10 posts tagged “xmas”

I strongly suspect - though I have no concrete proof - that there is a significant subset of my neighborhood who would relish seeing me admit to being wrong about something.  This post is for you.

I love "Guitar Hero."  It's the game for which I've been waiting my whole life.  I had an opportunity to give it a second chance on Christmas Eve morning at my aunt and uncle's house.  I knew that my cousin had it - that's where my nieces had played it, and where they sort of learned Cheap Trick's "Surrender" - and I realized I could isolate myself from the drudgery of family and merriment if I retired to the world of video games.  There was a little initial fumbling despite the "lefty flip," but I fairly quickly got the hang of it.  It's still bullshit that the game doesn't come with the left-handed setting as the default, but I've made my peace with it.  It's not the game's fault.  It's the software developer's.

Later that day, Sister #2 confided that she had had "Guitar Hero" in her hand at the store for my brother-in-law a few weeks prior but that better judgment had come over her and she passed.  Ever the good brother, I offered to accompany her on what became something of a quest that afternoon as she set out to rectify her error.  You might say that a last minute shopping trip to buy more crap that nobody needs taught me the true meaning of Christmas.  God bless us, every one.

So what does ZZ Top have to do with any of this?  Well, much to my surprise "La Grange" was probably my favorite of all the songs to play.  And it rocks, too.  I can hardly believe I haven't thought about it in about fifteen years.

From all of us at hotrod.vox.com, here's wishing you and yours a tolerable holiday.  God bless us, every one.

One would think a juvenile pizza party and an awkward gift exchange would suffice for the forced holiday cheer, but no.  There's still the matter of the official office party, just over an hour from now.  But despite the unwelcome imposition on my weekend of an all-but-mandatory work function, this is actually the least unctuous of the three.  Things could certainly be worse.  For starters, as of last year we moved the gathering to the Post-Ironic Hipster bowling alley downtown.  It's not a convenient as, say, three blocks from my house, but it's Metro accessible and a whole lot closer than hauling my ass up to Bethesda.  And for all my complaining, my company is quite generous.  I'll be cabbing home on their dime, and - as in years past - if we choose to continue, er, celebrating.... at another venue after the official party ends, our tab will likely be a reimbursable expense as well.  Most importantly, I genuinely don't hate most of my co-workers, which wasn't always the case.

The last place I worked threw tremendously awful holiday parties.  I recall like it happened yesterday the first year I was there.  The office manager came to my desk in October, claiming to have a great idea for that year's festivities.  "First we'll all go out to a nice restaurant, and after we will have a charter bus take us on a nighttime tour of the monuments!"  She seemed genuinely surprised when I was slightly less than enthused.  I believe my exact words were: "That's a terrible idea."  Yeah, I have a way with people.

Needless to say my input was not valued.  Dinner was okay, I guess, except for the company and that the nice restaurant in question was in Georgetown which I generally try to avoid because that's about the only part of the city where the Late Night Shots crowd isn't afraid to go.  Not to mention that it's one of the more annoying neighborhoods to which to travel for us car-less urbanites.  As for the ill-conceived bus tour, it was worse even than I had imagined.  Aside from being a remarkably stupid activity for a group of people who actually live in and around Washington, buses are not exactly the most comfortable mode of transport and are even less so when one is wearing a suit.  Drinks were served out of a cooler, but the whole process was so cumbersome that nobody bothered.  And most often we were just sitting idle in traffic, which is nobody's idea of a good time.  The most remarkable thing is that they did the same thing the very next year!  I had already put in my notice by then (and had checked out mentally months before), so I just went to dinner.  There was no way in hell I was getting on another goddamn bus.

What we should have done is taken the DC Trolley, because that thing is totally rad.  I rode the trolley for the first time a couple of summers ago when Vrabel was in town to meet up with a distant cousin from Oregon (or maybe Washington state, I forget) who had never been here before - a circumstance when doing the touristy stuff is, you know, appropriate.  We were at a loss late in the afternoon for what next to do before meeting up with the Mehaffeys for dinner.  We decided to let the trolley decide our fate.  It dropped us off at Arlington National Cemetery, but the real fun was in the journey.  I leaned out the window.  "Ding, ding!" I shouted to passers-by.  "Ding, ding!  'Cause I'm riding a TROLLEY!!!"  I better wrap this thing up, and quick, because just thinking about the trolley has put me in a much better mood.  I'm going to need some time to work myself back into a seething and silent rage before this stupid holiday party.

