"Only follow the rules that make sense."

http://www.megatokyo.com/index.php?strip_id=9

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

j0.

-- Sean --
Rabid Crack Weasel #42
http://www.thebrokenlink.org The Broken Link 4.0 is live!
"All tribal myths are true, for a given value of 'true'." -- Terry Pratchett
Follow my random thoughts
Follow my creative process

"Only follow the rules that make sense."

I don't like Christmas either - overall it's my least favorite time of year. February is harder for me to get through (seasonal affective, you know), but December has the added annoyances of the shopping malls always being full and all the damn music and decorations pounding it home all the time that If You Don't Find This Time of Year Joyful, There's Something Horribly Wrong With You.

(On a tangent, does anyone else get that feeling of unreasonable anger when you're just trying to go to the mall in, say, the second week of December to get something you need for the house or something, and you can't park because of all the Christmas shoppers? I always get really torqued off, knowing it's stupid all the while, and wishing that there was a special parking section for "people who would be here anyway".)

My mother finds this all very upsetting; she's really into the Holiday Spirit thing and can't understand why I always dread the coming of December. (Next couple of years it's going to be even more annoying than usual, too, thanks to the damn Tolkien movies.)

Feh.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

To heck with that. If you don't enjoy the holiday seasons like you're "supposed" to like everybody else, that means you have a grip of reality. Christmas time is the MOST stressful time of the year, there are a lot more suicides (among other crimes) and that music gets so repetitive. It's why I like listening to the worse-feeling songs I can find.

>(On a tangent, does anyone else get that feeling of unreasonable anger
>when you're just trying to go to the mall in, say, the second week of
>December to get something you need for the house or something, and you
>can't park because of all the Christmas shoppers? I always get really
>torqued off, knowing it's stupid all the while, and wishing that there
>was a special parking section for "people who would be here anyway".)

Yes.

>My mother finds this all very upsetting; she's really into the Holiday
>Spirit thing and can't understand why I always dread the coming of
>December. (Next couple of years it's going to be even more
>annoying than usual, too, thanks to the damn Tolkien movies.)
>
>Feh.
>
One of these days, I'm gonna make a post that cheers you up. :)

"Only follow the rules that make sense."

Drive up to my folks' place and let my mom adopt you. She DESPISES Christmas and usually starts grumping around about the week before Thanksgiving. ;)

I'm pretty neutral about it, aside from overly-religious family members reminding me that I have to go to church because they made me opt into a religion I no longer profess and they consider that a lifetime agreement. :P

Ardaniel

Redheaded Swordfighting Crypto-Vuawzy'k Usual Suspect

Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

Hee hee, I like Christmas because I don't experience any of the shopping problems or Christmas Music (I tend to pick things up when I see them in June or something) and I always get underwear and socks. Just what I need!

Seriously, January is much, much worse. I always sleep through about half of it (and I normally have serious insomnia).

Edit--->Should Christmas Music be Christmas Muzak?

	Craig "Waking up Now" Perko Lost in my own maze. Confused but not concerned. Confused but not concerned.

Oh... there is something horribly wrong with me, all right. I know how you feel, Gryph, though in my case it usually breaks about a week to a couple of days before christmas so at least I don't have to put up with everyone else getting down on me for being down. That's gotta be the most irritating thing about my condition... people don't understand that things like this happen, and I just am not capable of feeling happy happy joy joy about ANYTHING until it breaks.

GAAAHH. I should have knowed. Yesterday was ok... but now I'm in the middle of a 3 way fight (pretty much broke out as I was in the process of writing this.) Why is it mothers in law just can't get along???

___________________

Of COURSE you wern't expecting it!! NO ONE expects the Fannish Inquisition!!
EPU RCW #86

Hmm, why not celebrate Hannukah. That way if anyone bugs you, you can say "I'm in mourning for the Greeks". For some reason that confuses people. And then you can talk about Judith and people start to leave you alone...

t.
heh...never guess what religion I am....

Trigger Argee
trigger_argee@hotmail.com
Manon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

Trigger Argee
Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

Offsides

Unemployed netadmin seeking job... so what else is new?
EPU RCW #π
#include <religion.h>

#91;...#93; in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.
-- David Ben Gurion
EPU RCW #pi;
#include <stdsig.h>

>home all the time that If You Don't Find This Time of Year Joyful,
>There's Something Horribly Wrong With You.

