Can you count to 12? Are you sure? Even if you have 13 boxes of Pop Tarts in your basket ( for some reason)?

The Christmas season is supposed to be the season where we all get along and love each other. But, if you are stupid enough to venture off into a retail store between Thanksgiving and January 7th, then you deserve the punishment that you receive.

There are going to be lines. There are going to be angry shoppers who dispute prices. There are going to be women (not men) who will insist on writing a check, even though they have a check card in the same purse. There will be shoppers admonishing you for not honoring the Christmas spirit while they are punching you in the head.

OK. I guess it's obvious that I'm not a big fan of Christmas shopping. But who amoung you is? Seriously, if you have the mental capacity to read these words, then there is no way you can enjoy Christmas shopping. There is nothing positive about it. Nothing.

Don't give me that "faces of the children" shit, either. If you child's happiness was your ultimate goal, then you would give up drinking, smoking, cable tv, and everything else that is unneccecary to livivg just to provide for your child. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a bar hearing some "poor" guy whining about having no money for his kids' Christmas while he was drinking $4.00 beers and smoking $6.00 a pack cigarettes. Priorities, people, priorities.

If you can't provide for them, then don't have them. That means keeping your pants on no matter what. Use some sense. An aspirin between the knees is a great form of birth control.

Thank you for your time.

I recently bought myself a Jeep Wrangler. I'm 44 years old and have always owned "sensible" cars, but I decided it was time to buy something fun. Call it a mid-life crisis if you want. I am not here to talk about the reasoning behind my purchase. I am not here to talk about the vehicle itself. The subject of today's blog is the cult that I apparently joined when I started driving my new Jeep Wrangler.

I have noticed that when Harley-Davidson riders encounter other Harley-Davidson riders on the road, they acknowledge each other by pointing their left index fingers downward. I always thought that this was a pretty cool show of rider solidarity. There are motorcycle riders and then there are Harley riders. Two completely different animals.

I have now learned that Jeep Wrangler drivers also acknowledge each other on the road. Sometimes it's with a simple wave and sometimes it's with a "J" made with the thumb and index finger. I prefer the wave. Not long ago I passed an Amish man in a buggy who smiled and flashed the "J", which I thought was cool.

My question is...why do Jeep owners do this? No other car I have ever driven had a "must wave" policy. At least not that I've noticed. In the past 8 year of driving a Ford Explorer, I haven't once seen a soccer mom flashing an "E" at me. Or flashing anything else at me, for that matter. I guess it all comes back to my cult theory. I suppose I should just give in and buy a white robe, drink some Kool-Aid, lay back and wait for the mother ship to arrive.

Thank you for your time.

It has been a while since I've posted anything here. Not that I haven't wanted to. There isn't a day that goes by that some random thought pops into my head and I say to myself "I should write a blog about that". But I don't. And I haven't for quite some time. It's Saturday night. Most saturday nights will find me bellied up to a bar somewhere. But tonight is final four night, and not being a basketball fan, I just don't want to be among people who actually get into that sport. So I stayed home instead. I'm still drinking, mind you, but I'm watching hockey rather than basketball. I'm not home alone. My wife is here, along with a friend of hers, and a dozen or so of my 14-year-old daughter's closest (and apparently loudest) friends. Just for the record, if I were the only adult here, I would not be drinking. Since my wife and her friend are both sober, I can drink. Thank God. I would never drink if I were the the sole responsible adult for a group of children of any size.

Anyway...the reason I decided to post tonight is to talk about smoking. Again. Anybody with the lack of a real life who has taken the time to read my blogs knows that I've bithced about this vice in the past. But tonight I'm speaking out in defense of smokers. Kind of. The government is about to impose a tax on cigarettes that will make the cost of an average pack ridiculously high. While I'm all for any action that might cause people to quit smoking, it seems to me that the government is unfairly targeting a select group of people in order to line their pockets. If you're going to impose excessive taxes on one vice, why not impose them on all vices? Raise the taxes on beer, wine and liquor. Increase the taxes on gambling winnings. These two things alone would cause me great financial hardship.

That being said...I still don't get why people continue to smoke. It makes them smell dirty. It makes them look old. Bad breath, stained teeth, fingers, clothes, furniture, walls and ceilings. Here in Pennsylvania, most public places are smoke free, so you see people who are desperate for a cigarette standing outside in all kinds of weather. Those who don't want to stand outside sneak into bathrooms, store rooms, basements and even closets for their fix. Yet, when you compare these people to drug addicted junkies, they take offense. How can somebody who is willing to risk jail time by sneaking a smoke in the bathroom of an airplane posibly think that they are any better than a crack addict doing "favors" in a back alley for their fix?

One more thing...back in the days when cigarettes were being advertised on TV, several ads alluded to the fact that it was once taboo for women to smoke since it was considered un-lady-like. I could never understand that, I alway considered smoking to be a feminine thing. Despite men like Bogie and the Marlboro man, I think that smoking makes men look sort of girly. Holding that little white stick gingerly between your fingers, taking a drag and pursing your lips to expel the smoke. there is definetly nothing manly about smoking. That, of course, is just my own opinion.

Thank you for your time.

Some questions...
Why isn't phonetic spelled with an f?
Why does the driver in front of you speed up through the passing zones and slow down in the no passing zones?
Why is a Nike size 10-1/2 tighter than a Rockport 10-1/2?
Why can't you buy Sam's Choice products at Sam's club?
Why can't cable and satellite companies that have 500 channels simply run the channels from 1 to 500?
Why do golfers need total silence to hit a ball that is sitting still in front of them but baseball players can hit a ball being throw toward them at 90 miles an hour while "Rock And Roll Part 2" is being blasted through the PA system?
Why was that last question so long?
Why do old people buy big cars with big engines then never drive over thirty miles per hour?
Why is there braille writing on drive-up ATMs?
Why is there never a witness when a gang-banger shoots somebody in broad daylight, but if that same gang-banger gets roughed-up by the police in the middle of the night, there are dozens of witnesses?

That is all for now.

Thank you for your time.

I just got home from a cruise to Bermuda. I'm going to vent a bit while everything is still fresh in my mind...
*Just because you can carry it on does not mean it's carry-on. No matter what angle you push a 20 inch bag into a 10 inch compartment, it ain't gonna fit.
*Elevator doors close automatically. You don't have to start pushing the "close door" button incessantly the second you step on the elevator, just so you can get to your destination half a second sooner.
*What is the sense in bringing babies or very young children on a cruise? You're going to be with them 24 hours a day in a confined space, so it's not a vacation for you, and they have no idea what's going on. Wait until they're old enough to walk around the ship on their own. Say about 12 or so.
*The buffet will NOT run out of food. You don't have to push people out the way so you can grab 2 of everything on one trip. That little walk you have to take to get seconds might actually do you some good.
*Just because you can squeeze into a bathing suit does not necessarily mean it fits.
*"No flash photography during the show" seems like a very simple request, doesn't it? I guess maybe not for some people.
*If every cruise line did everything exactly the same, there would only have to be one cruise line. Stop saying "that's not how they do it on the other cruise line".

That's all I can think of for now. I'm kind of tired from the trip home. Sail on!

Thank you for your time.