FAN: Stockings and Grace

Brandy Grace

Well, if you thought the Christmas Eve post about my daughter made our website too mushy, the yearly Christmas post should put us back on track. Much like the Christmas 2008 and Christmas 2007 posts.....these pictures come direct from Google Images first page of returns for searches on Stocking and Grace.

Merry Christmas Holly & Joy

Joy Bisco

Holly Huddleson

Much like last year's Merry Christmas post, I wanted to do something similar this year...only this year instead of searching for random girls to display here, I decided I would key in Holly and Joy individually into Google Images and take a photo from the first page of returns. Not bad choices, right?

FAN: Jesus, Joseph and Mary

This is funny. My cousin (ever notice how many stories contain cousins?) up in Patriots land has a five-year-old boy. He's gonna be a heart breaker - a real cool little dude. She recently told this story: They were hanging up the Christmas cards that they received so far this year. Most of them are photo cards so that's what he expects most cards to be. As she hung the card up they got from their priest, which contained Jesus, Joseph and Mary, he said "Why did the God Father send us a card? Is that him with his baby?" No, that's a picture of Jesus, Joseph and Mary. After thinking a second he said "Well, it doesn't look very Christmas-y to me....". How funny is that? I must have told 10 people that story today and each of them laughed. My cousin's response? "I guess we will need to review Linus' speech.....AGAIN." I think it's hilarious that he calls the priest "The God Father". There is no doubt about it, the family snark gene is strong. Strong indeed. I picture my Grandfather in heaven as a Ben Kenobi type nodding his approval and saying "the (insert family name here) is strong with this one". I have, oh, about 97 stories to prove the Soysauce is strong with the 9 year old living under my roof...... And I wouldn't have it any other way. If I had $1 for every time Mrs. Fan says "you are SO much like your dad" I'd actually have some money in my money clip.

