Wassail!

I caught myself humming Christmas carols the other day. Having worked within and around retail for so long, I had become almost completely desensitized to the holiday season, due in no small part to the fact that it seems to come into the stores ridiculously early each year. My first job in the retail world had me putting out those big, plastic blowmold ornaments in early October, caring little that Halloween and Thanksgiving were between us and the relevant holiday.

You hear the term ‘commercial’ so much around the holidays (even Charlie Brown was worried about it). Fact is, though, the holidays haven’t become too commercial; they’ve become too impersonal. Think about it for a moment. Even gift-giving has degenerated to swapping gift cards in little envelopes. What was once the most personal, meaningful act between family and friends has become the biggest hassle of the holidays. Whether a gift be useful, thoughtful, or totally ridiculous, the whole point was that someone actually thought enough about someone else to go out into the world and select what they believed would be the perfect token of their caring. Some retailers are now offering gift cards via e-mail, which the recipients can print out on their own. You don’t even have to walk to the mailbox, anymore! It all comes down to one thing: When you give someone a gift card, you’re saying that you care enough to send them on an errand.

In fact, the whole of society seems to view the holidays as a hassle. Not so often do we hear the words ‘Merry Christmas’ as we do ‘Happy Holidays’. Our media, our stores, our employers, and our schools seem to be on a holy quest to excise that part of the holidays to avoid oppressing or, dare I say, discriminating against those who do not celebrate in one fashion or another. Personally, I wouldn’t take offense, or think someone was labeling me, or even pushing their religion on me if they offered the greeting, ‘Happy Hanukkah’. If that’s the holiday they celebrate, that’s fine by me. The underlying message, the peace and unity of the season, is the same, regardless of the greeting itself. When we go so far out of our way to avoid using the ‘C’ word that we almost sound uncomfortable when speaking to others, it has gone too far. Certain retailers have returned to offering the more traditional greetings only out of an interest to preserve their sales. At least it means that I’m not alone in my observations. One local newspaper went so far as to print an article of ‘holiday hints’, the first of which was titled ‘How to determine if your Yule tree is fresh. Yule tree? We can’t even say ‘Christmas tree’ anymore, apparently, so we’ve gone back to Pagan terminology. I suppose that’s fine, though, since the Yule sabbat is where our tree decorating tradition came from in the first place.

So, therein, we see the magick of the season fade. As a small child, I had a hard time believing in things like Santa Claus and flying reindeer, but that didn’t keep me from feeling the magick about Christmas morning. It was a living thing that wrapped you up in warmth and made you feel good to be alive. Granted, all the Star Wars paraphernalia and electronic mumbo-jumbo was nice, but I couldn’t help getting lost in its mystery. Even though flying sleighs were physically impossible (I was WAY too logical for such a small child—blame it on watching Mr. Spock), I tried to believe. Oh, how I tried.

Life has been good enough to grant me a family of my own and, through the eyes of my four children, I am again in tune with the magick of the season. I could be cynical or pessimistic, but I refuse. For the first time in years, I hear Christmas music without the feeling of ‘retail dread’ I have carried for so long, and I will not allow anything to keep me from enjoying that light in the eyes of my children. Whatever your holiday, I wish you the same magick.

God bless the master of this house and the mistress also,
And all the little children that 'round your table grow.
The cattle in your stable, the dog by your front door
And all that dwells within your gates, we wish you ten times more.



>Next week: The Year In Review, for those of you who weren’t paying attention the first time.

Many People Have Eaten My Cooking and Gone on to Live Normal Lives. . .

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone and, this morning, as I sat down with a breakfast of turkey omelet, I began to think back over the things I have to be thankful for. It was a sobering collection of brain spasms.

The original pilgrims had such fare as swan, lobster, and seal on their menu, among the various agricultural wealth at hand. They celebrated the bounty of their harvest with the Wampanoag Indians, who added venison to the list of choices. Life wasn’t always so bountiful then, but there was still much to be thankful for. Throughout the last 385 years, we have continued to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, though the menu has changed somewhat.

