The Yearly Darlene Love Christmas Tune..

Darlene Love does it again, performing in 2018 my favorite holiday song
"Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"

My long standing tradition has been to feature the seemingly immortal Darlene Love doing her holiday hit "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", which is my favorite song of the season.

The song is bittersweet, which is a vacation from the cloying claptrap we usually have to put up with this time of year. Yeah, I'm a Grinch, but deal with it.

The bittersweet song matches my mixed emotions this time of year. I know Christmas demands that I be deliriously happy, but no, I'm not going to do that. I really don't mean to be negative, and I don't want to take away from the joy that many people experience this time of year.  But still. Bah-Humbug!

Yes, I know I'm one of the lucky ones. There's been no tragedies in my life around the Christmas season, knock on wood. Life is good, no complaints. Happiness abounds.

Still, this is a season of contrasts. People get giddy with joy, but there's an undercurrent of sadness for many people, even sometimes among us "lucky ones." It's just that nobody dares admit it. It's against the "rules."

So we express through the  sentimentality of such treacly tunes as "I'll Be Home For Christmas."

That's not good enough, dammit. This holiday demands that everybody's life be perfect. I guess the holiday advertisers are the ones that expect this of us. It's a way to make money, and I get it. However, they hold too much sway over most of us, and I think that's awful.  It's time to break those chains.

Nobody's life is perfect. This seasonal expectation that insists everything must be ideal makes people who are feeling less than perfect feel worse. Which is a cruel joke. Shame on those Hallmark Christmas Specials types. If I were a worse person, I'd wish heartache for them on Christmas.

But I can't bring myself to do that.

Which is why I love "Christmas (Baby Pleas Come Home)" so much. She wants to be with her lover, her ex-lover, or whoever it is, and can't. The song brings us to church, which should make us feel exultant, but at the same time brings us down to a sad reality.

Which is life for pretty much all of us. In a world of fake news, let's deal with reality, folks.

As usual, my, husband and I must be apart this Christmas. Me in Vermont with family, Jeff in South Dakota with family. It's just circumstance that causes this. Work schedules, life in general. No biggie. I want him to be home with me, or I want to be with him in South Dakota.

We can't, but we work it out. Which is why for me, Christmas is bittersweet, and the song fits the mood. Hey, if relating to a song makes you feel better, why not, right?

Jeff will be with me soon enough, and all will be well. I just wish I could spend time today with family, simultaneously in West Rutland, Vermont and Yankton, South Dakota. We'll do Facetime, which is nice, but not perfect.

Hallmark will be mad at me for not being perfect with this, but screw 'em. It's time for all of us to enjoy our strangely wonderful, gloriously imperfect lives.

Love always performed "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"  on the David Letterman show, until he retired. Then, "The View" picked it up.

I think this year "The View" diluted Love a bit by having her duet with Bryan Adams.(Gosh, I haven't thought of him in years.) But it's a blessing we still have Darlene Love to uphold the tradition in this blog. After all, aren't we supposed to be all traditional this time of year?

So what if my tradition is being imperfect at a time we're all "supposed" to be flawless?  I'm rebelling, and I hope you'll join me.

Here's to sloppy Christmas decorations, gifts falling short, less than impeccable holiday clothing choices, and anything else that violates all those supposed Christmas standards.

Let's enjoy "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" if only because it celebrates our imperfect but good lives:

No Platinum Mines In This Needed Feminist Update of "Santa, Baby" by Miley Cyrus

One of my least favorite Christmas season songs is the 1953 Eartha Kitt classic, "Santa, Baby."

In the song, Kitt purrs her way through a gift list she wants from Santa when he "comes down the chimney tonight. "

In the long list of expensive things she wants is  a car, specifically a nice 1954 convertible, light blue. Also, holiday decorations from Tiffany's, a sable (who wears real fur coats anymore?). big checks with lots of zeros after a first integer, a duplex (why a duplex, why not just a house?) and of all things, a platinum mine.

Who the hell would even think of asking for a platinum mine for Christmas? Who the hell would want one?

That old gold digging song needed a serious update. Most women I know don't pine for all that weird stuff anymore.  They especially don't wish for a platinum mine. Some women might want to shove a bad, lousy ex into a platinum mine, but that's another story.

Miley Cyrus recently appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. There she was in a cute green and red Christmas outfit, lounged out on a couch. With an earnest smile that is apparently required whenever you sing a holiday song, she belts out "Santa, Baby."

