RandomFailure

Ugh! I’m soooo tired right now. All this holiday stuff plus deadlines at work equals one tired Steve. I wrapped all the presents I’m giving out tonight, and everyone on my list had at least one oddly shaped item that had me cursing the fact that I bought it in the first place. I haven’t had time to bake all the cookies I’d like, since my family has a “cookie exchange” policy; if you want certain cookies, you have to trade for them. But since my parents just had their kitchen redone and Mom just had the oven hooked up this week, it’s likely to be a one-sided trade (I give, but don’t receive).

I’m told that I’m a bit slow in noticing this (“it was so last year”), but it seems to me like every fifth person has something in that tan Burberry plaid (it’s called “Classic Check”). Either a scarf or carrying a purse.

If you like your Christmas music on the aggressive side, listen to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. My Mom was playing this, and my girlfriend blurted out, “Merry Christmas, dammit!” In particular, check out this version of O Come All Ye Faithful at the iTunes store.

And I heard this most interesting little tidbit: FYE stores raise their prices as December 25 approaches. My girlfriend was told this by a clerk at one of the Philadelphia area stores. Seems FYE likes to prey on the desperate shoppers. I know that their prices are “grab your ankles” high at normal, but to raise them as you get closer to Christmas?!? Dude, that sucks. And so does FYE.

Anyway, have a belated Happy Hanukkah, a Merry Christmas, and a Joyous Kwanzza!

And I’ve got the link to prove it! Check the link at the lower right of the page (you probably need to scroll to see it). This blog was analyzed by that site (before today’s posting) and I’m only 23% evil. I guess “I Kick Puppies” doesn’t count as being evil. Bummer.

If that title didn’t grab your attention, I don’t know what will. That phrase popped into my head some time ago, and I always thought it would be funny to have a T-shirt with that phrase on there. So I finally got my lazy self around to Googling it, and don’t you know somebody has already created such a T-shirt.

In my “research,” I think I found out where I first read about it. I believe it was in connection with a story about a T-shirt that Planned Parenthood was selling with the phrase “I had an abortion.” Apparently, all those right-wing groups were adamantly against it, and someone somewhere made the comment that putting “I had an abortion” on a T-shirt was in some way equivalent to putting “I kick puppies” on a T-shirt.

I disagree. “I kick puppies” is much funnier.

(Original post: 01 December 2004, 11:17 pm)

Thanks to the cross-promotions going on between the Philadelphia Inquirer and the local NBC affiliate, I found out that the weeknight weatherman will be presenting a forecast for the entire month of December this evening. For those of you not from Philadelphia, NBC10 is the “panic news” station. They love to use drama, bordering on scare tactics, to get you to watch their newscast. Granted, plenty of other stations may do this, but it’s pronounced here in Philly with this station. If you recall, this was the station that on a Wednesday predicted a huge snowstorm for the following Sunday which never materialized.

So what relevance does this have here? Well, I’ve recorded the newscast and will be tracking the predictions against the actual weather for that day. I’ll be posting the results on a separate page. If they’re crazy enough to try it, I’m crazy enough to see how wrong they are.

Update: After watching the broadcast, no daily predictions were given, just weekly generalities. So it really doesn’t make any sense to try to track the accuracy of a generalized prediction. No, that’s not a cop-out, just a rational decision. That’s OK, I’m disappointed, too.