Friends

• 00:32 Get Behind Me Santa... A song title of pure genius. #

• 10:37 @vertmob As McDs is the only place you can get coffee in my wife's small WI hometown, I've been waiting for this for a long time. #
• 12:26 Just teased my wife about getting her a Coach bag for Christmas...she threatened to gut me. #
• 12:36 @sweetj22 She tends to be more surgical than that. #
• 13:39 The only thing I hate more than Blackberry OS 4.6 is Blackberry OS 4.5. #
• 14:37 bit.ly/8L3sz0 @ms_rezai @sweetj22 #
• 15:04 Chances are if it takes 7 lines of instruction to tell me how to use 1 button, it is bad game design: bit.ly/8np70l #

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Current Mood: silly

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Current Mood: exhausted

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Epic fail on my part last night. We were supposed to have a rehearsal for Amahl and I ....forgot. I knew about it. I was going to go; it was an hour after I got off work. But, I also barely made it through work yesterday without vomiting, my cramps were THAT bad. I had to sit for quite a long time while the meds did not kick in fast enough. x_x I guess I had an excuse for missing rehearsal anyway.

Yeah. Bad times. *headdesk*

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Squeeze--"Cool for Cats"

Holy crap I am so not anywhere near done with presents. As in, I haven't started? Yeah. Sort of. The thing is, I did my father's shopping for my mother, but not anything else.

I DID manage to address holiday cards yesterday, so those will be going out as soon as I get to the post office at lunch.

I also got immunized yesterday! Woohoo! My office has been giving out H1N1 shots. They have a prioritized list based on a bunch of things and they are going in order of priority and my name came up (on account of my asthma)! So I got my shot.

It sounds like we are going to Delaware for Christmas. This is sort of a last minute change in plans, since my grandparents were supposed to come here. But my grandfather doesn't feel up to traveling. I'm sort of ehh about going down there because there will be people but it is ok! It is my grandfather's 90th Christmas! holy crap that's a lot of Christmas!

I have those gift coupons for people who would like half off on a paid account. Do you want one? Comment here please if you do.

It is so cold! It is finally cold enough for me to say that! So cold!

How is everyone else doing?

• 14:15 @kplanovsky With your luck, you'll get the BB beta invite the day after you get your Nexus One. #
• 14:30 I love this: bit.ly/7wowFF Is @ibogost allowed to comment? #
• 17:08 Currently finding irony in that the more I 'sync' my life, the more asynchronous it becomes. #

I wanted to take this opportunity to wish all of my fellow idolers a blessed and holy holiday season. It is very importsnt to remember the real reason why we celebrate at this joyous time of year and to keep the true meaning of the season in our hearts.

(If the embedded player does not work for you, here is a direct link!)

This entry was written for therealljidol Week 8: Reprobate

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

Current Mood: grumpy

• 10:37 Really starting to feel like I should abandon Smultron for Coda... What does it say that I feel bad about breaking up with a text editor? #
• 11:13 ...and today, I shall pretend to know .net. #
• 11:59 Ok Metrics... Here's the deal. I'm going to hit refresh and you're magically going to tell me what I want to here. #
• 12:34 Evidently ppl with offices here are cold. I'd cry for them, but my tears would freeze. :P #
• 12:47 @ms_rezai Why do you hate America? #
• 12:50 Pretty damn cool iPhone multi-player game (from a Carleton grad): bit.ly/8Uty5G #
• 16:16 Today I didn't even have to use my A.K.
  I got to say it was a good day. #

Today is my last day of comic class! To celebrate, I made a little mini-comic about all the people in the class!

It is longer than my usual comics, so click on the image to go to the comic!

Now I am going to class, where I will be mixing drinks for everyone tonight!

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Today, hopefully, we are getting our tree, as we transition from one holiday to the next. We still have three more nights of Hanukkah left, but I'm not as obsessed because I NOW HAVE ALL THE PRESENTS! This means that all that remains of Hanukkah is to HAVE FUN! Which we have been doing. So, it's all good.

Getting the tree is something that we had hoped to do earlier than this. Scott's self-imposed deadline, Sky's massive amounts of homework (three AP classes, and she's helping everyone she knows with their movies) and the weather (we actually had a few days of rain!) have meant that we've put it off. Since the girls were in pre-school getting a tree has meant going to the tree farm and cutting it down. The last two years, Sky has actually done the hard work! I'm just hoping that there will be any nice ones left. Last year, by the time we got there, pickings were slim.