But this Miley version is seriously updated.  Sables, checks, cars and platinum mines are out.  Cyrus's "Santa, Baby" now has a refreshing feminist twist. Sample lyric:

"Santa, baby, I've got a baller car of my own, no loan. I bought it all by myself, Santa baby, with zero help from Elf on the Shelf."

The rest of the song is definitely worth a watch and listen. Especially when she gets to what Santa and other men can do with their chimneys:

Here ya go!

UPS Delivery Guy Gets Fun Assist From A Squirrel

In this still from a security camera video, a squirrel leaps onto the
shoulder of a UPS driver delivering a package to a homeowner.
Nice to see the squirrel trying to be helpful. 

In the viral video in this post, a delivery guy gets a happy assist during his workday.

It's Christmas season, so people are getting packages at their home left and right. In this case, a UPS driver delivers a Zappos box to a customer.

It's all festive. As the security camera shows, there's a nice seasonal wreath, and the bearded delivery guy taps a little tune on the box. He's in a good mood. It even helps that you can see a Christmas wreath on the door. All is well.

While he's waiting for the homeowner to open the door to accept the package, a squirrel decides to be helpful. Said squirrel jumps on the UPS driver's shoulder and head, and he's delighted.

The squirrel is gone by the time the homeowner opens the door, and the video cuts out at that point. I would have loved to hear what the conversation was like between UPS guy and the homeowner.

But at least it's a nice, happy alternative to the porch pirate thefts we usually see this time of year

Here's the video:

Woman Gets The BEST Help Decorating Her Christmas Tree

I'm sure you have your holiday decorating done by now, given that it's just two days before Christmas.

Next year,  however, you ought to plan on hiring this woman's helper. She got her Christmas tree decorated in flash, thanks to her handy helper. Watch:

Bah-Humbug! Lots Of Reasons To Hate Christmas

You're supposed to be exceedingly cheerful at Christmas.  That's the demand.

I'm going to break the rules here.  Christmas is not all it's cracked up to be.

Don't get me wrong, if Christmas makes you happy, then great! I'd never want to take away your joy.

I'm just saying that if there are aspects of the holiday you don't like, it's time to rebel against the Christmas dictators who demand, demand, demand that the holiday be just one great big orgy of joy, no matter how you really feel.

BE HAPPY

I'll start with that Christmas rule: Always be insanely cheerful.

Now, there's nothing at all wrong with being happy. Who doesn't want to be happy?

The problem is the Christmas Powers That Be demand that you be happy. You don't get to choose your emotions. Or feel how you really feel.

If you're starring in that proverbial country song, the one where your wife left you, the dog died, the truck won't start, you got evicted from your house and you're out of beer, too bad! Smile! Ho, ho ho!

Forget decking the halls. If I were in that situation I'd want to deck whoever was demanding that I be happy because it's Christmas.

BE PERFECT

The other demand at Christmas is that everything has to be perfect. You need to decorate the house just so; you, your relatives and friends must all behave perfectly at all times and complete the humanly impossible task of never making a mistake.

Again, it's all good to try to be nice, try to do your decorating nicely, have nice holiday gatherings, but why the pressure to make things perfect. One of the things I like most about my friends and family is that they're terrific, but not perfect. I'm certainly not perfect, either.

Why can't we all just let people be who they are at Christmas? It's against the rules, apparently

TORTURING THE MENTALLY ILL

Speaking of perfect, some people are simply mentally incapable of making everything just right. Take me: I have ADHD. I don't use that as an excuse for my mistakes, because I try to compensate for my short attention span and frustrations by working at my strengthts, learning from my mistakes, and doing any mental trick I can to focus.

At Christmas, though, that's not good enough. In the pursuit of perfection, you have to juggle thousands of details to get things just right. Because Christmas demands that you be perfect, dammit! And wipe that frown from your face! We already went over being insanely happy!!

Lose track of one thing, forget one detail, and you've ruined everything, according to the Christmas rules. You can imagine the pressure that bears on people with ADHD.

My ADHD is a minor issue. What about people who have serious mental issues?

It turns out that the idea that there are more suicides around Christmas is a total myth. However, people prone to stress, who already have enough pressures in their life, tend to go off at Christmas, at least from my observations.

