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Nothing is more boring than someone else's vacation pictures, right? I'm here to prove it too. (Click on any photo for larger version)
Happy Holidays ... from Jimmy Buffet maybe?
One day I'd like to have a set up like this for my cows.....
Squawk, squawk, squawk...It's always something with you.
Purty, right?
One more set tomorrow.....Oh, and Happy New Year!
Oregon's official state flag was adopted in 1925. It is the only US state flag that still has a design on both sides. It's true: you can source me!
A few more snapshots now from my drive down the Oregon coast over the weekend. (Click on any photo for larger version)
Water, water everywhere...
Rocks too!
And lighthouses.....
And rain....
And me.
And no caption needed.
More tomorrow.
I squeezed in a short road trip down to Oregon last week and here are a few photos and a short description of same. (Click on any photo for larger version)
Creepy trees, leading to certain death, I'm sure.
Christmas lights on a fire station, I believe in Toledo, Oregon, celebrating the birth of the baby George Washington, I guess.....
Decorations inside the State Capitol in Salem. I'm standing in front of the Senate chamber, looking across the rotunda to the House. The wreath in the center is around the State Seal on the floor.
They must not get many visitors here.
Excellent advice from the Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse And Sushi Bar (correct) in Corvallis, Oregon!
More tomorrow!
Truck For Sale. As Is. $750.00. Model not included. This is the final Tater Tot Friday of the year. Thank you for your support.
P.S. You know what else is awesome about Tater? She has never hopped a moat and killed a dude. Not one time.
I don't know what goes on at your house but where I live there is a cosmic struggle in progress. It's not quite Sunni-Shiite but it's close. I'm talking about the fight for that first position in the Netflix queue.
If you are still living in 2004 and don't know what Netflix is, here you go: You select the DVDs you wish to rent on the Netflix website and put them in your (checkout) queue. As you return a title, you get sent the next title on your list. So that movie in the top slot it the one you'll be watching this weekend.
We had the time to really work our Netflix account over the holidays. Donna loves the classics: she got both An American In Paris and Singin' In The Rain (I think she's fallen for Gene Kelly all over again).
I get a lot of the foreign films and documentaries and my favorite in the latter category this vacation was Helvetica, all about the evolution of the world's most popular font. "Why can't a graphic designer enjoy a historical movie? All of the fonts are wrong!" That's how typographers roll and you meet a lot of them in this movie.*
The one movie that we watched together that we gave four thumbs up was Once, just out on DVD this month. I saw it in theater over the summer but enjoyed it even more this time and Donna thought it was "charming," "different," and "really good for a Bean pick."
The film is light on plot and dialog - a full 60% of the movie is people singing - but it's ideal for those who like chaste romantic comedies, as well as fans of artists like Damien Rice, David Gray, or Coldplay.
*Think I'm joking about typographers discussing a font for 80 minutes? Here's an audio clip of Helvetica. This will give you some idea of the blistering pace of the film too,
Ballard, Washington. The most Scandinavian place in the United States, outside of Minnesota.
I love that neighborhood of Seattle. Two of my favorite places in town are there: the Nordic Heritage Museum and the Archie McPhee novelty store, home of the Electronic Yodeling Pickle. 
Today I read about a pub on Market Street in Ballard called The Old Pequilar. Once a week they hold a Quiz Night there and the place fills up with trivia teams who compete in 8 rounds of 10 questions each on topics from geography to movies to whatever. Apparently there is a nice haul for the winning team each week.
Three things I learned in the newspaper article about Quiz Night:
1) "Skepticisms" is the longest word that alternate hands when typing.
2) Slugs have four noses.
3) And one in every four Americans has appeared on television.
That's the one that got me to thinking. One in four? Wow! I mean, there have been 80,000 contestant so far just on American Idol, but still...
I was on TV once while living in San Francisco back in the eighties when CNN interviewed me on the street about the World Series in which the Giants were appearing.
Donna just appeared last year as a guest on the Tyra Banks program. I think it was "I Regret My Choice In Spouses" Week.
So we're two-for-two in this house. How about you? If this post gets 20 comments, five of you will have appeared on television. Let's see.
Here's the Christmas Meme I got from my "friend" Frank Murphy. Rules for the game include:
Welcome to the Christmas edition of "Getting to Know Your Friends."
