I was settling down during my lunch to write a clever, witty and stimulating blog entry. I was interrupted by the unmistakeable sounds of purring and the eyes of a cat who was looking for a clear landing path to my lap.
The blog entry loses. The cat wins.
I’ll write tonight.
When I’m bored and find myself aimlessly wandering the internet, I often stop over to The Internet Archive and browse through some of the old short films from the 40s and 50s.
One particular short film I enjoy is titled “Young Man’s Fancy”. This film is about young Judy, who is just smitten with a friend her brother has brought home from college. She’s trying to get his attention so they can go to the dance together.
Now, you would think the title refers to Judy as the young man’s “fancy”. Nope. The twist of this film is that it’s really an infomercial for electric appliances! No specific brand names are mentioned, but mother and daughter discuss the virtues of having an electric washer and dryer and all electric kitchen, and Alex, the object of Judy’s affection, has a most peculiar hobby: “engineering and time study”. A geek before his time! I love it!
I love watching this little episodic movie for a couple of reasons. I snicker when it’s mentioned that Alex is a “really woman hater”(?!?) and he and Judy’s brother go upstairs to take a shower together. (There’s a scene where Alex is shaving and the brother is taking a shower, in the same bathroom).
The mother in the film reminds me of my paternal grandmother in her homemaking skills; “wash day”, ironing the sheets, making a hearty lunch, etc.
What I like most is the innocence in this film. It has no basis in reality but rather takes place in a utopian, innocent world where time moved slower, people dressed up for dinner (I’m lucky to have pants on when I’m at the supper table) and the most technologically advanced piece of equipment in the house was the television.
I think there’s subliminal messages in the film though. I have the urge to redo the kitchen in an early 50s motif. Complete with an all-electric laundry.
One of the things that I’ve noticed over the past couple of years is that there doesn’t seem to be in any “holiday spirit” amongst the shoppers that are doing their Christmas shopping. I don’t know if this is confined to this area, where people are generally surly to begin with, or if this is an epidemic that has taken over the country as a whole. Nevertheless, I find it all quite depressing.
First of all, I refuse to shop on “Black Friday”. I find these pre-dawn specials quite idiotic and I’ve heard too many horror stories. Super Wal*Mart (Always White Trash, Always) advertises laptop computers for $299.99 between 5:01 a.m. and 5:36 a.m. on Black Friday. People start milling about these 24hour behemoths around 3:00 a.m. or so, awaiting the magic time when a overworked, underpaid and uninsured Wal*Mart associate croaks over the loudspeaker, “Wal*Mart associates, it’s time to remove the paper”, referring to the brown paper that is wrapped around all these bargains for the “specials hour”. Now mind you, they’ve been shreaking in newspapers, on the radio and on the tube about how wonderful all these sales are going to be for the prior two weeks, so there’s probably a couple hundred or so people awaiting their chance to pick up a $299.99 computer. They’ve been dreaming, scheming and salivating over this opportunity to get this deep-discounted computer. They’ve been wandering the store for two hours in the middle of the night waiting for this Golden Opportunity, this one chance to get the computer their rug rat has been whining about since the middle of August. They’re tired, they’re cranky, but more importantly, they’re ready to join the other folks and get this computer.
Except there’s only six of them.
And one of them is damaged.
(And I won’t mention that they run Windows. Unpatched.)
Natually, all mayhem ensues, men are making fists, women are tripping others, people in wheelchairs are getting herded away from the “fun” by ambulatory people using shopping carts as battering rams, children are crying. I have to ask, is it really worth it?
How does the song go? Oh yes, “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.” Chance are you won’t have them if you go shopping on Black Friday. They’ve been knocked out by some holiday shopper, undoubtedly spreading holiday cheer, who saw you grab the laptop they had their eye on.
Yesterday marked the first significant snowstorm of the season. The weather folks predicted three to five inches, so of course we got nearly a foot of snow.
Earlier in the week I was commenting that it was a balmy 67.8 degrees here in Upstate N.Y. While quite beautiful, that’s a bad thing in December. You see, warm air keeps the Great Lakes warm, which then just invites Arctic air to come over the lakes, scoop up some lake water, make some magic and dump lots of snow on those of us that live in strategically placed locales.
