One of the sad byproducts of having such an elephantine blog archive is that nobody bothers looking at it.
I don’t blame you. The X-E blog went live in 2002, and save for design changes and a migration to WordPress, it really hasn’t changed much since Day 1. That means no convenient tags, and only a brief flirtation with categories. Even if you know exactly what you’re looking for, it takes work to get there. Maybe I should do something about that?
In the interim, I’d like to draw attention to some of my favorite holiday-themed posts from years past.
First, some notes:
1. Even back during the blog’s 2002 debut, I was fucking up the Advent Calendar and hearing shit about it.
2. It’s so strange to look back at the comments on the oldest posts. Some of them are over nine years old. God knows if any of those people still read the site. Probably not more than a handful. Let’s say someone who commented back then was 18. Now he’d or she’d be 27! I can’t help imagining how their lives could have changed over that time. Some of them may be dead!
Below: A list of exactly 21 old holiday blogs. Most of them are from last year, because when we go back further than that, my misuse of quotation marks is even more legendary than it is today. (more...)
We’re three weeks away from Christmas Eve. That’s too little. I want five weeks. At least, I did until I remembered that it’d place me squarely at the point where I was going crazy trying to find the ingredients for Thanksgiving’s stuffed mushrooms. That wasn’t fun. Nobody had pine nuts.
Fearing that the speedy calendar will screw me out of covering everything I'd wanted to before Santa comes, today, I’m going to spew red and green until it kills me. Assorted holiday thingamajigs, ahoy!
Philips USB Powered Miniature Christmas Tree: God, yes! Something reasonably “adult!” I’ve become so accustomed to writing about things intended for the pre-tween set that this stupid tree feels like an issue of Playboy. The comparison only works if their December centerfold has silver hair and light-up nipples. Does she?
It’s a six-inch Christmas tree powered by a USB cable, ensuring that your "web time" will be festive even when you’re not looking up recipes for mince pies. It’s seven bucks and worth every penny, and it’s the only thing that has ever made me yearn to work in an office again. I’d gain instant credibility with my co-workers with this on my desk. Nobody with a USB tree could be a tyrant or vulture.
The tree was easily the highlight of my week, which is both a testament to Philips and an insult to me. I could not love it more. Target had ‘em in various colors, but if I’m going to have a computer-powered tree from Christmas Future, I don’t see why I’d pick green over space age silver.
I want more of them. A dozen of them. My printer, scanner and camera cables can wait until January. I want an entire Christmas village surrounding my monitor, casting a disco glow on my pasty skin. I write this because one of Santa’s elves could be taking notes. It’s a hint, Elfie. I don’t need any more zip-up hoodies from American Eagle Outfitters. I hate their logo and would never be their billboard. (more...)
EDIT: You’ve probably noticed that the Playmobil Advent Calendar has gone MIA. Yeah, I’m canceling it, sorry. Should have originally. My heart just isn’t in it this year. I had a long talk with a chair last night, and that chair made a lot of sense. I should be doing what I want to do, not just what I think I “should” do.
I’m still doing the videos, because they’re fun even if they’re the greatest offenses to mankind ever. My apologies for hope-building and flip-flopping on this the past few weeks! I'll post a more detailed explanation in the comments.
We went out for sushi tonight.
I needed it. Not so much the sushi, but the “going out” part.
I’m a freelancer. That has upsides and downsides. One of the upsides is my ability to strategically devise “lulls” so that I can write about pink bunny slippers more often. One of the downsides is that I sometimes forget to have any life at all during those lulls.
It’s probably why I’ve seemed so cranky, lately. I’ve been staring at my computer screen since early September, nonstop. We’ve become like an old married couple. I take its quirks as grand offenses. It never shuts the lights off, and it’s always messing up my things.
It’s not like I never go out. Just not enough. I can’t consider a restaurant visit some great achievement in breaking bad patterns, but it’s something.
Baby steps. It's not like I'm ready to join a club that goes on weekly hikes through the woods just yet. Giant spiders live there.
Sushi was our decision. Now we just had to pick the right restaurant. (more...)
I'm sure I've expressed this before, but the word "crap" bothers me. I find it so much more offensive than "shit." To me, "shit" means "stuff," but "crap" will always be a gateway to visions of steaming dung piles, scattered loosely about the hay.
Still, sometimes, "crap" fits best. Today it does, anyway. Get set for a sea of Christmas Story crap!
A Christmas Story, if you want to get technical. But nobody adds the "A" in real life.
The short of it is, most of our decorations are in storage, and we don't want to change that. Our apartment already looks like the work of raccoons. Adding 40 boxes of dusty broken Santa Clauses could push us over the edge.
Buying just a few new decorations and sticking with those seemed wiser this year. Who needs money when you can have shiny new leg lamp stockings? Brothers and sisters, who among you would prefer heat and water to goofy pink bunny slippers?
Down below: An image-heavy tribute to four pieces of crap. (more...)
