Holiday Survival Guide

I think it’s strange that the official start of the holiday season, the season of “peace on Earth” and “goodwill toward men,” is a day called Black Friday. Yeah, nothing says “Happy birthday baby Jesus” quite like a greedy mob trampling some sorry bastard to death in front of a Wal-Mart.

I have adopted a tried and true set of rules to survive the holiday season. I will consider it...seasonable... to pass them on to you.

For starters, if you are trying to traverse a parking lot on foot, your odds of living will be much improved if you are aware of the fact that most parking lots have no posted speed limits. Because of that, many people forgo the good sense to observe one.

If you are navigating a parking lot in your vehicle, please for the love of all that is sacred and holy, do not proceed to endlessly circle the lot looking for “that one spot.” You are not Doris Day, and there are always empty spots in the back of the lot.

Oh, while we are on the issue of parking lots, I’m going to let you know right now that I will be carrying a set of diagonal cutting pliers during the entire month of December. If I see you idling your vehicle five feet from the door of whatever store you are waiting for someone to exit, I’m going cut off your valve stems.

If you manage to live long enough to somehow find yourself inside of a store, good for you. But keep your head down, because we have a long way to go.

Stores can get a little crowded. With that being said, do not be that person that tries to push an empty shopping cart (or any shopping cart for that matter) down a crowded aisle. The aisles are only about 6-8 feet wide, and there is not enough room for you, myself, and forty other people to wedge ourselves through. As a matter of fact, just do everyone a favor and stay at home.

Should the event arise that you spot that last “hot gift item” within two hundred miles, resist the urge to gouge, kick, punch, or bludgeon it away from someone. We are civilized people here, and we should conduct ourselves with more dignity than that.
Note: Ignore this rule if you are shopping for me.

I want my money back Time Warner!!!

I love the way cable companies sucker you in with these tiered package deals. It starts off innocently enough, Basic cable at a low rate. But from there, they progressively find ways to take more of your money and offer less incentives.

They get you with Advanced Basic, then Advanced Basic with Extended channels, then the HD package with HD-DVR. Before I know it, I am paying some $150 for something I hardly watch.

Eventually, you find yourself somehow signing up for the Premium Movie Channels with On Demand. Everything up until now has been tolerable to me, but this "Movie Channel" thing that I somehow let myself get suckered into is starting to get irritating. I seldom find a movie On HBO, Showtime, Stars, TMC, or Cinemax that I actually would sit down and watch.

Giving up on the channel schedules, I decide to see what is on the "Premium Movies On-Demand" service. Now these movies are free when you subscribe to the Movie Channels Package. But the selection is equally abysmal. I always look at the movie description to get a summary and to see how many stars the movie received. It is remarkable how many one or two star movies that these "premium" movie channels show between them. I am positive that Tim Allen is somewhere laughing at me.

I am thinking about writing an angry email to some important asshole at Time Warner. I'm going to let them know that I would rather fist a jar of mayonnaise than watch a Mario Van Peebles movie.

You Old, Cheap Bastard

I am getting older. I can feel it in the morning when I wake up. I can feel it when the weather changes. And I can feel it when I’m standing on my porch yelling at all the damn kids in my neighborhood.

There is no denying that the age that I feel is easily outpacing my “How long I have been on Earth” age. Speaking of age, I think I have found a way to accurately estimate a person’s age by counting the number of complaints they make per minute.

Take Andy Rooney for instance. By my calculations, Mr. Rooney is precisely 347 years young.

On the topic of complaints, one of my favorites is technology. The other day, it was pointed out to me that you cannot download a CD. It’s called an album. But I have been calling Albums “CDs” since 2002, when I finally stopped referring to “CDs” as “tapes”.

Yeah, I held onto the tape thing a little too long. It wasn’t until my car stereo had eaten all of my tapes that I finally broke down and bought a CD player. Even then, I had to use a “Cassette Adapter” in order to play anything. And somehow I still long for the days of low-fidelity and an auto-reverse function.

Video tapes were fun too. The other day my daughter was watching a DVD that had been on the receiving end of some particularly nasty childhood mistreatment. When the picture and sound started to distort, I instinctively told her to adjust the tracking.

A lot of this stuff is actually being considered “vintage” these days. So I dug out some old electronics, and I am pleased to announce that it looks like most of my Christmas shopping is done.

The Wonderful World of Bureaucracy

In my daily commute, I often listen to this classical radio station. Yes, nothing accompanies a profanity-laden, road rage tirade like Handel. Anyway, today as I was driving along, this station was broadcasting a city-council meeting. Now, you would think that this would make for quite boring radio. However, I sat captivated as I listened to the pomp and circumstance that you would expect with a close gathering of self-important assholes.

For forty-five minutes, I listened to the minuet of back-handed insults over topics such as zoning regulations and dog leash laws. Then something occurred to me: Government by its nature is a terribly convoluted process.

Here is a perfect example. Let's say for a moment that there is a resolution being discussed, now our lawmakers have gone through the motions (not a speedy process in and of itself) and now are prepared to bring the resolution to a vote. The vote ensues, then someone discovers that they either mis-voted, or someone had mis-counted...

The simple answer is to re-vote, yes? No. Now, someone has to bring a "Motion to Reconsider." That motion has to be seconded, then the motion has to be.... you guessed it, voted on. If the vote succeeds, then we have a re-vote on the original resolution. For those keeping score at home, that is three votes, to pass or fail one resolution.

It reminds me of an unattributed quote I remember from a long time ago.
"“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy”.

To Blog, or Not to Blog....

If you are looking for an entertaining, new blog, you are in the wrong place. The search for blogtastic inspiration has driven me down the winding road from which, there is no return.

In a crazed attempt to amuse mostly myself, I have scoured the internet’s countless memes, inside jokes, farces, and rumors. All I have found is that I have become a walking repository of useless information.

In an attempt to unload this massive burden onto you, the reader, I have been considering a few ideas for upcoming changes in my blog.

First of all, there is this horrendous, self important title. The Electron Theory? What the hell does that even mean? Well, the electron theory in reality is a series of principles which govern the behavior of electrons. Beyond that, I just thought it sounded cool at the time…And it was a way to tie in my chosen profession with a completely unrelated blog.

I have thought about changing the name of this blog since its inception. “Blog Salad” came to mind, since I tend to throw in a variety of topics. The problem with that name however, is that salad and I are sworn mortal enemies.

“Blog Potpourri” also came to mind, for the same reason as “Blog Salad.” While I don’t have the same profound hatred of potpourri, The name still didn’t strike a chord with me.

I also figured that since a lot of so-called “experts” say we do our most inspired thinking in the morning, and I specifically do my best thinking during my morning grunt, I thought “The Log Blog” would be a fitting choice.

I could even have a catchy subtitle: Digesting The Internet, So You Don’t Have To

Or I could just play this Richard Simmons Soundboard Prank...