O Irony, O Irony, How Puny Are They Branches

I am not a [insert name of grumpy, fictitious Christmas-hating character here: Scrooge, Grinch, Mouse-with-glasses-from-that-odd-cartoon-with-the-big-clock-and-crappy-animation].  You can't be yourself and hate Christmas these days, you have to be "a" someone.  Although oddly, no one ever says "I'm not a Herod," even though he was undoubtedly the biggest Christmas-hater ever.

Anyway, I'm not.  It gets under my skin that Christmas is rolled out earlier every year, but everyone says that and it still gets earlier.  The Christmas season is an actual season long now, and soon it will start the day after Christmas like in Whoville.  It's tiring.  It makes Christmas wear out it's welcome.  It's too much of a good thing.

And I'm not one who overanalyzes things that aren't really meant to be looked at so closely, except when I am, which is probably a lot.  Like, say, watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and finding fault with the shape of Hermie's dental tools when I already have accepted that a flying lion cares enough about imperfect toys (now known as "seconds") to purchase, develop, and maintain an island for them where they can be miserable without being watched.  It's stupid of me, and I do it.

This isn't like that.  I love A Charlie Brown Christmas.  Fifty years after it was written, I still laugh that Lucy never gets what she truly wants - real estate. It's endearing that the kids who did the voices had been purposely taught English slightly incorrectly and wooden.  As in, "What do you want?  For Christmas Charlie Brown?"  It's cute.  It became a hallmark of Charlie Brown animated shows.  If you want your kids to be a Charlie Brown voice-over actor, you need to start early - begin erasing any correct diction they know before age three or you'll be way behind.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is pretty blunt when hitting you over the head with its meaning: Christmas of the 1960s was too commercial.  The Grinch also bluntly says this, but Charlie Brown actually says this, in dialogue, more than once.

And what does Charlie Brown (everyone always uses his full name, no one ever calls him simply "Charlie") do to fight the consumerism all around him?  Yeah, he buys a pathetic little real Christmas tree and everyone else hates it.  In the end, everyone else gives it a little love and "spruces" it up (oh YES!  Is it possible no one else has ever made that joke?  I know.  It's not possible). 



It's absolutely clear in its message - Christmas is too commercial and the little pathetic tree is Charlie Brown's attempt to overcome greed and the "buy buy buy" mentality.  That was fifty years ago, and we've taken the message to heart.

So - and I'm not the brightest so I can't be the only one to notice this, someone must have writen about it already - the irony that the little anti-consumerism symbol Christmas tree from A Charlie Brown Christmas is now available as a fake tree for purchase from retailers for as much as $23.99 is so pungent that the Sphinx can smell it.  And I mean that in the sense that the Sphinx is made of stone and can not smell anything at all, not because it doesn't have a nose, but I can see how you could have misinterpreted that.

Here it is.

Charlie Brown literally walks through and rejects a lot full of fake trees before choosing the little tree.  He goes out of his way to avoid commercialism and phoniness.  And today you can be a consumer and purchase a phony copy of the tree!  For Christmas. 

This tree represents the television special that represents the opposite of everything the tree represents.  It has become its own anti-matter and annihilated itself so now neither the fake tree nor the Christmas special ever existed, and therefore neither does this blog you didn't just read, and therefore writing anything further is pointless, except to mention that my first reaction to the fake tree was that I kinda wanted one.

(c) 2010 Scott Teel.  All rights reserved.

He Fell For It

Well, you've seen the t-shirts and bumper stickers that say "Join the Dark Side...we have cookies."  It looks like Santa, the goodest man on earth, has finally decided flying around the world bartering toys for cookies each year while overseeing a massive number of toy-production employees, not to mention a coal-mining operation that is now unable to keep up with demand (forcing him to negotiate coal from China to meet his needs) has decided to give in and join the Dark Sideto get his cookies free.

Which is cool.  We welcome Santa and note that he's had decades of experience terrifying children in malls!

(c)2010 Scott Teel.  All rights reserved.  Photo from sketchysantas.com.

Let's Stop Poisoning Our Dogs and Cats, Okay?

That was a dramatic title, I know. Too late now, I posted it already. But I’m not kidding, since I’m talking about Frontline and Advantix and such. This isn’t some crazy blog claiming fake things about Purdue chickens or whatever, there are resource links below and you can find more info on it. There’s a safer alternative! http://www.cedarcidestore.com/cedarproducts.html.

After using spot-on flea and tick preventatives (Frontline, Advantix, BioSpot) on my dog and our family dog before her, I learned that there are a lot of concerns about them being toxic (possibly very) and not a good thing to be putting on our animals. Spot-ons work by absorbtion into the blood through the skin, and what they basically do is make the dog’s blood into poison that kills any fleas or ticks that bite them. Yeah, the flea has to actually bite them first and suck out blood.

I never knew that. I guess I'm stupid, but thought the stuff managed to work its way around the skin and warded fleas off. If I’d known I was making Mabel’s blood into a POISON, I never ever would have used it on her. I wonder now if my use of Frontline may even have been a part of her death and it eats me up. No, it doesn’t affect all dogs terribly, but still…how do we know if it will until it’s too late?


