What inspiration may be gleaned from laziness.

Happy New Year. May 2010 be filled with wonder and peace for all. Since I am at the present moment to lazy to write my own words; I hope that you may find some inspiration in the following words.

A Psalm of Life:

Tell me not in mournful numbers,

"Life is but an empty dream!"

For the soul is dead that slumbers,

And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"

Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Is our destined end or way;

But to act, that each to-morrow

Find us further than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,

Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!

Act -- act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o'er life's solemn main,

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,

Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labour and to wait,

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).

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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!

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