Paint Tomorrow Blue

If you’re a raging insomniac like me, you may find this video appealing. Watching it makes me sleepy.

zzzzzz….

I’ve never really been into New Year’s as a holiday.  Maybe it’s the combination of remembering the 12/31/99 fiasco (still!) and wishing I were just baby-sitting instead…but it seems that no matter what I do that night, I never have much fun at it.

And, resolutions? Meh. I empathize with but sort of resent the beginning-of-the-year gym crowd. Suddenly I’m fighting with strangers for an elliptical in front of the Fox News TV at 8:00 AM?  Nuh uh. Get in line, people–I attend this place sporadically all year! I think enough people had Friday as a holiday off work that the crowds were annoying. Almost at 4:45 p.m. weekday levels.

January 1 is a strange date to start or restart gym attendance in the Northeast, if you think about it. It’s freezing out there. Changing clothes and sneakers once inside is a pain, at least for me, and even on days that I go in for a quick workout, I’m dealing with a bulky coat. And go out in single-digit temperatures with shorts on? No no no no no!

I am so totally stoked that Consumerist was bought. And by Consumers Union, no less.

I’ve always been a fan of Consumer Reports; I subscribed to Zillions as a kid, which helped turn me into the cynical cheapskate savvy consumer you all know and love today.

I ran out of contact lenses a while ago, and had to go for an (expensive) contact lens exam and order my lenses for the year. I’ve been wearing contacts for over ten years now. I like the way that I look in glasses better, but I primarily wear contacts because I’m so nearsighted that my peripheral vision is terrible, and it’s hard to do things like merge on the highway or work from a newspaper spread out on my desk while wearing glasses.

Or maybe I’m just rationalizing because I really like to wear blue eyeshadow.

Anyway. My prescription didn’t change much, so I’ll be ordering contacts that reflect the change, but no new glasses for now. I’ve been thinking about ordering a backup pair online, though, since my old pair snapped in half and I’m constantly misplacing my current glasses. Even if I wore contacts full time, a girl’s got to see her way to the coffee machine in the morning.

Ordering glasses is sort of a new concept for me…I’ve been wearing them for more than twenty years, and it’s just something that I sort of take for granted that I’ll be spending $200 on glasses every year or two. It’s a necessity, if I want to not walk into things and be able to read.

Still…it’s fun to think that I could order something with rhinestones (do I have the personality to carry off rhinestone glasses? I wonder), or even festive holiday frames.

I like the shape and details of this red pair:

I’ll probably end up ordering those when I get a copy of my prescription.

This is my parents’ new apartment size tree.  I never ended up getting one for my house; it never really felt like Christmas so I didn’t see the point. I used to put my one-foot tree on top of the bookshelf, where I keep Steve the betta fish now, but I didn’t even get that out.

We gave the six-foot tree to the Salvation Army. That was a really nice artificial tree….I miss it, but it’s not like I have any place for it here, either.

That’s the same skirt we used with the six-foot trees. It goes better with this one.

Maggie joined me for the Doctor Who Christmas special. Isn’t she the best pet? She liked the big black cyberdoggies. I liked…well, a lot of things, but I’ll keep that under wraps until more people in this country have seen it.

Here’s the computer’s eye view of us. I look unusually shiny; she looks normally adorable.

I love and miss my Maggie.

Mom: Do you watch any TV when it’s actually on?
Me: Why would I want to do that? Then I’d have to watch commercials.

“There Are Much Worse Things To Believe In”
by David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger - performed by Elvis Costello and Stephen Colbert

There are cynics, there are skeptics
There are legions of dispassionate dyspeptics
Who regard this time of year as a maudlin insincere
Cheesy crass commercial travesty of all that we hold dear
When they think that
Well, I can hear it
But I pity them their lack of Christmas spirit
For in a world like ours, take it from Stephen
There are much worse things to believe in.

A redeemer and a savior, an obese man giving toys for good behavior
The faith in what might be and the hope that we might see
The answer to all sorrow in a box beneath the tree
Find them foolish, sentimental
Well, you’re clearly none too bright so we’ll be gentle
Don’t even try to start vaguely conceiving
Of all the much worse things to believe in

Believe in the judgment, believe in Jihad
Believe in a thousand variations on a dark and spiteful god
You’ve got your money, you’ve got your power
You’ve got your science saying the planet’s going to end within the hour
You’ve got your dreams that don’t come true
You’ve got the ones that do
Then you’ve got your nothing
Some folks believe in nothing
But if you believe in nothing
Then what’s to keep the nothing from coming for you?

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year
Now if you’ll forgive me there’s a lot to do here
There are stockings still unhung
Colored lights I haven’t strung
And a one-man four-part Christmas carol waiting to be sung
Call me silly, call me sappy
Call me many things, the first of which is happy
You doubt, but you’re sad
I don’t, but I’m glad
I guess we’re even
At least that’s what I believe in
And there are much worse things

Merry Christmas, everyone. /lbn

I can stop ANY TIME I WANT.

From my last.fm log, from which you can probably glean an alarming amount of information about me.

Okay. This might require a little background if you’re not familiar with the Forever Leather Man.

Forever Leather is a locally owned store at Sangertown Square mall in New Hartford (near Utica) NY. They may also have a location at Riverside mall; I don’t live there anymore and I don’t really care.

It sells, logically, things made of leather. Their commercials are obnoxious, but I secretly miss them. After I finished college and moved back to Syracuse, the ads followed me there. It’s sort of like Billy Fuccillo, but worse because they…buy late-night infomercial time. He used to have the slot right after Saturday Night Live.

Usually the show consists of showing off the goods in the store. This time…not so much.