Blog Master G

Stella says, “Are we there yet???”

Photo by Jen.

For the first year since Jen and I have been together, we took the plunge last night and got a Christmas tree. It looks so cool and Christmas-y in our living room. And you can even see it through our front door from the right angle.

The debate about whether to go real or fake carried on into Target into the final hour of the night. We both grew up with real trees and have emotional attachments to the picking out/chopping down of real trees. But they’re a hell of a lot more hassle. I even went so far as to think ahead about our future-children and whether they would miss out on the real tree experience. But once Jen rightly pointed out that we’re not locked into the fake tree year after year, I was sold.

Tree #14 came home with us. She looks glorious.

Stay tuned for pictures of Happy in his Christmas antlers by the tree…

Having recently bucked the American way of life by paying off all my credit card debt, I now feel the need to observe and critique the corporate machine that encourages a debt-ridden lifestyle.

Recently, I’ve been seeing a commercial by Capital One, one of the worst piranhas in the industry, that features a couple and their kids at the concession stand at a football game. The family is loaded down by t-shirts, popcorn, and soda. This commercial is so many shades of wrong.

First, the couple don’t flinch when the total of their purchases comes to $120. One hundred and twenty dollars?! For soda and popcorn and t-shirts? Are they serious? Sure, I was guilty of consistently purchasing the $25/30 concert t-shirt back in the day, but does anyone really spend triple digits at a concession stand?

Next, the husband, clearly calm and in control of the situation and not at all concerned that not only does he not have the money but that that doesn’t matter to him, busts out his credit card and says, “Don’t worry, honey. I got it.”

Cue music: The Boys are Back in Town.

The Boys are a gang of barbarians who come charging into the stadium, ready to attack the couple not for using a credit card for their extravagant purchase — that’s to be expected — but for using a card with high interest rates. This is the next shade of wrong.

That interest rates are even factored into the decision-making process suggests, of course, that the couple has no intention of paying off this debt. They’re financing their popcorn purchase.

But wait! The clever husband, Master of the Financial Universe, has a trick up his sleeve. This is no ordinary credit card. This is the Capital One Prime Lock card! (Whatever the hell that means.)

The Boys are disappointed because they are no match for the Prime Lock card. They retreat.

The wife is relieved that she only has to pay the Prime Lock interest rate. Capital One to the rescue.

Of course, what the commercial doesn’t show us is that the popcorn and soda will be gone within the next few minutes and the t-shirts for the kids will end up in a Goodwill donation bag within the year.

But this smart couple used the Prime Lock. So they’ll only be financing all those disposable goods at 9 percent interest instead of 21 percent.

The moral of the story is this: Pay off your credit card debt, good people. It’s a wonderful, liberating feeling. The money you spend and save and invest will be yours and you will no longer be at the mercy of these credit companies who prey on us all.

The one thing the commercial gets right is the gang of barbarians. Who knew Capital One could portray itself so well?

The digital photo count continues to rise. Just more than a year ago (November 18, 2003), there were 4,879 photos in our Ofoto account.

As of last week (November 18, 2004), there were 6,487 photos in the account. Not too shabby.

And today I’m going to upload some more…

At yesterday’s family Thanksgiving gathering I turned to Jen as we sat down to eat and said quietly, “Happy Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for you.”

I meant it with my whole heart and sincerity. And I didn’t intend for anyone else to hear. But next thing I knew Jen’s cousin and aunt were melting from my display of romanticism. And before long, both the kids’ table (where we sat) and the grown-ups’ table were alive with cheers and jeers aimed at me. The women praised me; the men accused me of making them look bad.

Driving home we cruised up the Northway doing about 80, not an atypical speed for a mostly empty road in the country. We got passed by a car sporting a plethora antennae.

“That’s a cop,” said Jen.

“No, it’s not,” I shot back. “It’s just some dude with a bunch of antennae.”

Sure enough, a New York State Trooper was hiding in the divide between the north and south directions, as they so often do.

“Here he comes,” said Jen, right again.

Determined not to be ticketed and to keep my New York record clean, I high-tailed it off the Northway at the next exit. Before I knew it, there were headlights quickly approaching in my rearview mirror and then the ominous, flashing red lights. Frustrated, I pulled over and awaited my doom.

The young trooper (probably a lonely rookie suckered into working Thanksgiving night) approached the car, nearly laughing.

“Was that you doing 88?” he asked.

With the utmost confidence and without missing a beat, I calmly and truthfully replied, “No, it was the car next to me.”

“Damn it!” yelled the young trooper, returning to his car. The flashing lights went off and the trooper sped away into the night.