Thanksgiving is a tradition, meaning we always do the same thing over and over again; we spend hours in a hot, humid kitchen, as though our lives served no purpose other than to generate a week’s worth of turkey-related leftovers. Sometimes we throw a changeup into the mix and make pork-related leftovers, but the end result is the same; an endless parade of soups, casseroles, sandwiches, and the occasional bowl of turkey chili.

The leftover problem has escalated since 1621, with the advent of modern refrigeration and the abundance of other sources of food than the family kitchen. This doesn’t mean that we won’t have a close encounter with a developing lifeform when we clean out the refrigerator in the spring, it just means that we have a longer time to eat the same meal in various forms before it goes all blue-green and fuzzy. Even so, we still take chances as we move into the second and third week of reruns. There are so many uncertainties. Should you worry about mushrooms going bad? They used to grow on things that had already gone bad. I don’t care if the Romans called them ‘the food of the gods’, that’s just disturbing.

Personally, I would love to know who the first person was to look at a mushroom and say, “I think I want to try eating that funny-shaped thing growing out of that rotting log/corpse!” There has to be a first time for everything, I suppose, but how desperate do you have to be? I would have liked to see the face of the first person to bite into an onion, though.

This is a country in which thirty percent of the population looks like they ate the remaining seventy percent. I can only guess that to be the reason that many fast food restaurants are staying open during the holiday. For some, this has become an alternative to the traditional meal, though I’m not certain it should be a welcome one, since the average fast-food sandwich has the calorie content of a Thanksgiving plate-mound. Personally, I’d take a pound of turkey over a pound of grease and fat without hesitation, even if it meant I had to cook it.

We press on, though, dismissing all the troubling issues of life and remembering the many things we have to be thankful for. We are thankful for happy, healthy children, and a good home (that we didn’t burn down during the cooking); we are thankful for cartoon marathons when we are trapped in the kitchen; we are thankful for the fact that the mid term elections ended political ads (for the time being), and we are thankful for brothers and sisters, and good friends, though they be far away.

Now, I wonder if there’s any of my ‘food of the gods’ gravy left in the fridge. . .

Politics, and Other Tasteless Humor

I want to tell you all a story, as it was told to me.

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. Seeing a woman on the ground, he descended and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The woman replied, "You are in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be a republican," said the balloonist.

"I am," said the woman. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help, so far."

The woman below responded, "You must be a democrat."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "But how did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air, you made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, only now, somehow, it's my fault."

My friends, the mid-term elections are less than a week away and I, for the love of all that is holy, cannot begin to say how depressed I am at the choices we face. Partisanism is the weakest link in our chain of government and, as I'm sure a large portion of you are becoming aware, it is only getting worse.

The problem, though, is that not enough people are realizing what has happened over the last two centuries. In a nation that was founded on the precept of 'Government BY the people, FOR the people', we have slowly crept into the murky waters of Government OF the people WITHOUT the people.

The war between the Democrats and Republicans has been raging for some time, overwhelming all other parties' bids for the Top Job. The last president not of either party was Andrew Johnson of the Union Party, successor to Abraham Lincoln. Since that term, the battle for the White House has escalated to the farce that was the 2004 election. As seen in recent days, the shouting match has found new life as John Kerry continues to show his skill at inane insults and flip-flopping. Personally, I don't care who he was trying to insult. I just want him to go away.

I have always voted on issues and integrity, a stand that has become more and more difficult, of late. I do not care about party affiliation. I would vote Democrat or Republican, depending solely on my perception of the best choice. We, as a nation, are becoming so wrapped up in the political chaos that we are losing sight of this. Would you make an axe murderer the leader of your group, just because you belonged to the same fraternity in college? I seriously doubt it. Minus the 'axe murderer' part, that's what we do every election. Are we, as a nation, just saying, "we're tired and want to finish this with as little trouble as possible so we can get back to our reality television"?

The 'Democrapp-Repulsican' war has even become automated. In recent days, I have received several automated phone calls (sometimes in reruns) from one politico or the other, to say nothing more than how badly their opponent will handle their term in office, if elected. Couple this with the radio and television ads we are bombarded with, and the term 'mud raking' seems wholely inadequate. It has taken me, literally, weeks to research the candidates I am responsible for choosing in this election. Who is lying? Who is telling the truth? Did that guy really run a cat up a flagpole when he was in college?

