Here's to you. . . .

Ok go ahead finish the line from that famed Simon and Garfunkel song, I won't mind. The title is really meant for my friend who is celebrating his birthday. We used to hang out a lot when we lived in the same town, but sadly things change. He had to move since the town I live in has a crappy job market, but we still keep in touch almost daily. We either chat online or team up on our favorite online game "City of Heroes/Villains". I often miss the days when we could go to movies together and sneak in our favorite movie candy or have movie nights at our respective residence. I could go on but I really don't want to ramble, all I want to say is: Happy Birthday buddy and I hope you have many more happy birthdays.

The Shopping Bug

From what many people tell me, and from my own observations, shopping around Christmas, especially Christmas Eve, is a gigantic hassle and best avoided when possible. And yet, many people still wait till the last minute to shop for their gifts. Even though they know that malls and shopping centers will be packed to the brim.

"They" say that during the holiday season, everyone acts a little nicer, everyone is a little bit kinder, and all is merry and bright in the world. "They" have obviously never been to a mall around Christmas. Inside, a mob of people toss money around without a care in the world, and would just as soon step on your face as say hello. People grab at the most popular items and are seriously impatient when in line behind you. Outside is no better. Parking lots degrade into battlefields for lazy people. They stalk you in the parking lot, cut people off, and stop and wait five minutes with their turn signal on, all to get a parking spot a little close to the mall. Heaven forbid they actually have to do a little walking. (Admittedly this practice is where I get my most fun. I like to pick a car really close to the mall, pull out my keys, and when it seems like I've reeled in someone desperate for a spot, I move on, leaving the driver to angrily drive away. Go on, run me over when I do that to you. I could use the money.)

So after facing the massive barrage of cars and people in the malls, folks finish up their shopping, swearing up and down that they'll never do THAT again. So they settle down for a nice relaxing holiday filled with eggnog and roaring fires and brightly-lit Christmas trees, until......

..... the day AFTER Christmas, where everyone seems to repeat the process! Off they go to the malls again, to take part in after-Christmas "sales" and to exchange the items they want no part of. Why, I ask you? Why do people do that to themselves?

I have a hard enough time shopping during the non-holiday season, let alone the actual holiday season. People really must be that dedicated to shopping or taking advantage of a semi-decent sale. That, or these people are really gluttons for punishment.

Movies to view by the tree

Whether you are with family or by yourself this Christmas, consider watching one of these holiday favorites, suited for a variety of tastes.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: A classic tale of a "good ol' fashioned fun family Christmas." In my opinion it is the best of all Vacation movies, and I never go a Christmas without watching it.

Scrooged: There are probably hundreds of versions or variations on "A Christmas Carol," and this happens to be one of my favorites. A dare you to watch the speech at the end without getting at least a LITTLE misty-eyed.

Die Hard/Die Hard 2: Huh?? These aren't Christmas movies, you're saying to yourself. No, not technically, but they do take place on Christmas eve. Plus, they are a couple of the finest action movies ever made. They just don't make movies like this any more.

Long Kiss Goodnight: This is along the same lines of Die Hard. Not traditional Christmas but takes place on it. It's a highly underrated movie in my opinion.

A Christmas Story: You'll shoot your eye out! If you don't own this movie, TBS will show it for 24 hours straight starting Christmas Eve. There, now you have no excuses.

The films above I typically enjoy around this holiday. Not to mention Christmas episodes of my favorite shows such as Futurama and Family Guy. Sure, watching television or a movie isn't really considered a family tradition, but put in a good Christmas movie and the family will watch with you.

Dr. Strangeliver or How I learned to stop worrying and love my new liver.

