It's been nearly 2 monthes since the last post. I've got 3 topics here that have been in the making for some time._______________________________________________________
When is it appropriate to put up/take down Holiday decorations and lights?-At one point or another, have we not all wondered about this? This is a question that might not have a definite answer, but it’s worth exploring. First, I hope we can agree that all shopping malls, Wal-Marts, and CVS pharmacies put out Christmas decorations way too early. These stores usually put out Christmas accessories right after Halloween. It’s absurd. And what about the overlap? You know what I’m talking about…when there’s still Halloween stuff in the stores on clearance, but the Christmas stuff is already out. First of all it creates a color scheme (Black and Orange along with Red and Green) that makes one want to vomit. To me, it’s hideous. I liken the affect of this color scheme to the sound of finger nails dominating a chalk board. These colors are like Britney Spears and sanity; they just don’t go together.
-Does it seem to you that these stores put out Christmas decorations earlier every year? If so, it’s because they do. I’m certain that as a young Muffin, Christmas items didn’t debut until around or after Thanksgiving. That’s more sensible. So why do they put them out so early now? Why do these places piss us off with premature Christmas celebration? Why do they have Christmas items out for 2 whole months (one-sixth of the entire year)? Because idiots will actually buy the stuff that early. A domino effect has resulted; now citizens have started to decorate early as well. The Kings and Queens of the trailer parks are saying, “If Sam Walton and Wal-Mart are ready for Christmas, then we should be too! Let’s go buy an inflatable, light up, snow man!” Don’t get me wrong. I love those damn inflatable snowmen and Santa Clauses, but not in early November.
-I’d like to suggest some basic guidelines. I make a motion that Christmas decorations are acceptable right after Thanksgiving, and ideal on December 1. I also move that if you violate these guidelines, you should immediately be arrested and placed in a square room with walls completely covered with colored twinkle lights. You should be tied up with garland and sat in a chair in front of a television that plays “Jingle all the Way” non-stop. Because this movie is actually enjoyable, it will be muted, and you will be forced to listen instead to N’Syncs’ Christmas album which I’m pretty sure Jesus probably wouldn’t even want to listen to. You would be released on Christmas Day.
-So when should these decorations be taken down? Have you had the misfortune of ever knowing anyone who has said this: “We’ve decided that the best thing to do is leave our Christmas lights and Christmas tree up year-round. You can’t really notice the lights around the house, and we take the Christmas decorations off the tree and put some plain white lights on it and just leave it in the living room.” I pray you’ve never known anyone who has said this, because the FIRST time I heard this, the frontal lobe of my brain exploded, and I blacked out for 3 days. The second time I heard this, I pissed my pants and laughed uncontrollably, not because it was funny, but because I was so disturbed.
-I make a motion that Christmas decorations be taken down on January 2 at the latest. I also move that if you violate this rule, you be arrested and shipped to the North Pole to work in Santa’s workshop for the rest of your life. What’s that you say? Santa’s workshop doesn’t exist? The fruitcakes we would arrest and send up there could start one.
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The Problem with Voice Mail Recordings:-This was brought to my attention by a friend about a month ago. I hesitated to write about it, because I’m guilty of Voice Mail fraud myself.
-Fellow Stokes County product, Daniel Brown, explained to me that most people lie on their voicemail recordings. A typical voicemail recording goes something like this: “Hey, this is _______. Sorry, I can’t get to my phone right now. Leave your name, number, and a message, and I’ll call you back.” Let’s break it down, as Brown did, one part at a time.
-A. “Hey, this is _______." That’s innocent enough. Nothing wrong with that. It’s a statement of fact with no ambiguity or poor intent.
-B. “Sorry, I can’t get to my phone right now.” This is a lie almost 90% of the time, is it not? You can get to your phone, but you choose not to. Let’s be honest; there are only a couple of instances when you wouldn’t be able to get to your phone (when you’re showering, when you’re sleeping or taking a nap, when your phone is dead, and when your partying like I always do, and you can’t hear your phone). And if you can’t get to your phone, you’re hardly ever sorry about it.
-C. “Leave your name, number and a message, and I’ll call you back.” Liar. You’re not going to call them back. At least not anytime soon. You’ll give them that terrible line when you finally get around to calling, “Something’s wrong with my voicemail. I didn’t know you had called. I hate Verizon (or Cingular, or AT&T, or Altell, or whatever). I hate this damn phone. What’s been going on?” We have to be better than that. Sometimes you don’t call at all, and the next time you see them, you plead ignorance, “You called? I never got a message or anything. Weird. You should have called me again!” Pathetic.