And then there are the issues. . . We need stable public school funding, but one side calls it 'lobbying for higher taxes'. We want to bring our troops home as soon as possible, but we don't want to allow the Middle East to collapse into total chaos. My favorite, so far, is a proposal up for vote in our state to make it legal to hunt mourning doves. I come from a family of hunters. Having shot and hooked more than a few meals in my day, I appreciate the rights of the American hunter. You can, in no way, however, make me believe that if we don't legalize the hunting of these little-bitty doves the 'environmental extremists are going to take away all our hunting rights'.

So, it will be with heavy heart that I trudge, wearily, to the polls this November 7th. We need to take back our government from those who hold office for naught but their own gain. The people have merely lost sight of the fact that their governments belong to them. Every election, we are 'hiring' these people to do the jobs we cannot; to make our voices heard. I don't want a representative that votes the way they want to vote. I want a representative that votes the way the people in his or her district wants to vote. That is the way it should be, simply because it's too damned hard to crowd 300 million people into Washington D.C.

Face it, the plumbing can't take it.

What's In a Name?

At the risk of sounding overly-redundant, I have to bring up the 'Pluto' thing, again. Our good friend, keeping silent vigil in the outer reaches of the solar system, has, once again, been dumped on by the astronomical community.

In an attempt to reinforce their recent decision to strip Pluto of its planetary status, the International Astronomical Union has grouped it with other small solar-system bodies with well-known orbital paths. In other words, asteroids.

Yes, friends, Pluto has a new name and that name is '134340'.

It just doesn't roll off the toungue, does it? What of Charon, Hydra, and Nix? 134340 I, II, and III, respectively. Geeze, let's kick them while they're down.

It's late, I'm tired, and I'm getting very weary of piddly bickering over absolutely nothing. People are protesting in the streets (or, at least, the University campuses) over this farce. I can't say as I blame them. I've written stories about Pluto. I get sentimental over the little iceball.

Throughout the centuries, it has been the goal of humankind, in general, to make things much more complicated than they need to be. Something as simple as camping used to be a tent and a campfire. Nowadays, I see thirty-foot RVs pull into campgrounds and never disgorge their passengers except when connecting the water and electricity. Changing fluids in a car used to involve unscrewing a bolt, draining the fluid, and putting more fluid in. Now, it involves fifteen to thirty separate steps. Taking music along for a walk used to involve a transistor radio, then a walkman, and now, an MP3 player with desktop computer and internet support and supply.

Give it a rest. Besides, 'Pluto' is easier to remember.

Requiem for a Lost World. . .

I can stay silent no longer. I grew up a science wonk and, as such, I knew for a fact that the Solar System had nine planets. I was aware that that number could increase due to new discoveries but, barring a cosmic catastrophe, it should never decrease.

I knew the sun's name was Sol, and the moon's name was Luna. At the time, Jupiter only had nine moons and, thanks to Mariner 10 and the later Voyager probes, we had visited all of our known planetary neighbors.

Now, Jupiter has sixty-three confirmed moons, we've proven that the 'Face' on Mars was merely a trick of light and shadow, and mysterious, icy Pluto is now only a 'dwarf planet'.

In 2003, another celestial body was discovered, larger than Pluto and just a bit farther out. The new world was called 'Xena', and its discoverers proposed calling her and two other bodies 'planets'. The International Astronomical Union rejected the proposal, then decided to push around our tiny ninth neighbor. It was decreed that a new definition for the word 'planet' was needed.

According to the IAU, as of August 24th, 2006, a 'planet' is any body that orbits the Sun, is large enough to be made round by its own gravity, and has cleared the area around it of smaller cosmic objects.

This definition, of course, excludes planets that are struck on a regular basis by asteroids. Earth, for example.

In a Reuters article by Andy Sullivan, Allen Stern, the organizer of a petition challenging the IAU's ruling, said that the definition was "technically flawed, linguisticly flawed, and scientifically embarrassing". Hear, hear.

An astute eye would pick out the most glaring flaw. . . "A planet is any body that orbits the Sun. . ." The AIU makes things so general that they, themselves, are confused. Since these are bodies that orbit around 'the Sun', does that mean that extrasolar planets need their own definition? I propose we call them 'Those big, round things that aren't shiny'.