FAN: Worst and Best of Saturday

Let me begin this rant by saying that you'll be hard-pressed to find another male my age that gets more "up" for Christmas. I listen to Christmas Tunes from Thanksgiving through New Year's, I actually look forward to putting lights up outside my house, I handle the Christmas cards for my family, I watch all the "old school" Christmas Specials with my daughter so she'll appreciate the classics and I really honestly try to buy people gifts that I think they'll like....not just what's on sale. As I'm typing this, I'm listening to Trans-Siberian Orchestra and we just got done watching "Elf" for the 37th time. I like Christmas. Ya Feel Me? Well, yesterday.....not so much. A group of our friends from our church and daughter's school had planned to go to New York City. One of the ladies organizes trips and she had a bus for a 40+ person party and tickets for the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. We weren't going to the show as we had other things we wanted to get in. We were to meet at the school at 7:30 AM for a 7:45 departure. When we got there, it took a couple of minutes to figure out, but the bus wasn't there and the hostess was away from us on the phone. Uh-Oh. Not a good sign. She came over to us teary-eyed and we felt really bad for her as she's one of the nicest people on the planet. It seems the bus company that she's used the last 3 years for this trip mistakenly put down the date from last year's trip as the date for this year's trip which would be Monday, not Saturday, and she even called to confirm a few days ago. They had a bus, but they didn't have a driver. I offered to drive, but nobody seemed real excited at that prospect. As the start time of the show loomed large, the group decided to trek up to Trenton NJ where we could catch a direct train in. The drive is about 45 minutes to Trenton. So, with everyone not knowing exactly where to go, Mr. Hostess booked back to his house and printed out copies of directions for everyone. Luckily, we had GPS with us so we left. Some folks didn't have enough gas to get there so there were splinter groups everywhere headed up to Trenton. When we got there, of course the lot was full so we had to go to another pay lot. It was at this point that my daughter figured out she couldn't take her bag with her that she was going to leave on our chartered bus. It had a blanket, some sketch pads....stuff like that. Oh Well. We got inside and Mr. Hostess was already in line buying 40-something roundtrip tickets to NYC as they felt horrible about the bus. They also had tons of snacks, wine and beer for the bus that we couldn't take on the train.
We made the next train which took just over an hour to get to the city and gave the folks going to the show about 25 minutes to get to Radio City Music Hall. This actually worked out for us because now we could stay later than the departure time of the bus which was 5 PM. Instead of having 7 hours in the city.....we now had all day. We didn't need to be back until the last train. Now the fun just really starts. I had my Crackberry set to Google Maps and we had a portable GPS, but I had our day mapped out in my head and it was to start at 42nd street bus station....not Penn Station at 31st and 7th. Our first stop was Times Square so we had 10 blocks to walk and that doesn't count the two I started in the wrong direction making it essentially 14. Nice. As we neared where Broadway and 7th intersect, the crowds became unbearable. You literally couldn't stop walking. If you did, you'd get run over. They had 2 cops at every road in each intersection making 8 cops per. If it wasn't for the cops, the cars wouldn't be able to move. It was crazy. I put my daughter between us and I lead the way. I worked in Center City Philadelphia for 5 years, but the busiest parts of Philly at lunch were nothing like this. Nothing. It was a crush of humanity. It was taking significant time to just go one block. We ducked into Toys R Us. What a mess. There was no place to stand. We got in line for the Ferris Wheel, but it was sold out for the next hour. It looked like the inside of an ant farm in the store. I'm not sure how you could even shop. We saw the Barbie life size dollhouse and left. We ducked into a slightly less busy Swatch store and enjoyed the space for a while.....even bought a really cool watch for princess. I got my bearings as we were headed up to Top of The Rock next. We went back out into the mess and started walking again. I can't emphasize enough how crowded it was. If you hesitated for 1/10 second 5 people got between you and your party. It was a madhouse. 30 Rock was cool and we bought our tickets the night before online, but literally, it's a $60 elevator ride for 3. It was a pretty clear 38-40 degree day so the views were good...but 70 floors up, it's crisp. We came down and checked our time as we had reservations with friends at American Girl Place. We went out to the plaza to check the Ice Rink wait.....over an hour. We snapped pics of the tree and the skaters and then tried to leave the crowd behind. I swear to the dude born on Christmas that you didn't have 1 foot of free space in any direction from you. We had 30 minutes to spare so we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral which was right there. Again, I felt like cattle going to slaughter. We waited in a line to light a candle and walk past the nativity scene...which was nothing special other than being semi life-sized. I checked my map and headed to the land of dolls. We passed another huge line and discovered it was for Saks window displays. I was glad it wasn't for American Girl Place......until I saw the line for American Girl Place. Jesus, Joseph and Mary. I swear to Buddha there were over 150 people in front of us. Everyone said it moved fast. As people came out they let people in. The entrance is on the long block sides and it was over half a block long. When we got in, it was worse than Toys R Us. Not even sure how you could see anything. We immediately went up to the 4th floor and checked in for dining. When I saw the guy of the family we were eating with.....he looked beat up. He has 3 girls. I don't know how he could keep tabs on all 3 in the store, let alone on the street. I turned me head once and I lost my 2 much shorter family members. It's insane. The had security at the top of every escalator. I don't know how they make any money in their stores with the amount of workers they have. I told my wife there must have been 150 employees working. I'm not kidding. Don;t even get me started on the cost of the food or what it consisted of. It was at this point that we decided we had had enough. It was about 4:00 PM. We had been in NYC for 5 hours and it seemed like 50. My daughter wanted to get her doll's hair done. We went to the spa and checked the wait.....1 hour 20 minutes. We should have checked her in before eating but we didn't know you could do that. Disappointed again, we left the store. We contemplated taking a cab as we were now on 49th and 5th...needing to go to 31st and 7th. Ugh. We decided to walk back. That lasted about the length of one long block where I was touched by about 64 strangers and I hailed a cab. It was princess' first cab ride and it was everything you hear about. Fast. Furious. Reckless. Couldn't understand a damn word the guy said. Not even sure where he was from. To go the 18 short blocks took about 3 minutes and the fare was only $4.90. Here's $10, Merry Freaking Christmas. Whatever he said back he was very Happy. Now we just had to walk the 2 long blocks as their was gridlock traffic and I didn't want to change a $5 fare into $20 with the wait. We at least had space to maneuver down there as the crowds were all in Times Square.....until we go to the NJ Transit portion of the trains. When they announced Trenton, the entire world stood up to go to track 13. Another crush of humanity. I again put my daughter between us and you didn't have to think about moving. The crowd was moving us. I could see fear in my daughter's face and I didn't like it. Mind you, these are families just like us trying to get into the correct tunnel. The next train was in 14 minutes. You weren't going to turn into a pumpkin or a pillar of salt if you didn't make this train. We finally got through the doorway and there was the double-decker train awaiting us. Most doors were already closed. We found one with a few empty seats but they weren't together. I had 2 young guys move their stuff off of two unoccupied seats for my wife and daughter. They were 4 seats facing each other in a corner. I had a guy right behind them move his stuff so I could sit with him and he wasn't happy about it. After thinking about it, and seeing how uncomfortable my daughter was.....I again stood up and asked the two guys to trade seats with me and this dude so I could sit with my family. They seemed reluctant at first, I have no idea why, and then I was like "come on guys, I want to sit with my daughter" so they agreed. So, what was the good part of Saturday? We were home at 7:30, in the snow, sitting in the hot tub at a nice 102 degrees. My daughter said something very poignant at that point....."Can you believe just 3 hours ago the mess we were in?". Very astute. No, baby, I can't. Mark this down....I will never, ever.......ever........go back to New York after Thanksgiving. I want to go back for sure, but not to the tourist trap that is Times Square. F That. I was just at Disney in April and I never once feared getting separated from my child. I clutched her hand yesterday like Rosie O'Donnell clutching a Klondike bar. I was very uncomfortable and like I said, I'm fairly used to navigating urban areas on foot. I have no idea how older couples from Iowa do it. I really don't. New York for Christmas? Bah Effing Humbug.