1. Wrapping or gift bags? Wrapping. Gift bags are lame.
2. Real or artificial tree? We've had both but mostly go with a real one. This year's tree is not only fake, it is pink.
3. When do you put up the tree? Usually sometime between Thanksgiving and December 10th. Putting up the tree definitely falls outside of my jurisdiction though, so it's whenever Donna and our manslave, Marty decide.
4. When do you take the tree down? That varies year to year. Ideally, by 5 January I believe. Last year I kept track of one house on the Island that still had theirs up on St. Patrick's Day.
5. Do you like egg nog? I love it so. I used to drink it quite liberally but now to keep my girlish figure I buy the reduced calorie eggnog and just use it as a flavor shot in a glass of skim milk.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Unfortunately, since the accident*, I don't remember a single Christmas as a child. Knowing my parents though, I am sure I got everything I ever wanted.
7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes! All except the Baby Jesus. We have cows, sheep, pigs, dogs, and a donkey year round, not just at the holidays.
8. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Hmmm, I seem to remember being broken down on the side of the road many years ago during a snowstorm on Christmas Day. Bad surprise.
9. Mail or email Christmas cards? Emailing Christmas cards is not like sending Christmas cards at all, unless attached to a gift card or something. Then it makes sense.
10. Favorite Christmas Movie? "It's A Wonderful Life" is not only my favorite Christmas movie but it is my all-time favorite movie too. God Bless the genius of director Frank Capra and the humanity of Jimmy Stewart.
11. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Year round but with an emphasis on really keeping my eyes open starting about 1 October.
12. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? My late mother used to mail me her homemade fudge at the holidays. I miss them both, especially this time of year.
13. Clear lights or colored on the tree? I think we used both this year. Did I mention our tree is pink? There is no light macho enough to erase that fact.
14. Favorite Christmas song? No fair, no fair. I have one whole iPod of only Christmas music! Putting me on the spot, I'll say...um....how about..... brain.... melting down......okay, name one....."Please Come Home For Christmas" by Charles Brown. I was such a fan of his I even went to his funeral. True.
15. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Almost always at home. Our tradition is Chinese takeout and go to the movies on Christmas Day. This year we'll see "Juno."
16. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? I always forget Tito.
17. Angel on the tree top or a star? Neither. This year we have a lighted crystal ornament near the top though and it's pretty cool.
18. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas Morning? We sometimes do one Christmas Eve and the rest Christmas Day.
19. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Christmas memes.
20. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme or color? No, unless pink is a color.
21. What do you leave for Santa? A roaring fire in the fireplace! He complains but if he didn't want to get burned he's come in through the garage like everyone else.
22. Least favorite holiday song? "Twelve Days Of Christmas." Sooo long and repetitive. And boring. And repetitive.
23. Favorite ornament? We have a bulldog ornament that reminds me of a special young lady.
24. Family tradition? Yes, Donna somehow finds out what her best gift is every year before Christmas. Guess who knew about the teepee two weeks ago?
25. Ever been to Midnight Mass?
A few times. Two years ago we went to one in Hawaii where we were vacationing. We'll never forget it. They had a very pretty member of the congregation doing interpretive Native dancing to the Christmas songs the band was playing. Her budding teenage sexuality combined with her too-small by two-sizes dress had many of us not thinking about Jesus during the service.
Here's where I am supposed to tag seven other bloggers but I am not going to. No one needs homework at Christmastime!!!
Peace out, everybody.
*Sorry, I don't remember the accident either.
Dear Santa,
I know it's last minute and you are very busy, but please?
Sincerely,
Bean
P.S. Or a pony.
Donna bought me a copy of this book because she is convinced there is something are many things wrong with me and we may find some answers within.
Perhaps I have the Syndrome Of Subjective Doubles? That's "the belief that you have a doppelganger - a person that looks just like you. Once it occurs to you that this person exists, it becomes impossible to convince you otherwise."
Or maybe I am a victim of Micropsia, also known as Alice In Wonderland Syndrome. That's "wild distortions in perception and reality. Objects seem to lose their God-given size and texture and begin shrinking and growing at random." You might imagine "your hands are a different size this morning than they were last night," "your linoleum floor is made of oatmeal," or ask yourself, "which is bigger, your goldfish or your car?"
