Adventures During the Season of "Gimme"...

At The Mall – (DCF) – I swear…  Next year, I’m doing all of my Christmas shopping online.

I hate going out on the weekend to do Christmas shopping, because you’re surrounded by angry, cranky people who are not any happier to be there than you are, and have kids in tow that are screaming to go see Santa Claus or play in the play area or get a pretzel or…well, you get the idea.  Eventually, one of these people is going to snap and start screaming at the kids.  And then it gets ugly.  A kid gets smacked, someone else shouts at the parent for hitting the kid, a fight ensues, and finally, mall security rushes in and drags the parent away to be strip-searched by someone with cold hands and the nickname “Goldfinger”.

Ask yourself this: Is it worth it to be subjected to that because little Jennifer wants a Tickle-Me-Cabbage Patch Bratz Super Malibu Mega-Dream Abattoir (with color-coordinated sluices and removable rotating knives)?

For those still thinking, let me help you out: Heck no!

Last year, I started early (for me), and I finished almost four hours before Christmas.  How did I manage such an amazing feat, being a guy who, by definition of being “a guy”, usually doesn’t start Christmas shopping until about twenty minutes before the stores close on Christmas Eve?  By shopping mostly online.

I got my nieces’ and nephew’s gifts online.  Same with my sister-in-law’s gift.  Part of my brother’s gift (a vintage-style, 1970’s Philadelphia Flyers hockey jersey) was purchased here in town months in advance.  The other half was built by my sister-in-law, who did a wonderful job a creating a wood and glass case to the first half in.

I got my own kids’ gifts  here in town, but it was a close thing.  I fought with angry mothers, many of whom I am almost certain would have killed me if I had taken something they were eyeing.  Fortunately, my kids weren’t too picky last year.

This year, however, was a little different.  When I’ve asked the kids what they wanted for Christmas, they’ve each said , “Well, what I really want is (insert whatever the single most popular item of the year is here), and that’s about it.”  How can you say no?  I was determined to get my kids those things.

I often tell the story about how, when my oldest daughter was younger, I almost beat up an elderly woman over the last Cabbage Patch Kid in all of Port Huron.  I’m only half-joking when I tell it.  The old bat and I were on a collision course for that doll, and, being younger and a bit faster, I got to it first.  She called me a very unladylike name and tried to grab it out of my hands.  I grabbed her by the wrist and said, as respectfully as I could, “Lady, if you try to take this doll away from me again, I will beat you until you wish you hadn’t lived this long.”

Taken aback, the lady pulled her arm away from me and said, “Well, young man…then go %$@# yourself.”  With that, she turned on her heel and stomped off to terrorize other people who were shopping for their children.

Enough already!

So, next year, everything’s being done online.  I’m going to start early, and if there’s something I can’t find online, that will be the one and only reason that I will brave the malls.  And it will be a very short trip.  Go in, get whatever it is, pay for it, and get out.  If I can get right into the store without dealing with the “in between” stuff, so much the better.  This way, my exposure to humanity will be strictly limited, and I will have worked further toward my ultimate goal: to become a complete shut-in.

All the best,
Derek
(DCF)

Richard Pryor: 1940-2005

Sitting on the Couch, Shaking My Head – (DCF) – Richard Pryor – comedian, actor, writer – died today at the age of 65 years old, from an apparent heart attack.

Pryor, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1986, and suffered a massive heart attack in 1990, after which he had triple-bypass surgery that same year.

Starting out as a stand-up comedian, Pryor eventually turned to acting, most notably in comedy films, such as “The Toy”, “Harlem Nights” and “Silver Streak”, as well as serious films, including “Lady Sings The Blues” and “Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling”, a semi-autobiographical film that Pryor himself said “refused to be written as a comedy.”  All told, Pryor appeared in 40 different films.

He also co-wrote the script for the Mel Brooks film, “Blazing Saddles”.

After being diagnoses with his disease, he left acting, but continued to perform stand-up comedy, but sitting down.  Many were impressed by his ability to continue working long after suffering such a debilitating disease.

When Pryor suffered the heart attack this morning, his wife, Jennifer Lee Pryor, whom he remarried in 2001 after they had already divorced 19 years ago, tried to revive him before calling paramedics, who took him to Encino Hospital, where he died.