That's part of the reason why you have those fatal stampedes on Black Friday as people scramble to get that perfect gift that's almost sold out. (See, there's that damn word "perfect" again!)

I work in customer service. The vast majority of customers I work with are really nice. But a few just go off like CRAZY if we've sold out of something or something has gone wrong with a delivery. Is it really a national tragedy that we've run out of white amaryllis plants but still have plenty of red ones?

To a few people, the answer is yes.

HOLIDAY MUSIC IS HORRIBLE

Speaking of torture, holiday music is what sends me off the deep end. It's either so saccharine that I go into a diabetic coma, or it's so maudlin I want to strangle someone. Or the holiday music is off-the-charts stupid.

C'mon. Barking dogs singing "Jingle Bells?"  The song "Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer" is one of the most popular Christmas songs ever. Really?

Then there are those icky sad songs, because, here we go again, the songwriter is upset that they violated the "Happy, Perfect" rule of Christmas. So we get obnoxious sad sacks crying, "I'll be home for Christmas, but only in my dreams."

Dude, just book a flight home during your next vacation! It doesn't have to be at Christmas, despite what the Christmas fascists tell you.

Then there's, "I'm Dreaming of A White Christmas," which brings me to my next issue:

DOES IT HAVE TO SNOW?

What's with the obsession with snow at Christmas? It's not Christmas, apparently, unless it's snowing, or at least there's snow on the ground.

I almost never see Christmas images without snow. It must make the people who live in places like Florida feel terrible. (Even though they're not supposed to feel terrible because it's Christmas!)

Frankly, Christmas snow often just gets in the way. The snow grounds that flight that would have taken you to Grandma's house for the holidays. Then again, the trip would have probably been wasted, since old Grandma got run over by that stupid reindeer.

This Christmas, the snow epicenter of the United States appears to be North Dakota, where a holiday blizzard is forecast. Would you really want to get in your car to see family only to die in a frigid whiteout on a North Dakota highway?

DIdn't think so.

Yes, the snow can be pretty and clean and white, but who wants to shovel a foot of pretty and clean and white from the driveway, you know, to make everything perfect?

OFFENDING PEOPLE

Then there's the stupid "War on Christmas"  Despite the fact we don't like being told to be happy and cheerful and kind, we try to do it anyway. Can't hurt to make an effort, right?

Well, yes it does! If you wish someone a "Merry Christmas," chances are they're not religious and they yell at you for shoving Christianity into their faces.

So, when the next person comes along, you just wish them "Happy Holidays." Big mistake. Why are taking Christ out of Christmas, they demand. You hate God, they say.

You just can't win.

I feel better after this rant, thank you. Merry Christmas. Or Happy Holidays. Or just leave me alone until Boxing Day, OK?

July 4th Weekend Educational Moment With The Muppets

The Muppets, led by Sam The Eagle, guide
us through the Declaration of Independence.  

OK, I know today is July 5th, not July 4th, so I'm a day late and a dollar short with this, (I'm always at least a dollar short) but we can still do this.

The Muppets Sam The Eagle, the conservative one who is always appalled, thought it was appropriate to recite the Declaration of Independence this weekend. I agree!

He got some help, so to speak, from some of the other Muppets, including Gonzo.

So enjoy this educational moment:

 

Four Hilarious, Pathetic Cases In Which The Holidays Proved Too Stressful

It's New Year's Eve, which means the holiday season is almost over.

A ceramic squirrel died in this woman's hands.  

For those who don't like stress, thatnk gawd for that.  Sometimes, the holidays really send people over the edge. If you thought you had tense moments over the Christmas holiday, I have four incidents that make your holiday feel like bliss.

(Thanks to the blog "Nothing To Do With Arbroath" for documenting all this Christmas mayhem)

Booze flows freely during holiday celebrations, and if the liquor spigot stops, there's often trouble. Like in South Carolina, where a man sent out to find some beer found the stores all closed late on Christmas Eve.

The man's common law wife, Helen Williams, 44, was none too pleased with this development. So she stabbed him with a ceramic squirrel, according to police in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Luckily, our victim is going to recover, but Williams is in a heap of trouble, charged with "crimial domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature," as police put it.

I''d also charge her with a home design crime for having ceramic squirrels in the first place, but that's just me.

