How silently, How silently, the Wondrous Gift is giv'n
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heav'n
No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him, still, the dear Christ enters in.

Merry Christmas

Alright, it's been a while, so this post will be rather lengthy. I got a lot to say. So for those of you like me who appreciate blogs that post shorter messages twice as often, grab your knitting. And, for those of you, also like me, who appreciate a good, long post that really lets you know what the crap is going on in the life/mind of the blogger, I hope this satiates your lust for blogs.

Item the first:

Happy Birthday, Frank Zappa, aka One Crazy Fella: Inspired musically by avant-gard classical composers, as well as the flicker of candles caused by the vocal vibrations of his mother's church choir. Possibly good, certainly weird, definitely one of a kind.

Item the second:
Appropriate, in my mind, that ol' FZ's birthday is also the Winter Solstice, aka Sheri's favorite day of the year, on account of after today, the daylight and sunshine get ever longer until june, when it's so warm outside that who cares anyway. In a mystical turn of events, today I received a visit from a Christmas ghost:
My dad's old '61 Volvo, aka "The Pumpkin." His car, of course was this totally radical shade of (you guessed it) pumpkin orange, and the only thing stopping this car from being a full-fledged member of the family was its own place setting at dinner.
Anyway, the car passed me on the freeway today, now turned a snowy white in its journey from the Underworld:

Is this too many pictures? Well, too bad. Anyway, that's the story. I had a trip playing leapfrog with this thing on my morning commute.

Item the third:
Speaking of Christmas, here's the historical origin of Santa Claus, at least according to NPR: In a town in Turkey, A man named Nicholas, or Klas, in Turkish, took it upon himself to save a man from having to sell his three daughters into slavery by leaving a bag of gold inside his house every night. After achieving sainthood, he became the patron saint of sailors, something that I can't remember, and small children. Of course, in order to escape all that pressure from the Papacy he took his team of reindeer and moved to the north. Pretty neat, eh? I always thought he was Russian. I tell you, the things you can learn on NPR...

Item the fourth:

Sheri and I looked at each other on Sunday night and said almost at the same time: "Boy, I could really go for some Nintendo." Seconds later Sheri was on the phone to our friend Akoni and I was in the car, not bothering to change out of my pajama pants, in order to fulfill our craving. Sure enough, not just that night, but every night since, until today, when we felt obliged to take it back, we've spent in front of the warm glow of the television making Mario the Avatar jump, smash bricks, squash goombas, and eat mushrooms at our command. Among the games rediscovered were Tetris, SMB, RC Pro-Am, and I even tried out American Gladiators a couple of times. What a great way to spend our pre-vacation evenings.

Item the fifth:
Looking forward to going to Utah tomorrow.

That is all.

End transmission.

Here's something I thought I'd never blog about. Britney Spears. Here's the deal: I think maybe people should just tone it down a little. Public opinion expresses that she's little better than a "lady of the evening," that she belongs in the red light district, etc.
Well hold on a second. Shouldn't people remember the fact that she's now a mother of two, that both children come from the same father and that neither of them were born, or even conceived (as far as I know) out of wedlock?
Now, granted, I'd never want my mother to see the search results I came to while looking for the above picture (I actually had to go through several pages of pics before I found one that was cleavage-free), and yes, she did get caught not wearing underwear last weekend (on the advice of Paris Hilton, as I was told), and she's generally pretty dumb and will never be able to wash her bloodstream clean of all the genes that are associated with being born and raised in a trailer park, but, come on, how does that make her so much worse than like a hundred other celebs?

Not at all, says I. Not that I'm going to run out and buy her perfume, or anything.

I don't know why, but I looked up the word ass in my English usage dictionary. I know it's totally childish, but I found it hilarious.

An ass is an animal which is related to a horse but which is smaller and has long ears.

If you describe someone as an ass, you think that they are silly or that they do silly things.

Your ass is your bottom. (Very Rude, Informal) (In Britain use arse or bum)

To kick ass or to kick someone's ass means to show them that you are angry with them, either by telling them or by using physical force.

Saying that someone can kiss your ass is a very rude way of expressing anger or disagreement.

If you say that someone makes an ass of themselves, you mean they behave in a way that you think is very silly.

Happy Birthday, Tom

You've lived enough in your 57 years to make you look 75.

My dog is beginning to remind me of HJ Osment's Android-genous character in that creepy movie, AI. Do you remember? That robot whose only purpose in life is to love and be loved but it doesn't really turn out that way because he tries so hard to prove his love and devotion to his mother that he almost ends up stabbing her in the eye with a pair of scissors, and generally alienates himself from humankind? Yeah, that's my dog. All he wants out of his time on earth is to show his love and affection for the People. And he does generally end up just annoying us or whapping us with his butt-whipping move, or spilling a glass of soda on the new carpet as he rolls over, or incessantly jumping on our laps until we have to yell at him to stop. Like today, for instance. I had to sit on the floor for a second to connect to the internet (long story), and the poor little bugger who just wanted to be loved and petted came right over and plopped himself right in my lap. But not just in my lap. More like his front half was in my lap and the rest of him, as much as he could manage, made it onto my stomach and chest. And though he was as awake and hyper as ever, he promptly put his head down on my leg, and began to look around suspiciously as if to say, "What? I've always been here. You just happened to sit down under my butt."
And another thing: you remember how that movie ended? How HJ chose to reconstruct his mother just so that he could spend eternity asleep in her unconscious arms? That freaked the crap out of me. I don't know why. But anyway, no matter how awake my dog is, if you let him curl up next to you, he's gone. Sawing logs. For as long as you're there. I swear if he had his choice he'd do the same as HJ.

Well, that's it for today, with two minor observations to leave you with:

1. Geez, my blog is getting kind of dark. Well, I guess it can't all be rainbows and sunshine.

2. If you can, avoid dealing with employees of the Seaside, CA Department of Motor Vehicles. They're even worse than real estate agents (see previous posts).

Zombie dream log: I'm Greg, the relative newbie in the Las Vegas cast of CSI, and I'm with my cronies in an old, abandoned laboratory, waiting out my night shift by playing poker and laughing about our new, stupid director of affairs. All of a sudden, over the intercom, a strange, metallic, haunting roar comes, spooking the crap out of me. I feel so panicked that I know that I have to get up and move, no matter where. They laugh and tell me that the dummy probably doesn't know how to use the intercom. They sit me down to finish the hand. But in my heart of hearts I know that it's the building itself, awakened by the departing spirits, angered by the amount of violence it's seen within its walls, calling to the corpses that it hosts to arise and attack us. I have to get out.
And then I wake up.
It's 10 to 5, and I have to get up in 20 minutes to go teach seminary.
That last part was real, not part of the nightmare.

I just picked up my cello and practiced in earnest for the first time since before I went to Spain in late June. Boy, do I suck. Yes.