The EPA is even investigating spot-on pesticides in this report: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/health/petproductseval.html

 Which states:

• EPA found that the products could be used safely but that some additional restrictions are needed. EPA’s team of veterinarians learned that most incidents were minor, but unfortunately there were some pet deaths and “major incidents” reported. The Agency learned that the most commonly affected organ systems were dermal, gastrointestinal, and nervous.

“Could be used safely BUT” isn’t good enough for me. Sure, the report isn’t saying these treatments are terrible, horrible, awful, no good, very bad things, but they’re only starting the real investigating NOW. 

And you know how it goes with these types of announcements. Remember the dog food recall? First it’s only one type of one brand. Then it’s two types. Then it’s the whole brand, but others are fine. Then it’s one type of another brand too, but no indications that…what? Okay, it’s two whole brands to avoid. Three. Three whole brands, so don’t buy any of those four brands. Five. You know what, just let them catch some squirrels to eat. But be careful of those injected squirrel growth hormones!

 They let the info out in little crudules over weeks and months so you just get disgusted gradually instead of one giant disgust clump that might overflow into riots. Like the frog in a hot pot of water story: toss him in while its boiling and he jumps out. But put him in cold water and turn the heat up gradually and he doesn’t even notice how bad the situation has gotten and then he croaks (all right, he buys the farm. Pun haters). Also, spot-on treatments haven’t had to comply with pre-market studies to prove they’re safe as of yet. AAAAAIIIEEEEEEEE!


But there's also a safe, organic, flea and tick deterrent available called “Best Yet.” It uses cedar oil, “nature’s pest deterrent.” The stuff is basically a natural miracle, and is explained in this video from their site:





Cedarcide (the company that makes Best Yet) is a safe, natural way to control just about everything. This stuff kills almost immediately – the longest time a flea lived after a spritz was 41 seconds – and kills fleas, ticks, mites, mosquitos, ear mites, lice, silverfish, and works on Bedbugs so quickly and easily that it’s almost crazy they’re even considered a problem. It’s available for personal insect spray, in granules, as a fogger, as a pet flea and tick preventative, as a non-toxic deck stain, and more.

The only side effect appears to be that things sprayed with the stuff smell nice. There appears to be no reason to ever use any toxic insect repellent or pesticide again for nearly any insect.

 

Here’s the website for Cedarcide and Best Yet. It’s available from many carriers, including Amazon.

http://www.cedarcidestore.com/cedarproducts.html

I encourage you to look further into this and check out the cedarcide website, and any others. On Amazon, it rates as 5 stars with over 5,000 reviews, which is unheard of. I’ve looked into it a bit, but I urge everyone with a pet (or bug problem) to look into it further, as I’ve only scratched the surface. From what I’ve seen and read, I would have bought it it for Mabel for sure. Anything is better than poisoning your pet’s blood.

I may even order the insect spray. If this stuff does even half of what it appears to do, it could put Raid and other toxic chemical insect sprays and repellents out of business. Just kidding, don’t worry, those companies have lobbyists to watch out for ‘em!

 

Please take a look and do what you feel is best for your pet. Don’t lose them prematurely to a chemical company.

(c) 2010 Scott Teel.  All rights reserved.

Another Halloween Lesson

Halloween has taught us a variety of important things. Don’t put a valuable candleholder in the pumpkin if you live in an area with any teenagers. Giving out fruit will ensure your home is TP’d. Apples floating in a bucket are not as easy to bite as at first it seems (they bounce away off your teeth). The younger the trick-or-treater, the more doped up on Xanax they will appear to be (“Tik-Tea,” they mutter, and after getting candy, “Tha,” as they stare at you a little longer than is comfortable while slowly turning to walk off).

And once again, Halloween reveals its teaching prowess. Actually, it taught this decades ago, but most people have yet to learn it. I came across the costume below in a consignment/antique store.

 

If you don’t see any issues with the package above, please get yourself a “word a day” calendar, or just read a new word from the dictionary each day. Or just watch The Family Guy, you’ll learn definitions for both those words within three episodes.

One might also be concerned that this costume, according to its tag, is for “drum majorette.” Since there’s no superhero I know of named “Drum Majorette,” the fact that the costume includes a blonde plastic mask is confusing, since there’s no specific face for a drum majorette. Perhaps in the ‘60s when this costume was produced, drum majorettes were all blonde creamy-colored girls with quarter-inch-thick eyelashes, but more likely it was just a pre-determined blank set that was painted into a variety of famous stars like Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Pocahontas, Generic Nurse, Susan B. Anthony, etc. Drum majorette was probably a generic idea that came with a mask just because the kit came with a mask, so here you go.

 What Halloween teaches us here is that PROOFREADERS ARE INVALUABLE. Without them, you will inevitably look stupid. Spell-checking software will not save you from mishaps like the one above. I saved my former company from embarrassing typos countless times, yet when I left, they decided not to hire a replacement for me. A company that is the largest of its kind in the world, with four major product brands, that creates and prints its own packages, catalogs, and promotional materials decided it doesn’t need a proofreader, the product managers are good enough.