Merry Christmas!

To the regulars....Merry Christmas! I wanted to find an image that conveyed hope and joy. Instead, I found a picture of Hope & Joy. Peace, Merry Christmas and all that good stuff. I'm going to take a few days off so enjoy the pic for a while.

Stores Feed On Innumeracy

Like clockwork, Christmas seems to all of a sudden bring about cash registers that haven't been updated with sales prices. I had the same kind of trouble last year at about the same time. Today, I was out picking up a few last minute items and my wife and daughter went out as well but in a different direction. We met up for lunch at the local mall and went to Boscov's together. We looked in their Christmas department as my wife is looking to update some of our Christmas decorations. Everything was on sale. There was a big sign out front with an assortment of penguins and polar bears that stated all plush animals were 75% off. The penguins were awesome. They were all wearing ski hats, earmuffs and are well made of soft fabric on wire frames. We decided to buy a big, medium and small one. They were priced at $39.99, $19.99 and $9.99. We also picked up a metal art Christmas Tree with dangling jingle bells in a 60% off area for $9.99. We headed up to the counter where a manager was hanging out giving instructions to a clerk. He told her to do something and he would handle us....splendid. He rang up the tree and said "ok, that comes to $8..." I cut him off and told him it was $4. He told me it was 60% off and I agreed....that 40% of $9.99 was $4! He told me ever so politely that the item was $19.99, not $9.99. I showed him the price tag which clearly read $9.99. He apologized for the item ringing up incorrectly and said the program needed to be updated. Yup. You bet it does, Skippy. He takes the largest penguin and rings it and tells me it's $20. Nope. Sorry. Errrrnt. Wrong Answer. He said it was ringing at 50% off. I told him it was 75% off. He asked me where I got it that he had to go check the sign. Insert my famous loud "Sigh" here as I pointed it out to him. My daughter asked me what was going on and I explained to her that the store didn't update their software to match the merchandise on purpose and they were hoping that people weren't paying attention, or better yet, were too intimidated to question what they were told. I got a few chuckles from the people behind me. He came back, apologized again and corrected the large penguin. He was handing them off to the clerk who was now back to wrap and put in a bag. When he rang the medium one, he said "Ok, that's $5 off of that one"......Oh.....My.....Gawd. I told him $5 should be the price, not the percentage off. He thought about it a second and agreed and told me that he just said it wrong...it was a long day. You think? He got the little penguin perfect, but to be fair, he had some practice before he got to that one. I paid and then my daughter was buying a small nutcracker which he also got right. As we turned to walk away he said "is this your penguin?". The woman bagged the tree and the first two penguins but not the third one. He was so embarrassed - and with good reason! I'm not asking for perfection. I know it's the Holiday Season and they have new help at the registers. But for Grinch's sake, more things went wrong than right for us in a span of 5 minutes. I was kidding around somewhat about the pricing, but you have to wonder. Innumeracy is everywhere and I know it's more prevalent than illiteracy. Read the book or buy it for someone you know who that needs it! I'll lend you mine, I read it a long time ago as it's a good read for a math major.

