December 2000 archives

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Saturday, December 16, 2000

hairy topics

It's nice to have some conversation already scripted for you. For instance, when you are deciding how short to cut your hair, you can count on your barber (or hairdresser, whatever you choose to call it) saying, "I can cut it off all day, but I can't put it back on." Or some such equivalent statement.

And if someone asks you if you recently got a haircut, you're pretty much required to reply, "no, I got them all cut." The person who asks the question is obviously looking for that reply. Not doing so would let them down immensely.

Saturday, December 9, 2000

video game scores

You know, video games have come a long way, but I still think that the some of the best video game sounds of all time and the best music of all time come from our old friend, the Atari 2600. Here are my all-time favorites:

Best sound: the "squish" sound in Dig Dug when you drop rocks on the monsters. Satisfyin'. Take that, Fygar!

Best music: yep, mom, it's the music that you still remember after all these years...the lovely musical score of Pitfall II. (Da, da, da-da da da!) There were even three different types of music...

• The happy, "I just got another gold bar that's twice as big as my head but somehow I can carry with me" music,
• The sad, "stupid condor just cost me another couple of thousand points" music,
• And the "gee, nothing bad or good has happened in a while but we have to have music" music.

Ah...the memories come flooding back...

Sunday, December 3, 2000

futile attempts at Christmas cheer

I will never be a match for Martha Stewart.

I already knew that, but I lent even more credence to that theory recently. I went to a store to buy some garland to put up on my porch, and some "garland ties" designed to fasten said garland to said porch. I also bought a couple of "Christmas sprays". This was the store's terminology, not mine. I would have called them "pine branch-looking thingies." I was going to fashion these into a centerpiece for my dining room table.

About an hour later, I still hadn't gotten the garland formed into a fashion that I liked. It was bitterly cold outside, and I was suffering from numb fingers trying to fasten the garland ties to the garland and the porch. The garland ties, made out of plastic, kept breaking when I tried to lock them into place. Each time one snapped, a little piece of my sanity snapped with it. I noted that the ties were "Santa's Best" brand ties. I submit that if that's the best Santa can do at making garland ties, he needs to outsource garland-tie making and stick to toys.

Finally, finally, I got the garland in a somewhat festive look. It's still up, so I guess that the garland ties are doing their jobs. Well, at least the ones that didn't break. But it was a lot harder than I thought it'd be.

Moral of the story: when you look at a box (or whatever it comes in) of Christmas decorations, resign yourself to the fact that you will either:

1. Never get the decorations to look as nice as they look on the box, or
2. Spend an amount of time roughly equivalent to a week per each of these you use to make it look so.

I had better luck with the so-called "Christmas sprays". Luckily, these are for the most part idiot-proof. All you do is take them and place them opposite each other so that the piece of wire coming out of it (which, for some reason, is approximately as long as the spray itself is) is hidden underneath it. And lo and behold, there you have it!

Now don't get me wrong. I still love decorating for Christmas. I just know that I'm never going to get anyone to pay me to do it. :)

Saturday, December 2, 2000

Christmas tree life

Ever noticed that you never see an ugly Christmas tree?

Doesn't happen, does it? Everywhere you look, whether the decorations are handmade or storebought, old or new, all one color scheme or a tremendous variety, it all looks right when it's on a Christmas tree.

Now, there are particular ornaments that come to mind (usually my handmade efforts as a child qualify here) that could be classified as "not-so-nice-looking". But even when you intersperse these among everything else, it all looks right.

I'm 23 years and change old now, and one of my favorite things to do still is look at a Christmas tree all lit up with all of the lamps and overhead lights turned off. There's something perfect about it, as if in that one moment everything is just right with the world.

I've sometimes wondered why that is. I guess that you could just call it part of the mystery of the season. But I prefer to think that we're more in the spirit to see the beauty in everything.

Translating that to the everyday, we need to see the "Christmas tree" in everything in our lives. It's hard to do on a day-by-day basis. I know. But you'll notice that there are people who can do it. You'll also note that they tend to be very happy and content with their lives. There's something to it.

I'm trying to live my life being content with it. I don't always succeed, but when I do, I find that I can find the "Christmas tree" in things.

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