Goodbye, 2007.

Posted on Monday, December 31, 2007 at 9:23 pm

And now, for your viewing pleasure, I present to you an abridged list of all the many things I accomplished during the past year.

Grew my hair 27.4 inches, then shaved it all off and wove it into a skirt, which I gave to my cat. He doesn’t seem to appreciate it as much as I thought he would, though.
Solved world hunger, using nothing more than a fork, six magic beans, and enough bullets to kill every starving person in the world, thus cutting off the problem at the source.
Proved that gravity doesn’t exist, and anyone who declares anything to the contrary is damn dirty liar!!! You hear me, Newton?! I’m talking to you!
Competed in, and subsequently won, 4 separate marathons in 6 hours. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that I was in a car… and ran over anyone who was ahead of me.
Successfully beat my couch in a spelling bee. My winning word was “cake,” and the word the couch lost on was “antidisestablishmentarianism.” This seems fair, right? It’s not like I wrote the rules.
Appeared in not two, but three separate places at once, because I’m just good like that.
Levitated. Note that this is marginally related to point 3.
Finally kicked my addiction to superglue.
Ate 936 hot dogs at a single sitting, thus sealing my place in the record books as the world’s biggest glutton. This also sealed my place in the record books as having a higher gross national hot dog consumption than Belgium.
Beat Jordan in Guitar Hero II on Expert 5 times in a row, perfectly.
And finally, I made (I think) the fewest blog posts of any year since this site was started.

Happy new year, all!

2 Comments

On Commercialmas.

Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2007 at 8:49 pm

You know what I hate? Christmas commercials.

The jingles really make me want to stab people after about the first three times they air. There are two types of jingles. The first type are the unique ones – the custom-written jingles that have never existed before. Those are, philosophically at least, better than the other kind. The second type are the traditional Christmas carols that have been reworded to sell something. Something about “deck the halls with Honda Civics” really just makes me want to hurt things. These are ever so much more insidious than the custom-written ones, and my hatred for them knows no bounds.

The other thing I hate is some of the ludicrous ideas they present. Now, getting someone a Home Depot gift card or a sweater or something is all fine and good. But the two that really grind my gears are the car commercials and the cell phone commercials.

I haven’t noticed it quite as much this year, but in the past I really do remember some commercial saying that a Lexus was the “perfect gift for everyone on your list.” Really?! Fucking HONESTLY?! A Lexus for everyone?! Exactly how rich do you think I am? The fact that it was a Lexus commercial brings up a couple more issues. Namely, a Lexus is nothing more than a Toyota with more gadgets and a bigger price tag, so I think the whole concept of buying a Lexus at all is utterly ridiculous. And the other thing is that I really really hate the guy who does the voiceovers for their commercials. He just sounds so damn smug all the time. In fact, my infinite hatred for that guy is only rivaled by my infinite hatred for reworded Christmas carol jingles.

And then we get to cell phones. Now, I can understand possibly maybe a husband getting a wife a cell phone for Christmas. Or maybe a dad getting his kids a new phone or something. But, much like the car commercials, a lot of them try to present the idea that a cell phone is perfect for everyone you need to buy a gift for – your girlfriend, your grandma, Drunk Uncle Jack, the works. The inherent problem with this is that, at least in America (not sure how it works for you international folks), all cell phones are sold/advertised at subsidized prices. Which means in order to buy one at the advertised price (say, $50), you have to sign a new 2 year service contract. But a service contract requires a lot of personal data, not to mention the whole “pay us $60/month for two years or we will pwn you” concept. And I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t be too fond of putting my name on a contract for someone else’s phone. Especially not Drunk Uncle Jack. Cuz that bastard knows how to TALK! So not only are you signing your name and financial stability to someone else’s phone, you’re also necessitating a new phone number for them, because you can’t very well sign a new contract and expect them to be able to keep their old number. So then you’re left with the other option – paying the vastly inflated “full retail” for the phone, in order to avoid the contract and hopefully let them swap in their SIM card once they get it. But that’s if, and only if, the phone you’re buying them is from the same provider they already have an existing contract with. God help you if you buy them a Sprint phone and wonder why they can’t just pop in their T-mobile card.

Ok, enough bitching. Now that I’ve vented a bit about how terrible some Christmas present ideas are, let’s go a different direction. This was a totally amazingly awesome Christmas present idea that my best friend had. Did I mention that he’s the raddest fucking dude alive?

Weighted Companion Cube