Cotard's Syndrome? it's "the belief that you are dead, or that you don't exist, or that your body has dissipated into the universe and is no longer sentient. Or possibly, that you never existed in the first place." I might have that, but how would I know if I passed before I found out?
Here it is! Windigo Psychosis! "The Windigo, according to Anishinaabe Native American folklore, is a demon spirit with a cadaverous form and a penchant for eating people." It happens when you get hungry, and then starving, and then ravenous and then, "you'll begin to see your friends and family as edible, a shift in perception followed by full psychosis and utter chaos....."
I am a little peckish right now, come to think of it.....
President George Washington, meet Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Something strange has been going on with my money lately. It is not uncommon anywhere in America to receive Canadian coins in ones change, but it is particularly so in my corner of the map where many of us frequently go back and forth between the countries.
Of course I know technically that U.S. retailers don't accept foreign currency but in my experience they always take Canadian coins anyway. The quarters and pennies are about the same size and color and I always suspected that cashiers threw them in the register with their American counterparts and never thought twice about it. I never pointed them out when I received them in my change either because they are essentially interchangeable. It's Canada, right? These aren't yen or euros or shekels or kroners or something else weird.
Until this week, that is. Now all of a sudden three different people in smocks behind a counter have hurled the Queen back at me like I was selling the flu. What gives? Was there a memo?
And how crazy is this timing? After years of being the stronger money, this fall's collapse of the U.S. dollar says to me that the 7-11 guy oughta see my Canadian quarter as his fast track to retirement! He oughta grab it from me and think I'm the sucker for letting it go for only 25 cents worth of goods and services. My head is puzzled.
"Why Twelve Days? (Is there a...) A Secret Message In The Song?*
Some Christians attach certain symbolism to specific gifts mentioned in the verses of the song The Twelve Days Of Christmas.
For example, for them the meaning of the partridge in the pear tree is God or Jesus.
The two turtledoves equate with the two books of the Bible - the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The three French hens correlate to the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The four calling birds are the names of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).
The five gold rings represent the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible).
Six geese-a-laying are the six days in which God made Creation.
Seven swans are the seven sacraments or seven gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit.
Eight maids equate with the eight Beatitudes of which Jesus spoke.
Nine ladies are the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit.
Ten lords-a-leaping are the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses.
Eleven pipers piping represent the eleven Apostles, and the
Twelve drummers drumming are seen as the twelve doctrines found in the Apostle's Creed.
No one can know for sure if the writer(s) of this song meant for these analogies - it's just a theory, what do you think?"
*Meera Lester, from her fascinating new book, "Why Does Santa Wear Red? ... and 100 Other Christmas Curiosities Unwrapped."
Thank you to blog reader Catherine for the link to this story in Britain's Daily Mail. It especially touched me as a former hedgehog owner. (R.I.P Murray and Miracle)
These lame baby hedgehogs are casualties of the chaotic weather.
They should be asleep for the winter - but instead they are nursing their broken bones at Tiggywinkles Wildlife Hospital near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
The RSPCA says its rescue centres are looking after hundreds of abandoned hedgehogs born during the exceptionally mild autumn and who are too small or weak to hibernate.
A baby hedgehog worse for wear after a year of chaotic weather
The odd weather has also led to a shortage of their favourite grubs, beetles, slugs and caterpillars.
RSPCA wildlife scientist Adam Grogan said: "They need to gain weight before they can hibernate."
Weak hedgehogs like the one above have broken bones and are being nursed back to health
Okay, this is crazy. If you would have told me last week that I would soon feature not one, but two, blog postings about Dan Fogelberg I would have asked what kind of dope you were on. And you would have responded, "Nobody has called it 'dope' since Dragnet went off the air." Then again, you probably don't know what Dragnet is either so scratch that too.
The point is that singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg died this weekend of prostrate cancer. He was just 56 years old. 56. Could it have been prevented? I don't know. But he did leave this message on his own website after he was diagnosed and I consider it a tribute to him to pass it along here. When I get to 50, I will remember what to do.
Dan wrote:
"To each and every man....
I cannot encourage you strongly enough to get a DRE (Digital Rectal Exam) and a PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) test EVERY YEAR.
