I am away this week so I am doing an encore presentation of a post from last year.  I hope you enjoy it.  I will be back next week.

Today is Sunday, November 27 and Christmas is only 4 weeks away. That’s right,only 28 days.  Have you finished shopping?  Have you written your cards and those God-awful annual letters? Have you started baking yet?  What are you waiting for?  Get moving!  Today we remember the birthdays of Anders Celsius, James Agee and “Buffalo “ Bob Smith.  On this day in 1885 the earliest photo of a meteor shower was made, in 1910 NY’s Penn Station opened as the world’s largest railway terminal and in 1957 the Army withdrew from Little Rock, AR after the Central HS integration.  In Burma it is National Day, in Massachusetts it is John F Kennedy Day and in the US it is National Bavarian Cream Pie Day.

I mentioned above those awful letters that people send out each year telling everyone about how wonderful their family was this past year.  “We are so proud of Bobby. He has been at the top of his Third Grade class all year and holds the record for correctly spelling the most words in his class.  Our lovely daughter Loretta has been selected to represent her school at the annual Girls With Potential Conference this year.  Our son Joe has been working hard with our dog Fitzhugh and has finally taught him to play Texas Holdem.  He even wins once in a while.  My garden won several awards this past summer and Joe, Sr was awarded the blue ribbon for his cucumber salad at the church picnic.”  UGH!!

Just once I would love to see something like this – “Well, another year has passed and, with luck, we will get to the the new year without our 11 year old Gunner killing someone. That would make two years in a row.  Our 14 year old Betsy is pregnant, again. We are hoping to meet the father, if she can remember who it is. The 16 year old, what’s-his-name, has now been thrown out of just about every school in the county.  We were so proud when we read about it in the local paper.  My rehab has been going pretty well, I am five days sober, this time.  We got news that what’s-his-name Sr may be able to be released from prison in the new year.  He thinks he can beat the assault charges that are pending against him. Our dog Spike ate the neighbor’s cat, but that’s okay.  We never liked that cat anyway and Spike didn’t get sick.”

The worst part is that people send them out to everyone thinking that we all care.  I only get one or two.  I like the one from our friends in Iowa, but you can keep the rest of them.  Unless the letter contains a check or cash, don’t even send it to me.  I open the envelope, see the letter, look for a check and if there is none, out it goes.  If the people are not blood relatives (and some of them can be tedious), don’t tell me about them.  Okay, I have vented and can now move on.

I have become rather disappointed with this whole Black Friday business.  It used to be a lot more exciting.  There was always one special item that everyone wanted and there was always a limited quantity of that item in each store, usually four or five of them.  People would rush through Thanksgiving dinner so that they could get to the store and camp outside overnight to be one of the first inside to snag that precious item.  Friday there would be news coverage of the stampedes and you could see people getting knocked down, people fighting over things and the few lucky ones carrying the vaunted special item, taunting the losers and inviting violence on themselves.

Then, a few years ago, stores started opening on Thanksgiving Day, showing complete disregard for the employees with family.  The one thing you can be sure of is that the people in charge were not in the stores.  They were sitting at home with their pants undone, watching football and falling asleep.  However, by being open, they cut down on the Friday crowd somewhat.  Also it finally occurred to manufacturers that if they had the year’s hot item, they could sell more of them, thereby making more money at the inflated prices they were charging, if they produced more of the item.  They realized that if the store had 100 of the item they would still sell all of them and need to make more.

The final death knell for the good old dangerous Black Friday excitement started this year.  A lot of places started offering Black Friday pricing back around Halloween.  This was supposed to get people out shopping sooner and not waiting until the day after Thanksgiving.  The thing is that Black Friday prices are not all that wonderful.  They take an item, push the standard price up a little and then put it on sale at the price it used to be and people swarm to the store to buy it and they are excited because they got the bargain without all the danger.

I have said this before and I will continue to sound the clarion.  WAIT to make purchases. Don’t even fall for the Cyber Monday trap.  Just wait another week or so.  That is when retailers realize that they still have a fair amount of inventory to get rid of and they start making the real price deals.  And you won’t have to fight people to get what you want because they will have already paid the higher price a couple weeks ago.

This week our fact tells us that it would take 15,840,000 rolls of wallpaper to cover the Great Wall of China.  I ask, again, why anyone felt the need to figure this out.  But just to throw in a hitch, does this assume that the wallpaper does not have a pattern that needs to be matched?  And how much wallpaper paste would be needed to put it up?