I grew up smack dab in the middle of the Lake Ontario “snow belt”, so lots of snow doesn’t bother me. Where we live now is not as close to the snow belt area, but we still get our fair share of snow. I’m always fairly bewildered at others’ reaction to a foot or so of snow. If you think about it, it’s all easier to deal with if you just, well, deal with it. I don’t fly into hysterics and buy sixty loaves of bread and fourteen cartons of milk. I don’t cry and throw my vehicle into a tailspin when I enter a whiteout. I don’t believe that school should be closed due to snow on the roads. That’s what living in Upstate New York is all about.
It’s just so much damn work!
Oh well. I’m hoping that working my way up and down the driveway with the snowblower will pass for physical exercise.
With our original plans to go to Pittsburgh this weekend thwarted by Mother Nature, Earl and I decided to keep it local and do our Christmas shopping in Syracuse today. So off we went to the behemoth of a shopping experience, Carousel Center. This mall is going to become the largest mall in the United States one of these days, when the plans for DestiNY USA are completed. As it stands now, it’s still pretty damn big.
We navigated from store to store like the old pros that we are, shopping list in hand and burn marks on our palms from too many swipes of the debit card. It’s a cash Christmas this year, as we refuse to go into debt to spread joy to our loved ones. If you’re gonna play, you gotta pay. That’s what I always say. (If you believe that, I have a oceanfront property in Peoria, Ill. to sell you.)
One of the things I always enjoy about Syracuse is the pride in the SU sports teams (Go Orange! Go ‘Cuse!) with t-shirts and hats and everything on everyone everywhere you go. I never had the opportunity to go to college at Syracuse University, but I still bust with pride when I see the orange and blue apparel, posters and other team spirit stuff and I enjoy every opportunity we have to see a game at the Carrier Dome.
Anyways, Earl and I got most of the Christmas shopping done. I now know what I’m buying him this year (all to be ordered online tomorrow). It’s nice to get it all under control a little early in the season!
Today has been a day about changing plans. It started when I decided to take my lunch to work today. Being Friday, the cupboards are starting to get a little bare, so it was peanut butter and strawberry jam on wheat bread with a snack pack of Pringles as accompaniment. Earl called me at work around 11:00 and said “let’s do lunch at noon!”. Not wanting to waste food, I decided to eat my lunch at 11:00 and then joined him at noon at the local cafeteria-type place for a big plate of spanish rice. So I had lunch before lunch. Small wonder I’m gaining weight again. Oh well.
During lunch (the second one), we noticed the weather was taking a turn for the worse in the way of some pretty good lake effect snow squalls. This was a problem because we were planning on doing our annual Christmas shopping trip this weekend. This year’s destination was Pittsburgh. We were going to leave right after work and get as far as Erie, Pa. We’d spend the night and then get up and complete the trip tomorrow to do some shopping. Right now we’d be about Buffalo. But instead we’re at home, snug in our home as the snow falls and the wind whips about. So much for Pittsburgh. If the weather clears up a bit tomorrow, we’ll hop in the Jeep and drive away from the great lakes, maybe towards Albany, and do our Christmas shopping there.
Faced with an evening ahead of us now, we decided to go to the movies and see “Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire”. Honestly, I don’t know what the fuss is all about. Quite frankly I personally found this to be the weakest of the Harry Potter movies. I found the plot trudged along at an acceptable pace, but the magic seemed to be missing from the movie. I thought the whole movie was way too dark; the plot, the story, the magic and the cinematography. It wasn’t a waste of money by any means, but I would rush out and see it a second time.
So now I’m catching up on my blog reading and looking forward to calling it a night soon. It’s a definite change from the Pittsburgh-bound road trip, but nothing disappointing. We are looking forward to a relaxing weekend.
Earl worked late tonight so I took the opportunity to head over to my Mom’s house for supper and to fix her ailing computer. I hadn’t seen her in a while, so it was a little visit to look forward to, even if I did have to fix her Windows computer.
