I think The Waitresses said it best...

Merry Christmas, but I think I'll miss this one this year. I wait all year to hear that song on the radio. They cut it close this year, I just heard it tonight. Let's work on that for next year.

Anyway, yeah, Christmas has become my second least favorite holiday if you count the idiotic bullshit that is Valentine's Day. If you, like me, do not count it then it is my least favorite. It's not the thing itself, I mean who wouldn't want some peace on earth and good will toward men, but what it's become. I saw the first store displays go up before Halloween this year. That's insane. Two months in advance with Halloween and Thanksgiving still to come? Asinine. Then of course the corpse of Thanksgiving isn't even cold and Black Friday sends the entire thing swirling into the whirlpool of madness. If I have to see one more fucking commercial insinuate that husbands don't love their wives unless they buy them expensive, shiny and ultimately pointless shit I may have to kill someone.

Then of course just going about normal routines will send you to anger management therapy. Look you pack of gotards, your dumb asses don't read any other time of year so why the fuck are you crowding all my book stores? I'm here every week and now because you know some dude that totally read that book that one time I have to wait in line for 20 minutes to make my regularly scheduled purchases? See also the stores where I buy movies and music. You people clearly don't know what you're doing judging by the confused looks on your faces so just get whoever it is a gift card and they'll sort out what they want on their own, OK? This way you the poor bastard you're shopping for won't have to ask if you saved the receipt or just throw away whatever you got them and you won't take the chance of being savagely beaten by the store regulars that you're pissing off.

Ugh.

It's all become about greed and what are you getting me. I don't really understand it probably because we were really fucking poor and we didn't write gift lists or expect lots of presents or any of that crap. The thing I still look forward to most is dinner. I do love Christmas dinner. But I hate stressing about what people might want and they certainly aren't going to tell me (my mother and sisters this is. I've known some people that would tell me, at great length, what they might want. And it's not even that I mind buying gifts, ask around I'm fairly generous, I just prefer it to be a little more spontaneous, y'know?) and by the time it's Christmas morning my brain is fried and I've usually made myself pretty miserable. But still...dinner.

When exactly did we go from a celebration of the birth of the Christian messiah to a feeding frenzy of commercialism and slobbering greed? How exactly did that happen? I don't even subscribe to any of the Christian faiths and it still leaves me feeling a little queasy to think about.

Anyway, subtracting all the bullshit and stripping it down to well wishes and good will, I wish all of you a Merry Christmas. I didn't buy you anything but I hold some of you in my heart. If that's enough for you then I'll keep you there as long as you like. No charge.

I'm only gonna tell you one more time

Next month not only brings us the triumphant return of The Wire for its final season, it also brings us The Sarah Conner Chronicles which features Summer Glau as a Terminator. Summer Glau. Terminator.




River.

Fucking.

Tam.

As.

A.

Terminator.

Seriously, if that doesn't do it for you then you've got fucking problems not least of which is that you're in terrible danger of being declared dead to me.

Millenium hand and shrimp

To say that I like Terry Pratchett is something of an understatement. I own over 40 of his novels including the entire Discworld series, the Tiffany Aching young adult Discworld series, the Johnny Maxwell trilogy, the Bromeliad trilogy, the miscellany Once More* With Footnotes, Good Omens, the Art of Discworld book, an assortment of anthologies that he contributed short stories to, etcetera, etcetera. Pretty much anything with his name on the cover is something I will buy. He has brought me no end of joy with his work. He's made me laugh of course but he's also made me marvel at the enormity of his gift for writing.

I tell you this to give you some idea of how hard it hit me when I read this:

AN EMBUGGERANCE

Folks,

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early
onset Alzheimer's, which lay behind this year's phantom "stroke".

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I
expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet :o)

PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should
be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as
will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell.
I know it's a very human thing to say "Is there anything I can do", but in this case I
would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

I wish I could have as positive an attitude about this as he seems to have. Mr Pratchett, you truly are amazing, sir. You say you want people to keep things cheerful but I don't think I can do that. At least not yet. Perhaps after the sadness and anger fade a little I can re-read your works and find some cheer.

I think I'm mildly concussed...

But we'll get to that later. I'm not sure what to make of this week so far. It's sending me more mixed signals than a cock eyed semaphore flagger. We're hoping it ends on a good note though.