Today is Sunday, November 20 and there are only 35 days until Christmas.  Yes you read that right, only 35 days!  Don’t wait until Friday, start shopping now!  Today we remember the birthdays of Otto Von Guericke, Peregrine White and Bo Derek.  On this day in 1637 Peter Minuit and the first Swedish immigrants to Delaware set sail from Sweden, in 1789 New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights and in 1967, at 11 AM, the Census Clock at the Department of Commerce ticked past 200 million.  In Mexico today is Revolution Day, world-wide it is Rights of the Child Day and in the US it is National Peanut Butter Fudge Day and National Absurdity Day (I thought that was on the 8th).

As you know, Thanksgiving is this Thursday, so in keeping with my tradition, I am offering some information on the holiday.  I try not to duplicate, from year to year, but if you find that I have, just skip over the repeat information.  Thanksgiving was originally celebrated as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest.  Although it has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated in a secular manner as well.

Prayers of thanks and special thanksgiving ceremonies are common among almost all religions after harvests.  The Thanksgiving holiday’s history in North America is rooted in English traditions dating from the Protestant Reformation.  In English tradition, days of thanksgiving and special thanksgiving religious services became important during the English Reformation in the reign of Henry VIII and in reaction to the large number of religious holidays on the Catholic calendar.  Before 1536 there were 95 church holidays, plus 52 Sundays, where people were required to attend church and forego work.  The 1536 reforms reduced the number of church holidays to 27.  Puritans wished to completely eliminate all church holidays.  They were to be replaced by specially called Days of Thanksgiving.

In the US, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is commonly traced to a sparsely documented 1621 celebration in Plymouth.  The Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. Pilgrims and Puritans emigrating from England carried the tradition of Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England.  Since then the holiday has become more secular and involves overeating, wearing loose pants, watching football and sleeping through the game.  That noise you just heard was the holiday book slamming shut.

Moving on, I find myself despairing more and more.  In the past I have commented on the poor use of language and the even poorer pronunciation of words.  I think the whole thing has reached a point where we should all become concerned.  I saw a car dealership commercial the other evening and in it they claimed that their deals were huge.  The problem is that they showed a graphic stating that the deals were “Yuuuuge!”  Have things really gotten so bad that no one noticed that before it went on the air?  And people got paid for that!  I always thought that weather people were the only ones who could be wrong with no consequence.

While we are on the subject of commercials, there are a few others I want to mention.  I know, I go on about commercials a lot.  There are two reasons for that.  One is because I find myself watching a lot of TV.  The other is because they are so ridiculous that they need to be talked about.  One that gets me is where people have made grievous mistakes on their job.  Their excuse is that they were eating a candy bar.   This commercial is ridiculous on several levels.  One is that eating is an excuse for doing your job poorly.  Another is that, at no time did anyone notice the mistakes and correct the situation.  What makes it worse is that they are using one of my favorite candy bars as an excuse for poor performance.  I suppose I take these things more seriously than I should, but ridiculous is ridiculous and a poor attempt at humor is no excuse.  Another commercial that I have never been able to figure out is the one where a couple ends up in two bathtubs.  First of all, do I have to buy the bathtubs before I get the drug or does the first prescription include the tubs?  Second, and frankly more importantly, is if you are in two separate bath tubs why do you need the product?  In a situation like that using the pill is a waste of time.

The final one that bothers me is where the protagonist is animated.  Not a moving body part, but a blob of mucus that walks around interacting with humans.  In a recent episode, it is referred to as Booger Man.  I also heard a commercial for a home alarm system recently.  A guy was called by the alarm company to say that there was a break in at his home.  He told them to notify the police.  He said, “Should I go home?  Nah, the alarm scared the snot out of him.”  Really?  Scared the snot out of him?  Is it just me?  Do these commercials really entertain people and cause them to go out and buy these products?  If so then I may have a bridge that they might be interested in.

One other thing I have been thinking about recently is what to have done with me when I die.  Because I am somewhat claustrophobic, I am not sure about being in a coffin.  Cremation has always been out because I have a fear of fire.  I started giving that second thought recently when I was looking at myself in the mirror.  I began to realize that cremation would be about the only way for me to have a smokin’ hot body.  Just a random thought.

This week our fact tells us that you can walk from Boston to New York City in fewer than a million steps.  Of course you can, it’s all down hill.  More importantly you can fly there in a couple hours and be nowhere near as exhausted.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Today is Sunday, November 13 and there are only 42 days until Christmas.  I am already starting to get stuff I need for Christmas Eve dinner.  Today we remember the birthdays of St Augustine of Hippo, Robert Louis Stevenson and Oskar Werner.  On this day in 1775 American Revolutionary forces captured Montreal, in 1895 Hawaii sent out the first shipment of canned pineapple and in 1982 the Vietnam War Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC.  In Grenada and New Zealand it is Remembrance Day, in Laos it is the King’s Birthday and in the US it is National Indian Pudding Day.

