Fire When Ready

The last time I watched the WPIX Yule Log, it was on a B&W TV.

pa-ra-pah-pahh-rum.

@Benedick: I so fucking loathe that one, even when sung by the incomparable Joan Jett.

So when does the female Brazilian soccer team jump out and lick the sweat off of each other and wish us a merry christmas?

@FlyingChainSaw: Take some peyote, then watch the fire.

Merry Christmas to those who do that kind of thing! And continued Happy Hannukah for those who do the Jew thing. May the FSM bless you with much pasta and much booze to make your family more enjoyable.

Try wrapping elk antlers mounted on a oak plank as a coat hanger after midnight after a few drinks for a challenge sometime. After building said object in the garage.

@nojo: Watch the fire:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=5075&l=fd24b&id=1598198006

/seeks refuge in post-midnight martini

Christmas music: “I Wanna Make It Wit Chu”, Desert Sessions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4O3LnDsPik&feature=related

Grab/call/imagine your honey.

@Promnight: Imagine it sung by the Osmonds.

@redmanlaw: Interesting. In Guatemala, people burn whatever they have on hand – usually trash, in the streets – on December 7th and call it quemando el Diablo. I always figured it was just a handy exercise in garbage removal.

ADD: Merry Xmas and Feliciano to all!

Happy Holidays!!! The Xmas morning Thai chili Bloody Marys were excellent, and I actually made biscuits from scratch for breakfast. And they didn’t suck! It’s a Christmas miracle.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I have a horrendous head cold with screaming sinuses and my nose has become a hydrant, I am besnotted. But very happy and joyous and filled with lovingkindness, for once. I could even joke about the ‘conomy at Christmas dinner with my niece’s husband, a stockbroker-guy, I asked him how the business he is in doing, and he said “horrible.” I threw out the scientific projections we have produced here at Stinque, which predict a “Mad Max” economy in 6 to 12 months, except with cannibalism, and he just said “yup, that sounds about right,” the only sadness in the day.

I got a watch, a heavy shiny Seiko with amazing, truly amazing technical capabilites of no use to me at all, except that they add hundreds of dollars to the cost and required the inclusion of very pretty and interesting, fascinating, really, additional little dials, which I will never ever use. In fact, they exceed the capability of human synapses and muscle pulses to be used, as it has a stopwatch capacity to measure to 1/100ths of a second. There is a tiny dial with two needle-like hands, one of the hands completes a full revolution every tenth of a second, and you read the hundredths off when it stops, you can barely see it whirring around. To get the measurement, it works like a circular slide rule, kinda like the dials on a micrometer. My initial experiments in reaction time, consisting of simply trying to start and stop it in the shortest possible time, indicate that this takes at least 2/10ths of a second. This was done cold sober, but glowing with ritalin and sudafed. I am going to conduct further experiments while drinking, to see if it can be used to measure the degree to which alcohol slows reaction times. If I can get my hands on a breathalyzer and correlate any observable reduction in reaction time with BAC, I may be able to produce a chart which will allow it to be used as a fairly accurate wrist-drunkometer. So I guess it may actually have a practical use after all. Science!

Its solid and precise and amazing, like a good gun. I love it.

@Promnight: I have great admiration for fine watches. I could spend hours oggling timepieces that cost more than my car, but fortunately have rationalized away the need to actually own one. But sometimes I’ll buy a new $25 Timex just because I like the simple design and functionality. An alarm function is a plus, but always analog.

Got a 1 lb can of Swedish gunpowder for reloading ammo for my vintage working rifles. Those are some fine guns that have been out in the field with me for the past several years since my father in law gave them to me before he died. He also set me up pretty good with bullets and brass and hardware, so all I needed was powder and primers to get rolling. I’ve been reloading .38s and .357s for my revolvers since earlier this year (500 rounds?)

The .308 Savage Model 99 with me out on the rez during elk season

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2155&id=1598198006#/photo.php?pid=57341&id=1598198006

The .308 and a S&W Model 66 .357 I briefly had being exploited for political purposes. The revolver was stunningly accurate but the trigger was lightened to the point where it wouldn’t go bang all the time, not something you want in a handgun unless you are Plaxico Burress.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1598198006&v=photos&viewas=1598198006&sb=4#/photo.php?pid=28853&id=1598198006

@nabisco: Have not figured the day/date function on my two year old$65 analog Seiko, so today is SAB (Sabado) 23. My favorite Timexs have the rotating bezel that come in handy for keeping track of when tasks start for billing purposes.

@redmanlaw:
Sounds like you got the most sensible gift for 2009.

I asked for battered biker leathers and a souped up 1973 black Ford Falcon (Oz) Coupe equipped with exploding fuel tanks, but my parents got me the usual underwear and socks instead. Drat.

@ManchuCandidate: Got a Crossman Pulse full/semi “Airsoft” that looks like an MP5 carbine from my son. (I gave him Slipknot floor tickets to an upcoming show here). Also, per Flippin’s (?) sugguestion, we sent chickens and honeybees to Africa via Heifer International.

My kids got me a subscription to a service that sends the NYT crossword puzzle to my Blackberry every day. When this kicks in, all productive work will stop.

@Dodgerblue: Oooh, do they have a Sudoko feature? I can’t do the NYT crossword after Wednesday or Thursday, so that wouldn’t have been quite as good.

I’m back, y’all. More in a sec. Enjoying free wi-fi at the airport before heading back to the Promised Land ™ of SFO.

@SanFranLefty: Yay for deliverance from family hell!