Saturday, December 26, 2009

Boxing Day: What is it, and why is it on my calendar?




So apparently (once again) residents of the United States are the last ones to reap the benefits of "Boxing Day." Celebrated in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Ghana, Switzerland, Germany, Greenland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica and countries in the Commonwealth of Nations with a mainly Christian population. It is presumably a day when we finally take a break from our (and by "we" meaning U.S. residents, I hesitate to use the word "Americans" as that could be anyone from Canada, Mexico, Panama, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Chile, etc; etc as those are all countries located on the the aptly named Americas (after the late great explorer Amerigo Vespucci), which include both northern and southern hemispheres. Yes, I hate to break it to all us denizens of the most gluttonous country on the planet that when we refer to ourselves as "Americans" people in Suriname simply shake their heads in misunderstanding, because of course they are "Americans" too, but I digress...) over-exuberant consumerism and "box up" our wrappings and festive trimmings until the next joyous celebration of Jesus' birthday rolls around. (You almost forgot about that part didn't you?) Well, regardless of whether we remember it is presumably a Christian birthday of sorts(oddly a Google searh for "Christmas" returned only one website with a reference to Jesus; Charlie Sheen's arrest was the first result), or a rough approximation of the end of the "Festival of Lights" a.k.a Chanukah, or the celebration of african american heritage Kwanzaa (the only truly "American" holiday of the bunch,) or even a recognition of the Pagan rituals surrounding the observance of the winter solstice. The 26th is almost universally accepted as boxing (except by U.S. citizens) and everyone (except U.S. citizens) knows without doubt that it is the single best day to shop, because after all, everyone (read blatant consumers) paid top dollar for the stuff they felt they just had to buy for Jesus' birthday (or whatever) and now any rational being would immediately recognize that any remaining merchandise on store shelves must be liquidated as soon as possible, or risk becoming auction fodder in a bankruptcy auction. So that is where I finally have come full circle pointing out that much like the benefits of the metric system (but not without further digressing and mentioning that we are in good company in not adopting the metric system along with Myanmar and Liberia) we U.S. based americans are wasting our time camping out at Best Buy stores on Thanksgiving (a completely useless holiday where we presumably befriended the natives of this great land before handing out small pox infected blankets) evening to get deals on crap that we really don't need in the first place on "Black Friday" and completely missing out on the super sweet deals on all the chinese made merchandise we weren't able to cart off in the weeks leading up to the joyous celebration of J.C.'s birth where I am quite certain candy canes were passed out by the three wise men, and animals spake, and a Eastern Orthodox saint from what is now modern day Turkey indubitably started dressing in red fur and inexplicably started shouting "Ho Ho Ho" everywhere he went probably showed up as well to give baby Jesus a Zhu Zhu Hamster and maybe fill his stocking with chocolates... Anyways, I do hope your holidays were as gluttonous and blessing filled as mine, oh and happy boxing day!





By the way, buy my wifes luggage wraps! They are the best luggage accessory that money can buy! http://www.funluggage.com/



Friday, December 25, 2009

To blog or not to blog? That IS the question...

As defined by http://www.urbandictionary.com/ a blog is: a place where people bitch about their daily activities which nobody is interested in. topics like why they argue with boyfriend and how they end up together at last, daily aneroxic activities like drinking blended organic fruits and vegetable for breakfast, lunch and dinner, talking about cutting themselves with a razor blade and how good they felt, bitch about their shopping activities and what they got.




















My intent is to intersperse that exact type of above described self absorbtion with slightly more meaty and meaningful offerings, including but not limited to: plugging my wife's luggage accessory business http://www.funluggage.com/ incessantly, ranting about various hot button political issues such as abortion, gun control (or lack thereof), regulation of industries ranging from agriculture to banking, debating the pros and cons of various religions, and debating what is truly "good" for the planet. I may aslo thow in an occasional dash of eastern mysticism sprinkled with just a hint of commercialism.



Have I mentioned my wife's luggage accessories at http://www.funluggage.com/? They rock harder than a Eagles reunion tour!


Anyways, as it is Christmas, or Kwanzaa eve depending upon your preferences, (sorry the eight day festival of light Chanukah is over) I will take it easy for a change and begin blogging in earnest in the near future. Bet on it.