I have secret to share with yall, I have two birthdays. No, I am telling the truth. One birthday is celebrated in October and the other is celebrated in December. The October event marks my emergence into this world and the December event marks my renewal on life. Ok, let me explain a little better. Exactly at noon on December the ninth marks the anniversary of my liver transplant. This year marks the 17th anniversary of my life changing surgery. Well, come to think of it the surgery changed my life and the lives of my whole family. Funny thing about the date of my surgery is that it occurred the day after my dad's birthday, and on my dad's birthday we got the call that they found a liver for me. I call it my second birthday because I felt that I was handed a new life (sorta like Life version 2.0). Make no mistake, the beginning of my new life had a rocky start. The main source of pain was the medicines I took that weakened my immune system so my body wouldn't reject my new liver. Weaker immune system equals getting sick a lot. For about two months after my surgery I kept going in and out the hospital due to constant infections that brought me down hard. Clearly, I made it but several times the outcome wasn't clear. Negative parts aside, it was actually a good time for me. Ok, having a vast array of tubes hooked up on me that would win me a Locutus of Borg look-a-like contest ( sorry, couldn't resist, I am Star Trek nerd) and eating green gelatin three times a day for several weeks was no picnic (and to this day I will not eat gelatin especially the green kind ). What was so great about it is that my family was around me, I was never alone. I could go on and on about this particular chapter in my life, but I am afraid the details would hide the main thing I want to say: "It hasn't always been smooth sailing, but I think what happened on that fateful day has made me and my family stronger and better."

If anyone comes up to me and asks my age I could truthfully say that I am 17, and see if they believe me. If not, well I can always lie and say that I am ummm 25, yeah 25. So, I raise my non alcoholic drink in toast to many more first and second birthdays.

Head scratching behavior

Recently, I decided that I wanted to do less complaining blogs, and more fun or thoughtful blogs. Nothing wrong with venting off steam on a blog but I realized that every blog idea I came up with had some form of complaining. This realization bugged me, so I ventured to brain storm on new blog ideas. This was done mainly while I was at work (I have a multi-track mind) or while trying to wake-up to get ready for work. Fortunately for me, I came up with several ideas (ok it was two ideas) but I think while working on those ideas more ideas will come to my mind. Before I can mull over my new inspiration I have to get some stuff off my mind. Yes, you can say I am complaining, but I will try to keep my soapbox preaching down to a minimum. Two events occurred over the past few weeks, and I really tried to move past them, but I need to use this blog space to get it out in the open. Please bear with me during the next few paragraphs.

The first thing that got to me happened at work, while I was locking up. I was outside locking up a gate, when I noticed several kittens roaming around. It was apparent to me that they were wild and I had no chance of getting close to them, but I still took time to watch them for a second. I was watching a small kitten crossing the street when a car came around the corner and the driver made no attempt to slow down or yield to the kitten. Fortunately, the kitten was fast enough to make it across without any harm. I myself was about to have a heart attack from the few seconds of stress that accumulated. I was feeling relief for the cat and immense anger to the driver , then I realized the driver was someone I knew from work. I continued on with my task of locking up the place, when the driver came back to get something they forgot. I took the chance to inform them (with as much calm as I could muster) that they almost ran over a kitten. Ok let me pause for a bit. Ok, I had to do that, because the driver's response still makes my hands shake when thinking about it. The driver replied by telling me that they hate cats. (Ummm ok, so what's your point.) I could have responded in manner of clever ways to this asinine reply, but all I could come up with was "Well, I like them." Ok, so this person didn't like cats, that's fine, but does that give them the right to try to run over cats. I sincerely hope not. Needless to say this event made me scratch my head every time I thought of it.

The next thing that lodged into my brain came from a discussion from my friend that heavily contributes to this blog site. We were discussing while playing "City of Heroes" that Alton Brown (our favorite Food Network chef) was absolutely furious in his latest blog. If you go to this link you can get a better idea of what happened: www.altonbrown.com/pages/rants.html
Evidentially, Alton Brown had asked his blog readers to send photos of their decorated refrigerators to him via e-mail. This was supposed to be a fun and informal contest. I suppose Mr. Brown was going to put the top photos on his web site for the whole world to see. Sadly, things went wrong. I am sure the majority of the participants joyfully sent photos of their beloved "chill chest", but as always it takes a small group of people to ruin the fun. This small group decided it would be funny to send Mr. Brown lude and disgusting photos. Sadly that was enough to make Alton Brown decide to remove the contact button on his web site, which essentially ended the contest. He also went to saying he said he will not accept any e-mail from anyone that already has his web site e-mail address. The reason this event bugs me so much is that it took a small group of people to deny a larger group of people access to this person. I know it is highly unlikely to get a response from a celebrity via e-mail if one were to write to one. I can see it would be fun to try. Lets say I had recipe related question for Alton Brown and I sent him an e-mail to see if he would be kind to answer my e-mail. Thanks to those disgusting people, they changed the odds from highly unlikely to absolutely impossible. Now, let us all put one hand on top of our heads and begin scratching.