Steve Martin, Kindred Spirit

I remember watching this live when it first aired. Perfection. Since I was a youngster and purchased my first Steve Martin LP (which Still A Dad made me take back to National Record Mart due to langage) I was hooked. He's brilliant no matter what media he chooses to use. Who knew we wanted the same things for Christmas?

Murphy's Law

So, tonight on my way home from work, I decided to stop by Toys R' Us to pick up an item or two. The stores are much less crowded at 4:30 PM on a weeknight than on a weekend this close to Christmas. I got the three items that I wanted and headed to the checkout area. They had two main lines operating and the service desk was taking customers as well. The line I was closest to had one customer in it, so I got behind the obvious holiday shopper. It was a lady who was getting on in years, probably a grandmother. Her cart was full but mostly of big items, not that many things, but they took up a bunch of space. The smiling checker scanned her items as two more people got in line behind me. She gave a total of $236. She then asked the still sweet older lady if she would like to save 10% by signing up for a store credit card. Ugh! I was thinking "please say no, please say no, please say no" and she said "no". The checker asked her if she was sure because it would save her $23.60. Wait for it...............after 10 good seconds of thinking, she agreed. Inside, I cursed. It was a good cuss, but I can't remember it right now. The girl asked her for her driver's license. To most people, this could be accomplished rather quickly. To grandma, it took what seemed like 3 minutes. The checker took it and started to enter some stuff. I turned to the people behind me to give them the pained "half-smile raised eyebrows face" to let them know I was irritated. They weren't there. They bolted to the service line and looked to be almost done. After the girl entered the info from the license, she asked the woman another question or two that she answered. She then directed her to the electronic pad that you use to sign your name when paying with a credit card. Great. This should be fun. Technophobe at the wheel! As I contemplated moving lines myself, the other two seemed to be occupied with people that were too smart to get behind this woman. I thought to myself, "it's Christmas...be patient....be like Ben....what would Jesus do?....Jesus would wait for this nice lady to purchase her gifts....". After she poked and prodded at the screen with the stylus, she then turned to the checker (who was crossing her arms at this point) and said something about "social security number". The checker asked her to repeat herself and she said that she wasn't going to give them her social security number. Oh boy. The checker now had to call the manager and I couldn't help but let out a loud "sigh". It's in my nature. Ask Still A Dad. Ask Still A Dog. Ask Still A Wife! The checker told her what I already knew, without a Social Security number, she wasn't getting approved for the card. Given this choice, she now had to think for another 10 seconds. "No, I don't want to do it then". At this point, I'm thinking "Good, push your cart away and let me check out" but I forgot that if she wasn't putting this on her new card, she was still going to have to pay for it somehow! "$236 please", the checker repeated. I started to wonder if Jesus would grab her by the back of her hair and pull her backwards to the ground in one quick, sweeping motion? She pulled out another card and paid the total. I am willing to bet that a total of 12-14 other customers checked out completely in the other two lines while I waited behind someone who doesn't know shit about obtaining a credit card. Every fiber in my body was telling me to switch lanes at every step of this story. The thing is, I've seen this movie before....I know how it ends. Had I moved to another line, magically the old hag in this line would have sailed through the moment I left while the new person in front of me dropped dead of an apparent heart attack or worse yet, tried to pay for an iPod using pennies. I was semi-patient. I made the checker crack up after the woman strolled away without a care in the world, oblivious to the fact that she held people up. I wonder how many times she has handed a credit card over to a waiter or waitress to pay a check? Could it be that she just flat out forgot her Social Security number? We'll never know. As I went to my car to put my stuff in the trunk I noticed her doing the same thing. She looked to be having trouble with a large box and keeping her cart from rolling away as she used both hands on the box. I started to walk over towards her and she looked up and smiled at me as I extended my hands toward her. By now, I think somebody has probably heard her either screaming or beating on the inside of the trunk and let her out. Merry Frickin' Christmas. Ok, Ok, I did see her in the parking lot but she wasn't having any trouble. I just couldn't resist the imagery. It made me smile and it comforted me.

Slanted Listmania 3 - Christmas Specials

So, you know I'm a big kid at heart. I like the Christmas Specials on TV more than my daughter does. Even if we own the special on VHS or DVD, I still try to make it a special occasion by anticipating it and sitting down and watching it with her when it's on TV - and reminding her that I used to watch the same shows when I was her age. These aren't movies, I'll save that for later. Here are my favorites and a few reasons why:

5. Santa Claus is Coming To Town - I like the dude that rules the town, Burgermeister Meisterburger. He cracks me up. Also, Jessica is a BABE! And I was NOT afraid of the wizard when I was young.