But we have drifted off course a bit. Why does the AIU have it in for Pluto? It has been a planet since February 18th of 1930. Why, now, should we demote it with a definition that is so poorly worded that we have to make exceptions to keep calling Earth a planet? Is it because of its size? Its composition? Perhaps they just don't want to memorize any more names.

Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh with ground-based equipment in the 1930s. At a diameter of 2390 kilometers, it is half the size of Mercury and just over half the size of our moon. Pluto has three confirmed moons, Charon, Hydra, and Nix; as many as all the inner planets, combined. Perhaps it hasn't cleared its surrounding space of cosmic debris, but could Mercury, if it weren't so near the sun?

Let's leave our textbooks alone. We can always add easier than we can erase. I say we give Pluto a chance. It may be smaller than Luna, but it orbits Sol with the rest of the planets, and holds silent vigil over the Kuiper Belt with all the other ageless little iceballs.

I bet if it were made of diamond, they'd call it a planet again.

A Million Dollars. . .

Think about it. . . A million dollars.

It's the capitalist's dream. It has become the benchmark of success and financial independence. . . "When I make my first million, I'm gonna. . ."

What would you do?

Tonight, as I prepared for my nightly pre-writing ritual, I had the opportunity to take in a show on TV that highlighted the newest, state-of-the-art weaponry in use by military agencies the world over. The one that stood out was the 'Sensor Fuzed Weapon'.

In a nutshell, the SFW is actually a 'canister' that, shortly after being dropped from the delivery aircraft, breaks open, deploying ten cylinders by parachute that, each, holds four hockey puck-shaped 'skeets'. These 40 skeets are bomblets that use infrared sensors to detect targets for their small-yet-powerful warheads. The particular test they televised was against an armored division of retired assault armor. Each skeet warhead was loaded with molten copper, decimating its target on impact, or, if the warhead couldn't find a target, exploded in midair, spraying the battlefield with the molten metal.

The cost of the test-fire: One million dollars.

Now, let's step back a bit and look at the situation. I have always been a science wonk and, throughout high school and college, I favored physics because, well, it's fun to make things go kabloey. But a million dollars?!! I'd have to look at the money awful hard before sacrificing it to mere pyrotechnics.

We are invested, militarily, in a seemingly-unending commitment in Iraq that is bleeding money from our budget at a freakish rate. I understand that a weapon of this type could end a conventional military confrontation very quickly, but we're not dealing with that type of battlefield. It's useless.

Turning towards the home front, we find several storm-ravaged areas still in ruins, neighborhoods cleared of homes, grocery stores and gas stations empty and abandoned, and schools and churches falling apart. What would a million dollars do in the effort to rebuild?

Perhaps I'm picking nits. I mean, the atomic bomb cost about two billion dollars to develop and, at just over one billion dollars, the American Seawolf-class submarine is a venture that even the government had a hard time affording to produce. A million dollar bomb doesn't sound so bad in comparison. If you could buy such weaponry at the average retail stores, the Sensor Fuzed Weapon would be on the clearance shelf in your local Wal-Mart.

Ah, free Capitalism! I suppose we can't blame the government for using their money to develop a new toy. They know best, don't they? Besides, if I had a million dollars, I'd probably waste it on frivolous things like paying off my house or saving for my retirement and the kids' college tuition. At least the government is using the money to help insure the freedom and independence of our country.

. . .By blowing up a large piece of it.

All the Subtlety of Above-Ground Nuclear Testing. . .

Tonight, I'd like to talk about tact and decorum, subtlety and manners.

I'd like to, but I'm not, because I'm going to be talking about humans.

I had to take a small business trip to Detroit this week, and I opted for a State Park campground, rather than a hotel, since I am able to sleep much better in the former, than the latter. There's just something about being in a comfortable room with no screaming kids around that makes it impossible for me to write or sleep in. I just belong in nature.

And then there were humans. The cabin next to mine was occupied by about eight teenage girls of various ages, and one boy I would guess to be about fifteen who was brother to the largest part of the group. Needless to say, the 'missing the screaming kids' problem was nonexistent after this point.

