beancounters

The day for resolutions

I, Pam, hereby resolve to get better about passing the buck all the time. Yep, yep, I like it! Make your own resolution with the Random Resolution Generator.

Oh, okay. I don't usually make resolutions, but I will make a serious one right now: I resolve to finish my thesis in 2009.

Happy New Year, blogfolk!

It's lonely at the top

Missed a couple of Red Phone comics last week. In case you did too, here they are.

In between the holidays

Helloooo ... hellooooo ... echo! Echo!

We took a deep breath, we tensed our legs. We closed our eyes, ran forward, gave a primal yell and leaped into space. And before we knew it, the Christmas season was behind us.

How'd y'all do? Did you make it to the other side?

As my family can attest, when it comes to Christmas, I go through the five stages of grief between the day after Thanksgiving until approximately December 23. On that day, I finally lower my clenched fists from in front of my eyes and take a good look around. I revel in the cheesy yet touching traditions of the Christmas season, I sing along with the radio, I kiss people I barely know, and I appreciate all that humans do in celebration of our shared love of family and community. I finally welcome Christmas.

"Better late than never," says BB every year.

Christmas dog-blogging

Tonight and tomorrow my family will be on the road and exchanging gifts up and down the Central Valley. I'm going to do my level best to stay off the computer on Thursday and Friday. Maybe just Thursday. Thursday morning. Thursday  early morning. Well, you know what I mean. Quality time spent exclusively in the Analog World is in order.

So I'd like to take the opportunity today to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas. You're all terrific, and I enjoy your company so much!

Here are a few things from me to you, to make the season brighter.

NORAD tracks Santa - as of this writing, Santa is over North Korea. According to @Santaispissed, "Number one requested gift here is a damn New Kids on the Block CD."

Christmas vs. Chanukah - in the spirit of those Mac-PC commercials. [thx Nancy]

Henrietta and Merna's voices will fill you with the holiday spirit. [Thx, Karen, I think.]

And from my mother, the definitive rules of holiday treats. Be sure and print these out to take with you as a handy calorie guide.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - 

1.      If you eat a Christmas cookie fresh out of the oven, it has no

calories because everyone knows that the first cookie is the test and thus

calorie free.

2.      If you drink a diet soda after eating your second cookie, it also

has no calories because the diet soda cancels out the cookie calories.

 

3.      If a friend comes over while you're making your Christmas cookies

and needs to sample, you must sample with your friend.  Because your

friend's first cookie is calories free, rule #1 is yours also.  It would be

rude to let your friend sample alone and, being the friend that you are,

that makes your cookie calorie free.

 

4.      Any cookie calories consumed while walking around will fall to your

feet and eventually fall off as you move.  This is due to gravity and the

density of the caloric mass.

 

5.      Any calories consumed during the frosting20of the Christmas cookies

will be used up because it takes many calories to lick excess frosting from

a knife without cutting your tongue.

 

6.      Cookies colored red or green have very few calories.  Red ones have

three and green ones have five - one calorie for each letter.  Make more red

ones!

 

7.      Cookies eaten while watching "Miracle on 34th Street" have no

calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of

one's personal fuel.

 

8.      As always, cookie pieces contain no calories because the process of

breaking causes calorie leakage.

 

9.      Any cookies consumed from someone else's plate have no calories

since the calories rightfully belong to the other person and will cling to

their plate.  We all know how calories like to CLING!

 

10.     Any cookies consumed while feeling stressed have no calories because cookies used for medicinal purposes NEVER have calories.  It's a rule.

Mmm... conspiracy

Hell's bells, even my blog is getting in on the big 2008 bacon love-in. I deeply suspect Farmer John's and Oscar Meyer concocted the whole internet meme (especially this one) to get us to buy more bacon and help them weather the recession, but whatever! Bacon! Whatever!

Revealed!

Shocking exerpts from Santa's secret mission log.

December 26, 1941

What a rotten night. Lost Donder, Bonehead, and Meatball over Germany (stupid anti-aircraft fire), had to jettison most of the toys just to stay aloft, and when I got back home, I blew my landing and took out a wing of the workshop. Boy, nothing clings to your hair and clothes like the smell of burning elves.

* * * * * * *

December 20, 1947

There sure are a lot of kids asking for their two front teeth these days.

A sproutalicious Christmas game

It's Saturday, and it's the weekend before Christmas. Let's see. What shall we do together?

Watch Donny and Marie's 1978 Christmas show? No, I couldn't be that cruel.

Reconfigure our outside lights to look like the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Getting closer ...

I've got it. A nice harmless flash game. All you have to do is feed Mr. Sproutifarts his Brussel sprouts while keeping his, er, wind, well below the danger level. There now. Wasn't it worth stopping by?

Friday dog-blogging: book club

We lurves the Facebook parodies. Here's Genesis on Facebook, and here's Pride and Prejudice. [thx Nancy]

Is your Congressperson wasting his or her staff's time on social media, corresponding with a lot of 15 year olds about the latest Weezer album or what have you, instead of working hard and earning your tax dollars? Find out with TweetCongress. Type in your zip code to see if your representative in Washington has a Twitter account. Then, come election time, you'll know exactly what you have to do.

Speaking of government reps on Twitter, this got posted yesterday at 4 pm by Arnold's staff. "BREAKING: Live press conference regarding state budget at 4:20pm at http://gov.ca.gov." Really? 420? Holy shit. We knew it had to be bad news if Arnold's staff felt they had to warn us to get stoned first. (And it was.)

The decline of civilization

The periodic table of awesomeness

And for Maya: five days of library book club

Level 90 St. Nick

Everyone's getting into the holiday spirit. Even The Guild. Here they are, performing 'The Night Before Christmas', where the rare Christmas Worldspawn, Santa and his Eight Tiny Reindeer, are evil characters that must be destroyed within the Guild's multi-player WoW-type game. Is the Guild up to the challenge? (Might also watch Season One's Christmas special.)

Ev'ry single day it's Christmas Day

As Andrew Sullivan says, "The season of good will is at our throats again." And nothing says schlocky like this timeless classic: "Christmas in Heaven" from Monty Python.