Happy Festivus to each and every one of you! I celebrated today by putting on khakis and a red shirt and going to Target. While I was there, I told everybody I saw that Target was having an unannounced sale tomorrow night, Christmas Eve, starting at seven.
After that, I changed into a blue shirt and went to Best Buy to repeat the process.
You know, considering it's supposed to be his birthday, Jesus doesn't have a lot to do with Christmas. There's no pictures of him sledding, or skiing. He wore sandals, so he wouldn't have even had stockings to put out for Santa. He never even saw a snowman, for crying out loud.
Redone holiday Christmas pop music is the worst. It was cool for a short period of time, but now, come on. Do we really need to hear the next generation of "Behind The Music" subjects and "Surreal Life" housemates mangling "Oh Holy Night" and "Jingle Bell Rock"? There's no Christmas rap songs. There's a clear reason for that.
On a related note, many of the Ethiopian famine victims in the mid 80's are actually living better than the people who sang on Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas" song. I swear I saw an Ethiopian Relief Album for Bananarama the other day.
I consider myself an honest guy, so I'll hip the women of America to a particular message we seem to be having trouble with. If you wear a tight t-shirt with something written across the front of it, we are going to look at it. Don't glare at us for daring to look at the wares you've obviously spent a great time in displaying. That's like trying to hold back sunlight with a prism.
So OJ's idea to sell himself as a criminal mastermind didn't work, I see. FOX's plan to have OJ do a mockumentary on "IF I had Killed My Wife" fell through. Pity, that's something I think FOX could have really turned into a series where every week, OJ explains how he would have pulled off an unsolved murder. You know, "OJ: IF I Had Killed JonBenet Ramsey." "OJ: IF I Had Killed Natalie Hollowell." "OJ: IF I Had Kidnapped The Lindbergh Baby."
I think a great title for a breakup song would be "She's Like The Wind, Because She Blew Everybody."
I went to Subway, because I like to have my food prepared by a "Sandwich Artist." However, I was served a six inch human feces on rye, covered in blood and oil, submerged in a beaker of urine and wrapped in an American flag. It was then I realized I had been served by a sandwich performance artist.
Is there any justice in a universe where we're down to two surviving members of the Beatles, and only two members of the Who, but all four Monkees are still alive and well? By the way, the Beatles lost both guitarists, the Who lost their rhythm section. Why not put them together for an all-star band, and call them the Who-tles?
As one of my mom's Christmas presents this year, I made a CD for her. I just sat down with a guitar and played for a while, some old songs, some new, just anything I thought one of us might enjoy.
Two of those songs are posted on one of my musical MySpace pages , if any of you guys would like a listen. There's two covers up, an acoustic version of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" and the old standard "You Don't Know Me."
You can't download them from MySpace, but if anybody wants a copy just shoot me an email at snowfire51@gmail.com and I'll let you know where they're posted. Hope you guys enjoy them.
It seems that these days some people get upset when you say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Because, you know, that's what Jesus would have done.
I'll admit it. I usually say "Happy Holidays" for a variety of reasons.
I say "Happy Holidays" because I'm lazy, and I don't want to have to remember to switch to the next holiday.
I say "Happy Holidays" because I don't really mean it, and I only want to tell you one big lie, and then you hand me my hamburger and I walk away.
I say "Happy Holidays" because I don't want to offend Christians because true Christians shouldn't get rip-roaring, knee-walking, commode-hugging drunk for New Years, and thus don't have much fun. Ergo I don't want to mention it specifically, and bring them down.
I say "Happy Holidays" because quite often, people who demand that you mention Christmas specifically are also screaming racists, and will be upset when I mention Kwanzaa.
I say "Happy Holidays" because those same people have the same reaction to Hanukkah.
I say "Happy Holidays" because Christmas is a religious holiday in the same way that the Super Bowl is a football game. It may have started that way, but now that's only a small part of the event.
I say "Happy Holidays" because there's no need to be specific. I'm not going to delve into the background of the guy handing me my Chick-Fil-A sandwich, and try and figure out if he's Christian, Jew, or Muslim. "Happy Holidays" covers all backgrounds. Hell, even atheists appreciate it, because they get the day off work.
To my Christian friends, merry Christmas.
For my Jewish friends, happy Hanukkah.
My African-American friends, have an enlightening Kwanzaa.
To my Canadian friends, have a great Boxing Day, eh?
For my OCD friends, good Hand Washing Awareness week to you.
