The Christmas Creep is the phenomenon in which merchants and retailers exploit the commercialized status of Christmas by moving up the start of the holiday shopping season.  One way they do this, is by playing Christmas music earlier and earlier.

I always thought the Christmas Creep was that one uncle that always goes for the kiss on the lips when you see him at holiday family gatherings.

Samuel Wilson was a meat-packer in Troy, New York during the War of 1812.  Saying meat-packer makes me laugh.  Anyway, large amounts of meat were being sent to the soldiers.  Elbert Anderson, a contractor for the government, oversaw this process.  Before the meat could be shipped, it had to be inspected.  Enter Samuel Wilson, who was nicknamed “Uncle Sam” by his fellow meat-packers.  After it passed inspection, the provisions were marked with E.A.-U.S., as Elbert Anderson of the United States government approved the meat.  However, the workers didn’t know what E.A.-U.S. stood for, so they joked that it must stand for “Uncle Sam.”  To this day, the U.S. government has been personified by Uncle Sam.

It’s amazing how a little joke told by a bunch of meat-packers came to represent our country.

Uncle Sam “the Meat-Packer” sounds like an uncle that isn’t allowed at family events.

The bikini was invented in 1946.  I don’t really understand how it was “invented” in 1946.  Could no one honestly figure this one out on their own?  Anyway, the “inventor” named the swimsuit after Bikini Atoll, the site of nuclear weapon tests earlier the same year.  I was at the beach this weekend.  As great as bikinis can be, there really is a fine line between a swimsuit and a weapon of mass destruction.

Just when I started to think mullets were the best/worst thing ever, someone reminded me of the Furby.  He didn’t say anything about the Furby.  I didn’t even talk to him.  He just looked like a Furby.  If you don’t remember Furbies, google them.  Anyway, I remember about 10 years ago hearing about how some intelligence agencies banned Furbies from their offices, fearing that the Furbies would hear something top-secret and then start repeating it.  I remember back in 1999 I thought: Dang, my Furby must be dumber than other Furbies.  He doesn’t do anything useful.  Now in 2010, I am thinking: Any person that brings a Furby to the office should not be working in an intelligence agency.

The monster Godzilla first appeared in a 1954 Japanese film called “Gojira.”  The name Godzilla is the anglicized form of Gojira, which is a combination of two Japanese words: gorira (gorilla) and kujira (whale).  This is fitting because, in the early stages of the film’s production, Godzilla was described as “a cross between a gorilla and a whale.”

A cross between a gorilla and a whale?  What an odd and useless creature. I can imagine the script:

Man 1: Watch out for Godzilla!

Man 2: Why?

Man 1: Because it’s a mix between a gorilla and a whale!

Man 2: So…It’s a super endangered species?

Man 1: No, it’s a mix between two giant things.

Man 2: Yeah.  But it’s probably extremely awkward and worthless on land and water…Sounds kinda hilarious actually.  Let’s go poke it with a stick.

It has been brought to my attention that there’s a new fad diet: the baby food diet.  But this diet isn’t meant for babies.  It’s meant for fat adults.  Or even adults that just want to lose a few pounds.  The diet is pretty self-explanatory.  You stock up on some jars of Gerber, and eat one when you get hungry.  They are low calorie, and have lots of vitamins and other stuff.  But just wait one second. We can’t overlook the fact that this is the stupidest thing ever.  Just eat an apple.  Or a banana.  Or a piece of bread.  Or anything, just eat less of it.  Don’t look like a creep and walk around eating baby food.  Most people strive to lose weight to improve their images (the health benefit is just an added bonus).  In my mind, nothing hurts your image more than a grown man or woman slurping down some baby food.  It’s culinary pedophilia.  I don’t care if it’s convenient.  A baby’s diaper is convenient.  Why don’t we just all wear diapers around?  That may make you lose weight, because you’ll be scared of the consequences of eating.

Stupid Hollywood!

