Christmas songs that should be retired

During my two and a half years in retail at Bed Bath and Beyond, I worked - no suffered - through at least two holiday seasons. The craziness of the shoppers wasn't the problem. The five weeks of stale Christmas tunes was the torture only a retail worker can understand. The regular classic tunes were fine but after the 12th time hearing them in one day they begin to annoy and anger the listener. My angst against Christmas music has continued - even ten years later - and while a most of the songs I can stand between Black Friday and Christmas day, there are a few gems that make me cringe anytime I hear them.

1. Wonderful Christmastime - by Paul McCartney

"The merest snatch of the squelchy synth intro to this festive monstrosity is enough to drain the Christmas cheer from St Nicholas himself," said Chris Vinnicombe on MusicRadar.com

2. Favorite Things by Julie Andrews

This song has reached my top list of horrible songs because it isn't even a Christmas song. It's a song from a musical. I also despise it's message about 'things.' This is my least favorite thing about Christmas - the commercialism of it all.

3. Do They Know it's Christmas by Band Aid II (Feed the World)

This song was created by a group of stars to help the children of Africa. While this is worthy cause, the song sucks and the lyrics are terrible. I mean, do Africans even celebrate Christmas? Are we going to convert them? What is the point of the song? It's the whole Californication thing where everyone has to be Christian and 'proper.' The song was a nice idea but it falls short of the message and now it's just annoying.

While Christmas tunes generally make me scream, I've become okay with a few funny ones.

Bob and Dougs "12 Days of Christmas"
"The 12 Pains of Christmas"
"Christmas in Hollis"
"Baby Please Come Home" by U2
"All I want for Christmas is You" from Love Actually - not the Mariah version
and to give a little to those Hanukkah celebrators out there "The Hanukkah Song" by Adam Sandler

MINIBot vs. the Firepit

How a fight broke out between me, the MINIBot, and a fire pit.

In preparing for a Pre-Fourth of July bash, I purchased a freestanding fire pit at my local Wally World. I've always been crazy jealous of any one with a fire pit in their backyard and the $48.00 deal was the clincher. I found the 30" Round Home & Garden Outdoor fire pit on the second shelf - and of course, out of reach for my short stature. It also looked heavy and the last thing I needed was to throw out my back at in the Garden Center of the Jordan Landing Walmart.

It took me a second but I actually found an employee in the next section... unfortunately the acne-covered teen pawned me off on the non-existent garden center crew by saying, "Um, I think the Garden Center can help you. They might have to use that scissor thing." As I walked back to garden center and through the sliding glass doors to the outdoor area of the store, I passed the 'scissor thing' and noticed that it was a smaller one of those lifts that construction crews use to fix power poles and traffic lights during rush hour.

When I found another employee, he was working at the register and couldn't leave. He did ask the lady restocking flower stuff to help me - third time's the charm. I walked her over to the fire pits and pointed out the one I wanted. I usually pride myself on being pretty self-sufficient with lifting and finding things in stores but the box was awkward. After the garden center lady reached up and easily pulled it off the shelf, I just thought "Wow! I'm now that girl in strappy sandals at the Big Ass Show clutching my Kate Spade purchase trying to keep my hair from getting messed up." Flower lady and I rearranged my already-selected stuff to get the big square fire pit box into the cart.

Only after purchasing the fire pit and walking to my car did I think that it might be too big for the MINIBot - even with the seats down and the front seat pushed up all the way. I parked the cart next to the MINIBot and opened the boot.

Hmmmm...

This could be tricky.

I loaded all of the small stuff into the front seat (which I pulled completed up). I moved all extras from my tiny trunk space (yes, MINI coopers have a trunk). I then picked up the rather light fire pit box and began to push it in flat.

No.

I twisted the box to a diagonal angle.

Nope.

I flipped the box thinking that one end was larger than the other.

Fat chance.

