MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!

Well, it's that time of year! I'll take a couple of days off and come back...mmmm,...Wednesday, December 27th!

I don't know about you but I had a great year! Sometimes you characterize a year by just one word or phrase. For me that word would be "friends." More than any other recent year I feel that my friends made a big impact on my life in the past twelve months. It really is true that a man with friends is a rich man!

Have a merry, merry Christmas everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MY CHRISTMAS GIFT SUGGESTIONS

I don't have time to write a decent post but I thought I'd make a few gift suggestions for last-minute Christmas shoppers:

1) How about an Extendo Fork and tubing as mentioned in previous posts? I can't think of a better gift and the price is certainly right!

2) One of those long claws with a pistol grip that you use to grab things off high shelves. Mike Fontanelli just gave one of these to a friend and I found myself envying the friend. These grabbers are great for pinching people and waking them up by grabbing their faces with it.

3) The gift that keeps giving...ITCHING POWDER! Best to make it yourself. The formula I prefer: 1/3 electric razor stubble, 1/3 ground-up cat-tail weed seeds, and 1/3 sand or Borax.

4) A copy of my favorite Christmas film, "Shop Around the Corner." Traditional favorites like "Wonderful Life," "Christmas Story," "Miracle on 34th Street" and the Sim's version of "Christmas Carol" are all great films but I've seen them so many times that I had to find something new, even if it was filmed in 1940. Shop Around the Corner is not only a great Christmas film but it's one of the best-written romantic comedies that I've ever seen.

THE FUTURE IS HERE: STAINLESS SHIRTS!!!!

I wanted to draw the illustrations for this post but it looks like I won't have time so here's a photo instead. I'm writing about clean, white shirts and who exemplifies that for our time more than Saddahm Hussein? It seems like every time I see him he's wearing the cleanest, whitest, starchiest shirt that money can buy. Anway....

I'm writing to announce that science really has come up with a truly stainless white shirt. You can buy them, they're out there now. I bought one because I liked the cut of the shirt but I didn't really take the stainless label seriously. I figured no one would make a really stain repellent shirt for another, oh... hundred years at least. Boy, was I wrong.

Last week I was wearing my new white shirt while eating a big, squishy fast food burger in the car. I wasn't aware of it but the burger was dripping catsup, thousand-island dressing, grease and meat juice all over the front of my new shirt. When I finally realized what was happening it was too late. The stain was huge! It looked like a big, hairy hand had deliberately mashed a pizza into my chest. There was nothing for it but to go through the whole day looking like a bum.

Grief stricken, I steadied the wheel with my knees and grabbed a paper towel to wipe off what I could. To my shock and surprise the towel wiped off everything...not just the onions and pickles but the entire stain! Everywhere I wiped was white as snow, not a trace of grease!!!! I was, and still am, awe-stricken. The future is here! It's time to unpack the rayguns and rocket belts! Now I don't know if the teflon comes off after the first washing or if everyone who wears it will get cancer. All I know is that it worked like a dream the first time I put it to the test. If that's not news, what is?

HAVING TROUBLE READING THE PAGE?

Try coming to the page again and wait for the page to completely download before scrolling down. If you scroll down before the bottom bar says "done" then the page will smear down with endless repetitions of the first sentense.

For comment-writers: If you're a blogger yourself then you better transfer to the new Google-influenced system ASAP. If you're on the new system then when the comment box asks for your user-name and password you'll type in your new Google codes. The new user-name is always an internet address like bsykes@eartlink.com. The password is the new password you invented for Google when you tranferred from the old system.

If you want to comment but you haven't switched to the new Google system yet then I suppose it's OK to do everything the old way.

The new system is both better and worse. You get more bandwidth and it publishes real fast but it has some annoying idiosyncricies. On the comments page I'm constantly having to click off windows that warn me that letters might originate from unsecured senders.

THE STEPS OF WELLESLEY COLLGE

The building above is pretty lackluster but I'll forgive it because it contains a killer tunnel and staircase. You can see the entrance to it in this picture. It doesn't look like anything yet but keep walking.

The little staircase on the side acts as a pivot which orients you forward. There's a tantalizing glimpse of something at the end of the tunnel.

You walk toward the light, smelling the tunnel and feeling the broad, horizontal sweep of it. The image at the end gets more and more interesting. Like a stripper it only gradually reveals itself.

The steps don't rise evenly. Everytime you hit an especially interesting view the architect prolongs it by flattening the steps.

You climb the steps and the churchtower is dramatically revealed.

The reveal was so exciting that the full view almost comes off as an anti-climax. Neat, huh?

MORE OF THE INCREDIBLE PETER PAUL RUBENS

I don't have the bandwidth to comment so here they are, unaided by me. Click to enlarge! These won't look very good small.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT

Nobody ever takes me seriously when I say this but here goes: the very best adult Christmas presents are....fuzzy slippers and cheap perfume for a woman and a wallet or a tie for a man, even if he has no money and never wears anything but tee-shirts. I'm not kidding, these really are good presents! Presents are meant to be symbolic. If you stress out over finding just the right present for every friend and family member you'll never enjoy the holiday.

If you're like most people and you think what I wrote above is crazy or irrelevant then here's my fall-back suggestion: give the person something completely unrelated to what they're interested in. It has to be something good mind you, something that's the best in it's field, but something the person has never even thought about. I don't smoke and I'm not really interested in cigars but I have to admit that I'd be curious to smoke what people in the know consider the best cigar. Maybe smoking isn't really a filthy habit at all if you smoke the right stuff.

On another subject, Chrismas shopping is sooooo stressful. I still don't know what to get my wife! Every year she always says, "I don't see why you're having so much trouble getting me a present! There's only two things I don't want: don't get me anything useful like an appliance because everybody benefits from that and it's not personnal. And don't get me something that's not useful because the house is filled with stuff like that already. Absolutely anything else would be fine!" And every year I always answer with gritted teeth, "What are you talking about!!!???! Every single thing in the universe is either useful or not useful! There IS nothing else!" This is an irreconcilable conflict.