-How do we fix this problem? Most likely, we won’t fix it at all. We’ll keep staring at our phones while they ring saying, “I’m enjoying this couch and this Twinkie too much right now. That phone’s going to have to stay right there on the coffee table. If it’s really important, they’ll call back.” What if they don’t call back?! What if they’re on their death-bed, and they wanted to hear your voice just one more time before taking off to the spirit world? That’s a little extreme, but you can’t rule anything out.
-Maybe the best answer is changing our voicemail recordings to something like this: “Hey this is_____. I stared at the phone while you called, but was too sorry to pick up. I might call you back, but I’d rather wait for you to text me or send an instant message via internet. Nothing personal; just doing what I always do. Later.”
-If anyone is guilty of false voicemail recordings, it’s me, so I apologize to all of you who have called me without getting an answer. I do hate cell phones. I’ll try to do better. I hope you do too.
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The Video Game Continuum:
-America’s children are fat. I worked at a summer camp in 2007, and I saw enough over-weight kids to make me cry. The worst part is that the parents of these obese kids constantly provided notes that exempted them from physical activity. That makes no sense. The one’s that needed exercise most were chill-laxing in the shade with Dr. Peppers and popsicles while the other kids were sweating their little asses off.
-One similarity between the fat-asses and skinny kids is that they all enjoy video games. We had a rule that said they couldn’t bring portable video game systems to camp, but this was the rule they broke the most. They couldn’t get enough. They were like little crack addicts with their video games. One kid named Josh cried when I took his Nintendo DS away mid-game. He begged me to, “at least save what I’ve done so far. I’ve spent 20 minutes getting to that point. Please Casey, just save it. This is all I’ll ever ask of you. Just save the game.”…So I turned it off without saving right in front of him for two reasons: 1. Josh needs to focus on stuff other than video games. 2. Turning the DS off without saving amused me to no end. Before you start thinking I’m some big asshole who picks on kids, I’d like to take a brief aside and tell you more about this kid Josh. This young man needs to get out more. He constantly reads books about subjects that are inappropriate for kids his age, he constantly “be-downgrades” (thanks Coach Gundy) and belittles other kids, and he plays that odd card game “Magic” way too often. On more than one occasion, Josh called me a “Foul Spirit” for no reason. What is a foul spirit you ask? Well I asked him, and he proceeded to tell me, “A foul spirit is a goolish creature that disgusts me and which the free world should be rid of.” So basically, this little d-bag had it coming. Now back to the subject at hand…
-Maybe video games don’t have a completely negative effect on today’s youth. I’d like to advance a theory here on Muffin Matters that I call “The Video Game Continuum.” Originally, video games had terrible graphics and were fairly abstract. As we all know, they’ve gotten more realistic as time has gone by. Most recently, several games and consoles came out that involved more physical interaction and physical activity from participants. The ones that come to my mind are the Nintendo Wii, the game Guitar Hero, and the game Dance Dance Revolution. All of a sudden, we’ve got games and systems that can actually make you tired. These games/systems require not only hand-eye coordination but full-body coordination. Fantastic. The Nintendo Wii actually flashes messages on the screen that suggest you take a break in case you’ve been playing too hard and need to rest. Awesome. The idea of these little fat ass kids being tricked into doing physical activity is brilliant. If you play Wii Tennis, you have to swing the controller just like a racket to play. If you play Wii Baseball, you have to make throwing and swinging motions to play. And if you want to throw a faster pitch or have a hard swing, you have to move that controller faster. If you play Dance Dance Revolution, which I never have because I don’t/can’t dance, you have to move very quickly to succeed. Here’s the main point of “The Video Game Continuum”: Soon, kids will say, ‘hey, why don’t we just go outside and do this stuff in real life.’ The more realistic these games get, the more likely kids are going to say, ‘Wait a second…real tennis (or real sports, or real activity) would be so much cooler.’ This could all be wishful thinking, but I hope this is what happens with America’s youth. Regular physical activity is the ONLY cure for obesity in America. Diet alone does not get it done. If we can get young people off the computers/game systems and back outside to play, we’ll be on the right track.
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