For those of you who might care (if you don’t, skip this paragraph) Indian Pudding is a traditional New England Thanksgiving dessert.  It is a baked custard with milk, butter, molasses, eggs, spices and cornmeal.  The name probably comes from the cornmeal, which was known as Indian meal way back when.  In case you were wondering.

This past Friday I celebrated the 37th anniversary of my 30th birthday.  I had a great day with the kids.  I got some great gifts, but one of the best was a can of coffee and chicory from the Café du Monde in New Orleans.  When we were down there last year, we had coffee and beignets almost every day.  Talk about a treat!  Anyway, the kids were able to get the coffee for me.  Unfortunately, the café does not ship frozen beignets.  I had the coffee with breakfast yesterday and it was great.

As if great gifts were not enough, we also went to Asbury Park to a place that is filled with pinball machines from as far back as the ‘60’s.  You pay a straight price when you go in, get a wrist band and then just walk around playing pinball.  It was terrific.  We finished the day off with dinner at a restaurant that gave veterans their meal for free.  Great gifts, spending the day with my family and a free dinner, what more could I ask for!

I have a couple issues I want to discuss today.  One is a commercial that is just a perfect example of bad.  The product is a spray that you use in the toilet.  Supposedly, you spray this and then go to the bathroom and the spray suppresses the odor.  The name of the product alone is tasteless.  The commercial starts out with the spokesperson talking about going to the bathroom by saying she has to “punish the porcelain.”  She goes on to say how the product covers the odor of “the devil’s donuts” and how it prevents her co-workers from having to share her breakfast burrito.

I am sure that, if it actually works as advertised, it is a good product.  I would have chosen a different name for it, and no I will not use the name here.  I would also have spent some time coming up with a better commercial.  At one point it shows people entering the bathroom after her and wafting the air with their hand.  If I were going into a bathroom as someone else was leaving, the last thing I would do was waft the air.  I might stand there with the door open for a minute or two, or look for air freshener, just in case.  I would not try to get a better whiff of the odor.  I hope you get a chance to see this commercial.  I think everyone needs to be appalled once in a while.

I am still in the throes of getting matters taken care of after the lovely Elaine’s passing.  Most recently, I have been dealing with banks.  All I can say is that there are a number of people who should be happy I do not own a gun.  In this state, when a spouse passes, you need to use one of two different forms when dealing with banks.  Based on my circumstances I needed to use the Inheritance Tax Waiver form.  For various reasons, I had to deal with three banks and a credit union.  The number of banks was due, partially, to having parents who grew up during the depression and did not put all their funds in one bank because if one bank failed … but I digress.

You would think that because all of the banks are in the same state that they would all do things the same way, based on banking regulations.  You would be wrong.  As I said, three banks and a credit union and all had their own way of doing what had to be done.  Keep in mind that I worked in a credit union and know the process that should be followed.  One of the banks did not ask for the tax waiver and just went ahead as if it was not needed.  The credit union did not ask for any supporting documents (death certificate, etc.), said they would take care of the changes and ultimately have not done anything and claim, when I call, that it is all taken care of.

The other two banks are the worst.  One bank cannot do anything in the branch and has to do everything through their corporate office in another state, which requires that everything be done by mail.  For example, the branch could not go into their computer and give me the balance of the account as of the date of death.  That had to be done through the corporate office, who, by the way, would just go into the computer and look at the same information that was available in the branch.  Ultimately that place was taken care of.

The best was the bank that gave me the date of death balance.  My lawyer filed the forms and we got the tax waivers.  I took it to the one bank and it turns out that the balance they gave me was the wrong one.  I asked how the amount could be wrong when they were the ones who gave it to me.  The person I was dealing with just looked at me and shrugged.  They told me I would have to get an amended waiver.  I told him to note this in the computer so they would understand why I closed my account.  My lawyer had never heard of this before.  He is now trying to get in touch with the tax people to find out what we have to do.  Stay tuned!

This week our fact tells us that if you spell out all the numbers individually, you’ll have to get to a thousand before you find an “a”.  I can see you running numbers through your head now to test this.  I am not going to wait, but trust me, it is correct.

One final thought that I read recently – The fact that there is a highway to Hell and only a stairway to Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic numbers.  Have a good week and save me some Indian Pudding.