When I was growing up, we didn't have a tree (we're Jewish after all) but we did have Christmas. My great-aunt once explained to me why. When my aunt and my grandfather (Mom's dad) were just starting school they heard all these stories about this thing called Christmas, and that the kids put stockings up and if you were a good boy or girl, Santa came and filled them with goodies. They were little kids, and no one payed much attention to them (they were the youngest of a bunch of kids, I'm not sure how many). They were very excited about all of this and told their siblings all about it. When Christmas Eve came, they put up stockings and went to bed dreaming of the riches that the next day would bring.

Sure enough, the next morning theirs stockings were filled to bursting. They gleefully opened them, and poured the contents on their beds!

What they got, was a bed full of coal, which was the penance for being bad girls and boys, courtesy of their siblings. Their siblings laughed at them and explained that Jews didn't celebrate Christmas and made them feel all kinds of bad. That day my great-aunt and my grandfather vowed that their kids would always have Christmas.

And they kept that promise. My mom grew up celebrating and continued the tradition with us. What's funny is my mom didn't know the story. I told it to her after my great-aunt had told me. My grandfather was very quiet. I don't really remember him, he died when I was two, but Mom tells me I adored him and he adored us. I think he liked Holly better, most everyone did, but I know I loved him. My great-aunt was one of my favorite relatives and I could listen to her tell stories forever. But for some reason, I was gifted with this one, and I've kept it safe by retelling it often.

We were talking about this story with Larry Marder once, and he told us that he too grew up celebrating Christmas (Larry is also Jewish). Larry said that a relative told his parents that if they brought up the kids celebrating Christmas that they would wind up all marrying goys. And they did! I thought about this, and realized that that was true in my family as well! I guess the moral is, if you're Jewish and celebrate Christmas, be prepared to have your kids marry goyum. I adore Larry's wife, and the goyum in my life, so I don't think we did so badly.

Speaking of Larry, Lori, who takes amazingly awesome pictures, sent me a photo yesterday of Larry and I that she took while we were at Stumptown this past April. I actually like the picture, so I asked her if I could post it. She said yes, so here it is:


Larry is on the short list of my favorite people in the world.

I put it on my desktop, so I hope this works, but in case it doesn't or you want to see more here's a link to it on her flickr page.

I was going to put up another photo, but I've decided against it, because I think there's actually someone living there now, and maybe they are just clueless. Remember the story of the shrine that I posted a few months ago? And the tragedy that occurred? Well that apartment is now decorated for the holidays, and I find it a bit freaky. It's all done in red lights with a bunch of poinsettias on the porch ledge. It could be seen as festive, but it mostly looks a bit gruesome and bloody. I think it would not look that way if it hadn't had it's history, but since it does, it just looks eerie. I wonder if I'm right and there are new people there, and I wonder if they know. Megan was over the other day and I took her by and she had the same reaction as I did, so I'm thinking it's not just me.

And we are back to the holiday's and celebrations. Yesterday was my friend Jeannie's birthday and I always figure that the season starts with that. My birthday is now less than two weeks away, so I guess I can start the countdown now, right? (thirteen, it would be thirteen days to go) ;-)

I learned this on the bus last night.

• 08:40 Amusing: If you're having wifi problems I feel bad for you son, I've got 99 hotspots but connectivity with none. Hit me! (via @hailpixel) #
• 08:42 Want: bit.ly/58rYz9 #
• 12:34 Dear Blackberry, I hate you. #

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Santa, if you're reading this, all I want for Christmas is a bedazzler.

After the jump, my responses to the ONTD Q&A.

(Cross-posted over there)

( Funny you should ask )

So, last night's concert went well. Meh, I guess that's all I have to say about it at this point.

Starting in January I'm going to go play tenor sax in the Husky Sports Band. ...I know. But it was a standing offer, and I wouldn't do it if Glen wasn't the director. Besides I need the practice on sax. Anyway it doesn't take up that much time, a few rehearsals and a few weekend basketball games. Should be fun.

Also, they asked me to play for Amahl and the Night Visitors over at Bethlehem. I think it's something they do every year. Bev said the girl who was going to play flute for it couldn't make it home for it, so now I get to. W00t! Anyway if I'm not doing Fiddler on the Roof I guess it will work out. I don't know why I didn't hear anything about that one; Chad said he didn't either, so I don't feel so bad about that one I guess. :/

Then I'm looking forward to The Producers. Lots of shows and stuff coming up! I'm feeling a little better about things today.

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: Judas Priest--"Painkiller"

• 10:46 Interesting take. Unsure if I'm 100% agreeing with it: Ad Agencies Don’t Need UX Designers - bit.ly/5OuKgF #
• 13:45 @konigi Trying to combine Catalyst with sketch-fidelity WFs here. Attempting to work through issues with scaling the sketchyness. #
• 14:53 If I visit your site and get asked to take a ForeSee survey, you can add me to your bounce rate. #