Through a soundtrack of Christian rock emanating from their CD player, a hail of swearing and moderately off-color stories wafted across the campground with sufficient volume to be heard clearly by all. The only intermission to this being a short 'check up' visit from their father on the second day of their stay.

Across the way, an older fellow got into a shouting match over a citation he was given by the park ranger for 'driving off-road in an undesignated area'. That, translated, means that he couldn't back his trailer into the campsite, so he pulled straight through across another site to park it. Thus, we revisit the idea that, if you wish to own a vehicle (including trailers and RVs), you should have to take a training course to learn how to drive it. As I've said before, most people on the road today should be driving Volkswagen Beetles and such.

Not to be upstaged, the 'girls next door' began to wonder where their eldest sister had gotten to. Their brother, whom I had already begun to feel sorry for, announced that he would go find her. As I sat at the picnic table in front of my own cabin, writing stories and eating my steak sandwich, he walked past, disappearing down the road to the lake. Short minutes after, he comes back around the bend, announcing to everyone that she "fell asleep at the lake," and that "she looks like a friggin' tomato!"

Shortly behind the brother came the sister who, from two cabins away, announced to her group (and the campground at large) that, "my boobs are white, and the rest of me is glowing!" Thinking that wasn't exposition enough, she pulled off her bikini top to provide two, large visual aids for anyone who couldn't grasp the concept she was conveying.

**Please note, I didn't take any pictures, so don't email me. Thank you.**

Needless to say, things went downhill from there. I like to think it was Karma that sent the platoon of Raccoons upon them as they sat about their campfire, that night.

As with most of my observations of humans, both in the wild and in their native habitats, subtlety is a lost art. For any who doubt this conclusion, I invite you to look upon the current administration and any number of their actions. Or you could look at our history of conflicts.

War is the ultimate opposite of subtlety. Whether conventional or nuclear, a bomb is a rather rude interruption to the flow of someone's day. As if that's not enough, before they are deployed, our troops write insulting messages on them.

Whether we are looking at troops at war, citizens in conflict with authority, or loud, exhibitionist girls with a very henpecked brother, I believe we're seeing both a psychological need to be understood and an inability to tell when the subject's point has been made. Call it a 'malfunctioning barometer', if you will. One part of the brain is not paying attention to what the other parts are trying to accomplish, thus the mouth and body keep rambling and gesticulating long after everyone gets the idea.

Not being a psychologist, I cannot speculate as to the treatment or cure for this failing, if such it can be called. I can only suggest observation from a distance and, of course, a little popcorn to go with the show.

Never Let a Wiccan Wish for Rain While You Test New Plumbing

Today started quite well. I had a bit of a headache when I got out of bed this morning, but that was from the massive amount of cleaning and spackling the day before, in an attempt to redecorate the upstairs bathroom. A little breakfast, and I was ready to start the day.

I had no complaints about work, as everything was nice and dull. The day progressed with no problems, and my headache dissipated.

It was later in the afternoon, as I was getting ready for my Tai Chi class, that things began to go wrong. Oh, it started innocently enough. I decided to take a shower in the downstairs bathroom; a sort of 'inaugural cruise', if you will, since we hadn't really used it since I finished it. Everything went swimmingly, and I went upstairs to get dressed for class.

Here, I digress. Every homeowner, after a certain amount of time, knows every creak, pop, squeak, shimmy, or other annoying noise their home makes. I do. I can tell, from the opposite end of the house, when the ice maker refills. So, when you hear rushing water when the washing machine and dishwasher are both silent, your life passes before you.

And you run.

I wish the Guinness people had been around, because I blew away speed records in reaching the basement. Of course, my first and only thought was stopping the flow of water that was gushing from the access hall between the bathroom and the bedroom, so I neglected to turn on any lights. In the dark, I found the bathroom's shutoff valves and, naturally, turned off the wrong one first. When I finally got the blown line's valve in hand, I was a bit dismayed to find that it wasn't working completely. Fully closed, it was still letting a trickle flow through, deepening my new indoor swimming pool. In wet socks, I slogged over to the main and shut off the whole house.