The medical community suggests this for men over 50, but men with a family history of prostate cancer should start getting tested at age 40.
The PSA test is a simple blood test...it only takes a minute or two. The DRE, okay, every man squirms at the thought of this exam, but hey, it too takes only a minute or two, and IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE.
Prostate cancer can be very slow growing or very aggressive, but detected early while it is still confined to the prostate gland, it can usually be treated and cured successfully.
Once it spreads beyond the prostate it is called Advanced Prostate Cancer (PCa). At this point it becomes imminently more life threatening and harder to treat. Do yourself and your loved ones a huge favor and GET CHECKED REGULARLY. I promise you, you DON’T want to go through what I’m going through if you can avoid it.
Education and awareness are key, I urge you to follow the link here to the Prostate Cancer Foundation web site and read up on how best to protect yourself and reduce your likelihood of contracting this terrible disease."
P.S. Me again. Every time I type the word "Fogelberg" the Typepad spell check tries to get me to change it to "Foreleg." I hope one day to be running the kind of blog where the word "foreleg" gets used.
I had something totally fun and Christmasy to write about today but I just heard Dan Fogelberg died over the weekend and believe he deserves a few words.
I know exactly what you are thinking: "Who?"
Here are a few lines from the Associated Press story on his passing,
"Dan Fogelberg, the singer and songwriter whose hits Leader of the Band and Same Old Lang Syne helped define the soft-rock era, died Sunday at his home in Maine after battling prostate cancer. He was 56.
His death was announced Sunday in a statement by Anna Loynes of the Solters & Digney public relations agency, and was also posted on the singer's Web site.
'Dan left us this morning at 6:00 a.m. He fought a brave battle with cancer and died peacefully at home in Maine with his wife Jean at his side,' it read. 'His strength, dignity and grace in the face of the daunting challenges of this disease were an inspiration to all who knew him.'
Fogelberg was found in 2004 to have advanced prostate cancer. In a statement then, he thanked fans for their support: It is truly overwhelming and humbling to realize how many lives my music has touched so deeply all these years. ... I thank you from the very depths of my heart.'
Fogelberg's music was powerful in its simplicity. He didn't rely on the volume of his voice to convey his emotions; instead, they came through in the soft, tender delivery and his poignant lyrics. Songs like Same Old Lang Syne - in which a man reminisces after meeting an old girlfriend by chance during the holidays - became classics not only because of his performance, but for the engaging storyline, as well.
Fogelberg's heydey was in the 1970s and early 80s, when he scored several platinum and multiplatinum records fueled by such hits as The Power of Gold and Leader of the Band, a touching tribute he wrote to his father, a bandleader. Fogelberg put out his first album in 1972."
All of the songs mentioned in the piece are worth seeking out if you don't know them and he had several uniformly excellent albums such as Souvenirs, Phoenix, The Innocent Age and my favorite, Twin Sons Of Different Mothers, his collaboration with Tim Weisberg.
I think maybe the wedding favorite, Longer doomed Fogelberg to soft rock hell in many listener's minds but he was an extraordinarily talented musician and songwriter who deserves a better legacy.
Sometimes this time of year you might get lucky and catch Dan's holiday classic, Same Old Lang Syne on the radio and I defy you to turn it off before you see how the story ends. It gets me every time. And today you got lucky to catch it on this blog. You are so having a better Monday than he is.
Long time readers know of my affection for any World's Largest attraction and I am always excited to hear of a new one. So you can imagine my pleasure at opening the following letter from the mailbag*
Dear Bean,
You may already know about this future wonder of architecture, but located in the north of Sweden, there is a giant moose being constructed, set to be finished in late 2009. It will be about 45 meters tall, which is much larger than a regular moose! This should prove to be very exciting for people that like the idea being inside of a moose, which I think describes you to a T. In any case, here's the Giant Moose website where you can watch the virtual video tour
David Marks
P.S. Do you think the Trojans will fall for it again?
*You see, kids, before "email" and "computers" a man in a blue uniform who worked for the government used to come around to your house every day and deliver letters that were "handwritten" or typed on "paper." Many of these "mail carriers" transported the day's deliveries in something called a "mailbag."
Two Decembers in a row have bought unexpectedly bad weather to Western Washington. And I am not talking about just a storm; I'm talking about becoming a federally declared disaster area.