My musically experimental friends, enjoy your two December parties celebrating the birth and death of Frank Zappa.
For my Athiest friends, have a good Monday.
And to all of my agnostic friends...whatever, dudes.
The organizers of the Miss USA pageant said Thursday they are evaluating the "behavioral and personal issues" of the reigning winner and will decide her future within a week. The co-owners of the Miss Universe Organization are NBC, and Donald Trump, and they say they'll evaluate the 20-year-old's behavior, and decide how to handle it.
There's an outside chance that if the infraction is serious enough, Trump might elect to not marry her. As co-owner of the pageant, he has right of first refusal.
You know which Christmas carol really bothers me? "We Wish You A Merry Christmas". Think of it, it's the rudest, pushiest carol ever. Examine the second verse.
Now bring us some figgy pudding Now bring us some figgy pudding Now bring us some figgy pudding
Screw you, random carolers. Who are you to be making dietary demands of me? And to then threaten me, as heard in the third verse?
We won't go until we get some We won't go until we get some We won't go until we get some
Rather insistent, of course, not to mention cloying and needy. But the next line really ticks me off.
So bring it right here!
Get your lazy ass off the couch, and get thine own figgy pudding. Don't order me around, and then expect me to deliver. Don't make me break this yule log off and wear you out with it.
Well, after I invested six hours of my life in it, ABC has cancelled "Day Break". Anybody else watch this "24 Taking Place On Groundhog Day" kind-of-show? I liked it, but I felt like I should be taking better notes. It was really confusing. Hopefully, they'll at least air the remaining episodes online.
It's another good example of why it's so hard for me to get involved with new shows. I'd rather have to catch up at the end of the season than get hung out to dry with an unresolved show.
A question for you ABC execs. How can you replace a show with a novel plot idea, great pacing, and a season-long cliffhangers with reruns of "According To Jim" and look yourselves in the mirror? Wouldn't we be better served with a half-hour test pattern, or whatever the last good sitcom on ABC was? Which was, I don't know, "Mork and Mindy"?
From the end of last season's "Carver" story, which wrapped up a thrilling plotline with a resolution that didn't make sense no matter how you looked at it, I've been waning on Nip/Tuck. The first three years were so good, I've given it the benefit of the doubt. This season I've watched, but the whole year was pretty lame and substandard. I just finished watching the finale.
To begin with, every major plotline they had this year resolved itself in the episode before the finale. The stolen organ ring and the return of Wilbur have both played themselves out, James is dead, Julia is gone with the kids, Liz is single, and Gina has given up contact with Wilbur.
They spent all season telling us that 1) Christian was gay, and 2) Christian was actually falling in love with Michelle, and we should accept that he's finally changed and wants to marry her and settle down. Well, Christian wasn't gay, and his relationship with Michelle was so deep-rooted and life-changing, it ended off-camera in the last five minutes of the year.
They spent all season telling us that Sean was a family man who wanted the best for his wife and children. Well, Julia left with the kids, they didn't fix Connor's other hand, and Sean's not only getting along without the family, he's moving across the country to be away from them.
A series known for controversial moments and really hot sexual subplots gave us two, count 'em, two instances of midget sex this year. There was absolutely nothing hot this season, in fact, the sex scenes that were the show's trademark were replaced by cringe-inducing moments of unerotic shock.
When they finally got to the finale, they had no plotlines to resolve and so they had to bring back the bad guy from the very first season and finally wrap up that storyline. Now, in a desperate shark-jumping twist right out of Laverne and Shirley, Sean and Christian have moved to California.
So now, everybody is gone. Matt and Kimber are left behind, Julia has walked off the planet (taking with her both kids including Annie, who never even had a plotline of her own on the show), Michelle vanished without any resolution, we're not sure where Wilbur is, and McNamara/Troy is setting up shop in Hollywood, even though Sean is now under contract to some other plastic surgery place.
From an email, a musical challenge. If you were making a soundtrack for your life, ten songs from any era, what songs would you include?
Reid's Soundtrack
1) "Sell Out" Reel Big Fish 2) "Normal Like You" Everclear 3) "The Other End Of the Telescope" Elvis Costello 4) "High Time" Michael Penn 5) "Nada" Refreshments 6) "Sleep Now In The Fire" Rage Against The Machine 7) "This Side of the Morning" Del Amitri 8) "Green & Dumb" Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers 9) "Colors" Amos Lee 10) "Rain King" Counting Crows