She recently when through some boxes of her stuff left over from when my parents separated a number of years ago, and came across a our family picture from December 1978. Since I’ve somehow become the unofficial family historian, she gave it to me. I haven’t seen this picture in a long while. I have to admit it brought a little lump to my throat since it reminded me of the rush of the holidays when I was a kid. I thought I’d share with the class.
I was 10 years old at the time.
The first day of December is marching right by. It’s starting to feel like winter with the overcast sky and the colder temperatures. It should be a lot more snowy up here in Central New York, but right now everything is a dull brownish green.
Earl and I took a drive last night through the really snobby sections of town to see their holiday decorations. It must be a little early in the season or something because there didn’t seem to be a lot of them up. Perhaps people are lazy. There were some decorations that were downright tacky. I was hoping that icicle lights fad had died down, but no such luck yet. I have yet to see a real icicle flash in unison with the other icicles along the roof. And such color! I was always taught not to eat yellow snow, why should I admire a yellow icicle?
What I find really depressing are these gigantic blow up characters people are putting on their lawns. First of all, they’re tacky. Very tacky. Secondly, they look absolutely awful when they’re deflated and lying all over the lawn like a bunch of discarded laundry. What’s even worse is driving to work at 6 a.m. and seeing these ugly things slowly deflate and fall down in a crumpled heap as you’re driving by. I don’t want to see Santa or Rudolph literally fall to pieces in front of my eyes. It makes the kid in me sad.
What happened to the days of some nice colorful Christmas lights wrapped around the poles holding up the porch roof? Maybe a lit up snowflake or two. Perhaps a wreath. It seems like people are trying to outdo the crash commercialism found in the mall decorations. “This baby Jesus brought to you by Wal*Mart.” And don’t get me started on mixing up Christmas symbols and themes. Newsflash: Mary did not get it on with Frosty and then give birth to Santa Claus. They shouldn’t all be standing in the same manger.
Good gravy, I’m just full of holiday spirit.
My cubicle at work is situated right next to the window that looks out into our main lobby. One of the advantages of this is I can satisfy my nosy nature by seeing everyone that is in and out of our office all day long, be it people off the street paying their bill or whatever, delivery men (DHL guy is my favorite) or businessmen in their three piece suits waiting to meet with the vice-president of the company. To me, it’s all eye candy.
One disturbing thing I saw today was an older gentleman who resembled Fred Flintstone. Unfortunately I couldn’t see if he was barefooted or not, but he had the facial features, haircut and build of Fred Flintstone. You could tell he wasn’t from Bedrock, however, because he had one of those annoying bluetooth cell phone earpieces in his right ear. He looked like he belonged on the enemy ship on Star Trek.
First of all, I have to ask, “Why?” Are people so self centered now that they feel they need to run around with this piece of gadgetry in their ear? “Look at me, I’m so important, I could be called at any moment and then I’ll totally disregard you and start talking to the thin air but I’m really talking into this wireless piece of a hardware in my ear.” How gauche. I mean really. I don’t care who you are, that attitude is just rude.
And why are the manufacturers of these things making them blink? Blink, blink. I’m busy. Blink, blink. Perhaps it’s to make them more festive for the holidays. “Oh look, Penny from Rochester has green and red LEDs in her ear and they’re blinking. She must be very smart and very important. At least she dressed up for the company Christmas party and wore her green and red earpiece.”
It’s bad enough that wireless technology has invaded public space to the point where everyone feels they can carry on a conversation with that oh so important person on the other end of the line and be totally oblivious to everyone around them. Why it was just last week that I overheard a conversation in JC Penney where this fairly unattractive woman was shrieking at her gynocologist because she needed an appointment for her yeast infection NOW! Now, do I really need to hear that while I’m browsing through the men’s department of a clothing store? During the supper hour? Please.
I kept my eye on this Fred Flintstone character in our lobby during his visit. He never got a call. His little blue LED never stopped blinking. He didn’t beam up to the mothership.
But he did look like an asshat.
The latest version of Mozilla Firefox was released yesterday. The version number is 1.5. An alternative to Internet Explorer for Windows users, Firefox is the perfect web browser for Windows, OS X or Linux. This latest version seems much snappier on my work computer running Windows XP SP2, I’m eager to test it on my PowerBook running OS X (Tiget) tonight.
I highly recommend it.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!
