sweasel.com

Nashville! Oh! or Nashville, OH?

If the latter, I wish I would have stocked up on bunny hind-quarters…but you are still invited to Pupsterville for turkey sandwiches.

Weasel – drive carefully. There be assholes in abundance out there. Its shopping season, and you know what that does to some people.

Off topic, but:

Went to see Stephen King’s The Mist. For SK aficionados I will say: The flick follows the book perfectly – line for line most of the time – in every important respect except for the last five minutes.

Since SK said anyone who spoils the ending should be taken out and hanged, I will refrain from saying more other than that the ending is a slight improvement over the original one. IMHO, of course.

I think this is the first time I have EVER approved of a Hollywood ending change for a story. I’m only approving this one because I always hated the original ending.

But – like a lot of SK’s writing – the dialog in the written story really doesn’t translate well to a visual medium. SK characters almost always seem stilted or artificial when “seen” on the big screen. The Mist was magnificent in print.

‘Twas the day after Thanksgiving and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring – all the men were still soused.
The girls had all gone shopping – left at six a.m. in the car
In hopes that the mall had become an exotic discount-bazaar
The children were still all nestled snug in their beds,
And memories of warm pecan pie still danced in their heads;

But mom had stayed home in her ‘jammies with me in my t-shirt ,
And we’d just gotten out of bed for coffee and left-over dessert
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I jumped up from the table to see what the Hell was the matter.
Away from the kitchen I flew like a flash,
Tore open the front door and stumbled over the trash.

And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than tax-men his agents they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, Macy’s! now, Target! now, Wal-Mart and Borders!
On, Saks! On Niemen’s! On Tiffany’s and Mail Orders!
Now open their purses! And empty their wallets!
Take their cash away! Cash away! Take their cash away, all of it!”

And out the TV leaped Santa’s ‘lil helpers, first just a few and then many
As I put my hand in my pocket, and tried to guard my last penny,

But out of the house – all our money then flew,
Even the jar full of coins, and all the credit cards too!

St Nick was all dressed in fine furs, from a mink hat to fur boots,
And his pockets were stuffed with much cash and much loot;
A bundle of cheap toys had been flung on our floor,
And Santa stood like a cheap peddler with his foot in our door.
His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

A green rolled-up Hundred he held tight in his teeth,
And as he smoked it the smoke encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly Swiss Banking elf,
And I trembled when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had much, much! to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And emptied our 401k and sold all our stocks; that mean jerk,
And waving his middle finger in front of my nose,
He wrote up a 12 percent equity loan and I knew I was hosed.
He then sprang to his sleigh, to his banking team gave a whistle,
And when they left my financial worth was piss-all.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Go Christmas Shopping again, ya’all !
Make the economy bright!

Nice one, Lokki.

My company is in retail and one of our stores did a million dollars in sales yesterday. That’s one store for anyone who is counting.

I read the other day that – contrary to my impression – Black Friday (yesterday) is not the top revenue-producing day of the year. That day is actually something like the last Saturday before Christmas day, or the 23rd when xmas day is on a weekend. Or whatever.

Can you confirm or dispute, Lokki?

Steamboat, I’m not a retailer personally ( I’m part of the overhead expense of doing business) so I can’t say that for sure. I just got that info from a friend. I’ll see what I can find out. Given that half the population is male, it would make sense to me that the biggest shopping day comes at the last moment. That’s MY preference anyhow….

My preference, too. I shop as little, fast, and locally as possible – when I shop at all. I find that cash works quite well for a gift – teen grand-nieces & nephews just love me, the greedy delinquents.

I mean – think about it. I(?) am supposed to pick out a gift for a 16-year old ‘Merican city-bred teenybopper niece in the year 2007? Hah! Why not ask me to perform brain surgery, too.

Cash works.

I’d read that Black Friday thing over at GeekPress, I think. Haven’t the foggiest clue as to whether its accurate. Don’t bust a gut or anything on my query. Idle question. Thought you might know off the top of your noggin.

My wife and I send each other wish lists, and do all of our xmas shopping on the InnerTube. We decided one year to not exchange gifts (no kids), and that was, surprisingly, an abject failure. Now, even new socks is fun to unwrap xmas morning.