Breathing heavily and now worried that I'd have to make other arrangements to get the $#%& thing home, I tried to think of other options. Maybe it would fit into the back past the front seat. The problem in getting it into the back of the MINIbot was that there were two ledges (one on either side of the car) about two inches from the back hatch door and halfway up each side that held the top that covered what was in the trunk while the seats were all up.

Maybe the box would fit into the MINIbot if I pushed the box in behind the passenger seat. I moved the stuff I had just squished into the passenger's seat and pushed the seat forward all the way.

Narp! (DAMMIT!!!)

I put all the stuff I just removed back into the passenger's seat and put the seat back into its spot. I looked at the box. It was square and packed well (to not damage the coolest purchase ever).

What if I removed the packaging? The actual pit might fit into the car while the box was too big. But I didn't have a knife.

KEYS!

I pulled out my MINIbot's tough laser cut key and began to hack away at the packing tape that seemed to cover every inch of the box. This was more difficult than getting into a new DVD.

I pulled and yanked and the lid came off. Styrofoam encased the fire pit and it came out in pieces covering me in little static-y balls of white snow. I mutilated the entire fire pit's nicely presented packaging while innocent families and other onlookers watched my almost manic behavior.

UGGGHHH!

I pulled out piece after piece of the pit and then came the moment of truth: the round base and largest part of the fire pit. I pulled it from the styrofoam and carefully pushed it through the back door of the MINIbot.

IT FITS!!!

I did a little happy dance and placed the rest of the parts in the back of the MINIbot. The demolished cardboard, styrofoam, and plastic that had encased the fire pit was loaded back into the cart and wheeled to the flower/plant entrance of Walmart. I told the not-so-helpful workers that I had to remove the fire pit from the box and I didn't want to be 'that customer' and leave it in the parking lot. They looked at me like I was crazy... but I didn't care. I had just battled for 30 minutes to get my new purchase into my tiny MINIbot... and I won.

Oops! I found a funny video clip

Comical clip from a so-so romantic comedy starring Michelle Pfiffer and Paul Rudd. In this scene, Saorise Ronan (playing Michelle's daughter) is singing in the mirror an excellent rendition of "Oops! I did it again."

Miss March: The worst sex comedy ever!

Plucked straight from my blockbuster online queue, "Miss March" arrived at my house for viewing this week. I occasionally enjoy a raunchy comedy but this film was a big mistake. Had I known that the film was written and acted by those involved with the IFC show "The Whitest Kids U Know," I would have deleted it from my queue and never wasted my time.

"Miss March" begins as Eugene and his friend, Tucker, are finishing high school. Eugene is dating Cindy and they head up the abstinence club. Cindy finally convinces Eugene to 'do it' on prom night, but before the they can do the deed Eugene falls down some stairs and goes into a coma for four years.

Upon waking via baseball bat to the head by Tucker, Eugene discovers that his virginal girlfriend, Cindy, has turned into Playboy's latest monthly centerfold. The two morons decide to travel across the country to the Playboy mansion to reunite Eugene with Cindy for his first time.

The film tried to be funny on a frat boy level and constant bathroom humor just makes my eyes roll. What the film lacked was an ability to make me care about the characters - oh ya, and actors who could convince me that they were the characters and not just future comedy variety show actors. "Miss March" missed the beat and unlike films such as "American Pie" lacked the human emotion element that made the audience care about Eugene getting Cindy in the end.

My ruling... don't waste your time.

Whirlpools - not the appliances

Japan is still dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake that started a catastrophic tsunami. But one thing that caught my eye was the Uzumaki whirlpool that formed off the coast of Japan. Now obsessed with whirlpools - and how cool and scary they are, I've been YouTubing videos and looking up information.



Here's what I learned:

1. There are several "We're all gonna die!" groups that think Japan is going to sink or that the end of the world is near. Whatever.

