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…And Checking It Twice — Why Now?
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…And Checking It Twice

So it’s time to get everything in line so that there will be smooth sailing tomorrow.

Obviously you need the text of A Visit from St. Nicholas [AKA Twas the night before Christmas] or one of the variations.

But now that you’ve finished putting up enough lights to match the total electrical consumption of a third world nation, you can sit back and watch the North American Air Defense Command’s annual attempt to take out that red-suited commie’s attack on the capitalist system by giving stuff away. [Don’t worry kids, they are using the anti-missile defense system, so there’s no danger to anyone but taxpayers.]

16 comments

1 jams O'Donnell { 12.24.09 at 3:49 am }

I hope they git im good. Happy CHristmas Bryan
.-= last blog ..Father Christmas is dead =-.

2 Kryten42 { 12.24.09 at 5:48 am }

…and don’t forget the *true* ‘War on Christmas’! 😉 😆

Wiki: Santa Claus

Brought to you by the sponsor… Coooooke! (NYC pronunciation) 😉 😈

Ahem. But any excuse is a good excuse to have fun and pig out!! So, go for it all! And have a ball. 😀

I plan too. Cheers!

3 Bryan { 12.24.09 at 12:17 pm }

Jams, you have been spending too much time around Ted 😉

Happy Christmas – whatever form it may take.

The illustrator for the Coca Cola campaign was the son of Finnish immigrants, so there is no surprise at his choices.

Throw a reindeer steak on the “barbie” for me, Kryten, Happy Christmas. 😆

4 Kryten42 { 12.24.09 at 10:33 pm }

Well… It’s just after 3PM Christmas Day… Lunch is done, and I feel like fasting for a week or two! The dog does too! She’s laying down in the shade next to me as I type this on the back deck, admiring the clear blue skies this very fine warm afternoon (high 20’s, a perfect day). I think I overdid the BBQ lunch (ham, turkey, chicken, king prawns, various salads, etc). But… this is the day for overindulgence, right? Mind you… the dog keeps shooting me looks that say “This is all your fault! I can’t move! Why didn’t you stop me? Grooooaaannnn…” 😉 😆 Dog’s have zero self-control!

It really is a beautiful day, and it’s quite peaceful and quiet. There were some kids in the street earlier, before lunch enjoying their new toys, but even they have all gone now. 🙂

You know… this may sound strange, but this day makes up for the crappy year for me (almost!) 😆 It’s a day of reflection for me, and to decide where I want to go next. I know that for many people, that a tradition for New Years Eve, but this past few years, I’ve personally preferred to do that today. NYE is the day I commit one way or the other having had a week to mull things over. 🙂

Anyway, at least I got to make the dog happy today! 😀 (She’s just a little Jack Russel terrier). She has a ham bone that bigger than she is to play with over the next week! 😆

It’s nice now. Everyone’s gone from lunch, to prepare their dinners with families etc, I decided I just wanted the rest of the day to myself (and the dog). 🙂 I’m enjoying a strong pure arabica Italian coffee (a gift from a friend today) that I can’t normally afford to indulge in, with some Italian Almond Toscani (basically a biscotti with lots of almonds in).

Yeah… it’s a good day. Tomorrow will come soon enough, for now… I’m alive and feeling good. And whatever happens tomorrow, none of the Bastards on this World can take that from me! I win! 😀

I hope you all have a great day, and that you all feel good. Yeah… the World sux, but I think we all deserve one day off! 😀 Enjoy!

Cheers and best wishes all!! 😀

5 Bryan { 12.25.09 at 1:04 am }

What, no reindeer? That would make you popular with the kiddies. 😉

A good feed is what it is all about in mid-winter, so why not in mid-summer?

Yes, you always have to monitor dogs. They want some of whatever everyone else is eating and eat as if they will never be fed again.

It is nice to just chuck all of the crap for the day, and look to the future.

I happy to hear that your day went so well.

6 Kryten42 { 12.25.09 at 2:27 am }

Thanks Bryan! It was a good day, and still is actually! It’s about 20 past 7, and I still haven’t thought about dinner! 😆 I just made a good coffee but! 😉 LadyMin and I were chatting for awhile until about an hour ago (late for her, but we always seem to do it Christmas. we get 2 *Christmas Days*… Mine first, then her’s in Chicago! Well… virtually anyway. 😉 🙂 Not as good as *the real thing*, but better than nothing! 🙂 The birds are still chirping in the trees, and the shadows are starting to get longer as the sun sets. 🙂 There is something to be said for a Summer Christmas! 😉

But you know… I do miss the traditional Northern Christmas too! Yule log on the fire, eggnog and other toasty treats to overindulge in! I even helped build a snowman a couple time with the local kids, once in Boston (MA), once in Birmingham (England). 🙂

I really hope you and everyone else here has a great Christmas day too!

“Eat, drink, and be merry!” 😀

7 Bryan { 12.25.09 at 12:19 pm }

I remember the traditional Northern Christmas, and that is sufficient, because I also remember diving off the road while directing traffic at an accident scenes during the first snow of the year.

The situation is always the same, rain that changes to sleet, and then snow at sundown, and the evening rush hour. The wet roads freeze and the snow lands on top, making the roads skating rinks.

You are standing behind your cruiser with the light rack blazing away laying out flares to warn of the accident ahead and you see the car coming down the road entirely too fast for conditions, and watch the slide begin as the driver finally realizes there’s a problem.

It’s time for the diving roll to the side of the road, on the other side of the ditch as you wait to hear the crunch of metal that means you will have to wait in the cold for another agency to come out to take the accident report on your unit.