I would like to thank my readers for enduring this rant. I certainly hope this will help me get past these events. I am certain that I will never forget these events but maybe they will not crop up anytime soon in my brain.

"Myspace" ridiculousness

Well a couple weeks back I joined the millions who have "Myspace" accounts. This was for a couple reasons, really.. one was I wanted to see what the fuss was about, and two, I heard it was a good way to meet new people.

If the last two weeks are any indication, I'm a victim of false advertising. Sure, creating the profile was fun; and I've added a few of my friends to the friends space. But to date, the only messages I've gotten in my inbox have been scams. They come under the guise of females wanting to get to know me after being dazzled by my profile, so they want me to write them to talk about things. I admit the first time around I was fooled... at least until I got the response email back, which looked legitimate but offered to a link to the girl's website, and toward the bottom of the site it said something to the effect of "I've got some other pics of me that my ex-boyfriend took, but they are too explicit to show on this site so if you want to see them sign up for blah blah blah.."

I received another today, from "Carrie," who went on to ask me about my Saturday, etc., but the big giveaway was the fact that she "rarely had the chance to view her myspace mail." Well, gee, Carrie, when you get myspace mail it actually notifies you on your regular email.. oh, also, her profile talked about she just broke up with her boyfriend. Why is it they attempt to entice you with the fact that they just got out of a relationship?

Who knows, maybe I'll meet some interesting people on Myspace. So far though I'm not filled with confidence. Tread with caution.

Great, he's complaining about driving again...

Call me crazy, but I seem to remember a time when driving was a privilege, not a right. At least it was for me. A decade or so ago when I became eligible for my learner's permit, I recall my mother being hesitant. You see, my older siblings had got into (minor) incidents early on, and I suppose my mom didn't want me to have the same fate (or she didn't want to pay more for insurance). So it was definitely nice when I got the chance to drive. It was cool to be able to drive myself all over, and it was especially cool when I got the chance to drive to school.

I went my first year of college without a car. Anytime I wanted to go off-campus it had to be with someone else driving, or using public transportation. I definitely hated it. I didn't have the freedom I used to have, so when I again gained access to a car it was a huge privilege. I felt so much more free the second year.

In 2001, I was in a wreck. My car was totaled, but I walked away with not-too-serious injuries.. some cuts and bruises, but the worst of them were some cracked ribs. It was around then that I lost my enjoyment of driving. The other driver was at fault, having turned left without bothering to look for oncoming traffic. One driver barely missed her, I hit her straight on. As we entered the ambulances later on, she seemed shocked that she was getting ticketed for failure to yield the right of way. Almost as if she'd never heard of the term.

Right of way was one of the things they stressed in driver's education in school, among the grisly films and little lessons. They taught us that cars can be deadly weapons, and we should use them as carefully as possible. Which is why I'd like to sit in on driver's ed classes as they are today. Do they stress things as they did when I was in the class? Or do they just breeze through the whole thing? Honestly!

The whole "with great power responsibility" type lessons I was taught have been replaced with "get out of my way, I want to get to where I am going in a hurry for no particular reason and I don't want anyone to stop me." Any time I drive I see it. People needlessly weaving between lanes, not using signals, cutting people off. Oh, hey, I missed my exit, I'd better turn sharply across three lanes to use it. Just in the last week, I've had two major experiences of driver selfishness. One was when I came to a complete stop at a right turn on red (yeah I know, how dare I). There was a driver behind me, and when I didn't immediately turn, he honked his horn. And where he was going was a mere minute away. The second incident I was nearly driven into a light post when a driver cut me off. She didn't even notice the fact that she almost ran me off the road. She didn't notice anything it seemed. She was too busy talking on her cell phone. It looked almost like her head was glued to her shoulder.

I guess it goes along with the selfishness trend I've seen in people over the years. I'm just curious when and why it started happening. People recklessly drive and yield their cars as if they were weapons, and I get pulled over for my license plate cover slightly covering the word "Texas." Why don't you go and pull over the other ten thousand drivers I've seen on the road like that, Mr. Policeman?

If you're one of the five people who read this blog who aren't in my circle of family and friends, leave a comment if you feel the same way. If you have some special way of dealing with it, let me know. If you're one of those reckless drivers, give a good reason for driving that way. I'd love to hear any and all comments.