2. A whirlpool is a swirling body of water usually produced by ocean tides - like the one around Japan.

3. The vast majority of whirlpools are not very powerful. This makes me happy because whirlpools are quite scary if you think about it. What I'm interested in is... where is the water going? The naturally forming whirlpools the question remains but there are a lot of man-made vortexes. These usually happen when a lake or pond is drained into another area at a very fast speed.



4. The scary (or more powerful) whirlpools are more properly termed maelstroms. But my favorite mythbusters determined that a whirlpool couldn't suck in a ship but then they tested if it could suck in a person?



5. And vortex is the proper term for any whirlpool that has a downdraft.

Turkey

Turkey… also the name of my favorite meat… is the first country I researched. This whole part of my Mission in 2011 stemmed from the fact that John Gidding, a designer on HGTV, is from Turkey and – aside from knowing that my cousin spent time there while her husband was in the military – I don’t know much about the place. From my research, Turkey was once part of the Ottoman Empire and it officially formed as the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923 by Kemal Ataturk.

With over 75 million people, the country is ranked 17th largest and their biggest city is Istanbul (was also the capital for the Ottoman Empire). Other fun facts is that the country’s currency is the Turkish lira, the new capital – as of the 20s – is Ankara, and the country is transcontinental (Europe and Asia). The country’s Internet domain is .tr and to call someone on a phone in Turkey you would use the calling code 90.

While the country was founded as a secular republic, the Islam-based political party won the presidential elections in 2002 and many fear their efforts to create an Islam state. There is also speculation about the military (called the guardians of the secular system) and their attempts or plots to overthrow the government to prevent such actions.

People of Turkey are called Turkish but there are other cultures and groups living in the country that refuse to assimilate or Turkify themselves. One group is the Kurds and conflicts and tension have continued until even today as the Turkish government sees many of the groups fighting for Kurdish rights as ‘terrorists.’

Aiding the U.S. has become a habit; Turkey was near the Soviet Union during the Cold War and is now next to the Middle East – which allows the U.S. to have a close base of operations. Turkey also has the second largest standing Armed Forces (the first being the U.S. Armed Forces).

Turkey has been in negotiations to become a member of the EU and with this changed many of their laws to allow for women’s rights among other things. One thing that differs from the U.S. to Turkey is that Turkish journalists reporting in the country do not have the First Amendment on their side. TV news (the most popular form) has often been shut down for broadcasting sensitive materials. There is also speculation that journalists reporting stories about the military, Kurds or other ‘sensitive’ topics are imprisoned or attacked. While the government can block websites such as YouTube, citizens have learned ways to get around the system. And there are about 22 million Facebook users in the country.

For more info on Turkey… Google it yourself! I’m going to bed.

Sundance Movies #4 & #5

Margin Call

What if you knew about the bad economic times to come and you could save your company from a huge lost at the expense of those you sale your stocks to?

That is the dilemma faced by several employees at a company right before the last economic disaster. Sam (Kevin Spacey), Will (Paul Bettany), Peter (Zachary Quinto), and Seth (Penn Badgley) discover that the stocks are worthless on the day that their company lays off most of their department and the Risk Management guy who finds part of the mystery. The film doesn't skimp on the confusing financial jargon but that doesn't matter. The audience is glued to these men and women as they try to make difficult decisions while spewing witty and reflective dialogue.

POPCORN: 3 of 4



Vampire

Do not mistake this film for fluffy emo story about a sparkly vampire that just wants to be understood. This gutsy project was written and directed by Shunjai Iwai. He tells a strange tell about Simon (Kevin Zegers), a 28-year-old biology teacher who drinks the blood of the victims he meets on a suicide website. This artsy flick takes several existential turns with the introduction of a vampire loving club with another sadistic killer and several suicidal women gravitating toward Simon. The quirkiness of the film and the amazing acting by Zegers does not make up for the awkwardness of the editing and the repetitive music score. There were a few moments of hilarity brought by Laura (Rachel Leigh Cook), a girl that believes she's Simon's girlfriend after only one date.

POPCORN: 2 of 4