"He enjoyed life right up until the end," Mrs. Pryor said, adding that Pryor had been laughing a lot and was in good spirits in the two weeks preceding his death. "At the end, there was a smile on his face."

On a personal note, I was deeply upset to hear that Pryor had passed away.  He was without a doubt one of the funniest comedians of all time, and his wit and humor will be sorely missed.

I remember the first comedy album I ever heard.  My brother had borrowed a tape of “Richard Pryor: Live on Sunset Strip”, and he and I listened to it over and over.  At the time, I was too young to know what a lot of the jokes meant, but he made me laugh with the ones I did.  Since then, I’ve heard a lot of his work, as well as seen a lot of his films, and I remain impressed every time I’m exposed to anything he did.

Richard Pryor – Rest In Peace

All the best,
Derek
(DCF)    

The Daily Show gains legitimacy, while O'Reilly loses credibility...

Sitting on the Couch, Remote in Hand – (DCF) – Finally, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show crew get some recognition for their incredible work!

In a rare move, the website Media Matters has given space to cover a story that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart reported on!  (It can be read here: The Daily Show's Stewart responds to O'Reilly's misleading attack.)  Admittedly, the story was linked to Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly and a story he “reported” during his television show, The O’Reilly Factor, as well as his radio program, The Radio Factor.

In the reports, O’Reilly, referring to Comedy Central as “Secular Central” (Comedy Central carries The Daily Show), explained that Stewart and company were among those that were waging a “war” against Christmas and, thus, Christianity.  To prove his point, he ran the following clip from the show, filed by Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee:

SAMANTHA BEE: Christmas: It's the only religious holiday that's also a federal holiday. That way, Christians can go to their services and everyone else can stay home and reflect on the true meaning of separation of church and state.

Funny?  Absolutely.  I laughed.  Loud.  There’s just one problem with O’Reilly using that clip: It’s a year old.  Even worse, O’Reilly told his radio audience that it was from the day before, and implied the same thing on his television show.

How does Media Matters know that it was an old clip?  Because Bee is currently about eight months pregnant, and was not in the clip.  Of course, The Daily Show being what it is, they didn’t actually point this out.  Instead, Bee came out wearing the same clothes she was wearing in the clip, although the blouse she wore didn’t come all the way down to cover her now very large belly, and pointed out that the highlights in her hair are different now than they were in the clip.

Finishing out his report of O’Reilly’s report, Stewart made an offer to O’Reilly, stating that he would be happy to play the part of the “bad guy”.  He went on to say the following:

Jon Stewart: If Bill O'Reilly needs to have an enemy, needs to feel persecuted, you know what? Here's my Kwanzaa gift to him. Are you ready? All right. I'm your enemy. Make me your enemy. I, Jon Stewart, hate Christmas, Christians, Jews, morality, and I will not rest until every year families gather to spend December 25th together at Osama's homo-bortion-pot-and-commie-jizzporium.

So, it looks like the fight is on, if O’Reilly has the testicular fortitude to take Stewart up on his offer.  (I doubt it.)

Oddly enough, it also gives The Daily Show a bit of legitimacy, being recognized by a website that monitors news shows to make sure they’re being honest.  What next, you ask?  Well, it’s not exactly next, as such.  Rather, it’s more like previously.

On the same subject (O’Reilly and The Daily Show, for those of you who aren’t paying attention), I recalled reading about a survey that was done last year, concerning the intelligence (or lack thereof) of people who watch The Daily Show.  I cannot recall where I read it or heard it, but I remembered it saying something about Daily Show viewers being more informed and more intelligent than viewers of Fox.  After a bit of research, I couldn’t find an exact quote, but I did find something similar:

"Daily Show" viewers are 78 percent more likely than the average adult to have four or more years of college education, while O'Reilly's audience is only 24 percent more likely to have that much schooling.