It started when I found out that the place where I go to buy movies is closing. Those of you that know me know that movies are very important to me and second only to books on my list of shit I love. Even though they are only second for me I still see more movies than most that claim to be movie buffs. This place had a great selection in every category and genre, helpful staff, perfect ordering system, the works. Now they're closing and my OCD is already going into hyperdrive.

Where the hell am I supposed to go for movies now? Places like Best Buy don't have the same selection and giant chains like FYI carry all the stuff everyone knows but if you're looking for some obscure thing they won't have it and the staff tends to be made up of teens and twenty somethings that know shit all about most everything. This probably seems like nothing to everyone but it's making me crazy.

Also this week, my boss has given up even the pretense that we aren't on speaking terms any more. He speaks to me only when he absolutely has too and even then won't look at me when he does it. He's doing this to several others too and none of us can figure out why. Now I know I'm difficult to get along with and it's not easy to like me. I know I'm an arrogant prick. I know. This doesn't explain why he's doing it to the others though or why it's only us.

I dislike lots of people that work here but you know what? I'm not a six year old so I'm civil to them because we have to work together. Doesn't matter to me, dude. The next boss up thinks I'm great so you can be a moody bitch for as long as you want. I'll even buy you some Midol.

Then this morning while I'm still half asleep I open the freezer to get some ice and stuff falls out with a clatter. Way too much noise for that ridiculously early hour. I bend down to pick the stuff up and the freezer door closes half way. Right above my head.

BOOM!

Dude. I hit it so hard I think I shook the whole house. The weird part is that when you open the freezer door to a certain point, it always stays open. Always. And even if it doesn't, when it swings closed it always closes all the way. ALWAYS.

The only thing I can think is that my guardian angel, who I figured out years ago is brain damaged, saw it starting to close and decided to hold it open for me. I hit that thing so hard I think I'm still a little dizzy.

Finally this afternoon the big boss comes by my desk and says to follow him. We walk up to where his office and the offices of the people that work directly for him are and he tells me to collect my shit and move it to that empty desk there. My job has changed. From all I can tell it will now be a much better fit for me and, bonus, no more moody bitches to deal with and you can trust that I told him all about how my old boss, his subordinate, has been acting. That's right, I saw a bus and threw his dumb ass under it. Fuck 'im.

So yeah, OCD attack, moody bitch attack, freezer attack then a yay. Not sure what to make of it...

Bits and bobs

I'm filled with a burning desire for the new Terminator TV series to be awesome. It has Summer Glau in it as a Terminator. If that last sentence didn't make your genitals twitch there may not be any hope for you as a human being. Of course if it turns out to be great then it will probably get canceled because that's the rule, right?

I hate back in parking. Cruising around for a spot and watching some jackass swing way out and then back in and then have to pull back out because he took a bad angle then back up again then pull out one more time because he's a fucking retard then finally get his car/truck/tardmobile into the spot, usually crooked as all hell, makes me want to kill. There's a nitwit at my work that does that. If he gets there before I do he always, ALWAYS manages to take up the first two spots because of his idiotic need to back in even though he's clearly too fucking stupid to do it right. JUST FUCKING PULL IN YOU ASSTASTIC FUCKSMUDGE!!

So I got the results of my CT scan. Turns out I have scar tissue in my sinuses and that plus my deviated septum from multiple nose breaks is what makes it so hard for me to breathe. What does it tell you about my luck that this turns out to be good news for me? I have a referral for a specialist surgeon guy. Ain't life grand?

I'm in the early stages of putting together a few best of '07 lists like I did for '06. I'm still not gonna put your favorite stuff on them. Arrogant prick FTW!

I'm considering a bid for the White House. A vote for me is a vote for hot girl on girl action in every home and mandatory rabies vaccinations. Don't ask. Taco knows what I'm on about.

Spaced is still not out on DVD in this country. What the fuck, man?

Do you ever go outside and look up at the stars and think about all the worlds filled with life out there and how staggering the amount of aliens that are masturbating at that exact moment must be? Enlightenment waits at the end of that path.

There's a new guy at work. This is how I greet him:

Me (shouting): "Bobby!"

Bobby (shouting back): "What?"

Me (extra loud): "FUCK YOU THEN, PUNK!"

Me and Bobby: *laugh*

Other people: "...the fuck?"

Or when Bobby is engaged in conversation with someone else I will walk by, interrupt and say to whoever he's talking to, "Next time you see Bobby, tell him I said 'fuck him'." Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

I want a pickle. And some cheese.

Thank you Springfield and good night!