For me Christmas had been about receiving gifts. I can remember getting together with friends to compare who got the best gift. And for some reason someone always had something better. No matter how good of a Christmas I thought I had, someone always one upped me.
This year Christmas became less about getting things and more about love and the joy that we get when we give gifts to someone. Ellen taught me that. I gave her a dancing Elmo doll. Seeing the joy and excitment on her face when she saw Elmo sing its song was enough for me. Her face lit up. Her excitment in opening gifts and maticulously giving away the strips of wrapping paper was joy to me. That was enough.
Friends
“Remember, George: no man is a failure who has friends.”
–It’s a Wonderful Life
Catcher in the Rye
Teen’s mom rekindles debate over novel
“Andrea Minnon of Lebanon said she had never heard of “The Catcher in the Rye” before she learned that it was on her 14-year-old son Spencer’s freshman reading list. After researching the book online with her husband, she concluded that it espouses immoral ideas that are inappropriate for freshman-age students. Now she wants it removed from the freshman curriculum.”
What rock as Andrea been living under for the past 30 years? Censorship is such a blessed thing.
The Beastles
The Beatles + The Beastie Boys = The Beastles
Kudzu Covered Houses
Bowling for Calvin
I’m not going to compare and contrast Calvin and Hobbes with Dylan and Klebold, but this guy did.
Google and Geico
Google wins in trademark suit with Geico
Yay for Google! Free speech wins out again. The problem is that the internet is so new, not many individuals or companies understand it. Geico is one of those companies. Google can do whatever it wants to do on its website. If it wants to see ads for Pepsi when someone searches for Coke, they should be able to do so.
If Geico doesn’t like what Google is doing, then they should ask Google for a refund of its free service.
Pizza Hut in China
Found an interesting article about Pizza Hut in China.
Some quotes:
“Pizza Hut is an expensive place to dine in China. Therefore, the decor in the restaurant reflects this. It is very upscale, similar to if you walked into an upmarket continental restaurant in the West.”
I’ve been to a couple of Pizza Huts in China. One I distinctly remember. It was at the top of building in downtown Shanghai. It did have nice decore. I remember the personal pizza was a bit small, but delicious.
One thing about China is that you had to search for a pizza in China. It wasn’t on every street corner like it is here. And no Papa John’s or Dominos. There was a Pizza Hut and Pizza Inn. (Both good pizzas considering the situation). I am under the impression that the Chinese do not like cheese. Instead they use Tofu on everything in place of cheese.
No wonder the Chinese are oppressed.
Thunderbird
Thunderbird is working good. I enjoy the setup. However I haven’t been able to get YahooPops to work with it. I think it is only because Thunderbird only allows for one password. If there is some trick to it, I haven’t found it.
So I’m at a quandry. Juno’s webmail interface is much easier to use than Comcast’s. So I will probably still use it if I am on the road and need to send a quick email home. Comcast is cumbersome. Sign in and then hit another page for email.
I just wish it could be easier. I’m not completely convinced that Comcast’s spam filtering tools are all that good. Juno started getting alot of spam, but then it suddenly stopped. Good filtering on Juno’s part.
I switched my mom’s account from Juno to Comcast. She’s using Outlook which makes me very wary of viruses. I caution her all the time not to click on suspicious attachments. I realize “suspicious” is a relative term these days. Hopefully I don’t find myself having to do a cleanup on her computer.
Baptist Movie Theaters
So I had a strange dream last night. I dreamed that a certain Baptist church in MJ had built a full fledged movie theater directly across the street from their church building. It was meant to give their youth something to do, and as an evangelistic tool to the community. (This further concretes my stereotype that Baptist churches spend exhorbant amounts of money on their youth, without necessarily specifically meant to promote the gospel message. Apologies to Baptists who I might have offended with that statement).
So my friends and I decided to see a movie. Since this Baptist church movie theater was the closest theater around, we decided to go there. It was weird. The movie theater was packed. We ended up having a devotional before the movie started. The movie? Armageddon. And they had cut every potentially offensive scene or word from the movie. I didn’t really care for it. My friends and I were treated as outsiders throughout the whole experience. I guess it might have been because my friends and I were there for entertainment, while others were there for some type of worship/fellowship experience.