Last-minute Christmas Gift Ideas for Bad Little Boys and Girls

Even with Christmas right around the corner and Santa ramping up his reindeer-prod battery recharging schedule, some of you still have not finished your Christmas shopping. I know I haven’t.

Chances are you’ve already bought stuff for the people who are semi-close to you, like your alcoholic yet surprisingly-still-single drinking buddies or the gals in your Stitch ‘n’ Bitch Quilt Club & Coffee Clutch. Acquaintances like these tend not to be too particular when it comes to being on the receiving end of free stuff and even if they don’t like your gift, who cares? It’s not like your world would fall apart without these marginal individuals cluttering up your social calendar.

Buying something meaningful for spouses and/or partners is a completely different story. It’s a bit more of a challenge to shop for people you truly care about who might read into a poorly chosen gift a lack of effort or even a lack of love for them. There are three different shopability profiles for that complimentary component in your love life…

I’ve Been Deemed “Awesome At Awarding Awards”!

About a week ago, The Hobbler named me as a recipient of her ”Awesome At Awarding Awards” award. In case you are unfamiliar with this award, it is retaliatory in nature… you get it because you have given someone else a blog award. Think of it as a form of blogospheric payback.

While I love getting blog awards (who doesn’t like a little pat on the back every once in a while?), I’m not a big fan of having to jump through the flaming hoops set up as part of the whole deal, such as passing them on to others. I have two main reasons for this…

If You Could Have Any Car… ?

 

Wouldn’t it be great to have a real hot-rod?

I love cars. I don’t know nearly as much about them as I’d like and I would certainly benefit from some advanced driver training but I really do love them. And, being a guy, the question has come up many times between me and another guy, “If you could have any car in the world, which would you choose?”

Shut Up and Sing

I love a good song. Who doesn’t? There’s something about music playing in the background that imparts upon the human voice greater beauty and increased credibility. The gestalt of the whole music/vocal experience is a magical thing.

But a few years ago I did a really stupid thing… I read the lyrics while not listening to a song and found the underlying meaning to be so humdrum it eroded the song’s beauty. So now while I still enjoy music, I understand that if I don’t scrutinize the actual meaning of a song’s lyrics, I just might be hypnotized into believing whatever drivel is being sung. The corollary to this is that if I really like a song, I don’t read the lyrics with the speakers turned off.

August Fool’s Day 2012

Remember the excitement you felt back in elementary school when April Fool’s Day rolled around? Remember your high school years when April Fool’s Day could very well mean a trip to the nurse’s office and getting out of History and Phys Ed due to your injuries or a mandatory interview with local law enforcement? Wasn’t that fun? Why did all that have to end? Society, in the form of our educational institutions, beats the wonder and “fun” out of a child, that’s why.

How Facebook Killed the High School Reunion

In the mid-90s I went to my 20 year high school reunion and had a great time.

I was really psyched about seeing the old gang and how they’ve turned out, and hoped that there would be a few who hadn’t matured too much so I’d have someone to relate to. I wasn’t at all worried that I didn’t have many braggable accomplishments under my belt because my fear and pride were eclipsed by my curiosity as to how the high school babes blossomed into middle-aged beauties. I was happy to find that a few people attended who I had spent a considerable amount of time with over the years from Kindergarten through Grade 11.

Mayan Doomsday Countdown: T-minus 5 Months

On December 21, 2012, a scene like this will be the last sunrise any of us will ever see.†

There has been a whole lot of scuttlebutt about the Mayan Calendar winding down this year and at first I was skeptical about the predictions of destruction, chaos, and the Armageddon that would ensue. But after listening to many episodes of Coast to Coast AM on the subject, I am convinced.