There was something about South Carolina and the holidays that didn't seem to work well this year, anyway.  Another couple got into a Christmas time argument over the upcoming wedding. (Judging from what you'll read next, don't expect an invitation to arrive in your mailbox. I think the wedding is off.)

In Richland County, South Carolina, police said Krysta James, 34, stabbed her fiance during an argument over the planned color scheme of their wedding. 

Details on what was right or wrong with the color scheme were not available, but Krysta was jailed, leaving her time to contemplate what colors she'd like at her dream wedding. A dream wedding, because that's all she'll probably get. A wedding in her imagination.

Don't mess with this woman when it comes
to wedding planning.  

After all, who the hell would want to marry her in reality after this incident? Imagine how violent she'd get if she hated the bridesmaid dresses.

Now it's time to leave South Carolina and head to the lovely town of Jamestown, in western New York, where a woman had Christmas fixings simmering away in a crock pot.

That is, until a man in the house, maybe worried about all that expensive electricity usage, unplugged the crockpot.

The woman, Bridget Putnam, 21, responded like any reasonable cook would. She choked and stabbed the guy who shut off her crock pot, according to Jamestown Police. 

Don't mess with the Christmas cook!

Food was the center of another food fight in neighboring Ohio Christmas night. Apparently, two sisters had a dispute over some apple fritters. The fight ended with one sister stabbing the other. 

Judging from these incidents, the old Christmas trope of peace and goodwill toward man (and women!) during the holiday is SO passe.




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Video! A Modereger Family Christmas In South Dakota

I've had a great week in South Dakota, hanging out with relatives to enjoy the Christmas holiday.

The video in this post is one I put together to show glimpses of the sights and sounds of a wonderful holiday in Yankton, South Dakota. Hope your Christmas was as good as this:

Some Of The Better Christmas Gifts Out There

Most people know I'm pretty much a bah-humbug kind of guy during the Christmas season, especially over the past week, which is crunch time for getting your act together for the holiday.

I feel the same as Charlie Brown: If it ain't perfect,
it's bad, say the Christmas Nazis. I disagree.  

By Monday and Christmas Eve, it's basically too late to do anything about it.  What's done is done, and where I fell short for Christmas is where it's going to be. I can't change it.

I swear the Christmas season is expressly designed to torture people with ADHD. Not the holiday itself, mind you,  but the way the retailers, the marketers, the people trying to sell you stuff expect things to be so they can be happy and rich.

Because it's our duty to make the retailers and such people happy and rich for Christmas, after all. That's the spirit of the holiday.

But we've been conditioned by the advertisers and media to believe that everything has to be perfect, that we have to get the perfect gifts, bake the perfect cookies, have the perfect Christmas decorations arranged perfectly, and we have to behave perfectly.

And we have to be happy, happy HAPPY!!!! If not, you're a scumbag.

Then you have people like me. The ADHD crowd. Or even people who don't have it, but are just not into these demand for perfection.

My Christmas gifts fall short. My decorations are sloppy or nonexistent. I didn't even bake any cookies, so I must be a really terrible person.

I do like it when something happens in the real spirit of the holiday, if you allow me to use that cliche. I like to highlight these things, even when they don't expressly relate to the holiday. So I search for people giving the perfect gifts.

No, not the perfect gifts the mall wants you to buy, or Martha Stewart wants you to make by hand.  I'm talking about gifts that are important, that mean something. Most of the kinds of gifts I'm talking about don't cost any money. But they are the most precious you can give.

So here's some that have been in the news lately. Most of the ones listed below, in a series of videos and links,  appeared in the Huffington Post recently.

Reading about them makes me feel better about the holiday, and I hope they do the same for you.

Happiness and Acceptance:

Rion Holcombe, who has Down's Syndrome, was anxiously awaiting news of whether he'd get into Clemson University. Clemson has a special program for people with disabilities who want a post-secondary college experience.

Finally, Holcombe received a letter from Clemson.  Here's his excellent reaction to the news contained in the letter:



An Xbox and an Arm:
Christopher Kiezek, 6, of Long Island, New York, asked Santa for an Xbox, which isn't such an unusual think. He also asked for a left arm so he could play with the damn thing.

He was born without a left arm, and needs a prosthetic one. He outgrew an old one.

His parents' insurance company won't pay for one because it's not necessary for him to survive, according to the cold calculations of the insurer. (Gotta keep the profits strong and the stockholders happy!!)

