Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The love and loathing of Christmas




Christmas has always been, and probably always will be, one of the most awkward holidays for me. Most people either truly hate the holiday for what it's become, or love it based on beloved childhood memories. I prefer to ride the fence on this one.

The Loathing

  • It's freakin cold damnit!
  • People often make themselves feel better by giving to charity this time of year while completely ignoring the other three quarters of the year.
  • Childhood greed is much more prevelant. Parents are spending way too much money to make their child happy for less than one day than to teach them that life isn't about getting everything you want.
  • The over-commercialization of everything. Everything.
  • The music. You'll never understand my deep hatred for Christmas music unless you've worked at a retail job for more than five years.
  • Christmas's origins aren't religious, nor is it the day Jesus was born. It is a holiday that was stolen from pagan solstice festivals celebrated by the Romans and other early civilizations. Nobody seems to care about this fact, yet all that's talked about is how religious Christmas is. I don't get it.

The Love

  • Christmas specials and cartoons. I'm talking the old school ones like the Grinch and Rudolph.
  • The wonderful, fattening food.
  • For one day out of the year, you can feel like a kid again. You don't have anything to worry about (usually), you can eat all you want (pie!), and you can play with your new toys (Plasma TV!) all day.
  • You can buy really expensive things for yourself and not feel guilty (you earned it!).
  • Although it is cold out, it's a great opportunity to warm up with the one you love.

There you have it. I'm sure I'll think of some more and throw them in there when I have time. Let me know if there's anything else I should add! For those of you who read this, have a great Thanksgiving!

Monday, November 19, 2007

Music I'm Into - Winter '07



If, for some reason, you want to motivate yourself to be as cool as me (I understand), I'm offering a small glimpse into the world of Derek Bigelow, Music Connoisseur. Here is my list of my favorite bands at the moment (in order of awesomeness):


Altough Fujiya and Miyagi may be a bit out of my ordinary listening style, let me just say that I'm always up for some nice beats. But I still mostly prefer listening to grungy, hard, rock. Flight of the Conchords are just plain funny, as well as able to bring the coveted funk.

Honorable mentions (you should also check them out):

Hot Chip
Death Cab for Cutie
The Warlocks
The Beatles
The Shins

I tend to go for softer stuff in the winter like Death Cab for Cutie for some reason, don't ask me why. My musical tastes change according to the season, anyone else suffer from this?

Updates and Such

So I have a lot of news. For starters, I'm an idiot and never post. Sorry!

I've moved into some new digs. Pretty exiting. No pictures yet or anything, maybe I should get on that.

I've just landed a new gig as a vendor for a very large company you may or may not have heard of. Also very exciting.

Tove (Toe-va) and I have been together for almost nine awesome months! And she isn't sick of me yet! Gotta love that.

I'm getting my wisdom teeth out on December 13th, which isn't that exciting, but it's news!

That's about all of the new stuff going on around here for the past few months.