Let’s get to the goodies first. Yesterday, I got bored, so I took a trip up to my favorite antenna farm, 5 miles as the crow flies, more like 15 to drive. And it’s worth every foot of it.
All of these were taken yesterday.
I went up there to clear my mind, oddly enough. Sometimes I get frazzled, don’t we all? And this is what I do, take a drive and go dwell among the signals for a while. Something about the spot itself, the bazillions of GB’s flying around over my head, and I’m in the middle of it all, just … chilling.
It’s Colorado, and it probably doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what else I like to do up there.
I also realize I’m grumpy, or as another one of my favorite bloggers would put it, bitter.
It’s the holidays. Christmas season starts December 24th at 11:59 PM, and runs until December 26th, 12:01 AM. Period. End of story. I am not into seeing hoilday ads before Halloween, or for that matter, at all. The advertisers have in their head that the “Same Old […]” is the way to go, which is why we see holiday commercials that date back to the 70’s and 80’s.
I won’t hold forth about the real reason for the holidays. Everyone has different POV’s on this, and they’re all valid. But I’m pretty sure, that regardless of who or what you may pray to, that reason isn’t “SPEND EVERY CENT YOU HAVE”. I’m pretty sure can find some common ground there. “Black Friday” says it all. Merchants run in the red until the holiday season kicks off and everyone buys … everything.
From Mental Floss:
The holidays have always struggled to balance genuine sentiment with commercial exploitation, so perhaps it’s fitting the very first Christmas card made in the U.S. was a mini-billboard for a department store. Issued between 1850 and 1852, the card’s seasonal illustrations were buttoned by a mention of Pease’s, a “general variety” store in Albany, New York. (Ten years prior, the store’s proprietor, Richard Pease, is believed to have made the first use of Santa Claus in a newspaper ad.)
Commercial exploitation. That’s the key. At the end of the day, it’s all about the movement of the green pieces of paper. You know why when you call somewhere, you have to ‘wait for the next available operator’? Because someone with a calculator figured out a ratio of X callers to Y operators yields the best balance of wait time vs. cost of labor.
And, lets not forget the people that make all this magic happen. The people who are working in the stores, not with their own families, so you can have a decent day with yours. I’ve had to work retail during this season, and it’s not fun at all. Places like Walmart treat their employess like absolute crap during this season.
I don’t think one guy sitting at a computer at 8am is going to make a huge difference. But I’m not doing purchased gifts this year. I’m enough of a craftsman to where I can cobble together some cool gifts for my people. I have enough computer parts around here to assemble some basic machines for some people who might need a basic machine. Make someone close to you rich in a difrerent way.
Have a great day, loyal readers, and sorry for the silence.
The Night Driver 