Finally got the tree up the other night after having its tattered box sitting in the middle of the family room for the better part of a week! We still had to put up the same Christmas Tree Protection Shield which we erected last year to keep Cleo at bay, on account of her attempting to use it as a back-scratcher within about 5 minutes of it being up, but I think it turned out well and it’s kinda nice that it can also be a part of our greater light display outside through the front window. 😉
So I was taking a look through ABC Family’s 25 Days of Christmas programming schedule earlier tonight, and I guess you could say … I took issue with a couple of things…
First and foremost, there’s not a single Muppet Christmas movie in their entire line-up, which frankly just seems blasphemous to me because, well, Disney OWNS The Muppets!!!
And #2, I guess maybe my understanding of the schedule was flawed, but I always understood when I heard the advertisements that it was kind of a Christmas movie advent calendar with a different movie each night in December leading up until the big day itself. Well, in reality that’s not exactly what they’re doing this year, and I get that often times they play multiple movies in one night because they’ve got 24 hours to fill, but still, they’ve also got a couple of nights that are basically duplicates of each other, and they’ve even got some that aren’t even Christmas movies in the list.
Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Toy Story as much as the next guy, but it’s not a Christmas movie.
Now if only The Muppets had done a Christmas movie about some sort of Christmas toy or something… 🙄
Anyways – long story short, I think I can do better, and here it is – 25 great unique movies and Christmas specials … and yes, if ABC gets to call Toy Story a Christmas movie, then I’m including some TV specials in the mix for my list! Just enough to play one program each night until you’re ready to unwrap presents in a wild, Kermit-like flailing frenzy on Christmas morning, or even if you just want to have a couple of marathon sessions and run through them on the weekends like I’m probably going to end up doing this year, well that’s just fine and dandy, too! 😀
I don’t have a lot of respect for companies that fire people around the holidays.
I’ve heard all of the excuses – they’ve gotta make ends meet to please the investors, it’s just business, blah blah blah – but ultimately I just think that it’s complete and utter horseshit. I even had one person tell me once, “Well now those people just have even more time to spend with their families during the holidays!” I think it was supposed to be a joke … maybe?
I don’t care if the holidays happen to be at the end of the year, or if reductions in headcount are the most efficient way to lower expenses before year end – it’s just a shitty thing to do during a time when we’re all supposed to be merry and bright and be doing things to help others. Sending people to the unemployment line three weeks before Christmas is no way to treat people – fire them in November or January, but not at Christmastime.
Then again, maybe it’s just me, but ultimately I believe that running a business should be about more than just the bottom line, too. A business is nothing without its employees, and when you make a commitment to pay people for their services, it’s just not right to pull the rug out from under them during what’s supposed to be the happiest time of the year.
😥
I think I just learned more about physics in 10 minutes of browsing these videos than I did the entire semester that I took Intro to Physics in high school… 😳
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my amazing niece, Madelyn!!! 😀
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjjYMLCiOwg
Believe it or not, it’s not that I actually hate the snow … it’s just that I really have no desire to interact with it on a day-to-day basis ever again.
Don’t get me wrong – when I left the blustery cold winters of Michigan behind for Florida’s sunny beaches, I actually did hate the snow, but over the years of being away combined with a couple of trips home for the holidays, I started to realize that it isn’t really the snow itself that I despise – it’s having to shovel it, and snow blow it, and pray that my car doesn’t swerve into a ditch when I’m driving on roads covered with it … now those are the parts that I actually don’t like!
Truth be told, I actually really enjoy looking out over a snow-covered landscape in Northern Michigan, assuming that I’m warm inside with no need to ever actually have to go out in it or anything. Isolated away from the day-to-day, snow can create a very serene view that’s no doubt a part of my Christmas memories … I just think that the key is most of those memories happen to be when I was young enough that “Go clear out the driveway so that I can get to work!” was something more so overheard than anything that was actually directed at me! 😉
So do I miss not having snow here in Florida around the holidays??? Yes and no.
In a perfect world where we could wake up to a snow-covered lawn on Christmas morning and then have it all gone by the next day, sure – snow would be just fine, but if its presence comes with three months before and four months after where I have to spend an hour a day snow blowing just to pull into my driveway … and I can’t go outside without having my nose hairs freeze … and my pretty, snow-covered landscape is constantly getting ruined by people making snowmobile tracks all over it?