OOOOOH! ME! ME!

I don't hate Christmas. I like the gift part, just not the obsessive, compulsive, oh-look-its-christmas-and-me-must-do-this-stupid-thing bit.

I have determined since family has forced me (trust me, they used force) to celebrate on the 25th of december by spending lots of hard earned cash on stuff they won't use in 2 days, that I'm going to make _them_ celebrate any holiday I think is worth celebrating such as:

New Years (with big explosions)
Chinese New Year
Valentines Day (I send those cheese cards from 2nd grade with obscure stuff like "Tempest Fugit", "You're so Kawaiiakune!" or "Happy Evil Day!" written on them. Have you seen how garish they are now?)
Purim (oooh, you should see the cards! Very nice ones with a guys' head on a platter)
Pesach (my favorite holiday, probably 'cause I'm a violent girl)
The day Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese
All their birthdays (with the right ages and such)
The death of Hitler (pisses sister off)
Cinco de Mayo
The Emancipation Procaimation (pisses mom off again)
Memorial Day (I drag everyone to the cemetary)
The Fourth of July
Bastile Day (please french grandmother)
August (everyone hates August)
Columbus Day (if only to rant about the deaths of my Mexican ancestors)
Dia de la independencia de Mexico (must see parade!)
Yom Kippur
All their aniversaries (usually makes someone mad)
Labor Day (by going to the Minnesota state fair)
Veterans Day (makes dad angry - he doesn't like to remember he fought a war)
Thanksgiving (cooking!)
Pearl Harbor
Eid Mubarak (ha! ever send Eid cards to your non-Muslim relatives?)

I do this with 1) a card, 2) a ranting email, 3) a phone call and 4) refusing to wish anyone Merry Christmas. Do you know what this does to the Christians in my family <chortle>.

I suppose this is more than annoying. OK, it's very annoying, but damn it, if they're going to make me fly cross country in the middle of winter and wake me up early on a day off, they're going to pay.

Oh, that and I _don't_ buy expensive x-mas presents. Only 1 expensive present a year and that on their birthday. Thank god the SO is a cheapskate when it comes to gifts.

Next year, everyone gets a knitted scarf or hat in a color I think is cute. <evil grin> They are doomed....

>(On a tangent, does anyone else get that feeling of unreasonable anger
>when you're just trying to go to the mall in, say, the second week of
>December to get something you need for the house or something, and you
>can't park because of all the Christmas shoppers? I always get really
>torqued off, knowing it's stupid all the while, and wishing that there
>was a special parking section for "people who would be here anyway".)

Yes. I have not shopped at a mall in 3 years due to this. I don't feel like I'm missing a thing...

t.
what me, bitter?

Trigger Argee
trigger_argee@hotmail.com
Manon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

Trigger Argee
Manon, Maccadon, Orado, etc.
Denton, never leave home without it.

How do you know when that was? Even the Soviets have never admitted... :)

(Now, if you really want to tick people off, you could celebrate Führertag... )

>Veterans Day (makes dad angry - he doesn't like to remember he fought
>a war)

Irritate young people; insist on calling it by its proper name, Armistice Day. Ask groups who knows what armistice it celebrates. Revel in the irony of the War to End War.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

I'm 26, and I have never, ever been in a relationship on Valentine's Day. On a good year, I get into a mild funk. On a bad year, I confine myself as much as possible to avoid triggering a murderous rage.

It doesn't help that I'm a hopeless, incurable romantic who'd very much like to enjoy Valentine's Day, but that the fates seem bound and determined to drive me to hate it.

>I also don't like Christmas, but a lot of people look at me like I
>just killed their puppy when I say that.

I used to enjoy Christmas. When I was little, it meant lots of toys and stuff. Later on, it meant going to see family that I rarely, if ever, saw any other time of year. Thanksgiving was also kind of like that; my mother was very good at keeping up the holiday spirit. Then, after burning out of college, I went from one job to another that kept me from spending holidays in a pleasant manner, first by restricting, and then altogether eliminating, familial contact during the holidays. Holidays 2K were the worst; while I love my old roommates dearly, they aren't the same as my family, especially after a rather disastrous attempt at Christmas togetherness with part of their family.

