Skip to main content

Bah + Humbug





It's just a fact of life and it is time to face up to it: I don't like Christmas. I dislike the season. I don't like the fake cheer. I loathe the shopping. I despise the entire commercial facade. And it's too friggin' cold and wet to go riding!



I. Don't. Like. It. Not, any of it. I am Scrooge, I am The Grinch. Look not upon my pre-Christmas countenance (spl?), thou shalt be turned to stone.



There are personal reasons behind much of this. The ex merrily decided she wanted Kat for both of the weekends leading up to The Day, and then also wanted her for The Day. "Mine mine mine, she's all mine!" was the tone. Maybe she's suddenly realizing that the USAF enlistment she so studiously worked for Kat to sign means 1) this is the final Christmas with her daughter and 2) there is the very real possibility that her one and only daughter will be going In Harm's Way. Well, duh; it's the military. They kill people and break things, that's their job. And sometimes it happens to them. No doubt as far as the ex is concerned if it happens to Kat it will be My fault (capital M, loud voice, screeching tone). How? Anyone divorcee can tell you.



But, enough of that, because despite it all come tomorrow my affinity for Scrooge and Grinch will continue. I'll giggle and roast up a fine feast for any and all who come by. My heart will swell multiple times it's regular size. I will embrace the day and the spirit and all it means, both religious and spirit. I can count the reasons.



1) Kat told her mom to sog off and is with me for the day, bwahaha!



2) I'm alive, and if you're reading this chances are you are too! This is always a good thing. Life is preferable to death, because with life there is always a chance. Once you're dead, pretty much that's the end of everything. Recycle, reincarnate, try again.



3) .... Oh, add your own.



It's a short list and it's more than enough, even with the assorted fucktards in the Middle East, the blithering idiots in the US, and the wallowing indecisives throughout the world. In the coming year we have the opportunity to spread the gospel according to democracy and capitalism, praise be!



Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I (Briefly) Try a Mac

 I Bought a Mac. My first computer was an Atari 800, fully loaded with 48k of RAM. And I mean the original, beige model, not its low-slung, fancy successor. My friend went for an Apple IIe, which cost a relative fortune. Eventually, I’d step up to an Atari 1040ST, while he’d get a IIgs. And even more eventually, we both ended up with IBM PC compatibles. MSDOS was my friend, Unix an ally. It was with great reluctance that I transition from a command-line interface (CLI) to a Graphic User Interface (GUI), always on a PC platform and never a Mac. I never bought into the hype and never experienced all the horrid things that allegedly befell anyone using a PC. For me, they just worked. Yet here I am, these many decades later, typing this on a brand-new MacBook Air M4. How things change... Initially, there was little regret but a mounting list of frustrations. Adjusting to the keyboard isn’t too hard, it’s just a matter of experimentation. Learning how to scale the display wasn’t awful, ...

Dune Part 2 (2024)

I have come not to praise Dune but to bury it. I am in a distinct minority. So be it. To explain why, there will be some minor spoilers ahead; sorry. The short version is #NotMyDune. Summary: Picking up where Dune Part 1 left off, we find the young Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) hanging out with the Fremen. Plots to overthrow rival houses and empires ensue. Go here to see what I thought about Dune Part 1 (2021) . Overall, I found it to be technically brilliant, but lacking a human heart, an exercise in frenetic slow motion. D2 is more of the same, though with far more action. Acting-wise, everyone is doing a fine, more than adequate job. Absolutely no one or nothing stands out. The way the characters are written (adapted, actually), their back and forths and interactions, are all weak and unengaging. I generally hate when they speak. I've read the novel a ridiculous number of times, and these films are prompting me to read it again. I understand that trying to translate the n...

Have I mentioned I saw Monsters vs. Aliens?

It’s possible that Pixar is becoming a blight on the world of animation. Yes, they do some really great work ( The Incredibles , Ratatouille ), but they’ve also done some clunkers ( Cars , Wall-E ). Their greatest sin, though, is that they apparently radiate a variation of the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field, so that any other animated film – especially if done with CG – is automatically judged inferior. There is some justification to this, but you don’t see every live action film being compared to, say, the films of Ingmar Bergman (well, except by brooding people wearing dark glasses sitting in dim coffee shops smoking clove cigarettes discussing cinema, damn you ). In the traditional film world, it’s accepted that different artists turn out different products. In the animated world, everyone is supposed to match or surpass Pixar, or so it seems. Needless to say, that’s just a crock. Monsters vs Aliens is to your typical Pixar production as Spielberg is to Scorsese. And I h...