A family friend overheard Christopher ask Santa for the fingers to play with the Xbox.  He started a fundraising effort on line, and enough money has been raised so that he'll get one soon.

Hearing the Music:

A dad had been deaf most of his life, but new technology allowed doctors to implant some special hearing aids so that he could hear. The biggest gift: Hearing his daughter do a solo for the first time at a Christmas chorale. The technology required the daughter to wear a special microphone so that her dad could hear. The moment is priceless:






Dog and Man's Friendship Survives Bad Moment:

This one isn't technically good news, but I love the loyalty.  A little before Christmas, John Miles was walking his dog Lucy in Boston's Dorchester area when some moron ran the two of them over and kept on going (The jerk hasn't been caught yet)

Miles was unconscious on the street, in a spot where few people would see him. Lucy, herself injured, searched for help until she saw people in a nearby dentist's office. She barked and barked until she got the people's attention, led them to Miles, where they called for help and rescued him.

Miles is recovering and so is Lucy. She has a torn ACL and the surgery to fix it will be expensive. However, Bostonians and others who heard about the situation have been donating cash to pay for the surgery.

Teacher Receives the Perfect Christmas Gift

Texas math teacher Jennifer Davis got the letter pictured below and she says it's the perfect gift. (click on the image to make it bigger and easier to read.)

We agree: Awesome gift. And I have a feeling the kid who wrote it is going to turn out just fine, even if math isn't that much fun:

Charlie Brown's Christmas Comes To Life!

Here's a fun little seasonal video: Almost everybody knows that dance scene in the Charlie Brown Christmas special.  (For some reason I especially like the way the twins dance)

A flash mob recently brought the Charlie Brown dance scene to life in New York City.

Smiles ensue:

It's December 19 Already! Why Aren't You Stocking Up For Easter Yet?!

It's six days before Christmas.

Time to stock up on Easter
goods NOW!!  

Most sane people are still probably finishing up their Christmas shopping, but according to America's marketing and retail geniuses, you're, way, way, WAY behind schedule.

You should be stocking up for Easter, pronto!

My gawd! Easter falls on April 20 in 2014. Time is running short!

You're late, late LATE in getting all your Easter treats. Get your Easter bunnies, Easter chocolates, Easter EVERYTHING before they run out.

Do it NOW!!!

Granted, the Consumerist post I link to showing Easter goods at a Krogers in December is from 2011, but somewhere, some evil retail chief is stocking shelves with Easter goods now.

Because if you don't buy all your Easter stuff before Christmas arrives, you're really, really worthless.

Yes, It's Commercialism, But I Do Like Apple's New Holiday Ad

The thing I hate about Christmas the most is the incessant begging to buy, buy, buy, buy BUY!

A seemingly self absorbed teen seems to ignore the
family in this Apple television ad, and then...... 

I know this makes me a hypocrite, because one of my jobs outside this blog is to, um, encourage people to buy stuff as gifts for Christmas.

But still, most of the Christmas ads you see on TV are too shrill, too cliched, too mawkish and too stupid for my tastes.

I have to admit it, though, I did like the new Apple commercial I first saw on TV last night.

In the ad, called "Misunderstood", an extended family goes off to the grandparents house in a winter wonderland to celebrate the holiday.

While most of the family seems to be having a ball, a morose looking teenager constantly has his nose in an iPhone, continually pecking away at the device's tiny keyboard. This, despite the family's efforts to engage the kid.

Christmas morning comes, and the teen is still pecking away at his phone. While the family opens the gifts, the teen finally stops playing with the iPhone, stops everybody at mid-gift opening,  points his iPhone at the big screen TV and turns it on

He wants to show the family something. Apple then manages to prompt a Kleenex alert with the ad.

Like I said, I actually think the ad is very well done:

Black Thankgiving Christmas Shopping Begins My Season of Woe

The stores are all flogging "Black Friday" shopping the day after Thanksgiving, and more and more of them are pushing "Black Thursday," trying to get people to put down their turkey drumsticks pronto on Thanksgiving and get shopping, NOW!

Everybody knows I hate, hate, hate, the whole Christmas demands that we shop until we drop. I'm not even sure why I have such a viceral contempt for the constant harping to buy, buy, buy.

Who in their right mind would want to be in this
crowd during the Thanksgiving holiday?