Oh, yeah, wonderful memories. 😉

Well, at least the rain is over, and there was only a minor tornado to the west yesterday.

8 hipparchia { 12.25.09 at 8:29 pm }

ah, who cares about the tornado? it was a lovely day, spent with family and friends, and really, the economy is more scary than the weather [so far].

happy merry joyous whatever!
.-= last blog ..Meowy Christmas! =-.

9 Bryan { 12.25.09 at 9:37 pm }

Well, I think the people in Florosa who watched their carport go bye-bye might care, as well as the guys who had to go and clear the trees off the roads.

I take your point, and it didn’t take long for me to clear the debris from the yard, but it wasn’t exactly what I had planned for Christmas day.

If I sound grumpy, it is because it is cold again, and I don’t like the damp cold and wind. I get annoyed when I have to put up with thunderstorms and cold.

10 hipparchia { 12.25.09 at 11:46 pm }

i’m with you 100% on the damp cold and the picking up after storms, but the dog is loving this weather. anything [well, almost anything] that makes him this deliriously happy makes me smile.
.-= last blog ..Meowy Christmas! =-.

11 Bryan { 12.26.09 at 12:05 am }

Sorry if I sounded a bit put out, but in addition to everything else, at the last minute I got stuck watching a friend’s house, because the person who was supposed to do it got snowed in and won’t be back. My friend doesn’t especially want to make the trip, but he is transporting all of the presents as he’s driving, while everyone else is flying, so he can’t not go.

It seems like plans have been crashing and burning this Christmas.

Fortunately I cooked a ham, so there isn’t a lot of fussing as everything was shoved into the oven, albeit at different times.

At the moment I’m dealing with Ringo acting like a neck pillow because she decided to go outside and chilled her buns.

If I had a big furry coat I might feel better about the weather.

12 Kryten42 { 12.26.09 at 4:56 am }

Awwww! Sorry to hear your day wasn’t what you wanted Bryan, and the weather sux. Maybe I shoulda invited you down here! 😀 Maybe next year… 🙂

I really hope things improve m8. If it’s any consolation, my good days are over tomorrow (which starts in a couple hours), and the stress comes back. *shrug* I’m going to be busy as hell for the next few months. I don’t think two days of peace and quiet are going to anywhere near enough to be honest.

Same old… we just have to do what we can do. 🙂

At least I have an end in sight. Now if I could just convince the World and it’s assorted a**h*les to FO and leave me alone for a couple months, I may just have a chance to get back on my feet again. This course I just wasted 4+ months on was a bad idea in hindsight. Typical. I wasn’t given much choice, or any time to think about it. Anyway… If I get a decent chance, then maybe, I can help out a few friends get their lives back. *shrug* We’ll see.

13 hipparchia { 12.26.09 at 11:37 am }

i can identify with the christmas grumpies — it’s my usual mood this time of year.

i have no clue what’s going on with my computer but when i first fired up the internet today, the only thing that loaded from your blog was all the smilies and the names of the commenters. i think some of headers in the sidebars might have loaded too, but basically it was blank page after blank page with nothing but smilies. fortunately kryten uses lots of smilies, so some pages were actually worth looking at!

heading out now to price replacement computers for my day-after-christmas adventures.
.-= last blog ..Meowy Christmas! =-.

14 Bryan { 12.26.09 at 1:17 pm }

The problems of others may put my problems in perspective, but they aren’t consolation, as it would be nice to have a “race to the top”, rather than to the bottom.

Yes, it is always a major annoyances to realize you have been heading in the wrong direction, but I have found it is usually better to go ahead and make the necessary correction and wait for better times to analyze what went wrong, i.e. moderate the highs with knowledge, rather than deepening the lows.

Your course work should widen your options, and despite the best efforts of the corporations, this economy will pick up eventually and we will be able to begin to put things right. Australia is in a better position to move ahead than the US.

After the latest failed attempt to attack an airliner to the US, I think my flying days are done, and a week in a small raft put me off sailing forever, so I am off long distance travel that can’t be accomplished by a land vehicle. They will impose more stupid rules on airline travel to appear to be doing something, that will make the process seem more and more like a kidnapping than transportation.

Hipparchia, that sounds like the CSS didn’t load, which occasionally happens, and makes the presentation weird. I haven’t changed anything yet, but I realize that the event is merely another justification to do something you have probably wanted to do for a while, so go for it. I notice that they latest attack was again in your bailiwick, a failed chemical reaction. Another attempt at a binary explosive that failed.

It won’t be long before the process is identified, along with a reasoned dissertation on why you can’t do it on an airplane, but no one in power will pay any attention.

15 hipparchia { 12.26.09 at 3:26 pm }

that sounds like the CSS didn’t load, which occasionally happens, and makes the presentation weird.

it wasn’t just your blog, and the weirdness isn’t even confined to surfing the web, it was just that the pages full of smilies was the only fun part.

yeah, better living terrorism through chemistry! not. goodness only knows what security theater they’ll come up with next in response. sounds to me like ordinary citizens spontaneously turning into diy sky marshals when needed is probably the most efficient method yet devised.
.-= last blog ..Meowy Christmas! =-.

16 Bryan { 12.26.09 at 4:17 pm }

The reality is that imposed passivity was the key to the success of 9/11.

The deregulation was a big help, as it led to the non-existent security at Logan, but the total cooperation that was the procedure of the airlines, and the mindset of the passengers, made it possible.

Apparently another bored child of the upper class playing at revolution, just like Lenin, Che, bin Laden. A high estate tax would reduce this sort of thing.