Then, right after that (couple of days after New Year's, a couple of days before her 56th birthday), my mother died, and I'm still reeling from that one. Spent this past Thanksgiving and Christmas with my father and sisters and niece and nephew, and it was enormously depressing. And because my car was in the shop, there wasn't anything I could do about it.

I think it's going to be a long time before holidays feel anything like holidays

-- Sean --
Rabid Crack Weasel #42
http://www.thebrokenlink.org The Broken Link 4.0 is live!
"All tribal myths are true, for a given value of 'true'." -- Terry Pratchett
Follow my random thoughts
Follow my creative process

"Only follow the rules that make sense."

I only sort-of celebrate Halloween; of late, it's always been overshadowed by my Samhain observance.

-- Sean --
Rabid Crack Weasel #42
http://www.thebrokenlink.org The Broken Link 4.0 is live!
"All tribal myths are true, for a given value of 'true'." -- Terry Pratchett
Follow my random thoughts
Follow my creative process

>Hell, we're on a roll. Howabout Halloween?

Heh. I had Coke-bottle glasses from age 1.5 until very recently. Only kid in my neighborhood who had that issue...

Why I even bothered with a Halloween costume, I don't know. Every one of my neighbors knew exactly who it was. It's really hard to conceal your identity with an ill-fit plasticky mask bowed out at your temples to accomodate the span of your huge glasses. Never even mind the "falling up neighbors' stairs because you've fogged your lenses under said plasticky mask" part. :)

The year I said "hell with it" and got a foam-lined mask and toughed it out without my glasses and with a wig to conceal the three-foot red ponytail, not one of my neighbors could figure out who the hell it was. Small vindication. ;)

Ardaniel

Redheaded Swordfighting Crypto-Vuawzy'k Usual Suspect

Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

Our annual over-the-top, decadent Halloween party at work got cancelled last year because of the terrorist nonsense--security concerns in general, and at the time the warnings to all the studios were still fresh. I was bummed. The year before included an amazing 12' tall articulated Iron Giant costume, a frighteningly accurate Johnny Depp-as-Hunter S. Thompson complete with attending Vegas cigarette girl, and the woman who used to work there that also did amature women's wrestling on the side done up in a bodystocking and painted to look like a stone gargoyle.

Oh, and about 8 guys as the LA Lakers a la Fletch, i.e. all terribly white with oversize afro wigs on. Someone was actually quick enough to announce them as they entered ("Ladies and Gentlemen! Yourrrrrrrrr Los Angeles LAKERSSSSS!!!!"), causing the crowd to part while they all entered at once dribbling basketballs. I broke pretty hard at that.

Maybe this year.

	Chad Collier Digital Bitch J. Random VFX Company RCW #1138

They do, and they use it; you're not the first to think of it. As per the Rev. Ivan Stang's usage:

"how many satanists do you know that weren't xtians?  none of them!
so by their  very own logic, xtianity should be outlawed 
because it only leads to satanism!"

-- Bob
(Proud member of the Legion of Rabid Crack Weasels)
---------------
Years ago, when trying to invoke the mysterious forces of the universe, you said, "Abracadabra." Today you say, "Hello, tech support?" -- Cecil Adams

Never would've claimed I did, even if it looked that way. There are billions of people on this planet at any given moment, and it's been that way for ages. I seriously doubt there's -anything- that hasn't been thought of. The trick, is getting it into other people's conciousness. All the communication tech we have these days makes it easier, while the "new" ideas that it helps to spread makes it constantly harder.

TRB

The Most Uncreative Soldier
In the Crack Weasel
Army

"You are... what you do... when it counts." -The Masao

Hate it, no. Find it annoying, yes.

> Aye, that I do. I was at work on V-Day, and I kept
>having people say, "Happy Valentines Day," to me. It was
>really starting to piss me off. IMO Valentines Day is a
>day ONLY for yourself and your significant other, and I
>don't HAVE a significant other! It was one of the most
>annoying work day's I've had recently.

Then come live in .az.us where statehood day just happens to be on Feb. 14.

Heh, gotta love people when they go 'huh?' in response to "Happy Statehood Day!"
--
Andrew Carr