Plus, the network noted, "Daily Show" viewers are 26 percent more likely to have a household income more than $100,000, while O'Reilly's audience is only 11 percent more likely to make that much money.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/28/comedy.politics

Comedy Central also touted a recent study by the University of Pennsylvania’s National Annenberg Election Survey, which said young viewers of “The Daily Show” were more likely to answer questions about politics correctly than those who don’t.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6117542

For those who would like a look at the actual polling report, it can be read here: http://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/naes/2004_03_late-night-knowledge-2_9-21_pr.pdf

So, the bottom line is, O’Reilly had better watch out.  Stewart, because he’s a comedian, doesn’t have to pull punches.  O’Reilly, in theory, does because he’s supposed to be a journalist.  (Of course, the fact that he’s on the same network that thinks Sean Hannity and Geraldo Rivera are journalists doesn’t really do a lot for his credibility.)  There would be no contest if Stewart decided to drop the gloves, to use a hockey analogy.  And, oh, how I hope it happens.

All the best,
Derek
(DCF)

Crazy people make good TV?

An Undisclosed Location – (DCF) – The website www.CrooksandLiars.com has posted a clip from the Fox “reality” show, “Trading Spouses”.  (It can be viewed here: "Trading Spouses: This is a scary video".)  Go ahead and watch it.  I’ll wait.

Done?  Good, because if you don’t watch the video, this post won’t make much sense to you.

The woman in the video, whose name is Marguerite Perrin, claims to be a “Christian Warrior”, and the producers of the show placed her with a New-Age Humanist family.

Bad idea.

First, she freaked out because, in her words, the family “don’t believe in God!  AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”  Then, she had unexplained fits of vomiting and proselytization.  Finally, she forced the entire family to go to a Catholic church with her because she believed this was some kind of “test”.

For the record, the woman that she switched places with didn’t attempt to push her beliefs on the host family.

When she returned home, Marguerite went on a rampage in her home, screaming like a banshee at her family (including her two daughters and her granddaughter, who looked no older than about seven or eight years old).  She accused them of not praying for her, screeched that “I ask questions because I’m the warrior!  Why can’t you be the warrior?!”  She finally chased the Fox crew out of her house, shouting, “GET THE HELL OUT, IN THE NAME OF JESUS!!!”  She also tore up the envelope with the instructions from the other woman that said how the family would have to spend the money they received for taking part in the show, saying “I don’t want it!  It’s tainted!”

(Later, Perrin recanted and accepted the money, which was given to the two oldest kids in the house, who got themselves a place to live away fromt heir crazy mother.)

Anyway, because of this two-part episode, Marguerite Perrin is now a bit of a celebrity.  She was on the Tonight Show, where Jay Leno presented her with a bobblehead doll of her that he purchased on eBay.  (It sold for $870!)

So, I guess the bottom line is, if you act like a complete loony on television, good things will come your way.

However, the point I’d like to bring up is that Fox, whose “news” arm is valiantly fighting the good fight against a mythical (and completely non-existent) “War on Christmas”, their entertainment arm is putting people who clearly have some sort of mental imbalance and using them as their “representative Christian”.

Now, I know a lot of Christian-type people.  They’re good folks who are trying to get by and make a life for themselves, just like anyone else.  If they feel that they need to go to church, more power to them.

Unfortunately for them, they don’t make good TV.

Myself, I believe in God, but have no use for organized religion because it all goes bad when you get other people involved.  Besides, it says right in the Bible that the best way to do it is by yourself:

(From the book of Matthew)

6:5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy *closet*, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Seems pretty self-explanatory to me.  But what do I know?  I believe in evolution, too.  Figure that one out.  I almost made a minister’s head explode once when I told him I thought God was playing the part of the impartial scientists – He’s letting things run their course so He can see what happens.  This same minister almost had a coronary when I told him that evolution is explained, albeit vaguely, in Genesis.  The problem is, because back when the Bible was being written, the people of the time didn’t have the terminology, so they couldn’t explain it more clearly.  Let’s take a look, shall we?