Confidence.

With winter on the horizion and much talk of snow blowers at Thanksgiving, I was eager last night to familiarize myself with my Ariens 8524 8.5-horsepower machine. It’s in Ariens’ Deluxe Snow-Thro category (replaced by this year’s 8426 model) and can handle up to 12″ of snowfall. When we bought our house, we wrote the blower into our offer since the former owner (moving back to Texas) would no longer have a need for it.

So last night I attempted to start it for the first time, without having read the manual. No luck. The electric starter seemed to work fine and the engine was trying to start, but wouldn’t turn over.

This morning I studied the Ariens manual, topped off the fuel tank and boom! Not long ago I successfully got my new toy started. I feel quite a bit more confident about it now, and am eager to give it a whirl when the first real snowfall comes.

I have so much to be thankful for.

This morning I caught myself shedding some tears as I read with joy that my friend Johnny, a high school English teacher in Buffalo, last night was named Teacher of the Year by the National Honor Society.

There is no one more deserving of such on honor, and I couldn’t be prouder of you, Johnny.

Keep on doing what you do so well. I have no doubt that you’re doing more than your fair share to help make this world a better place now and for generations to come.

This weekend brought one small project after another. Busy weekends make the days seem longer. When the sun has set by 5pm, this is a welcome treat.

Weekend projects included, but were not limited to, the following:

• Going out to the Wine Bar and Tin ‘n Lint Friday night with Justin
• Treating ourselves to new DVDs (Elf & Buffy Season 7)
• Watching Elf and first 4 episodes from Buffy Season 7
• Buying a smaller new rug (4×6) to go with the larger one
• Going grocery shopping
• Making a most excellent Indian feast (this was all Jen; I just made the samosa dippin’ sauce)
• Washing the smelly dogs
• Getting the car washed
• Cleaning the house
• Catching up on my email
• Cleaning up and synchronizing of data on my PCs in preparation for reformatting of drives, reinstallation of operating systems , and implementation of backup strategy (and in the process, realizing that my spindle of DVD-Rs aren’t recognized by my DVD-R drive)

Input on that last one greatly appreciated.

Bush to Sign Debt Limit Increase Within Days:

President Bush will sign into law by Monday a measure authorizing an $800 billion increase in the credit limit of the United States, the White House said.

In a statement issued late on Thursday after Congress gave its final approval to increase the limit to a new $8.184 trillion ceiling, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the legislation “was important to protect the full faith and credit of the United States.”

“The president intends to sign it into law before the close of business on Monday,” McClellan said in the statement.

When in doubt, get your debt on. It’s not our money anyway.

(Thanks, Jonty, for the link.)

‘Cross-Dressing’ Out, Camouflage In:

“It might be fun today to dress up like a little girl — kids think it’s cute and things like that. And you start playing around with it and, like drugs, you do a little here and there (and) eventually it gets you,” Davies told reporters.

I think those Texans may be on to something. I don’t know about you, but cross-dressing has sure gotten to everyone I know. They’re all pretty much certified drag queens. So watch out, parents. If you don’t want to raise a drag queen, keep your kids away from girls’ clothing.

(Thanks, Jonty, for the link.)

I read this New York Times article on the train coming home from the city the other day: Fired Flight Attendant Finds Blogs Can Backfire. Some excerpts:

Until two weeks ago, Ellen Simonetti worked as a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines, doing her best to project the image of a stewardess from a bygone era. “In the past people expected flight attendants to be young and attractive,” Ms. Simonetti, a 29-year old blonde, said from her home in Austin, Tex. “Maybe I represent the flight attendants of the past.”

But it is Ms. Simonetti’s very 21st-century activities that she says prompted Delta management to ground her, suspending her from flying in September and then firing her a month later.

Ms. Simonetti has operated a Web log since January, calling it Diary of a Flight Attendant, and she says she did not hear from Delta about the site, http://queenofsky.journalspace.com, until after she posted a set of provocative photos of herself in her Delta uniform. In one photograph, her skirt is hiked to mid-thigh as she perches along a seatback on an empty airliner. In another, she is leaning over the seats, her blouse unbuttoned, exposing part of her bra. Ms. Simonetti said she posted those photographs because she thought they made her look pretty.

And that, my friends, is why in this this blog you’ll find no sexy photos of me with my breasts or bra slightly exposed in my place of work.

But seriously, I think it’s pretty ridiculous that Queen of Sky was fired for these photos. I think there is a double standard at play. Had she been a man, it probably would not have been an issue.