4. A Charlie Brown Christmas - How could you not love the special that brought us the music of the Vince Guaraldi Trio? It's one of my favorite Christmas albums (and I realize I'm dating myself by calling it an album) of all-time. My favorite parts? When Snoopy gets embarrassed dancing on Schroeder's piano, when Snoopy cries after Lucy flips on him over the smooch and the dance scene at the practice.

3. Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer - Some great characters! Another Rankin & Bass slam dunk. I love Yukon COrnelius and not just because he reminds me of Bill Cowher! I love the scene where the elf boss makes everyone sing. In fact, I think the elf boss is my favorite character in the entire show and they don't even name him! And how genius is the island of misfit toys? I must say "I'm a Charlie-in-the-box" 20 times a year. And WHAT IS wrong with the little girl on the island?

2. Dr. Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas - "He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore"....sounds like me trying to balance my checkbook! I'll tell you one thing - Seuss's family made a HUGE mistake when they let Ron Howard make this film. It SUCKED. Only one person could have made it right - and that person is Tim Burton. But then, Johnny Depp would have been the Grinch and he's far too slight.....well, nevermind.....

1. The Year Without A Santa Claus - Not even close. The Miser brothers bring this one home. I just realized Big Bad Voodoo Daddy covered their song and dubbed it Mr. Heat Miser. I heard it while walking around a bookstore on Saturday. Someone posted the dance on YouTube cut to the new song. Cool. The mayor is good here as well.

Bad Casting For Classic Christmas Remake

When I read 6 months ago that a live action version of "The Year Without A Santa Claus" was being worked on, I got very excited. The original is my favorite Christmas special of all-time. In fact, before the retro toys came out for this show and the VHS and DVD weren't even available - I had most of the dialogue and the song lyrics memorized from an old VHS copy that I made soon after we got our very first VCR (which was a big deal way back when!). I always thought a live action movie would be cool, but the wrong people got the rights to it. it should have been the South Park guys or the Beavis and Butthead guys. You need a "hip factor" to make this movie the right way so everyone that was young in 1974 when it debuted would tune in and make it a new classic. Instead, they had a boring script with boring actors and no edge whatsoever. I thought about who should play the roles years ago and came up with Ryan Stiles from Drew Carry for Snow Miser and Jerry Stiller for Heat Miser. I broke out our official copy 2 nights ago with my daughter and we watched it again this time paying particular attention to faces. I came up with Albert Brooks for Jingle and Jason Mewes for Jangle. Can you see Jangle walking around stoned saying "Snoothie Bootchies"? I also think Dr. Phil would make a great mayor for South Town. They really screwed this attempt up. They should have called me in for casting. In my version, David Spade would have been Iggy and Sam Elliot the dog catcher. The only character they got right was Carol Cane playing Mother Nature. Oh well, I'll just keep watching the classic version every year.

It's The Great Outkast, Charlie Brown

This is totally cool. Good job by the creators who beg "please don't sue us" at the end of the credits. If you know the song "Hey Yeah" (or even if you don't) you should enjoy this Smash Up / Mash Up of the popular Outkast song with Charlie Brown's Christmas Special. Too cool. One question: Where the hell is Franklin? Damn, he gets no respect. Freida and Violet are there jamming, Violet is either doing the Vogue or an early Macarena, and there are a set of twins that never had a speaking part - why the hell can't Franklin break it down? Man, I love me some Charlie Brown.

These People Cave Way Too Easy

This annoys me. They gave up way too early. BTW, like how I threw CAVE into a story title that mentions Rudolph? Huh? Huh? Yeah, let's drop a boulder on "Bumble" when he comes to eat fresh meat in the cave. And they wonder where these kids get the idea to drop rocks off of overpasses. They blame Beavis & Butthead and the bowling ball episode when it actually burst onto the scene in this Rankin & Bass Christmas Classic. There are a few really cool web pages that I've read about this show. One went into great debate about why the little girl doll was on the Island Of Misfit Toys. She didn't have anything wrong with her. Do some Googling on Rankin Bass Rudolph. It's good stuff if you're a Christmas special geek like I am. OOOOOOOOOH good topic for a new Slanted Listmania. Coming Soon. I wonder what number 1 will be? Clue? I'm Too Much!