In the United States, the AWWA and the NFPA recommend painting the top of fire hydrants different colors depending on the available flow of water.  I did not look up what those acronyms stand for, but I trust them.  Anyway, from strongest water flow to weakest, the colors go from light blue, green, orange, and red.  If you live in a neighborhood with a fire hydrant that has a light blue bonnet, congrats! You are a badass!

McDonald’s has a lot of odd foods on their international menus.  It’s really quite interesting.  You should check it out.  But one food item on the McDonald’s menu in Hong Kong stood out to me in particular— the Shake Shake Fries.  Shake Shake Fries are basically flavored French fries.  They come in flavors like salt and pepper, French onion, chargrill, and seaweed.  I am about to McVomit.

For the next few days I will be driving across the country.  Thus, my posts will be about useless things learned on the open road.

I always wondered why people loudly hit their hands together to show their approval of something.  Why don’t we “armpit fart” or snort or just babble some gibberish when we are pleased? The act of clapping has been used as a sign of approval for basically all of recorded human history.  There were even professional clappers.  In France, for instance, a claque was a group of professional clappers (claquers).  They would go to French plays, operas, and concerts by the request of the director to make the performance seem like a bigger hit.  It was an old school laugh-track.  But claques weren’t always so jubilant.  They would also cement themselves as a form of extortion by threatening to boo a performance unless they were paid a handsome fee.  A claque seems like the most pompous, unintimidating organized crime ring ever.

To me, an orchestra, symphony, and philharmonic mean the same thing.  But that’s because they don’t mean very much.  I need to be more cultured, so I learned the differences between the groups.  In today’s terms, an orchestra is a musical ensemble that includes a percussion, wind, and string section.  A chamber orchestra is a smaller orchestra.  A symphony orchestra (or simply, “symphony” for the cool kids) has 4 sections—strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion.  An orchestra can be considered a symphony if the group has enough instrumentation to play an entire symphony (a longer piece with a bunch of other boring stipulations).  A philharmonic is basically another word for a symphony.  If a town already has a symphony, the new group will often distinguish itself by adopting the title of philharmonic.  It’s really great to learn these differences and all, but I don’t feel more inclined to attend one of these in particular.  I just want to know which one’s the shortest.  Not because I’m bored, but because brevity is a by-product of vigor.  Okay, it’s because I’m bored.

Continuing from yesterday’s post about driving on the right side of the road vs the left side…

In the feudal times, knights would ride their horses on the left side of the road.  They usually kept their sword and scabbard on their left side, so the easiest way for them to climb onto the horse, without their sword getting in the way, was from the left.  Driving on the right side of the road came about in the 1700s, when horse-drawn wagons were used to transport farm products.  The wagon driver would ride on the back left horse, so he could use the whip with his right hand and hold the reigns in his left.  He wanted to make sure he wouldn’t rub wheels with oncoming wagon traffic, so he moved to the right side of the road in order to keep an eye on the side of the wagon that would be nearest to the other passing wagons.  It basically boils down to the fact that most people are right handed. 

Whenever I am driving a wagon down the street, I feel so lucky to be driving on the right side of the road.  Otherwise, I could hit my wagon wheels on an oncoming semi-truck, and absolutely destroy myself, my horses, and my farm products.

Currently 66% of the world’s population drives on the right side of the road, while 34% drive on the left side.  Here is pretty cool picture of a cross over road at a border where the drivers must switch sides of the road to accommodate the rules of the road in a new country.  It looks like a giant 7 year-old designed this with track used for Hot Wheels cars.

I always see pairs of shoes hanging from powerlines.  I have also heard a bunch of conflicting theories as to why they are there.  I looked it up on the World Wide Web, and I am still pretty unsure.  I hear that it’s to recognize a fallen friend, or to tell people that a crack house is on the street, or that someone graduated high school, or to mark gang territory.  I don’t really buy any of them.  I think it signifies that a drunk teenager threw his friend’s shoes onto a telephone wire.   But I suppose my sources on the internet could be correct.  Maybe a crackhead graduated from high school and wanted his friends to come to his grad party at the crack house.  But not all of his friends, only the ones in his gang who are still alive.  It’s like balloons tied to a mailbox, but for crackhead gang members.