I guess it's because of my disdain for anything that smacks of desperation. The constant ads, the continual push to begin the so called shopping season earlier, the news reports that suggest it's our duty to shop ourselves off our own fiscal cliffs for the supposed good of the economy, really scream "desperation."

We're supposed to be happy about all this, too. The ads are feature the cloying jingle bells, smiles, warm fuzzies, all in the name of dictating that emotions other than glee are hereby banned.

That's another thing that drives me crazy about the Christmas shopping season. I'm generally a happy person, but I resent it when somebody else demands that I be happy. What right does anybody tell me how to feel?

The shopping frenzy is always a turn off, too. Every year, the news is the same. People trample each other dashing through the doors for the "door buster" sales. Door buster here being literal, since they always have to fix the doors people mow down to get at their flat screen TVs.

People fight, ripping the latest hot toys out of each other's hands, because if their kid doesn't get said hot toy, the world would end, supposedly. 

Even if you don't get caught in a riot and a cloud of pepper spray during the Black Thursday/Friday sales, do you really want to burn through three tanks of gas in the traffic jams on the way to the mall? No thanks.

And what about the people who have to work at the stores in all this madness? Especially on Thanksgiving, when they probably want to be with family. Sure, some want to work on Thanksgiving to collect a bit of extra money, but I'm not sure everybody wants to deal with bloated, nauseated and nausous customers. demanding the impossible.

The stores are also all laughing themselves to the bank.  Their Black Thursday and Friday sales have a few items with low, low prices, but all the other items have jacked up price tags. The retailers know people will spend an extra $100 while they think they're saving $5 on a some stupid video game.

Not everyone has my negative attitude toward Black Thursday/Friday, of course. Somebody arrived at a California Best Buy a week before the sale began to save money on flat screen TVs and such.  To me, if you can afford to camp in a Best Buy parking lot for a week and not work, you can afford full price for a flat screen TV.

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing inherently wrong with retailers trying to sell their stuff.  That's what they're supposed to do. Many people like the sales frenzy. It's a game, a hobby, a social experience, a way of life. More power to them. I just want to be left out of it.

 I also like giving Christmas gifts to people I like. There are aspects of shopping that can be kind of fun.  But like Christmas oveall, the demands of the retailer take something that is inherently a good idea, doing something nice for someone, and turning it into an ordeal that they demand we enjoy.

Yes, I know it's illegal to be negative during this season, but I will anyway: I want no part of Black Thursday and Black Friday. Pass the turkey and the gravy, please.

Horror House Photos are Funny for Halloween

I found a series of photos on Buzzfeed of people in a Buffalo, New York haunted house that are too funny. 

The Haunted House, the Nightmares Fear Factory in Niagra Falls, Canada, snaps photos of a particularly scary corner of the haunted house.

People look funny when suddenly spooked, don't they? I just had to show a few of the photos to get you in the proper Halloween mood.

If nothing else, the faces on these people might give you ideas as you carve your Jack 'O Lanterns.

Don't Be Stupid With Fireworks

Breaking News: It's the Fourth of July, time for among other things fireworks.  If you want to play with toys, try water balloons, Frisbees, bubbles, whatever, not fireworks.

Don't be a dufus like these people with fireworks.

The Scent of Valentine's Day

 Valentine's Day is coming up, and that means it's time to show your honey  just how much you love him or her.

My suggestion is to back sloowwwwlly away from the cliches: You know, the roses, the romantic dinner, the chocolates.

This guy stands ready to give you a romantic sewage
plant tour. Photo by Todd Maisel, New York Daily News.

So what does that leave as a Valentine's gift?  Glad you asked. I suggest a nice romantic getaway to New York City, where there is a special Valentine's Day tour of the city's Newton Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant.

I know, I know, sewage doesn't necessarily scream "I Love You!" but look at it this way. If you take your beau on this tour, she or he will know you thought long and hard to find something unique to give.  And isn't that the point of Valentine's Day?

Think of the special memories of this sewage tour. As plant superintendent Jim Pynn said in a New York Daily News feature on this heartwarming tour:“ 


Just imagine going home and saying, ‘Where did he take me on Valentine’s Day? I went to see the digester eggs in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.”


Those digester eggs, by the way, are a huge highlight of the tour. Basically, according to the Daily News, like a giant stomach that treats convert waste to something, well, not quite as bad, I suppose. 


Nothing says love like contemplating a digestive system. 