Anyone who's ever had to go to a meeting around noon will attest that getting a lunch catered is not a big deal.  It's really not difficult to find somebody who, in exchange for a sum of money, will bring a tray of assorted sandwiches and maybe a salad and some potato chips and cookies into your office.  People do it all the time.  But I can understand why many offices order pizza for their intra-office lunchtime functions.  It's definitely the easiest and cheapest way to feed a few dozen people.

The thing is, though: my company brings in lunch for all its employees every Friday.  And we don't always get sandwiches, either.  Sometimes we get Chinese or pasta or burritos.  (In fact, back when I started here they used to call it "Burrito Friday," even though we didn't always get burritos.  Our office used to be above a Chipotle.)  Anyway, group lunch is for us a familiar routine, and obviously logistics and expense aren't the major issues.  And we always - and only - get pizza on the quote-unquote fun days.  I can't remember when I last considered pizza to be some sort of novelty, but it was almost certainly back in the early-to-mid 1980's.  Are we still nine years old?  Is pizza really more fun than any of our other options?  Because I had some Szechuan chicken once that was a total riot, let me tell you.  Hoo-wee!  Man, those were some good times....

Holy balls, things have been hectic down at the lab these past couple of weeks.  My two largest projects have been in mild to moderate clusterfuck mode and a third has been just active enough to distract me from the other two.  And the real shame is that I haven't been able to devote adequate time to debunking Jodi's absurd notion that the no-longer-so-new The New Pornographers disc has any value whatsoever other than as a coaster.  Tomorrow is the first day all week I don't have a single meeting on my schedule, and I'd love nothing better than to plug my head into some music that actually does rock and get some shit done.  Instead I get to endure the company-mandated mirth-making that is the Holiday Gift Exchange.

My memory is a little fuzzy now, but I'm sure last year's Holiday Gift Exchange went longer than two hours.  We've grown since then; I don't see us realistically finishing tomorrow in less than three.  And for the second consecutive year, rather than the traditional Secret Santa, we're doing the "Yankee Gift Swap," which all but guarantees both that this thing will last twice as long as necessary and that nobody will receive a gift they actually want.  Consider, for example, last year's must-have item - that favorite of last-minute gift buyers (like me) nationwide: scratch-off lottery tickets.  Lottery tickets were about the only gift for which anybody (including me) wanted to trade.  All of my co-workers (and me) were declaring with every scratch-off-able steal that they were more at ease with the very real possibility of receiving no gift at all than taking home some piece of shit valued at about fifteen dollars or less.  Hell, I didn't take my gift home - not until months later - and I made an after-the-fact trade for a gift that wasn't totally stupid.  At least the powers-that-be put out a helpful reminder this year that gifts should be gender non-specific.  It wouldn't have occurred to me that a giant silver dildo would make an appropriate gift for an anonymous exchange, but apparently that was kind of a gray area last year.  At any rate, I know my gift is office-safe.  I'm just going to re-gift that non-stupid item I still didn't need that spent most of 2007 under my desk.

A co-worker just this morning remarked ironically that "Christmas really brings out the best in [me]."  Frankly, I'm shocked that most people actually seem to like this bullshit.  Christmas blows.  God bless us, every one.

[UPDATE:  The giver of last year's dildo brought cheap lingerie this year.  One size fits most.  Awkward.]

I learned this morning that the lovely Neko is playing tomorrow night in Tucson.  In case you'd forgotten - and I'm a total deadbeat, so you probably did - I'm going to be in Tucson tomorrow.  I don't arrive until about 10:30 PM, though, so I'm gonna miss the opportunity to see my fellow ginger sing and hear her angelic voice.  If I'd traveled with everybody else, I'd arrive around noon and would have no problems making the show.  Instead I decided to work tomorrow and save the extra day off so I could spend Christmas with my family.  Stupid holiday.... stupid obligations.... stupid conscience....