Weasel, now that it’s all over and you’re out of the stupid and uncomfortable dress, I think that you will have to admit that Thanksgiving is really the best of all possible holidays. Sure Uncle Eddie drinks too much and pinches your bottom, and Aunt Hazel is crazier than a clown car full of loons, but there is still something special about the day. The gathering of family and friends, and that one abandoned waif that attends every Thanksgiving dinner – the one who is too new to really have friends in town and can’t afford to fly home to family – there’s a special magic there. Even Christmas can’t compare.

The weather is usually appropriately cold and nasty enough to make the house feel snug, if a little overcrowded. The kids are usually noisy and whiny, but eventually always find some corner and play quietly – especially if Grandpa slips the boys a little John Paul Jones in their cokes, like my Grandpa used to.

And the food! Oh the food…..Is there ever a better meal any time of the year than Thanksgiving? It takes a big group to justify the kind of cooking that makes a Thanksgiving feast.

The Lokki’s had planned a quiet dinner for two , but Mrs Lokki discovered that her office full of Japanese (sent here on three year tours by their companies)had no invitations for Thanksgiving dinner. Having been an abandoned waif for Thanksgiving myself a few times in my younger years, I determined to uphold America’s honored Thanksgiving tradition that no one should eat alone on that day.

Lokki marched into the kitchen and prepared (all fresh and from scratch): A turkey, a ham, smoked trout, sausage and apple dressing, home-made turkey gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic’d brussel sprouts, green beans with basil and tomato, baked acorn squash with maple syrup, summer squash and zuchinni in butter and spices, roast buttered corn cut from the cob, cranberry relish with orange, date-nut bread, baked appple with maple syrup apple pie, pumpkin pie, and a Black Forest cherry pie (where the bottom crust is lined with a layer of dark chocolate. Lokki got very little sleep in the 12 hours before dinner was served, but had a great deal of pleasure in the cooking.

Such a meal is not possible for only two people and a real Thanksgiving is not possible without such a meal. You need family and friends to help you eat it and to help you appreciate what a good year it really has been despite the ups and downs that every calendar includes in the package.

As Tiny Tim said, God Bless us every one!

The preceding was a paid announcement sponsored by the American Turkey Marketing Association; the author is a paid re-enactor; actual events may have been enhanced for dramatic effect.

A very Japanese Thanksgiving, eh Lokki? Did you make them drink beer and watch the game afterwards? Because that would be pretty sweet.

We had a brunch buffet thing, because my assorted brothers had other places to be for turkey in the afternoon.

Weasel, We did drink beer, and whiskey, and martini’s too since somebody brought us a bottle of Hendrick’s gin. And we watched the Cowboys deliver a nice Thanksgiving stomping to the Jets while we drank. The boys had a wonderful time explaining the nuances of American Futoballu to the girls. The celebration over the victory required coffee, Cherry pie with whipped cream and ice cream and various liquours… We drank till about 11 pm and then (I suppose I shouldn’t mention this or I’ll get lectured by someone) they all got to try that other famous American sport drunk-driving. Fortunately, nobody lives more than about 5 miles from our place….so all got home safe.

All in all, an excellent day. And as of breakfast this morning all the ham is gone. There was just enough turkey left for sandwichs with mayonnaise yesterday.

Heh. I like the mental picture.

I totally missed out on the sports gene somehow and I’ve never gotten the fine points of football down, but I did enjoy sitting with my dad watching Arkansas beat LSU (he’s got no truck with Arkansas, but he thought LSU was overrated and so was rooting for them to lose — which they did in double or triple overtime).

I was really impressed with that video graphic thing they do, where they superimpose lines and stats directly onto the turf as if it’s painted there, and players moving over it in real time appear on top of it. Anybody know how they do that? I’m guessing it’s a chroma-key thing with the green of the turf. So, wherever there’s green, there’s graphic…wherever there’s not, it’s masked away. My dad couldn’t think of any teams who wore green uniforms, so that would work.

The Baylor Bears wear green. I only know because I went to high school in Waco.

Catching up on my bloggery. Did everyone see this posted at Ace’s?
Seems the San Fransisco Chronicle web site (among others) has worked out a neat trick: if they don’t like a comment you leave, they’ll biff it — but you’ll never know it. You will continue to see your comment as if it’s there, but nobody else will. In some places, users get on a blacklist and all their comments are auto-banned, but they don’t know it. It’s cookie based, of course.