And after your romantic, heartwarming tour of the sewage plant, maybe you can find time and energy to explore the Fresh Kills landfill. 

Burlington Lights Up

Christmas is long gone. (Phew!) But Burlington, Vermont kept its Christmas lights up, just because nobody likes the dark and gloom of  winter.

This week, for a winter festival ongoing in Burlington, they added some big colored lights to the white theme in the main shopping district, the Church Street Marketplace.

They should put them up next Christmas. You can see the results in a photo I took on Church Street last night

2011 Year End Lists Flood In, Sometimes Bizarrely

Now that 2011 is drawing to a close, all kinds of year end best of, worst of, weirdest of lists have come fast and furiously.

Just for chuckles, I've been going through some of them, and there are some bizarre tidbits mixed in. We humans, especially in American, are a strange bunch of birds.

To the operator of one Tumblr blog
there's nothing more fascinating
than spilled Cheetos.

One of my favorite year end list was the 90 best Tumblr blogs of 2011, at least according to Buzzfeed.  I don't know if all of them are the best, but, let's just say some people have too much time on their hands.
One of them, Lonely Cheetos, is just pictures of random Cheetos, usually crumbled, dropped on the ground.

Because there's nothing more fascinating in the world than Cheetos crumbs littering the sidewalk and floor.

Another of the Tumblr sites is Onion-Like Headlines in Real Life, which looks like a collection of strange headlines from the satirical site The Onion, but are real news stories. Samples include a Captain Obvious headline: "Some Childrens Cereal Packed With Sugar, Study Finds," or just head-scratching: "Man, High on Bath Salts, Arrested in Bra, Panties, Accused of Stabbing Goat."

I'm not sure why any guy would want to kill a goat while wearing a bra and panties, but then again, I've led a sheltered life. And for the record, I don't even own a bra and panties, so I guess that prevents me from going out and killing a goat.

Buzzfeed recently had its list of the year's favorite headlines, including this alarming one: "Zombie Caterpillars Rain Death from Treetops." Luckily, it's not as bad as you'd think. You can stand under trees and survive, it turns out. It's just that gypsy moth caterpillars got a fungus, died, and fell onto other caterpillars below, spreading the disease and killing them, too. Oh.

Another list tells us the most visited articles on news web sites.  Picking through that one, I see that CNN and MSNBC had their busiest days with the Japan earthquake and tsunami in March, which makes perfect sense. But then FOX New's most viewed online article was something about Kim Kardashian having a tangle with Australian immigration authorities or some damn thing.

Apparently, to many Fox News viewers, Kim Kardashian
was the most important thing to happen in 2011

You'd think if Kardashian's tangle was one of the biggest events of the year, I'd have heard of it, but this is the first time I've become aware of it. I guess I really don't know what's important in the world. Which is a shame. Because everybody else knows that anybody named Kardashian is more important that the Arab Spring, the faltering economy, the bad reality show that is the Republican primary, unprecedented disasters, Occupy Wall Street and Lindsay Lohan.

Crime is always in the news every year, and 2011 was no exception. The best crime roundup, found on Buzzfeed, is the Top 45 Best Mugshots of 2011. My favorites are probably a fat, sweaty Batman, arrested in Michigan and a driving while intoxicated suspect with "Got Beer" tattooed in giant letters across his forehead.

Pathetic Walmart Closing Time Argument

Here's a video in which absolutely nobody redeems themselves.

It's Christmas Eve at some Walmart somewhere. It's 7:40 p.m. in the evening. The store closes at 8 p.m. But the manager doesn't let anybody in at that point because it's closing soon.

As you see, the manager is rude, and caught people by surprise by not letting them in before the posted closing time. The would-be customers are rude and stupid. Who waits until a little before 8 p.m. Christmas Eve before shopping? And one customer makes a totally racist crack about Mexican workers.

Everybody here is just awful. Glad I wasn't invited to any of their houses for the holidays.

Watch the sad episode and be thankful that your Christmas Eve was surely more festive than this tragic scene. Yuck!

Vermont Holiday Scenic

I shot the two photos in Whiting, Vermont, late afternoon, Christmas Eve as I drove down from St. Albans to West Rutland to visit family.

Farms and mountains near Whiting, Vermont, 12/24/11

A nice, peaceful Vermont tableau

Village of Whiting, Vermont, 12/24/11