The moral, as always, is: Christmas ruins everything.

so we've got a real chicken/egg dilemma going on here.  i hate christmas so usually i wait until the last minute to do my shopping.  of course, this is when 99% of all people do their shopping so i'm right there in the midst of the great unwashed, which does nothing to improve my mood.  do i shop at the minute because i hate christmas, or hate christmas because i shop at the last minute?  we may never know.

the big difference this year is that rather than being in my beloved hometown of toledo, we are all at my sister's place in cincinnati.  for the uninitiated, cincinnati is easily the most white-trash-eriffic city in these united states - which made my annual shopping sojourn, oh, so much more pleasant - but i suppose that's to be expected of a city that once elected jerry springer as its mayor.  if there is any truth to president coolidge's assertion that "the business of america is business," then the corollary must be "the business of cincinnati is applebee's."  the real tale of the tape, though, is that i'm hoping sister #1 gets that job for which she interviewed in georgia so she soon leaves this hole.  kill me now.

and to those few cincinnatians who have figured out this series of tubes we call the internet and may happen to be reading this and take offense - no, i don't apologize.  if you're semi-literate and still choose to remain in this bassackward corner of the fine state of ohio, then the problem, sir or madam, lies with you.

astute readers may have noticed by now that we are not especially enthused when this time of the year rolls around.  in fact, we pray for the sweet, sweet doldrums of late january and february, that's how much we hate it.  undoubtedly, our least favorite aspect of the holiday season is that approximately 99.44% of our conversations with humans - upon their learning that we're uninterested in sharing their seasonal joy - go something like this:

RANDOM IDIOT: but it's christmas!  you can't possibly hate christmas!?!
HOTROD: i don't hate christmas, i'm just not that crazy about it.
RI: that just can't be! everyone one loves christmas!!
HR: well, not everyone....
RI: oh, don't be such a scrooge!  bah, humbug!!!
HR: i wouldn't be a "scrooge" if you just left me alone.
RI: c'mon, scrooge, have a tollhouse cookie!!!
HR: i don't want a cookie.
RI: bah, humbug!!!!
HR: okay, now i hate christmas.  fuck off

and those are just the conversations with our friends.  seriously, just leave us alone.  we're quite fond of arbor day, but you don't see us trying to foist it upon the ambivelent masses.  so that's the worst thing.  a close second, though, on the holiday shit list are christmas carols.  seriously.  if we never hear "the little drummer boy" again in our lifetime, we will be most pleased.  same with "silent night," "jingle bells," "hark! the herald angels sing"....  you name it, and we hate it.  just about the only song we can take at this point is the tremendous "christmas time (don't let the bells end)" - and even that is because we haven't yet heard it a million, trillion fucking times.  check back with us in a few years.

if all office holiday soirees were like "die hard," i don't think i'd hate them so much.  i'm off soon with some dread to my own to face my own.  i don't care if there's bowling, i can still think of at least two dozen other things i'd rather be doing on this particular saturday evening.  if they really wanted to treat us, this forced mirth-making would take place at two o'clock on a wednesday.

it's doubtful that carols will break out - for that i am thankful - but if they do, i'm countering with pushkin.  then i'm coming home and watching "bad santa" again to restore my mood.

it's unlikely i'd have ever clicked on the link, i know, but there you have it.  i am a confirmed trek guy (not a trekkie, mind you, lord no - trek bikes);  i learned my lesson after a brief flirtation with specialized that was at worst dangerous and at best inconvenient.  it's not just that, though.  i'm one of those people.  you know the type - the ones that hate christmas.  no, i can't defend it but neither can i deny it, and i am long past the point of pretending.  just leave me alone please.  you're ruining my shortest days of the year and blessed winter sunlight with your forced revelry and your godawful carols.  actually it's the carols that are the worst, which brings me to the point at hand.

like i said, it's unlikely i'd have clicked on the link, but this tidbit from roadbikerider's weekly newsletter piqued my interest.  and it helps that the nutcraker suite is one of the few pieces of "christmas" music that doesn't leave me yearning to pierce my eardrums.

We've heard there's some cool holiday music on the web, thanks to Specialized. Cool because not only is it well done, it's done with bike parts. An experimental musician (and cyclist) named Flip Barber is credited with the production, which, according to BikeBiz.com, is "stunning." It's a rendition of Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from "The Nutcracker Suite." The glockenspiel and clarinet melody is created with spokes. The cello and violin pizzicatos are made by plucking derailleur cables. The tingly triangle is a tap on a disc brake. The percussion is a medley of shifting, coasting, braking, clipping into pedals, back-spinning, and air pssss-ing out of tires.

so yeah, i kinda like it.  i had hoped to deliver the video firsthand, but all my attempts were thwarted.  (vox doesn't recognize .swv and attempts to convert the file type proved fruitless.)  so here's what you need to see.  and i guess happy holidays.  bah.