Perhaps you saw news coverage of this month's flood, with several people dead and hundreds of livestock drowned. A twenty mile stretch of Interstate 5 south of Olympia was underwater and off limits for several days. There were hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage and lost commerce.
One year ago yesterday Mother Nature stopped by my house. 60 - 90 mile per hour winds caused widespread damage all over Seattle, mostly due to downed power lines and, as in my case, trees. We are as proactive as we can be to cull dead and dying trees on the property but even a healthy one will come down with enough wind from the right angle.
I didn't have a blog then so wasn't able to share photos with most of you but here are a couple I took the morning after. The Volkswagen had less than 7000 miles on it.
To all ye who pass here, how about a dog treat on the way in? Or out? Anything? You know, a little something for the effort?
Tater Tot Friday Bonus Bulldogs:
Thanks to my friend Kat for sending, me this photo of Calvin and Hobbes. They also live in Seattle and I hope I get to meet them someday!!
I'll admit it caught me by surprise a couple of Sundays ago while watching football on the TV when I first saw the commercial for the Ford Edge and recognized the music as being by the Band of Horses, a group I like very much.
It shouldn't have. These days, as many people, and virtually all fans under 25, believe "music should be free, man!" it is harder and harder for any musician to make a living. The band has already made something off of that song by licensing it to an episode of Criminal Minds too.
I don't have a problem with it. They created it. They own it. And they are free to do what they want with it. Do I wish i could make my own visual image instead of seeing an iPod commercial in my mind every time I hear those songs by The Fratellis, or U2, or Mary J. Blige? Sure. But even though I believe music is art, it is also has to be commerce if that's how you earn your paycheck.
A quick Google search, by-the-way, finds many music fans not willing to accept the way Band of Horses chooses to exploit promote their songs. I found blogs that called them, "Sellout!" "Band of Hypocrites!" and my favorite "Band of Whores!"
Here's the song, video-free if you care to hear it.
Thanks to blog reader WhiteDevil for this tip, my favorite new internet time waster useful resource.
Someone smarter than I has written a program that continuously offers the top 50 new images posted by members on LiveJournal, the popular social network/ blogger virtual community. There are so many users that the pictures are on the page only for about a minute before they are replaced with the newer 50. Never knowing what is coming next makes it hard to step away without one more "refresh."
Here is the link along with a few of the pictures that were displayed in the minutes leading up to me writing this post. I love that some of the photos are so puzzling out of context since you don't see captions or the posts about them when you view them this way.
I have something between a casual and a fervent interest in the phenomenon of palindromes. You know, that's a word or a sentence or sometimes a bit of poetry that reads the same backwards as forwards. My interest is less than burning, not quite acute but perhaps somewhere near keen.
One of the most famous palindromes is the title of today's post, Madam I'm Adam, sometimes imagined as the first words between humans in the Garden of Eden.
The gold standard of palindromes is undoubtedly A man, a plan, a canal, Panama! which is as brief a history lesson on its construction as you could want. (Ed note: The "man" was George Washington Goethals, chief engineer of the Canal, appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907).
Another well known example is Napoleon's lament, Able was I ere I saw Elba.
Some of my favorite palindrome words include Racecar, Radar, Civic, Level, Eye, and of course, both Mom and Dad.
Poking around the Web, you'll find quite a few palindrome enthusiasts but some of their work sounds more strained than elegant:
Too bad - I hid a boot.
Rats Live on no evil star.
May a moody baby doom a yam?
Go deliver a dare, vile dog!
Ah, Satan sees Natasha
(and my favorite/most convoluted,)
Lisa Bonet ate no basil.
I am happy to let Mrs. Baxter be a guest blogger today by publishing the note she left for me this week. After three years of growing her hair, she accomplished her goal of having enough to be able to donate it to the excellent program called Locks Of Love.
If you can do it, please do it. Little bald children thank you.
Where: The Bob Hope Burbank Glendale Pasadena Or Whatever the Hell It's Called Airport, Burbank, California.
When: Friday, 7 December, about 3:15 p.m.
Who: Random passengers and me
Why: Air travel is a popular way to travel between cities.
