He's on his way! NORAD tracked Santa lifting off from the North Pole! Yippee!

I hope I get a pony.

I actually did hear this song at the grocery store where I work ... once.  About an hour after the store closed. Haven't heard it since, and I spend a LOT of time at work; enough time to hear the Muzak track loop and start playing the same songs over again.

Perhaps it's because the words of the song lead one to believe that Christmas isn't found in any of the boxes on the shelves...and can never be taken away. Not even by the Grinch.

For lots of reasons, this is my favorite Christmas song this year.

Where Are You Christmas? by Faith Hill

( But first some generalized whining about my life... )

So I'm in a rather grumpy, un-Christmas-like mood. Fortunately, Ray Davies of The Kinks was pissed off about Christmas way before I was. Therefore, I give to you the first song you won't hear at the mall this holiday season: Father Christmas by The Kinks*



*Disclamer: You actually might hear this song in certain parts of the mall this year. Specifically, the movie theater part. A pretty good cover of it by OK Go (of dancing on treadmills fame) is in the new movie Unaccompanied Minors. A good try, but the requisite "punkness" just isn't quite there for me. Maybe after a couple more hours on the treadmills, except in hot, wool Santa suits this time ....

Mmmmm boy! Turkey day! My favorite part is when everybody gathers around the ravaged turkey carcass like vultures around a wildebeest on the African savanna and sings those old favorite Thanksgiving carols, like this one:


or this one:


and of course, who can forget this classic?



Ummm...OK. So, why aren't there Thanksgiving carols, anyway? Couldn't the Pilgrims sing?

I had to work Halloween night (gee, what a shock ... what holiday haven't I had to work on?) So I sorta went in costume. I say sorta, because I wasn't supposed to be anyone in particular. I just looked different from the way I normally dress. Dress code is white shirt, dark pants, tie and company supplied vest (+5 for dorkitude). Halloween I dressed ... different. I was told I looked like a Blues Brother, a guy from Men in Black and James Bond ... none of which was even remotely true. (James Bond ... only if the viewer had had way too many martinis could I ever look like James Bond!) A guy in the deli finally came up with the right name for me.

( Meet Pimp Master Ken! )

Halloween is almost here ....

Want some candy?

Bwahahahahaha...=koff, koff, gasp= Damn. Gotta work on that evil laugh.

This had to involve beer. It just had to.

Watch 15,000 bottle rockets fired off in under 1 min at The Vulcan Project!

Happy New Year!!!

It's gotta be better than 2005!

Happy New Year
No more champagne
and the fireworks are through
here we are, me and you
feeling lost and feeling blue
it’s the end of the party
and the morning seems so grey
so unlike yesterday
now’s the time for us to say

Happy new year
happy new year
may we all
have a vision
now and then
of a world where
every neighbour is a friend
happy new year
happy new year
may we all
have our hopes
our will to try
if we don’t
we might as well
lay down and die
you and I

Sometimes I see
how the brave new world arrives
and I see how it thrives
in the ashes of our lives
oh yes, man is a fool
and he thinks he’ll be okay
dragging on feet of clay
never knowing he’s astray
keeps on going anyway

Happy new year
happy new year
may we all
have a vision
now and then
of a world where
every neighbour is a friend
happy new year
happy new year
may we all
have our hopes
our will to try
if we don’t
we might as well
lay down and die
you and I

Seems to me now
that the dreams we had before
are all dead, nothing more
than confetti on the floor
it’s the end of a decade
in another ten years time
who can say what we’ll find
what lies waiting down the line
in the end of eighty-nine

Happy new year
happy new year
may we all
have a vision
now and then
of a world where
every neighbour is a friend
happy new year
happy new year
may we all
have our hopes
our will to try
if we don’t
we might as well
lay down and die
you and I

© Copyright 1980 for the world by Universal/Union Songs AB, Stockholm, Sweden. All rights reserved