Science says that the universe was created (The Big Bang), the planets formed, and they, in turn, started moving around suns while moons moved around them. The water on earth receded, allowing for landmasses to be less soggy.  The goo in the sea developed into multi-cellular organisms, including fish, dinosaurs, cows and, I don’t know, alpacas or something.  Some of the fish, fed up with being damp all the time, crawled out and grew feet, lost a flipper here and there, grew hair and started to walk.  These, eventually, turned into human beings.  (I may be kind of vague on the details, but you get the idea.)
Now, with the above in mind, have a look at what the Bible says:

1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 1:2 And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. 1:11 And God said, Let the earth put forth grass, herbs yielding seed, and fruit-trees bearing fruit after their kind, wherein is the seed thereof, upon the earth: and it was so. 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, herbs yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit, wherein is the seed thereof, after their kind: and God saw that it was good. 1:13 And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years: 1:15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 1:16 And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth, 1:18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. 1:19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

1:20 And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 1:21 And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that moveth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind: and God saw that it was good. 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. 1:23 And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. 1:25 And God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the ground after its kind: and God saw that it was good. 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 1:27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 1:28 And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food: 1:30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so. 1:31 And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

So, with all of this in mind, I have completely forgotten the point of this post, so I’ll shut up and go to bed.

Oh yeah…  That lady on “Trading Spouses” was crazy.

All the best,
Derek
(DCF)          

Come ON, global warming!

Under A Very Warm Blanket – (DCF) – Good lord and butter, it’s cold!  And there’s snow all over my yard and my car…  The high today was somewhere around 27 degrees today.  To those of you in Minnesota, this is “balmy.”  To people like myself, this is insane.

For the longest time, I supported those groups who were fighting against global warming.  I thought, “Hey, this can’t be good, if it’s going to melt the polar ice caps and drown everyone on the coasts…”

However, every winter I can’t help but let a tiny, evil part of my mind think, “Good Gawd!  Please just let it happen already!”

I know a lot of you are going to act all offended by this, but, frankly, I don’t care.  I’m freezing my butt off.  Besides, maybe the coasts could do with a brisk bath.  At the very least, it might do something about that weird urine smell coming from New Jersey.  And, on the other coast, at least the odds of seeing another Bruce Willis movie would be greatly reduced.  Maybe even Jim Carrey, too.

Ya know, the more I think about this, the better global warming sounds.  I’m going to go spray aerosol cans outside for a while…

All the best,
Derek
(DCF)      

Time to get your hockey on!

Outside In The Snow – (DCF) – Ah, hockey season.  Every year at this time (except last year, of course), warriors put on their armor, strap on their skates, and head out onto the ice to do battle.  Few things in this world are more exciting for me.  (This is either a statement about my intense loyalty to my team – the Detroit Red Wings – or a statement about just how empty and dull my life actually is.  Let’s go with the team loyalty thing.)

As mentioned above, there was no season last year, mostly because the players’ union (the NHLPA) fought to keep the league from instituting a salary cap (which is really the only thing the teams’ owners wanted).  It was a real disappointment not to have a season last year, but the player and owners reached a deal, and hockey’s back.

There are some new rules, and they are designed to improve game play and keep things moving.  Among the changes are:

• The “two-line pass” has all but been eliminated, allowing the puck to be passed from a team’s defensive zone to the opposing blue line, which cuts back on stoppages in play.

• An attacking player that goes into an opponent’s defensive zone before the puck no longer gets an offsides call if he goes back and crosses briefly to the neutral zone and back. This is called “tagging-up” and also allows for fewer stoppages.

• A new instigator rule for fighting has been implemented, which states that any player who starts a fight in the last five minutes of a game gets an automatic one-game suspension.  Also, the player’s head coach gets fined $10,000.  In both cases, the penalty is doubled for each additional offense.

• Goaltender pads have been made smaller, as has the area where the goalie can play the puck outside of the net.  There’s now a trapezoid behind the net that comes right up to the goal line.  The puck can only be played in that trapezoid behind the net.  In front of the goal line, however, it can still be played normally.  If the goaltender plays the puck behind the net, but outside of the trapezoid, that’s a two-minute penalty for delay of game.

• After a scoreless five-minute overtime, a shootout determines the winner of the game.  (This is only during the regular season.  Playoffs will still have consecutive overtime periods.)

So…what does all of this mean to hockey fans?  It means a faster game with more scoring chances, allowing skill players to use those skills, and putting more pressure on defenders.  So far, this has resulted in higher scoring games, and better action.  Unfortunately, there has also been an increase in the number of penalties called.  Hey, you can’t win ‘em all.

And what does it mean tot hose of you who aren’t hockey fans?  It means you just wasted more time than I’m sure you wanted to, reading about something that is of absolutely no interest to you.  Er…sorry.

All the best,
Derek
(DCF)