All I Want for Christmas

Do you know what today is? I’m not talking about Black Friday, the mere thought of which fills me with dread. I am referring to the first official day of the holiday shopping season. No matter what those yahoo merchants tried to make you believe up until now, this is the real beginning of good deals and increasingly-ridiculous sales. In deference to this new season, I’ve decided to make it easier for people to buy things for me. I know, I know, I’m so thoughtful.

So, secret admirer/dear friend/deranged stalker/unknown benefactor, here follows my Christmas list, so that you don’t have to resort to reading my email or going through my trash (or, horrors, actually asking me) to find out what I want.

1. Some knitting workshops so I can spend even more time and money not finishing things. I’m particularly interested in the classes at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio and Purl Soho.
2. Yarn!! I have so much yarn stashed that I no longer allow myself to buy yarn if it’s not for a specific project. That is responsible, but very boring. Enable me! Please note that yarn made primarily of any natural fiber will do just splendidly. The yarn’s weight doesn’t matter, as I can always find something to knit with whatever I’m given.
3. Lots and lots of books, so that I have a semi-intelligent way to procrastinate when I should be knitting. I’ll read just about any type of fiction and most cookbooks and biographies, but if you’re not sure, you can do the safe thing and purchase something from my Amazon wishlist.
4. No clothes.
5. Unless they’re fancy fancy dresses. One can never have too many fancy dresses.
6. Jewelry. I love earrings, and I’ve been wearing yellow gold lately,  but I still have a decent amount of white gold, too, so knock yourself out and get whatever you like the best.
7. Music. I like pretty much anything, and I haven’t bought many albums that came out after 2008, so it’s safe to assume that I do not own anything you’d think of getting me. iTunes/Amazon music gift cards are also appreciated.
8. Fragrances! I love subtle perfumes. My go-to scent is Chanel’s Chance Eau Fraiche, but I also like other scents, such as Calvin Klein’s Crave (I think it’s unisex, but if it’s not, the one intended for men).
9. I know that I actually thought I hated gift cards, but having endured a few birthdays and holidays without them has shown me the error of my ways. If you don’t know what to get me, and none of the other options appeal, a gift card is the way to go. I will appreciate it greatly, and won’t read anything into your refusal to make one decision and then stand behind it (promise!).

For everybody else: should my boyfriend/brother/dad/mom ask you what he/she should get me, pick a number that seems appropriate, and run with it.

Note: I reserve the right to amend and/or update this list at any time.

Congratulations!

Yay! You get a day off from work. Go you!

Also, happy Thanksgiving! I hope you’re spending it with people you love and food you enjoy eating (and booze you enjoy drinking, if you’re from one of those nonbaptist fun families).

Hello, my name is Inigo Monturkey...

Help some people out this Thanksgiving

If you have an extra $15 lying around (or are willing to skip Starbucks for a couple of days), you could do a great thing for a New York family in need. Please consider donating to the Food Bank for New York, so that a family in need can have a Thanksgiving full of food and familial awkwardness.

I feel like this is my fault

I knit (I may have mentioned this before), and I like to watch tv shows when I do. I prefer shows that have been on for several seasons, so I can just plow through the episodes, without having to wait a week for the next installment. Right now I’m watching Eureka, which I’d never heard of before another knitter told me about it last week. It’s a quirky little show whose low budget mostly-Canadian appeal warms my heart. I had been watching Psych while I knit, but it got too stupid for me to enjoy.

Although I do own far too many tv shows on dvd, I primarily watch my knitting-montony-relieving shows through Netflix’s streaming option. I currently have the 2-disc-a-month plan, and I always mean to watch the dvds that I order, but it almost never happens. On Saturday I went to the Netflix web site to see if I could switch to a streaming-only plan. To my surprise, they didn’t have any such thing! It seemed like offering the option just to stream content would be a no-brainer, but maybe the Netflix people had too much in the way of brains, because that wasn’t the case. Anyway, I switched to the 1-disc-a-month plan.

Imagine my surprise then when I saw in the newspaper today that, beginning December, Netflix will offer a streaming-only plan (that article said January, but the email that Netflix sent me said December). Yay! So I switched again. When I do want dvds, I can easily get them from the library, and even if they’re rentals, that cost plus the cost of my streaming Netflix subscription won’t equal what I paid for 2-discs-at-a-time (not that that was terribly expensive, either). Netflix is also raising the cost of all of its disc plans by a dollar. That’s not a ton, but I’m sure it hurts a bit. I know that to have all of this in place, the final decision about this had to have been made long before Saturday, but since I had just looked into this, I feel the tiniest bit responsible.

So, dear internet, I apologize for the increase in cost of your Netflix subscription. Unless, of course, you’ve moved to Streamland like me, in which case I welcome you to my broadband-dependent country.

It must be awesome to answer to “Mr. Cartoon”

This New York Times article is about a famous tattooist to the stars (didn’t even know that such a thing existed), and features Tommy Hilfiger’s son, but I find if fascinating primarily for its insistence on repeating the phrase, “Mister Cartoon.” Good times.

Sharpies…is there anything they can’t do?

This Miata’s unique paint job is actually the result of 22 days and $100 dollars’ worth of Sharpies. That’s pretty amazing. My arm aches just thinking about it.

Second time’s the charm

I saw “Stuff White People Like” on the bargain rack approximately 37 seconds after it was released, but anybody who was interested was able to see a lot of that content on the web site. His next book seems to have a different focus, so maybe this one will do better.

