Happy New Years!
Well, technically New Year's Eve, but today is the day everyone celebrates the new year anyway. Or is it the old year that is being celebrated? Either way, I hope you had a wonderful 2008, and are ready for an even better 2009!
Cheers.
I swear I'm not a lucky person. But then again, I've had a really good week.
I just won a $50 Electronics Gift Card from Nabisco. I persistently entered that little code on the bottom of my Wheat Thins box into the online interface, I clicked on a gift, and voila!, I got a message saying that I've won. Yay.
And to think; I've always scoffed at these sorts of contests. If you have a Nabisco box sitting around, there are still 2 more days to enter if you want try your hand at luck. See the Magical Crackers.
Finally my fondness for Wheat Thins has paid off, literally.
When I went to the shore this Thanksgiving, I took my camera along to snap some photographs of the ocean waves cascading over the pier rocks. On the first walk we took down the boardwalk, I put said camera inside my knit hat for easier carrying. Unfortunately, the camera fell out of my hat and onto the ground. Bleh. It never turned back on again. It had been acting up earlier, but I'm fairly certain I pulled its last straw by throwing it on the ground. It had been well loved and well traveled. I will miss you good friend.
In brighter news, however, I spent my Christmas money on a new camera, so now I can resume my usual photographing happiness. A month without my own camera was a miserable existence.
I decided to stick with Canon since I was very pleased with my last camera, and can I just say, I LOVE my new Canon A1000? I opted for the brushed bronze color since the plum isn't exactly the prettiest shade of purple. It has a ridiculous 10 megapixels that could potentially make prints the size of poster murals. Craziness. Plus there's a 4X optical zoom and its macro option is way better than my last one. See my Christmas nails? The red glitter appears quite close.
Sorry, I will stop reveling in my new camera joy. My attention must now be turned to crafting a carrying case, so I don't end up throwing this one on the ground too.
The Overprivileged Children's Fund
This holiday season, help where you are needed most. Upgrade little Sammy's iPod. 16 Gigs is never enough. American children are suffering.
Men, I hope you stayed out of the doghouse this Christmas by remembering to never get your special lady a vacuum cleaner, blender, toaster, mop, washing machine, ironing board, crock pot, mixer, pots, pans, feather duster, and well, you get the idea--anything used for cleaning, cooking, washing, or commonly associated with any type of menial household chore. The more practical the present, the more likely a disaster waiting to happen.
JC Penny's bewareofthedoghouse campaign seemed to create a buzz in the blogosphere. Watch the linked video. I think it's funny; but to be fair, a tad sexist as well. Women are never exactly exiled to the doghouse when they give a bad present.
Although, giving a man a typically masculinized useful product (like tools for example) does not work to reaffirm contested gender roles. Most men are fine with the assumption that they like hammers (and therefore fixing or building things) as a collective group. Most women, however, are not fine with the assumption that they like vacuum cleaners (and therefore cleaning things) as a collective, because they've been unduly confined to this role for centuries past.
Therefore, my response to the JC Penny's ad is this: Men shouldn't get all the heat for poor gift giving attempts, but at the same time, men should know better than to give "gifts" that make women feel like domestic slaves. It's just common sense my friends. 
Gender roles aside though, the best bet for a successful gift is one that is tailored to the individual. If your wife/girlfriend hints she wants a blender for Christmas, it might (and I say might quite purposefully) be okay to forgo the diamond earrings you were going to get her and go for the blender she requested instead. Gifts that indicate you've paid attention (commonly known as 'gifts from the heart') always go farther than gimmicky ones that TV commercials tell you must get.
That said, I think it's funny that my dad got my mom a pink sapphire ring. I wrote this post even before I saw her present. My dad is a smart man, smart man.
Don't forget to track Santa on Google Earth as he brings all the children of the world their presents. Santa must be real, he's on Google Earth
No matter what Santa brings you though, Merry Christmas! May your holiday be filled with joy and happiness and love.
My pastor had an awesome sermon on Sunday about how Christians have become overrun by materialism and greed especially at Christmastime. I couldn't agree more, and unfortunately I think we all (myself included) fall captive to these sorts of sentiments in our American celebration of the holiday season. We have let consumerism rob us of the joy of Christmas. Take for example the plastic pony commercial. 
A girl gets a real pony as a child. Her friend gets a plastic pony. The friend gets jealous when she sees the other girl's real pony. What good is a plastic pony when your friend has a real one? 20 years later the spoiled girl gets a Lexus in her driveway. Those same old feelings of superiority gush back in.
What a moral. Treat yourself to the best. Outshine your friends. What has happened to us? Where have our relationships gone? As my pastor said, contentment is elusive--a present tense concept. We need to find it, keep it, and garner it. If there is anybody who should be content, it should be us.
The BK does it again.
Burger King wins the creepiest-marketing-campaign-ever award for the third time. First it was the King. Then the Subservient Chicken. Now its' a naked King trying to sell meat scented body spray. No really. I'm not lying. 
You can see it for yourself here. Or read about it on Yahoo.
Burger King Corp. may have just the thing. The home of the Whopper has launched a new men's body spray called "Flame." The company describes the spray as "the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat."Ewwww. I think I just vomited a little in my mouth. Those hand gestures by the King are just a bit too suggestive for me.
The fragrance is on sale at New York City retailer Ricky's NYC in stores and online for a limited time for $3.99.
Burger King is marketing the product through a Web site featuring a photo of its King character reclining fireside and naked but for an animal fur strategically placed to not offend.
Happy Birthday Moonlight Masquerade!
It's been a good 4 years.
Here's to many more in the future!
Improper netiquette (that's Network Etiquette for all you living under a rock) can be really annoying. Sometimes I get perturbed when an email starts off, "hey u" and other times I feel like it's completely appropriate. It's hard for me to articulate when it's okay to write in text talk and when it's not. In professional communication, it's obviously unacceptable, but where to you draw the line with friendly emails?
Also, how do you sign your emails? You want them to be warm, but not too chatty; pleasant but not over the top. I find it frustrating to always be thinking of new ways to sign emails. I used "Thank you" for a long time, but that one bothered me, because it's not always appropriate to say thank you unless someone in someway deserves a thank you. It seems weird to say, "Hi, how are you? yaddah yaddah. Thank you."
Then I used "Take care" for awhile, but then I noticed that several of the people converse with via email regularly use that exact phrase and you can never respond with same catch phrase. Plus, I don't want to be the copy cat that steals email signatures. This leaves me in a predicament. What other salutations are left? Sincerely is too formal. Best is too short. What's left out there in email-sign-off-phrases land?