What: A Million Dollar Idea
This idea is definitely a time saver. See in the scene above how everyone of the 100 or so passengers on my flight from Seattle to The Bad Place are squashed together all trying to see their baggage when it come round on the carousel?
Better idea: A six foot rule. No one stands closer than six feet from the carousel. If everyone stands back from the luggage, everyone would be able to see the luggage, even those passengers not in the front row of the crowd.
The way it is done now, only about 30 people can see, rather than 100. In my new world order, when someone sees their bag, or one they think might be, they move forward to the carousel and claim it. There's no need to be right on top of the thing and block everyone else's view if you don't need to be.
P.S. Personal to the fellow at Amoeba Records in Hollywood on Friday night who came up to tell me how much he enjoys the blog. I really appreciated that. He may have just been havin' a laugh, but I decided to take the compliment at face value instead.
Best Buy Co., Inc.
Corporate Headquarters
P.O. Box 9312
Minneapolis, MN
Dear Sir or Madam,
I have been a Best Buy Reward Zone member for several years now and shop at your store almost every single week. As a frequent CD, DVD, and electronics buyer I appreciate your low prices on many items and understand you must operate the company efficiently in order to be able to offer such value.
Having acknowledged that, you simply must do more to make your service by telephone more customer friendly. It's no secret that Best Buy has farmed out its customer call center to India to save money, as have hundreds of other U.S. companies. It saddens me but I understand that this is just how the new world order works.
But at what price? My latest call to the customer service center (trying to correct an error you made with my reward zone membership) was just the latest in a long line of frustrating contacts with your company.
If I may generalize based on my own personal experience, your Indian employees are under trained by half. They are able to read the company script in front of them but do not understand it well enough to go off the page and answer any relevant question.
Your computers or computer programs seem to be either too slow or too complicated to allow the phone answerer to quickly access account information, make changes, or offer referrals for more information.
I applaud anyone who is able to be conversant in more than one language - I certainly am not - but the level of English proficiency I have encountered when I call Best Buy may be fine for giving directions to the train but is woefully inadequate for conducting business.
On that same point, since we know you no longer hire Americans to answer phones and now expect to be calling India when we dial, please don't insult us by having the young woman answer the phone and tell me her name is Wendy.
Sincerely,
| 1. | forming an attractive subject for photography or having features that look well in a photograph: a photogenic face. See Tater Tot. |
| 2. | Biology. producing or emitting light, as certain bacteria; luminiferous; phosphorescent. |
| 3. | Medicine/Medical. produced or caused by light, as a skin condition. |
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
From the New York Times this week:
"America’s least-loved Christmas song is a Danish recording of Jingle Bells, performed in dog barks. The song — which enjoyed brief
success in the United States in 1955 and 1970 — took last place in a
test of 579 Christmas recordings, performed by Edison Media Research.
Edison played the songs for a national sample of 200 women aged 30 to
49, recruited via e-mail, who said that they either liked or loved
Christmas music.
All five of the best-loved Christmas songs are more than four decades old. The newest recording among the top 10 is John Lennon’s 1971 song Happy Christmas (War Is Over).
'It is certainly a place where the rules about who’s relevant are suspended for a month,' said Sean Ross, a radio analyst with Edison. 'Even the Christmas songs that we think of as contemporary, things like Wham’s Last Christmas, are 20 years old at this point.'
Elmo & Patsy’s 1984 novelty track, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, was hated by 17 percent and loved by 47 percent. 62 percent love Nat King Cole's Christmas Song."
Okay, me here. Even though the golden age of Christmas songs was indisputably way back in the 1930s and 1940s, I am still very surprised at how few holiday tracks have gained any real traction in the modern era, say, post 1990.
It's not that any fewer songs are being released; if anything even more artists are trying to cash in on Christmas albums than ever before. I have two theories:
1) Radio is so fragmented now that since we aren't all listening to the same stations anymore there is no such thing as a newer classic that everyone knows.
2) Radio programmers are less likely to take a chance on playing a newer Christmas song than ever before due to increased scrutiny by shareholders who don't like to take a chance that human interference might screw up their spreadsheets. "We already know they like White Christmas so just keep playing that one!"
Perhaps Christmas Shoes by Newsong has become something of a standard since it came out in 1999 but that doesn't make it suck any less. It is truly awful, as was the Rob Lowe TV movie they made out of the song's sappy story. Not that I saw it. I'm just sayin'.