I’d been lobbying for adding another proofreader to help with the enormous workload. To my knowledge, four years later, they do not have a proofreader. That, in my opinion, is just like the costume above.


(c) 2010 Scott Teel. All rights reserved.

Kids Back When

The movie Grease was on TV last night.  At risk to the world's view of my masculinity, I actually kinda like Grease.  And even a few other musicals.  I don't however, care for Barbra Streisand all that much, which puts me well over the line into heterosexuality.  Babs is in the DNA of gay men for some reason.  If you could examine the genetic code of a gay male from one end to the other, somewhere in the middle you'd find:

G C C A C G U A U U C A C G U C C C A C G U F U N N Y G I R L C U A A C G U C A A C

That's pretty solid proof that being gay is genetic, and not a choice, if you ask me.

But back to Grease, the thing I notice that is so interesting is that Grease was written in the '70s, and it was a musical about the '50s, and it's fascinating to see how different things were in another, even recent, era.  Most surprising is that people attended high school well into their forties back then.  I mean, a couple of the Pink Ladies would be considered Cougars if the T-bird guys they were chasing weren't already using PolyGrip.

I used to see High Schoolers as adults until I became one.  Then I was like, "Really?  We're high school seniors now?  Why aren't we like the ones I remember from my childhood.  As we move on, high schoolers look more and more like Junior High Schoolers - Middle Schoolers for you more hip, modern people - they don't look anything like they're nearing adulthood yet.  Seniors look to be about 13 these days.  If our 13-year-olds are seniors today, and I was a senior at age 17, then it stands to reason that in the 1950s, people went to high school until they were near middle age.  For proof, just look at the kids in Grease.

(c) 2010 Scott Teel.  All rights reserved.

Oh Boy.

I procrastinate. When it comes to work or writing, I usually put things off until I have absolutely no choice but to perform the task due, lying to myself that I work better under pressure. With prescription refills, I act like world governments do with endangered animals. I’ll let the population of the species Protonix in my medicine cabinet dwindle to a lone pair before I decide that I really should take action, and call the pharmacy to return them from near-extinction, only to poach them back to the brink in 29 days.

About six weeks ago, my keychain died on me. I'd push the buttons to lock and unlock my car doors, but nothing would happen. The battery was dead, so I switched it with the other keychain the dealership had given me.

"Great," I thought, knowing I would put off getting a replacement battery until this one was dead, too. "Now I have no backup keychain. If this one goes, I'll be stuck with no way to get in the car."

Tonight, I passed a house and noticed a woman getting into her car. It was an older car, and to get inside, the woman pushed a metal stick into her door and twisted it, which magically unlocked the door's mechanism somehow, physically.

It was her key. I realized with shock, six full weeks after wondering what I'd do if my keychain battery died, that I also have a key to my car on that keychain and that it will in fact open the door. I was horrified at the realization: I had forgotten I could use my car key to open my car door. I did not have automatic locks on my cars until around ten years ago. And of course, as far back as I can recall, my parents used keys to get into their vehicles.

So for 26 of my 36 years, I used my key or watched others use keys to get into cars. In eight years I had forgotten that cars could be opened without the use of a push-button. That bothers me. I don't even remember the last time I opened a car with the actual key.

What other simple, possibly essential things have I forgotten? And what will I unnecessarily forget that I know now? Will I someday be stranded in a cabin somewhere, starving, cold,staring at a fully functional phone with a rotary dial and think "Damn!  This stupid thing's broken!"

For that matter, what have we as a society or civilization forgotten? If there's some huge power problem or a megatastrophe and the world loses all electronic systems for months, years, decades, or centuries, will we be able to survive? Will we have to rediscover all the simple things we just haven't done in a while?  How to make fire?  How to irrigate a field?  Long division?  How to tell if a thunderstorm is approaching?

At least our motionless, rusting automobiles will still have one use: they'll be able to provide us shelter from that thunderstorm we won't be expecting, if we can remember how to get the car door open.

Have you ever suddenly realized some simple thing that you'd totally forgotten about?
 
(c) 2010 Scott Teel.  All rights reserved.

I was at the walk-in clinic/lab the other day to get blood drawn for a test and noticed a new, nicely illustrated sign hanging in several areas instructing anyone with a cough to wear a surgical mask or:

"--Cough into elbow, not hands."
"--Use sanitizer to clean hands."

In that order.  Cough into elbow, sanitize hands.  Not even addressing that you can't cough into your elbow, you cough into your inner-arm-side of the elbow, the crook of the arm.  I had a red pen in my pocket and wanted to write "and sanitize elbows (crook of arms), too, where all the germs are now," but I had a needle in my right arm, so I couldn't.  My normal writing is hard enough to read; left-handed it looks like a photograph of microscopic tapeworm larvae.

(c) Copyright 2010 Scott Teel.  All rights reserved.