As seen on several friends’ pages, most recently Todd‘s–Which Christmas song am I? You are ‘Jingle Bells’! Full of enthusiasm and good cheer, you are excited by the first appearances of Christmas decorations in shops and have been heard singing along to the piped music. Your attitude to Christmas is one of childlike delight –Continue reading “More on Christmas Songs”
On Christmas Songs
They’ve begun to play Christmas songs on the muzak at work. It’s not all Christmas music — we still get the insipid Hillary Duff and Kelly Clarkson songs every twenty minutes — but there’s a nice mix with maybe one out of every three songs being a Christmas song. And they’re not old Christmas songs,Continue reading “On Christmas Songs”
On the Day After
I’m so glad I no longer work in a mall. The day after Thanksgiving is, traditionally, the busiest shopping day of the year, the start of the Christmas shopping season. The company wanted its stores in strip malls to open at seven. I got to work at six, brought the registers up, and at 6:15Continue reading “On the Day After”
On Alfred Anderson
Alfred Anderson, the last surviving witness to the 1914 Christmas truce on the Western Front of World War I, passed away on Monday, the 21st. Nearly a year ago in The Observer Anderson reflected on his World War I experiences: On 24 and 25 December, Anderson’s unit was billeted in a dilapidated farmhouse, away fromContinue reading “On Alfred Anderson”
On a Putting Things Into Perspective
My friend, the Dread Pirate Roberts, had this to say about the rapper 50 Cent: According to commentary in todays newspaper by DeWayne Hickham Pocket/MTV Books has signed a deal with Curtis Jackson also known as rapper 50 Cent to do a series of books. [SNIP] Like Mr. Hickman says 50 Cent is “… aContinue reading “On a Putting Things Into Perspective”
On Bush's Stupid Remark
First, from the Daily Mirror: President Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a “Top Secret” No 10 memo reveals. But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash. A source said: “There’s no doubt what BushContinue reading “On Bush's Stupid Remark”
On Pre-Thanksgiving
Yesterday. The XBox 360 launched. System allocations were extremely tight. Microsoft cut allocations twice in the weeks running up to the November 22nd launch resulting in a few customer service issues. But by Monday customers who knew they wouldn’t be getting a system on Launch Day seemed pretty accepting of the fact, and yesterday’s launchContinue reading “On Pre-Thanksgiving”
On Monsoon Season
It has rained in Raleigh for the past thirty-six hours. Thirty-six straight hours of gloomy muck. We need the rain, have no doubt of that. Raleigh has been under severe drought conditions for quite some time. The local reservoir is down nine feet. I could do without the gloom. I could do without the muck.Continue reading “On Monsoon Season”
On Geek Novels
Jack Schofield at the Guardian Unlimited wrote about the Top 20 Geek Novels. I’m not at all clear on the methodology of determining the Top 20 Geek Novels–seems to be a sort-of survey based on the comments on a blog entry elsewhere–so this list is more than a little meaningless. However, it is an interestingContinue reading “On Geek Novels”
On Old Photos
No particular reason for posting these today. Guinevere took ill and died suddenly several years ago. She was a polydactyl–she had three thumbs. I discovered today that I had these two photos on my hard drive for reasons unknown, and because it’s my webpage I thought I’d share. 😉 In this first picture you canContinue reading “On Old Photos”