Mary Did You Know is a brilliant song that seems to get more popular every year and is being covered by more and more artists too. Even that was written back in 1984 though (by gospel singer Mark Lowry).
The one recent number that has all the qualities of a standard, a song they'll still be playing in 50 years on whatever replaces radio, is 1994's All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey.
Please visit www.ChristmasMusicEveryday if just reading about the song is making you jones to to hear it right now. It's today's free stream.
Thanks to the digital revolution, photography has become
one of the cheapest, easiest and most rewarding hobbies anyone can take
up. I don't know anyone who doesn't enjoy looking at pictures and these days there is no reason why you shouldn't take your own.
Good digital cameras can be had for under a hundred dollars anymore,
free digital editing software is available online and if you don't have
a photo printer at home (like me), you can have your photos
professionally printed out for less than 20 cents a print. Add a 99 cent frame and Boom! Instant artwork.
What to shoot? Anything that interests you. In the digital age, there is no cost to shoot 100 pictures in a row that suck. It's not like in previous days where you had to wait until you got your pictures developed before you knew what you had. By-the-way, I am so old that I remember before there was no such thing as a One Hour Photo lab and you used to drop your pictures off somewhere and come back two or three days later to pick them up!
Here are two pictures that I snapped with my camera phone last Friday. In the first, I was the only car at a traffic light right waiting to turn right into the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. As you can see, it was raining pretty hard and I liked the way the palm trees lining both sides of the street looked in that weather. So I turned off my windshield wipers for a second and took the picture just as the light turned green. I only had that one chance to get this picture but am happy with the way it came out.
I took the second photo shortly after my arrival Friday back in Seattle. My flight landed in one of the satellite terminals at Sea-Tac airport and in the train on my way back to the main terminal I snapped three or four shots of the tracks through the back window. I like this one the best. 
No, they are not great pictures. Neither is going to win an award and I probably will never even think of them again after this post. Just because they are not candidates for a scrapbook or a frame, though, doesn't mean it wasn't fun to see take them and see what they looked like.
"Dear Bean,
Don't you think Q is the best letter in the world?
From, Emily"
Thanks for the letter, Em. If we were only talking about capital letters, I might agree with you. We all acknowledge how great the letter O is and the Q is like an O that is all dressed up. And so stylish! Other O-like letters such as P or B seem like they are trying too hard. The problem with Q is that it is not so hot in the lower case. No one is impressed by q. It's a real Plain Jane.
It's tempting to give the crown to W but I get tired of how full of itself W is. It's a real, "Hey, Look at me!" letter, don't you think? And it's always hogging all elbow room.
I'm partial to A; it's so sturdy and well-built but you can't seriously consider a vowel for Best Letter Ever. They just don't have the right stuff for that kind of heavy lifting.
I do like T. I like G. J and H seem like foreigners and I don't trust them. L might be gay. Z is confused about its place in the world and it shows.
Verdict? Y. It's mysterious but reliable. It's a consonant but can cover for a vowel in a pinch. It's comfortable at the beginning or the end of a word. It's a sentence on its own, out loud. It's stacked. It's Young and Yummy and Yo-Yo and Yes!
You see them in the mall. You see them on the street, in restaurants, even at the zoo. But is anyone stopping to ask, "What's the deal with the infants wearing headbands?"
Seriously, what's the deal? A person wears a headband to stop sweat from getting into one's eyes. That's the only reason. How much working out is Baby Flashdance doing to require a headband?
And isn't it well-known that a baby's skull is not even fully hardened until after the first year? Why strap a band of fabric tightly around the kid's forehead? Are you trying to leave a mark? 
It can't possibly be because Mommy thinks it looks good, can it? Because it really doesn't. In fact, it looks a lot like Mommy is saying, "Hey my child is too ugly to not scare passersby with her face so I'll try to cover up some of it."
Lastly, like Hillary Clinton is always saying, "Think about the children." Do you imagine they enjoy it? Having a pointless thing attached to their foreheads that they can't remove because they can't reach it? Being made to look foolish before they are even able to defend themselves? If they could speak they would say, "Mommy has issues. I hate her."
