goddess of clarity: a blog about politics, culture, and serenity
Archive: November 15 - November 30, 2005
November 30, 2005 — 20:45 EST
Christmas Factoid #3
41 years: How long Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has aired on TV, making it the longest-running Christmas television special. It's worth noting that when the show first aired in 1964, it was part of an ad campaign for General Electric. Not sure how that worked. "Make her Christmas brighter than Rudolph's nose with the latest Sensi-Temp Electric Range from GE! Available in white, pink, tan, and cerulean blue."
Still, I'm a sucker for a misfit elf, corporate masters or no.
—lori.
November 29, 2005 — 17:00 EST
Christmas Factoid #2
9,277 — Number of Xbox 360s for sale on Ebay right this second.
$399.95 — Suggested retail price.
$900 — Price one just sold for less than one minute ago.
Way to go, holiday shoppers! Just when I thought Christmas could not get more crass and profit-oriented, you prove me wrong yet again. It should do your heart good to know that the hours you spent pushing and shoving your way through the Best Buys and Wal-Marts of this great land over the Thanksgiving weekend did not go to waste.
All I want is what's coming to me. All I want is my fair share.
--Lucy in A Charlie Brown Christmas
—lori.
November 28, 2005 — 21:26 EST
Christmas Factoid #1
6,000: Number of lighted lawn deer sold this season by Philadelphia's Brite Star Manufacturing Co.
—lori.
November 24, 2005 — 21:26 EST
Happy Thanksgiving from the Goddess Family!
—lori.
November 22, 2005 — 13:14 EST
Mr. Goddess just sent me this link as a reminder that it was 15 years ago today that Margaret Thatcher resigned as British prime minister. That date is significant for another reason. It also marks the 15th anniversary of our first date: Thanksgiving, 1990.
Jesus, 15 years?! How do these things happen?! Wasn't it just last Wednesday that we were kissing in the rain in George Square, waiting for the night bus to gather up Glasgow's drunk, happy souls? Have I been sleeping all this time?
Though it may feel like hardly any time has passed at all, a lot of shit has happened in 15 years! Looking back to the world in the fall of 1990:
- DVDs did not exist yet; the first DVD players and movies weren't available until 1997!
- There was exactly one Web site in the world, and it was owned by Tim Berners-Lee.
- Nelson Mandela had just been released from prison that spring.
- The first Gulf War hadn't even started yet.
- Home Alone, starring that annoying Macaulay Culkin, ruled the holiday box office.
Thanksgiving 1990 itself was a fairly memorable occasion all round. The international office at Glasgow Caledonian University threw a party for the American exchange students and we were each allowed to bring one guest. I was paired up with Mr. Goddess, and that's pretty much been the state of affairs ever since.
The menu was fairly memorable as well. The secretary for the international office (whose name, unfortunately, is now lost to me, but she was the nicest secretary in the history of secretaries) asked me and a friend to come up with a menu for a "typical American Thanksgiving." Naturally, we included pumpkin pie on the list, and Greg also added "warm cider."
Now, the Scots aren't really known for their pumpkin pie. Pumpkins are a bit thin on the ground in Scotland; if we'd asked for mince pies, we'd have been laughin'. But this nice lady was not to be deterred. She called a friend in Edinburgh and managed to track down a couple of real, live pumpkins, then took the hour-long train ride out of Glasgow to pick them up. Not knowing what to make of these pumpkins once she got them home (and not being able to Google "pumpkin pie" as Google was not yet a company much less a verb), she did the next best thing. She baked a yellow sponge cake with chunks of raw, unsweetened pumpkin folded into the batter. It was as foul as it sounds. It was only affection for this secretary (plus lashings of custard) that allowed us to muscle it down.
Rounding out the dessert course that night was the "warm cider," which consisted of several two-liter bottles of Strongbow poured into a slow cooker and heated into a flat, tepid swill. The whole dining room reeked of it. I can just imagine the conversation among the caterers:
"Surely they don't want warm cider!"
"That's what it says here."
"Well, they are Americans. They like their lager cold; maybe they like their cider warm."
"Takes all kinds, don't it."
—lori.
UPDATE: Mr. Goddess informs me that The Nicest Secretary in the World was named Diane. Thanks for the pie, Diane, wherever you are!
November 21, 2005 — 16:29 EST
Parade of Crappy Christmas Lights
What with the gorgeous weather we had over the weekend, I'm sure the more festive among us were busy as little elves, and there will be plenty of crappy Christmas displays on view as I drive home through the neighborhoods of Rochester tonight.
But I hope I don't spot anything as vile as this. This is just wrong.
(Click picture for video clip; originally seen in Engadget)
—lori.
November 18, 2005 — 23:05 EST
Overheard in Rochester: Everyone's a Critic
Where: Tinseltown lobby
13-year-old girl wearing a belly tee on a 30° night: Harry Potter needs new hair.
Her similarly clad friend: Totally.
—lori.
November 17, 2005 — 15:23 EST
Is it possible that someone at The Daily Show is reading my blog? Could it be true? Oh, dream of dreams!
Actually, I doubt it. But I was nonetheless very excited to see the "Bush Haiku" they featured from the president's trip to Japan. Perhaps I've started a trend. Perhaps you'd like to play along and submit your own President Bush Haiku. It's quite easy really; the man speaks in short sentences.
—lori.