Finally, I have caved to the pressures of the Christmas shopping season and have decided that the time was right to give in and just get my damn tree out of storage and put it up already. I mean, yeah, yes, I own a fake Christmas Tree, which is like, bad and evil. There’s the whole thing about me being an athiest and why should an athiest celebrate Christmas? Well, duh, because I like getting free stuff. Plus, isn’t it really a secular shopping holiday anyway? Yep.
Anyway, photos:
Yeah. Well. I never said I could afford a very nice fake Christmas Tree, did I?
This is looking from my couch — see my laptop? it isn’t on my lap — at the wall and the shelf-unit the tree is on. Notice that fragments of Hogwarts — the parts which broke off this weekend — are currently awaiting reconstruction next to a mini-statue of the Dark Lord of the Sith.
Took this photo yesterday afternoon, Guy preening and peeved at being interupted in his cleaning. I wish that chair wasn’t there, but even so, I love the look of Hogwarts rising up behind him. What a great photo! I am the best photographer ever.
E-mail me if you’re interested. You’re going to have to pick it up and I can’t remember how to take it apart.
I love Boston. It’s a beautiful city with such a wonderful history. And while I’d like to live there, I could only do so if I was able to get around without a car. Thankfully, Boston has a nice public transportation system, the T. Back to the car thing, did you hear this news from Boston’s Back Bay? Parking spaces are owned and sold, and some dude just paid a quarter-million for one. I hope he’s got a really nice car, like an Aston Martin or something. He probably drives a Ford Festiva. “I would’ve bought an Aston-Martin,” he’s probably telling his friends, “But I had to spend two hundred and fifty grand for a parking space!”
On the bright side, at least his Festiva will have its own parking place to keep it nice and clean.
HT: Carpundit.
I could tell the kid clerking at Target was new, because, well, yes, he was polite and all, but he actually tried to engage me in conversation, and I can’t remember the last time I went into a retail shop and actually got in a conversation with the clerk. Anyway, so we started chatting as I checked out — I now have a rug for my bathroom, yay me — about the Ravens v Steelers game today. This is what I knew going into the conversation: apparently, the Steelers didn’t do very well. He’s all talking about what a great game it was, and an analysis of their running game and linemen and maybe Rothlisberger has some pyschological problems about being aggressive after his motorcycling mishap …
… meanwhile, I can’t think of how to break it to this kid that I’m not a big or even casual afficianado of football. I do find it in me to contribute that I find tightly scoring games much more satisfying, where such an overwhelming victory is a bit of a let-down compared to a victory that was hard fought. I ellaborated on this this to myself as I walked to my car and then drove home (interesting question: you can talk to yourself, but can you think to yourself or is that implied with the word ‘think’?) by comparing today’s game to Risk, the classic boardgame of world domination. Anyway, while I won’t deny enjoying games where I trounced my opponents each and every round, I really got a huge thrill at the very end of games where successful offenses were met with successful invasions, and for every three countries I conquored I lost two.
“So, what I’m saying to myself,” I thought to myself, “is that football games are like wars.”
Like, take what I mean, right? World War II. I mean, yeah, you’ve got the actually evil bad-guys, their seeming domination over Europe and Asia, and the long bloody struggle to defeat them. You know why WWII is so interesting? Because it wasn’t a walk-over. It wasn’t “shock and awe” and ten jocks pounding the shit out of some nerd in the toilet. Naw, it was like ten jocks trying to beat the shit out of ten other jocks. Invasions, and manuevers, and strategy, and bombing missions, and spys, and so much intrique and drama and …
Like, seriously, the Spanish-American War? BORING. On the other hand, the American Civil War? How very exciting! For two years, the South was all like, “Man, you guys suck! Okay, your defense is … meh … but your offense? Shit!” but then they got crushed heavy by industrialization. I can hear Madden, “Man, will you just look at them torching Atlanta? What they’re doing here is annihilating the will of the population to fight. What an incredible tactic that is sure to bring this war to a quick and satisfying close!”
Oddly enough, and I’ve always wanted to say this, but the Boer War wasn’t very boer-ing! Hah, me.
Also odd? I love football movies. My favorite is The Replacements.
