Dec 23, 2003

Festivus is upon us. Time to mount the pole, air family grievances & limber-up for post-dinner Feats of Strength.

Festivus is my favourite of the secular alternatives to Christmas. Others prefer to spread the message of peace & good will to all men.

Onion.com did a great piece on bringing Christmas to Iraq — by force. Xmas is an easy mark for humourists & cynics.

Actually, this is my favourite holiday. I’m happy to be together with family after missing last Christmas in New Zealand.

For others this quotation rings true:

Christmas is … an excuse for alcoholics to mercilessly crush their families, children to have their innocence strangled by overwhelming greed and people who hate each other to gather and inflict torture over a cheese ball and crackers.

(from vegetarian Bill, as quoted by acclaimed journalist KZ.)

Hitler was a violent herbivore non-smoker too, actually, though that is possibly just a coincidence.

Speaking of vegetarians, my surrogate family the Masons invited me to one of their favourite annual events, Chocolate for Breakfast. This is a CUPS Christmas fund-raiser for the homeless sponsored by Bernard Callebaut fine chocolates and terrific dance band The Dino Martinis.

Appear Sunday morning in your PJs and dance away your decadent brecky! For the second time in the past 3 years the Mason clan won the grand prize, a huge gourmet chocolate Santa! (click on the photo to see a larger image.)

Trust you are getting a break over the holiday.

If you lack Christmas spirit, go see Love, Actually. It’s a chick flick but anyone would enjoy it — a Hugh Grant movie set in the weeks leading up to Christmas in London.

I’m jolly. Life is good. The gym club is going well, my apartment building now fully rented and I’m healthy if not wealthy nor wise.

I’m always cheered when days grow longer. Makes me pine for hiking adventures next summer.

Know that I am one of those annoying MAC devotees who dis Windoze users while denying the faults of Apple computers. We Macolytes have never been flying higher.

Time Magazine voted the Apple on-line music service iTunes the coolest tech invention of the year. (You can sample the service but it is still available only to Americans.) US$.99 / song — fast, easy, reliable.

Finally Apple has made a dent in the real world — the 97% of people who use Bill Gates operating system. Apple iTunes works on Windows. (I even downloaded iTunes on to Mason‘s PC when he was busy dressing the kids for tobogganing!)

Best song of 2003? I’d vote Where is the Love by the Black Eyed Peas. Great message, catchy song, great video. Uplifting too is Shania’s She’s Not Just a Pretty Face. Go girl!

I’m finally back to Saskatoon for New Years. The Longs host a wonderful weekend with a giant bonfire on frozen Emma Lake. You have a terrific New Years too!

All about the work,

Rick McSchneider