The Left: squelching speech since…whenever they have the power to.

More fool anyone who leaves cookies on their machine!

There’s a special place in hell reserved for the little bastiche that invented cookies…

I’ve been following the SF Chron thingy since yesterday. It’s disgusting. There have been some really good posts over at the link you posted above. Likewise, the post at Aces ( http://minx.cc/?post=247484 ) has several good comments.

LGF also had a post about the specific technique involved. He turned on the effect over there just so folks could play with it. Seems if you run blogspot or wordpress its dirt-simple to instantiate the function in the templates. Or its already there – just deactivated. I forget. I had a beer with lunch. Well, two. But…you see….there were two sandwiches there…

Lokki, it sounds like you had the best TG of all. And you stood fast, stiffened the ol’ upper lip, changed your plans, and did ‘Merica proud with respect to your honored guests!

I seem to recall you entertaining a large group a while back, and expending no small amount of effort doing so. July, perhaps?

C’mon – admit it. You love it.

I really enjoyed the poem to kick off the shopping season, and tonight I noticed that my neighborhood is filled with the most garish Christmas junk you have ever seen. Those blow up yard ornaments are an absolute embarrassement, why does no one else in my quiet suburban neighborhood see that? Am I really surrounded by such retards? Oh god.

Lokki,
Your Thanksgiving sounded wonderful! How did your guests like it? Did you give them a history lesson too?

It’s really fun because they really don’t know the history – or the food. ( And yes, Mcgoo, we do up the 4th of July as well).
So I get to tell them how the first year the pilgrims starved and died (I have them eating tree bark, you know) and the second year they worked and made friends with the indians. Then they eat the first turkey, and deer and lobster. Of course this starts the tradition that at Thanksgiving, you must have too much food and it’s required that you invite anyone who doesn’t have family with whom to eat the feast. Given my Japanese skills, if you want the right flavor, imagine Tarzan telling this story. In it’s own peculiar way, that adds something, I think, since their imaginations have to fill in the details.

As for the food, they really loved it. Recall that they only get restaurant American food, and so they think it’s all eight kinds of cheese on something greasy. There’s a bit of pride in redeeming the honor of American food.
There’s an added bonus in the fact that a 15 pound ham is the biggest single hunk of meat that any of them has ever seen and even a 12 pound turkey looks pretty impressive when it comes out of the oven, golden brown. I used my great grandfather’s carving set and of course had to ask who the oldest person was, as tradition says that that person carves the turkey. One of the Japanese guys got to saw up the turkey. He had a great time Interestingly enough,one of the biggest hits was the cranberry relish… one of them had had some quivering round canned stuff somewhere and warned the others how ‘orrible it was. Well, the real stuff made from berries brown sugar, and oranges was apparently a revelation. So, everyone took home what leftovers there were, and all the girls want cooking lessons.

So, we now have made a promise to have everyone come over and spend a day drinking and baking Christmas cookies, and fresh bread. That’ another American thing that seems to have entered Japanese folklore locally. You can bake your own fresh bread!

Anyhow fun with foreigners. For what it’s worth all of them have visas, by the way.

Oh dear, I’ve rambled on again. Good night all.

Lokki,
Well done, sir.

That weren’t rambling – it were fascinating.

Thank you, Lokki.

What’s wrong with eight kinds of cheese on something greasy? I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.

Homer: Mmmmmm… Sixty-four slices of American cheese. Sixty-four (chews)… Sixty-three (chews)… [cut to much later] Two (chewing slowly)… One…
Marge: Homer, have you been up all night eating cheese?
Homer: I think I’m blind…

Here’s a little something for Lokki
http://inventorspot.com/ten_bizarre_japanese_soft_drinks

Thank you Dawn~!

I see your soft drinks… and raise you…. Ice Cream~!
http://subversivewriter.wordpress.com/2007/08/08/japanese-ice-cream-flavors-squid-eel-goat-not-for-the-faint-of-heart/

Oh yeah!
http://www.fugly.com/view_video.php?viewkey=856321729a2f36734d1a

Bravo, Lokki. You make us proud.

Dawn –

I had to wait till I got home to get past the Corporate filters….

After seeing that video, I concede the game. You win. Please stop now, OK? I’m used to this stuff and that weirded ME out….. whew!