Thankfully, the idiots that built my house couldn't level a concrete pad to save their lives, so the water was corralled on the uncarpeted side of the basement. Unfortunately, it just happened to be the side with all the boxes and tables jammed against the wall.

It was about this time, for some reason, the song, "Come On, Get Happy" began running through my head. Suddenly, I found myself wondering if David Cassidy was still alive so I could strangle him.

To make a long story manageably short, five hours, two shop vacuums, one box fan, many towels, four repair couplings, and a large amount of primer and cement later, we have running water. The cause of my entire problem had been a small seal in the shutoff valve I mentioned earlier. The seal broke free and was swept through the line to a repair coupling where it, apparently, caused a pressure variance that blew out the compression fitting.

A series of unfortunate events. And none of it was lemony.

This evening, as things were calming down, I was speaking to one of my friends over the phone. She was telling me about how, at around the same time I was having my day's adventure, she was really wishing for a heavy rain. Also, about this time, her grandmother had a water line explode in her basement. She felt bad because she 'caused' it. Hmmm. . . No, Diane, I'm not letting you take responsibility for this one. This is just the way the Universe keeps things interesting for me.

"Come on, get happy"? It's a screaming wonder I don't drink.

No Brain, No Gain

I have come to a single conclusion. . . I need to write a book on fitness.

What? It's true.

Walk into any bookstore in the United States (and, most likely, Canada) and you will find an entire section of books devoted to making everyone fit, healthy, strong, and generally gorgeous. There are diets from the sensible to the absurd, weight training routines that are supposed to make anyone look like Conan the Barbarian, and fitness routines that are a melding of martial arts and dance that, in all honesty, I truly wonder about.

And, yet, we are a nation of obesity. Obesity is the second leading cause of death in the U.S., with approximately 60 million people considered obese (Body Mass Index >30) and approximately 9 million extremely obese (BMI >40). Once again, though, I have to wonder how true those facts are since, not that long ago, I also saw an article about how the BMI index is inaccurate, as it does nothing to distinguish between lean body weight (muscle) and fat. In fact, it doesn't even consider clothing.

I wear, on average, around 5 pounds of clothing, not including my shoes. This is jeans, shirt, and whatever is in my pockets or on my belt (wallet, keys, cell phone, spare change, etc.). At home, weighing myself in lighter attire, I am not considered overweight by the BMI index (though it is only by a narrow margin). At the doctor's office, they do not even require me to take off my shoes to be weighed so, there, I am overweight (BMI = 25.8).

Needless to say, I have little confidence in medical science's ability to gauge my health by such tenuous means.

I do believe there is a problem, however. It's hard to not see it. We live in a country where the meat of another animal has become a condiment (i.e., "I'll take my half-pound burger with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise and BACON!!"). There are greasy, fast-food places on every corner and, quite frankly, our society is not exactly a model of self-control.

I am not here, today, to take a 'holier-than-thou' attitude on the matter. Far from it, I am here to set the record straight. I am NOT an expert, nor am I a certified personal trainer or nutritionist. I am an average being with above-average knowledge of the subject of fitness because of one reason, alone:

I acknowledge that no two people are exactly alike.

Everyone is different. This fact seems to escape all the 'gurus' and 'experts' who write these books. People buy their collective works as though they are the Word from On High, but what works for one person, or even a sizable group, is not guaranteed to work for the average person. I have, over the years, picked up a large number of fitness magazines, all claiming to have the best workouts for muscle mass, or diets for fat-burning, and I've tried a few, now and again. Have they all worked? No. Have some of them worked? No.

Now, don't get me wrong; there was a lot of helpful information in those articles, but just not all at once. I follow fitness guidelines for myself that is a hybridization of all of the knowledge I've accumulated over the years since high school, and I've made it work for me. I weight train four days a week, run at least a mile on the other days, and throw in Tai Chi as often as I can. It works for me. Will it work for you? Probably not. Remember, everyone is different.

My point, through all this ranting, is that the human body is an amazing machine. If you exert yourself, physically, on a regular basis using common sense, you will improve your health. If you are mindful of what you eat and lay off of the garbage food, you will lose weight or, at least, maintain a healthy weight. For some people, losing weight could be as simple as cutting out soft drinks. For others, medical intervention could be required. Carb-free diets and all-liquid meals are fads that come and go and, quite frankly, should be left alone.

