a kid, if my toy train broke, I flipped it upside down and looked at the three working parts to see which one was at fault. My son’s train set is remote controlled. Which is way cool. But I bet there are very few of you who could offer a better explanation for how it works than “the remote sends a signal through the air to the train and the train goes.”

On the upside, my son didn’t pay the money to buy all the parts of that train set - upwards of several hundred dollars, piece by piece. So he isn’t afraid to get out a screwdriver and take it apart to see what’s wrong. This is why kids are so much more tech savvy than their parents: No fear / no concept of money.

The same applies to the TV and all that goes with it. At least my son’s train set isn’t a video game and he does build his own tracks. He uses all five of his fingers to do that. And thank goodness, because I was about to be afraid he wasn’t getting enough exercise.

But, train sets and video games aside, we are getting stupider by the minute. I was elated when I learned to microwave a potato rather than bake it, but appalled when they invented soup that you didn’t have to add water to. Seriously? Oh gosh yes! Adding water just took soooo looong. And drinkable water is so hard to come by in the continental US.

I became concerned when my mother got a hot dog cooker. It’s like a toaster: you put in two dogs and two buns and then push the lever down. Five minutes later, voila! Up pops dinner. The contraption is the size of a bread machine. Seriously? You are going to devote that much counter space to a food you shouldn’t be eating anyway? If you have a machine for it, you’re eating too many hot dogs. Bet you can’t name three hot dog ingredients without vomiting. No, it’s fine, I’ll wait ‘til you get back from hugging the toilet . . .

But wait! There’s more! Screw the hot dog machine, because you can now buy your hot dogs prepackaged in a plastic sleeve and just pop them in the microwave. Thank god, because getting out the hot dogs, then getting out the buns, then pushing the button on the machine was just so taxing. If you’re out of breath, I’m just saying it’s maybe because you don’t do anything except push the buttons on your video games and your diet consists of hot dogs.

So look around your house, embrace the huge thumbs of future generations, and feel your skull. It may be the last time we have a head that we use.