When I was a wee lad, years weren't divided into months, but by breaks and vacations. There was Summer Vacation, Spring Break, Winter Break, and all the rest was school. Spring Break was too short and Summer Vacation, while nice and long, ended with new classes, teachers, and schedules to memorize. Winter Vacation was always my favorite. It wasn't too short, we could make jokes about seeing people "next year," and there were presents in the middle.

As an adult I am still affected by this long-past vacation conditioning of my youth. I get Christmas Day off and I usually take a little time off around it, but after the 25th I'm pretty much worthless until after New Year's Day. Even while I'm working I feel that I'm doing it under protest.

From around Boxing Day, where I assume people recycle all their boxes from their Christmas presents, to the first day of the next year there is an understood quasi-holiday period. It's a holiday week of change. People take down their holiday decorations, practice writing the date with a new digit, and wax nostalgic.

The one tradition of this holiday time that I can't stand is the Best Of lists. It's what passes for journalism around this time of year. Writers take it upon themselves to assemble a list of things that happened in the past year. Top 10 World-Changing Events of 2006! Best Movies of 2006! Most Hated Dictators of 2006!

This isn't news, it's a clip-show. You know. The episodes that air when the writers want to take a longer time in Tahiti. My memory isn't great, but I do remember stuff that happened in the past 12 months. For me, it's akin to a bunch of drinking buddies at a bar around 1:00 in the morning. "Oh, man. Do you remember when Steve took his quad and did cookies in Mr. Johnson's lawn?" To which the drunken reply is, "Wasn't that a couple hours ago?" "Yeah. That was awesome."

But, you need to take the good with the bad and if I have to be bombarded by Best Of lists instead of real news stories during this least festive of semi-holidays, then so be it. Happy Winter Vacation!

There may be some of you, my faithful readers, in Portland that have neither Christmas plans nor a rug that ties the room together. Well, fret not. The Clinton Street Theater is showing "The Big Lebowski" from now until the 28th. The best part is that they are serving White Russians (The Dude's drink of choice) on Christmas Day.

The Dude abides...and so should we all. Merry Christmas.

Packed away in the basement with all the tinsel and tiny lights sit our various Christmas albums. With almost a year in their cardboard hibernation, it's always enjoyable to blow the dust and pine needles off of them and listen to all the classics. It's not just the old favorites, though. Here are the songs that I never hear on the radio, but look forward to listen to all year.

Top 5 Unconventional Christmas Songs

1) "Christmas in Hollis" by Run DMC

The only holiday song I'm aware of with "ill reindeer" and "collard greens" in the lyrics. It's not Christmas without gold chains and Adidas.


2) "Christmas Wrapping" by The Waitresses

Oh, the Waitresses. The 80s band that brought us the TV theme song for "Square Pegs," this song, and...did I mention the "Square Pegs" theme already? Okay, but that makes them more than a one-hit wonder.


3) "Father Christmas" by The Kinks

The reference to getting a Steve Austin outfit always makes me laugh.


4) "Hooray for Santa Claus" by Sloppy Seconds

The original version of this song appears in the horrible (and MST3K'd) movie "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians." An MST3K reference AND a punk cover song. Is there anything better?

S-A-N-T-A C-L-A-U-S!

Hooray for Santa Claus!


5) "What Can You Get A Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb)?" by Meco

Meco attempts to answer the age-old question that has stumped philosophers for years. According to the song, Han Solo is getting earmuffs, but what in the galaxy could one get Chewiee? Especially if he already owns a comb [what are the odds?!?]. Fortunately, this has nothing to do with the unwatchable "Star Wars Holiday Special."

A display at a local toy store made me stop mid-stroll yesterday. There, in an altar-like display before me, were four different Choose Your Own Adventure books. The cover art was so very familiar even though I hadn't seen one since I was in elementary school.

As a kid I loved these books that allowed the reader to become the main character and affect the outcome of the story. It was a journey of youthful hope and a lesson in consequences for one's actions. The best possible ending was yours if you just made good choices.

Here's a collection of Choose Your Own Adventure covers. The scary thing is that I recognize about 80% of the covers. Wow. No wonder I can't remember day-to-day things lately. All the memory storage parts of my brain were filled by the year 1985.

I think they should release a series for the original readers of the CYOA series who are now older, wiser, disillusioned, and jaded. It could be the "Choose Your Own Monotony" series where you make choices that are a little more true-to-life.

The network printer printed out your print job, but the letters are so faint that you can't read your TPS report.

If you want to open the printer, shake the toner cartridge, re-insert it, and try your print job again, turn to page 203.

If you'd rather go back to your computer and send the job to another printer, turn to page 1709.

If you want to send an IT request to fix the printer and play Freecell until IT gets around to it, turn to page 871.

From "The Big Lebowski"...

The Stranger: "Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar, well, he eats you."

The Dude: "Uh huh. That some kind of Eastern thing?"

The Stranger: "Far from it."

This phrase has been stuck in my head for the past week because I heard the original expression used on some show recently. The television personality made it as an aside. "Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you."



It got me thinking. Is The Stranger just saying "bear" with an accent like in the theme song for Davy Crockett ("killed him a bar when he was only 3")? Or is this a clever turn of the phrase by the Coen brothers?

I could see either being true. The Stranger does speak with a twang, but these two are also sitting at a bar. The online version of the screenplay is no help. It has "bar," but it also has "wal" for "well." Damn them and their written dialect!

At this point, I'm going to believe what makes me the happiest -- that Sam Elliott's character is actually saying the word "bar." It makes me think of somebody so drunk that they're laying face-down on the bar. Sometimes you eat the bar. But then again, sometimes the bar eats you. That sounds even worse...and that just makes me smile.

I think I see this MySpace page more often than my browser's start-up page.


Do you really think that these errors are even e-mailed to someone any more? Maybe "technical group" is the name of the recycle bin on their mail server.

Also, I can't see how this is an "unexpected error." It happens so often, they really should put "Surprise! an unexpected success has occured." every time a page properly loads.

With all the "Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny" movie talk as of late, I started jonesing for a Liam Lynch fix.

Sure, he directed the Tenacious D movie, but before that he was the evil genius behind the under-appreciated sock puppet show "Sifl & Olly."

You've never heard of Sifl & Olly? Whatever!

He's also an uncle. Yep, his nephew, Arlo, (who is a month older than my kid), got the best first birthday present ever -- a DVD of songs and videos by his Uncle Liam. Not only do I wish Logan had an Uncle Liam, I wish I had an Uncle Liam. Watch the video and forever have Arlo's name be burned into the can't-stop-singing part of your brain.

"The Arlo Song" by Uncle Liam