happy fesitvus

so, today is officially festivus. i kind of like the idea of ending a celebration by wrestling. i was never a wrestler, but the ends of parties are getting lame. people yawn, look at their watches, and protest that the time has "snuck up" on them. then, everyone hugs/shakes hands/etc. and the departing party goer exits. usually, through the front door. where their shoes were kept. next to the closet with their jacket. snore.

anyway, i think it would be completely antithetical to common party-ending malaise if someone had to first pin me down before they were excused. of course, people would be more than willing to give me a toss after i invoked the spirit of festivus by airing my many grievances. in our many conversations we have with friends and loved ones, a great number of topics are discussed. aside from the occasional father who lives vicariously through his teen son's varsity sporting, we americans rarely touch on the subject of "dissapointment". festivus demands we confront our many dissapointments we have in others. beautiful. all this, of course, takes place in a room adorned with... an aluminum pole. awesome.

so, tomorrow is christmas eve, and i think i am finished with my shopping/gift making. i now have plenty of time to be merry and watch my minnesota vikings team take on the packers, where i am sure they will manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. fortunately, i think football is a fairly silly sport, so a vikings loss won't result in my popping too many prozac. the rules are ridiculous and far too subjective. i think men like football because it gives them a momentary sense of being tough. cubicles by weekday, warrior by weekend. somehow, cheering for very large and grotesquely barbaric sportsmen makes one a tough guy. i also think people like to swear at refs.

merry chritmakwannikuh to all! god bless us, everyone! (except all of you who hate baby jesus in a manger and want to continue with the oppression of christians through your attempts to remove the word "christmas" from all shopping malls, department stores and government buildings. you can all burn in h-e-l-l. it is of the utmost importance that we remember the birth of christ by reading the words "merry christmas" everywhere we go to consume cheap products made by poor, chinese workers).

it gets dark way too early

i suppose the short days in minnesota are payback for the long ones in the summer. i remember camping and hiking at 9:00 pm, and there was still sunlight. when i went to the boundary waters this past summer, i wasn't able to keep my eyes open long enough to see the stars. now, i wish the moon really was made of cheese. that way, i could eat the bastard and be done with him.

i remember...
fisherman a: "should we reel in and turn the boat around? it's already 8:00.?"
fisherman b: "heck no! we still have an hour and a half of til sundown!"

ok. so that conversation never happened. mosquitos turn the boat around. rain can turn the boat around. promises to significant others can sometimes turn the boat around. but i don't think the lack of sunlight has ever really been the cause to turn the boat around. (this brings up another notion: how exactly is one "turning the boat around" when fishing, especially on a lake? it isn't like one fishes in a given direction, and then goes back the same way when they are finished. whatever).

yadda yadda. so, there are no 9:00 hikes now. it totally sucks to go home from work in the dark. i feel like it's midnight at, like, 7:00. that could be 7:00 am or pm. both are cold and dark. winter sucks.

but, heh! at least december has the holiday season! friggin yippee. i get way too pissy this time of year. the only time i ever get "politically correct" is when i go see The Christmas Carol. i feel like society needs to be more accepting of fiscally concerned, holiday-cheer oppositionists.

i decided to google christmas. the first listing was THIS site. i find it odd that someone has the license to christmas. this particular group has decided christmas is best celebrated by downloading festive screen savers. alas, i suppose everyone had the same opportunity to grab the url. it appears that those who love baby-jesus-in-a-manger were a little slow with the whole "internet" thing. whatever. i don't know what i was expecting. perhaps something that imbued me with a sense of christmas cheer, and distain for scrooge. humbug.

bambi redux

gregdeer2
Originally uploaded by ismist1.

so, i thought a cute post on my pumpkin from halloween would be best followed up with a photo of me a and a deceased odocoileus virginanus. personally, i think the family name of virginanus is, perhaps, the funniest thing i have ever read. seriously though. you can't make this stuff up. i am sure there is some etymologist out there with his/her undies in a bunch because, to them, virginanus is quite logical. to me, having spent most of my formative years watching ren and stimpy, virginanus is, and always will be, hillarious.

anyway, i shot this buck on a farm near benson minnesota. for all of you booze hounds out there, benson minnesota is the hometown of the top shelf vodka, shakers. yummy. shaken, not stirred. then again, i prefer gin martinis. mmmmm... martinis and venison...

jack-O-Lantern2

jack-O-Lantern2
Originally uploaded by ismist1.

this is a random test of the photo-adding system. this picture is ridiculous. it is my jack-o-lantern from this halloween. halloween rules!

windshield wipers

so, i think my windshield wipers suck. i must admit, i haven't had them replaced since i got the car six years ago. one of the rubber strips from one of the wipers is no longer attached to the blade, and it sort of wisps around, swirling the condensation without actually clearing it. that sucks. to make matters worse, my defrost doesn't work. not really well, anyway. to top it all off, i am out of fluid, and it will take at least two months of my being pissed off at that fact to motivate me to do something about it (i.e. spend two dollars and five minutes refilling the resevoir).

but more than that, the wiper settings on my car are a total engineering error. the average "wipes-per-minute" disparity between the three settings is alarming. i was sitting behind an suv this morning, trying desperately to mimic the rate at which his/her wipers were wiping. futile. my cars wipers suck. my car, like most, has three settings; high, low, and the one where you get to adjust the wipe rate from "occasionally" to "once-in-a-while". only, on my car, the third option is more like "once-in-a-while" to "is-this-thing-on?". the difference in wipe rate between my "low" setting and my "once-in-a-blue-moon" setting is intolerable. like goldeylocks, i need something in the middle. perhaps i can carjack that little bear. i bet he's driving by now.

sisters in new zealand

my two sisters have decided to give new zealand a shot. i told them things weren't all that bad here, and they should give the old "you ess of aye" another shot. alas, my advice was of no influence, so off they go.

actually, they are only going for year, and i practically chased them off this sinking ship. run, my little rats. swim for the shore.

good luck polly and jeannie. stay away from the sharks and jellyfish. i think i saw something about them on dateline.

Hah! First post!

this is great! it validates everything. like some kinda descartes, "i blog therefore i am a blogger" thing. or perhaps it is more of a forest gump, "blogger is as blogger does". not sure. never really read much descartes... can't stand forest gump... whatever. blog backwards is golb.

anyway, this should be interesting.