Flashy

December 8, 2007

Last weekend, I finally bought a string of sequencing Christmas lights. Last night, I got them out of the box, plugged them in, and watched them flicker and flash! They were plugged in and sitting in a pile on my lap. Weird!

So I strung them around my window, which is right next to my computer. A little awkward and half assed, but still cool looking.

But I mentioned this already last year in Lights Please. Colored sequencing lights are win.

Except I had to turn them off after a while because they were giving me a headache and making me nauseous, LOL. Bah! :irked:

This is the exact same type string we had many years ago at our house. It was put on a small tree in our front yard. And my dad, my sister, and I could never agree on a flashing setting! I wanted it on Chasing Flash, but my sister wanted it on Twinkle Flash. I forget which one my dad liked, probably Combination. There’s eight settings total.

Except this string I just got is faulty on one of the settings. The one called “Slo Glo” is supposed to be each color fading in and out, but it doesn’t work like that. It’s just a random bunch of lights on the string that fade in and out, different colors. So not much different from Slow Fade, which is all of the lights fading in and out at the same time. Which is kind of boring.

This tells me that I’m not prone to seizures, at least. 😆

Good Writing

December 7, 2007

Been meaning to bitch about this for a while, but then I suppose it came up more after I was reading something about criticisms of the Harry Potter books. No, I don’t mean the Christian fundamentalist whining we all already know about. I mean the members of the “official writing community”, or something.

Eww! Rowling uses too many clichés! Eww! They’re just kidsy magic stories! Eww! This will just make kids be interested in bad pop culture writing and not Rudyard Kipling! Eww!

Wow.
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ZOMG! Christmas!

December 4, 2007

You know that feeling when the holiday spirit finally plops into you like a shiny festive ton of bricks? Awesome!

Today, at work, I decorated my desk area. Well, it’s actually up front in the reception area. On Saturday, I had gotten a little red tree with red lights and some red and green garland. I lined the garland along the edges of my desk, and set the little tree on a little table by the door. Only thing is the electrical cord is shorter than Galen’s dick, so I couldn’t move the tree very far from the outlet. Still looks all pretty.

Now with a festive work area, it dawned on me. Christmas is coming! And we all know what that means.

ZOMG, lights! ZOMG, tree! ZOMG, cookies! ZOMG, presents! ZOMG, songs! ZOMG, Christmas specials! ZOMG, decorations!

ZOMG, Christmas, ZOMG!!!

Oh, man, I love this time of year! Who couldn’t? Soulless losers, that’s who!

Wait, isn’t Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on tonight? Oh, yes, it is! Sweet!

Island of Misfit Toys. What can I say? It just speaks to me.

Snow Globe

December 1, 2007

Alright, just like last year, doing a new entry every day in December!

Let’s start with something rather odd I saw today. I was at Target and was looking at their Christmas decorations. In the back row, there were a bunch of snow globes. In these snow globes were your well-known Christmas characters, like Santa and reindeer and other cold-climate animals.

Except one of them contained… Darth Vader.

He was holding a list of names, the names being Star Wars characters. Luke, Leia, Obi-Wan, Han, Chewie, and other “good guys” were crossed out, while all the bad guys weren’t.

It was a musical snow globe. I wound it to hear that it played… Winter Wonderland.

Okaaaaaay…

Alex in Style

November 28, 2007

We awoke yesterday morning to learn that one of our beloved Washington Redskins had died. Rest in peace, Sean Taylor. 🙁

But under the Washington Post pages about the fallen #21 of our hallowed NFL team, news which has shaken the DC area quite a bit (seriously, those of you who don’t live around here wouldn’t understand, the Redskins are serious business!), is a profile article in the Style section meant to give hope to us all, especially our young friends.

It’s called Age Is Just a Number: Youth Rights Advocate Tries to Break Down Barriers to Adulthood. And it is featuring our very own NYRA and our very own Alex Koroknay-Palicz!

Click that link and read it. Then come back here for more comments. I’ll wait.
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Why Are You Shopping Today?

November 23, 2007

I hereby decree…

Don’t shop today, idiot!

Seriously. Why are you shopping? This is the day notorious for being the busiest shopping day of the year, mostly because the stores have collectively made it that way because the crowds arouse them. Can’t just have a sale last all through Christmas time. Have to squeeze it into the wee morning hours of the day after Thanksgiving, so some people can get trampled because they’ve been stirred up into a frenzy like the mindless cretins they are.

Stay home. Nothing is that important. What’s really odd are the ones who actually do go to the store at 4am or something. Screw that. Stay home and sleep. How much of a dumb redneck are you that you must be sitting outside Wal-Mart in the freezing cold in the middle of the night, waiting for it to open so you can buy shit for your redneck family and friends?

Then again, maybe this is overhyped. Stores might not be quite as bad as they say, but I’m avoiding them nonetheless. They also say stores are horribly mobbed the few days before Christmas, but I used to do all my shopping between December 20 to 24, and I always did quite well. Crowds weren’t terrible. So maybe this is the same, that only the media and conventional knowledge are trying to make it look like a disaster, way worse than it is.

And people wonder why so many unfortunate souls have lost any Christmas cheer. All this forced stress. It’ll kill anything.

The Pin Is On

November 22, 2007

That’s right, everybody. It’s Thanksgiving and past noon, so you know what that means.

It… is… Christmas Time!!!

Which means at noon, my put on my traditional Santa Claus pin which I wear everyday from Thanksgiving until Epiphany. Since this is the earliest Thanksgiving can be, then, yay, extra long Christmas time!

But we can first enjoy Thanksgiving. Lovely holiday. Based entirely around eating. That’s a win in my book. But, like with all holidays, some people just have to gripe.
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