You had me at Caress of Steel, The Necromancer pt. 3 Return of the Prince

Some leftovers from the holidays that were.

1. Andy didn't get his floor mats because Santa hates him. That, and AutoZone didn't have any with the Tasmanian Devil on them. He almost got some mud flaps with Yosemite Sam telling all comers to "Back Off". But those would have just looked stupid.
2. I gave two copies of Mamma Mia! (the exclamation point is a registered trademark, btw) as gifts. To two males. Neither of which is gay. Weird, eh? My Dad loved it so much he went and bought him a 5.1 setup just so he could sing along in, uh, 5.1. Buster has made Marisol watch it pretty much every night since he got it. I generally avoid Marisol's house of late so as not to infringe on all that mother/son bonding.
3. Santa's reindeer summer in Greenland as does the right jolly ole elf. And the Mrs. So says a letter left by the man himself for Camille's offspring. Also, the reindeer do not like to have their picture taken, making it quite fortunate that there happens to be a random photo of 9 reindeer somewhere up on Flickr that was found relatively easily by a certain someone on a certain eve a week or so ago. My resume continues to grow. In addition to being general courthouse flunky, I'm now go-to-guy in times of moderate parent/childhood crisis.
4. I managed to avoid all televised Christmas programming for the first time in 35 years. This was not really a goal as such, but just the way things worked out. Of course, if I really need to view Rudolph or remember A Year Without Santa Claus, I can just buy the DVD for $10 at Target and watch them on May 16 if I so chose. Contrast that with years ago, when I frantically searched the TV guide for any/every Rankin-Bass,Peanuts,Disney and whatever else production, scared that if I missed a one of them Christmas would be ruined since I'd have to wait another bloody year to see them.

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New Year's was spent with 60,000 possibly drunk yahoos awaiting Tech to show up for their football game. They never did and promptly got their collective asses handed to them by LSU. Being as our seats were in the corner that just happened to see positively no action, I spent most of the first half staring at the back of the two douches (douche'?) who felt they could better complain about things standing up. Die-hards that they were, they left at halftime. I spent most of the second half staring into space and wondering what song was going to come up next on my ipod. A fun activity, yes, but not really one I care to spend $75, drive two hours and be around said drunk yahoos whilst doing.

Once things got out of hand at the game, i.e. with about 10 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, there was the temptation to catch the remaining 5 acts on the giant Lil' Wayne bill over at Phillips Arena. I may not have known any of the performers or any of their undoubtedly fine contributions to culture, but figured they were probably having more fun than I was. And I can follow the inevitable instructions to "wave my hands in the air like I just don't care" and then "scream" just as easily as some white teenager from the suburbs. Thanks to Yo!MTV Raps, I have years of practice at that sort of thing. Of course, I wasn't worried about being shot whilst at the football game. Yin/yang, etc.

So for the first time in ever or at least since I've kept up with such things, I didn't see the ball drop in NYC. So I can't relay how lame Secrest was or how edgy Kathy Griffin was or answer how Dick Clark still does it after all these years. I can guess though. Respectively: Quite, not really and salt water taffy. Nope, at precisely 12 am I was almost to Conyers on I-20 with Black Oak Arkansas playing on the ipod. Surely, I must win some sort of pathetic New Year's prize for that. Like a life, or good taste or something.

Interesting note about travelling on New Year's Eve, not a whole lot of traffic from 11:30-12:30 so it seemed as good a time as any to open the Jetta up. I think I made it to 85 mph before the excitement became overbearing. Speed + rockin' '70s boogie = too much for your beloved correspondent. Thankfully, some calming Belle & Sebastian came on next. Otherwise, my heart would have exploded. It's tough living life on the edge.