If you are concerned about your weight, you should talk to your doctor. No magazine or book or DVD knows you like he or she does. Doctors aren't all about the prescriptions; they may have a good, simple plan for you to follow. Besides, you should see your doctor for a physical before starting any workout regimen, so you're going to be there, anyway.

Remember, it's our duty as good citizens to live as long as we can, just to keep the Social Security people totally confounded.

A Special Thanks to all my Concerned Friends. . .

Well, friends, another year has begun, and we've gotten off to a wonderful start. This age of computerized communication has placed in all our hands the power to keep in touch with family and friends as never before. To those friends who send me actual letters via email, I am forever appreciative. My heartfelt appreciation also goes out to all of you who have taken the time and trouble to send me email "forwards" over the past 12 months. Thank you for making me feel safe, secure, blessed and wealthy.

Extra thanks for the ones that I have to open 15 times to get to the message.

Special thanks to whoever sent me the one about rat doots in the glue on envelopes 'cause I now have to go get a wet towel every time I need to seal an envelope.

Also, I scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason. Because of your concern, I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains and clean chrome.

I no longer drink Pepsi, or Dr Pepper, since the people who make these products are atheists who won't put "Under God" on their cans.

I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone might drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from, nor send packages by UPS, or FedEx, since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer answer the phone, because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan.

I no longer eat KFC, because their "chickens" are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer have any sneakers -- but that will change once I receive my free replacement pair from Nike.

I no longer have to buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus, since I now have their recipe.

I no longer worry about my soul, because at last count I have 363,214 angels looking out for me.

Thanks to you, I have learned that God only answers my prayers if I forward an e-mail to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

I no longer have any savings, because I gave it to a sick girl who is about to die in the hospital (for the 1,387,258th time)

I no longer have any money at all - but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special email program.

Yes, I want to thank you so much for looking out for me that I will now return the favor!

If you don't copy and send this article to 144,000 people in the next 7 minutes, a large pigeon with a wicked case of explosive diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM (EDT) this afternoon. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of mine's next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's former college roommate.

Heads up!

Stereotypy, Ad Nauseum. . .

It's not very surprising and a bit horrifying that screaming incompetance and idiocy is a worldwide trend.

Scenario #1:
The holidays are over, and I FINALLY got my last Christmas package sent off yesterday. Why so late, you may ask? Because a package I sent out on the smegging 20th of December was returned to me by Canada Post for being 'improperly addressed'. What kind of grievous mistake did I commit? Did I leave out the postal code? No. Did I screw up the street address? No. Canada Post requires all items inbound from the United States to be printed in capital letters. In my apparent haste, amongst the capitals, I inserted a lowercase 'h'.
Example: SMITh

We're not exactly talking about a quantum leap of understanding, here.

Scenario #2:
Though I'm loath to admit it, I found myself watching one of those 'amazing video' shows last night. One of the clips was from an Austrailian children's show, the title of which was never given. The star, however, was one of those big, floppy monster-like creatures portrayed by a man who should have listened to his high school guidance counselors before choosing educational and career paths. An animal trainer was a guest, and he brought a (naturally) kangaroo.
Now, for those of you who have never had the opportunity to see a kangaroo outside of your local zoo, they are cute, yes, but also EXTREMELY strong and HORRIFYINGLY fierce when they feel threatened.

Enter the actor in the big, orange, floppy suit.

Within seconds of his walking on stage, the man in the costume found himself ON THE FLOOR IN A VISE-LIKE HEADLOCK, FIGHTING FOR AIR. The cute little kangaroo made it perfectly clear that he did not like the guy in the monster suit; so much that two people had to pull her off of him.

What does he do once he gets back on his feet? HE WALKS OVER TO THE KANGAROO AGAIN!! Of course, the animal reiterates her earlier editorial act and attempts to rip the costume head off while kicking the man severely in the groin and midsection.
Geeze. Where were the 'Darwin Award' people for this guy?

There we go. Two examples out of twenty this week that just make me wish there were colonies in Antarctica to ship people to.

More to come. . .