Today is Sunday, November 6 and there are only five days until my birthday, in case you haven’t gone shopping yet.  Oh, and there are only 49 days until Christmas, speaking of shopping.  Today we remember the birthdays of Colley Cibber, Aldophe Sax and Ray Conniff.  On this day in 1572 a supernova was observed in the constellation known as Cassiopeia, in 1862 the New York to San Francisco direct telegraphic link was established and in 1966 NBC televised the first entire lineup in color.  In Mauritius it is Ganga Asnam and in the Virgin Islands tomorrow is Liberty Day.  In the US today is National Nachos Day and Saxophone Day.

As you know today we fell back an hour, ending Daylight Saving Time (DST).  Many Americans are confused about why we spring forward in the spring and fall back in the fall, myself among them.  We also wonder if it is worth the trouble.  Contrary to popular belief, resetting the clocks is not designed for farmers.  In fact, they lobbied against it when the change was first suggested.  Yet many people believe it was for the farmers’ benefit, including lawmakers.

The practice has both advocates and critics.  Putting the clocks forward benefits retailing, sports and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours, but can cause problems for outdoor entertainment and other activities tied to sunlight.  Industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year.  The time of day that people begin and end work or school remain constant.  Proponents of DST argue that most people prefer a greater increase in daylight hours after a typical workday.  They also claim that DST decreases energy consumption, but the actual effect on overall energy use is disputed.

Critics claim that darker mornings are dangerous for children going to school.  They also say that the energy saving argument is invalid if people switch on fans and air conditioning during the lighter, warmer evenings.  There are also claims that the hour of sleep lost due to the DST switch has been linked to an increased occurrence of heart attacks.  Frankly, I do not see a real benefit and would be content to just leave things the way they are.  We should either spring forward and stay there or fall back and stay there.

Okay, enough about that.  I have been very careful to not get involved in all the foolishness going on with the election coming up on Tuesday.  While I do not espouse the idea that, since there is no one who really should be president, I will not vote, I admit it is a tempting strategy.  The thing that I have noticed in all the campaigns, including local ones, is that no one is really telling us what they plan to do when elected.  They gloss over a few ideas, but spend most of their time telling us why their opponent is so horrible.

Frankly, if even half of the assertions about candidates are true, most of them should be in jail and not eligible to run for office.  I am always amazed at how we can go for years blissfully unaware of the scandals that are lurking, only to have them all come to light during campaigns.
If the people running for office were really concerned, they would have brought the misdeeds to light as they occurred and not waited.  This way they could say they have always been watching out for everyone and not saying they would start doing it once they were elected.  And that’s all I am going to say about that.
I finally did something I have been threatening to do for some time.  I was in a diner recently and had ordered a cheeseburger platter.  Since I was by myself, I brought my IPad so that I would have something to read while I ate.  The platter came with the burger, fries, cole slaw, lettuce and a couple slices of tomato.  I used one slice of tomato and some of the lettuce.  I was hungry and ate everything except the other slice of tomato and the rest of the lettuce.  When the waitress came by see if I was finished, I said I was and asked if I could have the lettuce and the tomato slice boxed up.  She hesitated and looked to see if I was kidding.  I had gone back to my reading and did not say anything more.  She walked away shaking her head, but brought back a container, along with my check.  I was wearing my Vietnam Veteran windbreaker, so maybe she thought I was one of those crazy veterans you hear about.  I put the lettuce and tomato in the container, thanked her, paid my bill (yes I gave her a decent tip) and left with my leftovers.  She is probably still telling people about the incident.

I have been seeing commercials recently for various stores who are already pushing their Black Friday sales.  There are some stores who are claiming that they are offering Black Friday prices all month long.  I am not sure what to think about this.  Are they offering the “better” prices to drive up sales and avoid the dangers of the actual day, or are they making us think the prices are better when in fact they are not?  The stores that are already announcing the big sales for Black Friday are just giving people the opportunity to plan where they most want to be crushed in the door-opening onslaughts.  Either way, I will say what I have said in the past.  Wait a couple weeks and you will be able to get better deals when stores realize their inventory is bloated and they need to start offering real deals to clear things out.

This week our fact tells us that there are more stars than all the grains of sand on earth.  I say, “Prove it!”  How can anyone possibly verify that statement?  That is just like the statement that no two snowflakes are alike.  They say it, but there is no way to prove it and we simply take on faith that it is true.  I do not, but have no way to prove them wrong.

I am going to go get some nachos and enjoy the games today.  Have a good week.