I love the U.S. Postal Service and am in awe everyday at the job they are able to do at the low low price they charge. Many people don't realize that the USPS is a self-sufficient operation and does not rely on taxpayer dollars. It is a non-profit branch of the government and only raises prices to cover the cost of operations, never to just make more money. And it is the only service provider to offer delivery service to every address in the United States. Think I'm crazy in my admiration for what they do? Tell me any other way to get a physical letter from Seattle to Miami, or Boston, or Honolulu for 41 cents in just a couple of days. I'll wait.
At this time of year the USPS also reminds you of a fun way to spice up the Christmas cards you are mailing out too.
"HOLIDAY-THEMED POSTMARKS MAKE GREETING CARDS SPECIAL KEEPSAKES
WASHINGTON, DC - Have your greeting cards postmarked from Bethlehem, Christmas, Nazareth, Rudolph or nearly 100 other holiday-themed communities. These special holiday postmarks tell your friends and loved ones that you 'went that extra mile' to make this season's greeting special.
You can get these postmarks without leaving town.
Just follow three easy steps:
* Place your stamped, addressed greeting cards in a large envelope or box, labeled 'Holiday Greeting Card Re-Mailing.'
* Address to 'Postmaster' of the town where you would like your cards postmarked.
* Take it to your local Post Office to be weighed and mailed.
Most cards, if received by the destination Post Offices for postmarking by December 15 will be delivered in time for the Holiday.
Holiday-themed Community Name Postmarks
* Advent WV 25231
* Angeles PR 00611
* Angels Camp CA 95222
* Antler ND 58711
* Antlers OK 74523
* Bell CA 90201
* Bell FL 32619
* Bethlehem CT 06751
* Bethlehem GA 30620
* Bethlehem IN 47104
* Bethlehem MD 21609
* Bethlehem NH 03574
* Bethlehem PA 18016
* Chestnut IL 62518
* Christmas FL 32709
* Christmas MI 49862
* Evergreen AL 36401
* Evergreen CO 80439
* Evergreen MT 59901
* Evergreen NC 28438
* Evergreen VA 23939
* Faith NC 28041
* Frost MN 56033
* Garland ME 04939
* Garland NC 28441
* Garland PA 16416
* Garland TX 75040
* Garland UT 84312
* Holly CO 81047
* Holly MI 48442
* Hope AK 99605
* Hope AR 71801
* Hope IN 47246
* Hope MI 48628
* Hope MN 56046
* Hope NJ 07844
* Hope RI 02831
* Joseph OR 97846
* Joseph City AZ 86032
* Joy IL 61260
* Nazareth MI 49074
* Nazareth PA 18064
* Nazareth TX 79063
* Noel MO 64854
* North Pole AK 99707* (station of Fairbanks -- address "North Pole Christmas Cancellation/ Postmaster/ 5400 Mail Trail/ Fairbanks AK")
* North Pole NY 12997* (address "Santa's Workshop Station")
* Partridge KS 67566
* Rudolph OH 43462
* Rudolph WI 54475
* Saint Joseph IL 61873
* Saint Joseph MI 49085
* Saint Joseph MN 56374
* Saint Joseph TN 38481
* Saint Mary KY 40063
* Saint Mary MO 63673
* Saint Mary MT 59417
* Saint Marys AK 99658
* Saint Marys GA 31558
* Saint Marys KS 66536
* Saint Marys PA 15857
* Saint Marys WV 26170
* Santa Claus IN 47579
* Shepherd MI 48883
* Shepherd MT 59079
* Snow OK 74567
* Snowflake AZ 85937
* Snow Shoe PA 16874
* Spruce MI 48762
* Star MS 39167
* Star NC 27356
* Star TX 76880
* Starlight PA 18461
* Surprise NY 12176
* Wiseman AR 72587"
P.S. Hi "Sweet" Jack Potter, Postmaster General! Call me!
You're probably familiar with the excellent law-and-order website called The Smoking Gun. They are known for their "large collection of public documents on crimes, celebrities, politicians, and the FBI."
From time to time they run a "foxy felons" roundup too. These are some of the actual mug shots of actual arrestees, some of whom could not look better if they got dolled up and went down to the local Glamour Shots at the mall.
Somewhere, Nick Nolte is weeping.
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