Country loves Beyonce

Beyoncé covers are a dime a dozen, but it seems that her music has been adopted by an entirely new population: country muscians. Here are Reba McIntyre and Sugarland’s takes on two of her songs, If I Were a Boy and Irreplaceable. For giggles, I’m also throwing in a Switchfoot cover that I think is pretty cool.

A fun way to procrastinate

I always enjoy the lists at Cracked.com. As Nina Garcia would say, I question their taste level, but the articles are usually pretty funny. Here’s the one I’m reading now, on “mind-blowing” coincidences.  I don’t think they’re all THAT amazing, but they’re still amusing to read.

I agree, give the man a chance

My mother, who never asks me for anything, wanted me to put this article where all the world could see it. God bless her, my mom thinks I’m a lot more popular and better-connected than I actually am. Google Analytics say that a humorously low number of people actually read my site, so I’m not sure this will do any good, but here you go, Mom.

For those of you who aren’t interested enough to click on the link:

America – He’s Your President for Goodness Sake!

By William Thomas
Posted: Friday, October 1st, 2010

There was a time not so long ago when Americans, regardless of their political stripes, rallied round their president. Once elected, the man who won the White House was no longer viewed as a republican or democrat, but the President of the United States. The oath of office was taken, the wagons were circled around the country’s borders and it was America versus the rest of the world with the president of all the people at the helm.

Suddenly President Barack Obama, with the potential to become an exceptional president has become the glaring exception to that unwritten, patriotic rule.

Four days before President Obama’s inauguration, before he officially took charge of the American government, Rush Limbaugh boasted publicly that he hoped the president would fail. Of course, when the president fails the country flounders. Wishing harm upon your country in order to further your own narrow political views is selfish, sinister and a tad treasonous as well.

Subsequently, during his State of the Union address, which is pretty much a pep rally for America, an unknown congressional representative from South Carolina, later identified as Joe Wilson, stopped the show when he called the President of the United States a liar. The president showed great restraint in ignoring this unprecedented insult and carried on with his speech. Speaker Nancy Pelosi was so stunned by the slur, she forgot to jump to her feet while clapping wildly, 30 or 40 times after that.

Last spring, President Obama took his wife Michelle to see a play in New York City and republicans attacked him over the cost of security for the excursion. The president can’t take his wife out to dinner and a show without being scrutinized by the political opposition? As history has proven, a president in a theatre without adequate security is a tragically bad idea.

Remember: “Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”

At some point, the treatment of President Obama went from offensive to ugly and then to downright dangerous.

The health-care debate, which looked more like extreme fighting in a mud pit than a national dialogue, revealed a very vulgar side of America. President Obama’s face appeared on protest signs white-faced and blood-mouthed in a satanic clown image. In other tasteless portrayals, people who disagreed with his position distorted his face to look like Hitler complete with mustache and swastika.

Odd, that burning the flag makes Americans crazy, but depicting the president as a clown and a maniacal fascist is accepted as part of the new rude America.

Maligning the image of the leader of the free world is one thing, putting the president’s life in peril is quite another. More than once, men with guns were videotaped at the health-care rallies where the president spoke. Again, history shows that letting men with guns get within range of a president has not served America well in the past.

And still the “birthers” are out there claiming Barack Obama was not born in the United States, although public documentation proves otherwise. Hawaii is definitely part of the United States, but the Panama Canal Zone where his electoral opponent Senator John McCain was born? Nobody’s sure.

Last month, a 44-year-old woman in Buffalo was quite taken by President Obama when she met him in a chicken wing restaurant called Duff’s. Did she say something about a pleasure and an honour to meet the man or utter encouraging words for the difficult job he is doing? No. Quote: “You’re a hottie with a smokin’ little body.”

Lady, that was the President of the United States you were addressing, not one of the Jonas Brothers! He’s your president for goodness sakes, not the guy driving the Zamboni at “Monster Trucks On Ice.” Maybe next it’ll be, “Take Your President To A Topless Bar Day.”

In President Barack Obama, Americans have a charismatic leader with a good and honest heart. Unlike his predecessor, he’s a very intelligent leader. And unlike that president’s predecessor, he’s a highly moral man.

In President Obama, Americans have the real deal, the whole package and a leader that citizens of almost every country around the world look to with great envy. Given the opportunity, Canadians would trade our leader, hell, most of our leaders for Obama in a heartbeat.

What America has in Obama is a head of state with vitality and insight and youth. Think about it, Barack Obama is a young Nelson Mandela. Mandela was the face of change and charity for all of Africa but he was too old to make it happen. The great things Obama might do for America and the world could go on for decades after he’s out of office.

America, you know not what you have.

The man is being challenged unfairly, characterized with vulgarity and treated with the kind of deep disrespect to which no previous president was subjected. It’s like the day after electing the first black man to be president, thereby electrifying the world with hope and joy, Americans sobered up and decided the bad old days were better.

President Obama may fail but it will not be a Richard Nixon default fraught with larceny and lies. President Obama, given a fair chance, will surely succeed but his triumph will never come with a Bill Clinton caveat – “if only he’d got control of that zipper.”

Please. Give the man a fair, fighting chance. This incivility toward the leader who won over Americans and gave hope to billions of people around the world that their lives could be enhanced by his example, just naturally has to stop.

Believe me, when Americans drive by the White House and see a sign on the lawn that reads: “No shirt. No shoes. No service,” they’ll realize this new national rudeness has gone way, way too far.