In the case of reality, I guess I’m happy to settle for the type of “snow” that falls over at Disney World that’s evaporated before it hits the ground! 😛
I guess you could say that I’m a little touchy when it comes to holiday tipping.
On one hand, I love to do it because it’s kinda fun to go a little above and beyond what people normally expect as a way to help spread a little holiday cheer and appreciation throughout the service industry.
On the other, though, I absolutely hate it when people ask me about it instead of just letting it happen if I so choose.
Frankly, if we’re being completely honest, it can really be boiled down to one specific instance – I hate finding those little bags of rocks with a Christmas card from the garbage men in my driveway.
…and everybody else’s driveway, too – I noticed a ton of them the other night while I was out walking Cleo, which is a little ironic to think that the men responsible for removing trash from our communities are in fact responsible for so much litter during the holidays. I never used to like it when I got the newspaper delivered, either – I’d much rather provide a tip when I’m renewing my subscription, or at the very least maybe receive a standardized envelope from the newspaper itself, but having them printed up by the individual carriers or garbage men and left in my driveway just feels weird to me.
I don’t tip everybody I meet around this time of year, but for those who really do a great job all year round, I like to take the time to show my appreciation for their services – maybe an extra $5 for my haircut or double what we would normally tip at our favorite sushi place. Eventually I’d love to be in a position to really go all out and surprise people with a ridiculous holiday tip – you know, $100 on a $30 meal or something (remember this project from earlier in the year?). We’re not there quite yet, but we’re on our way and I’d like to think that our tips are growing also as we do.
I hope it doesn’t make me sound like too much of a scrooge, but if I want to tip my garbage men, it’s not like I couldn’t just leave them something out like I do with the mailman. The only reason I don’t is because the mailman doesn’t ask for it… 😕
This kind of thing irritates me – I can certainly sympathize with Hollywood’s concern about piracy because when you spend a lot of money making a product to sell, it really burns to see people taking it out from under your nose for free … but why can’t they be a little bit more honorable in the ways that they go about trying to deal all of it?!
Movie Studios Ask Google To Censor Their Own Films, Facebook and Wikipedia
http://torrentfreak.com/movie-studios-ask-google-to-censor-their-own-films-facebook-and-wikipedia-121203/
Whether it’s frivolous lawsuits or an inane bill like SOPA or blanket DMCA notices without taking the time to actually do any research, these are the kinds of things that lose my sympathy when the studios flail about piracy costing them $47 mega bajillion dollars every year. Most DMCA notices these days come from companies that “specialize” in takedowns for their clients, but if these folks can’t tell the difference between Wikipedia and an actual file sharing service, then it begs the question of why the system doesn’t have penalties for illegitimate DMCA notices to help combat these types of abuse from the other side yet. Everything to date is written in favor exclusively of copyright owners, but clearly we have enough examples now that maybe some protections need to be built in for the other side that actually has to process these types of requests.
If Google has to process DMCA notices in a timely manner to maintain its Safe Harbor under the DMCA, then the agents submitting these requests should be subject to financial penalties for every bogus and/or stupid entry that Google and other providers then have to spend time dealing with on account of their laziness.
What would the actual penalty be??? Well, the MPAA seems to think that $250,000 per film is a good penalty for violations…
P.S. Of course, probably the most comical of all is the idea that people are actually paying these copies to request removal of their files from the likes of Google … which nothing against Google, but let’s be honest, the big fish involved with piracy don’t use search engines any more than they use public BitTorrent trackers or even sites like MegaUpload. No one uses those to download stuff illegally unless they’re just being lazy or they feel like getting caught… 🙄
The tradition continues!
This year my most excellent gift giving guide can be found over at Just Laugh, where I’ve compiled a truly massive list of some of the best new humor and comedy of 2012, along with a handful of holiday favorites as well as some stuff that’s just plain bizarre! In my not so humble opinion, the best Christmas gifts are also the funniest Christmas gifts, so hopefully this gives you a good starting place to help make 2012 the most hilarious Christmas ever… 😉
![2012giftguide[1]](http://www.scottsevener.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/2012giftguide1-575x317.jpg)
