...it was always burning since the world was turning!

Oh .. hum. Well I don't follow the news much. The only things I hear about are the things big enough to spill over into other entertainment mediums such as the weird blogs I read, the cartoons I watch, or the back of my cereal box. What's this, Count Chocula is trapped in a tower and needs me to find 14 hidden marshmallows to escape? Egads, man!

Apparently California is on fire. I saw a science blog showing pictures of "the" fire from space, so I figured this must be something everyone already knows about. Since it's now 3 am and I can't sleep, I thought I'd look it up and see what was going on.

Wow. That's a big fire.

The story on Fox News, America's only trusted news source, claimed that this season of American Idol is going well and is on schedule to begin in January. Simon Cowell was unavailable for comment.

It also said something about the fires. Down there, at the bottom. No, keep scrolling - no not that story about "pop tart" Paris Hilton, keep going - there.

What I can't figure out is why god would smite the upper class white citizens of Malibu? I mean the humble people of New Orleans I can understand, but Malibu? Aren't those people rich enough to somehow buy their way out of disasters like this? There can be only one explanation: George Bush hates white people.

The story says that over 500,000 people were asked to evacuate their homes. FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND! That's like, the population of Wyoming - or the Orem Chinese Buffet on a Sunday. They interviewed a lady who lived in a mobile home park about how she had to just up and leave because the fires were coming.

Wait a minute. If there is one group of people who should not be too horribly affected by impending fires, it's people who live in mobile homes. Doesn't the first word, "mobile" give us any hints as to the permanence of their chosen place of residence? Why would you hop in the car and leave your mobile home, when you could just hop in your mobile home and leave with the whole thing?

The story also mentioned that there were 194,000 911 calls informing police and rescue crews of the fire. By my calculations, that means there are at least 193,999 stupid people in California.

911: Hello, 911 what's your emergency?
Caller: Hey I just wanted to let you know the ENTIRE WEST COAST IS ON FIRE!!!!!1!!1
911: Oh really? Oh my... This is the first I've heard of this. What's your address?
Caller: (Gives address)
911: Ok, we'll send someone right over
911 to police radio: All units, if you need to demolish a home to create a fire line, here's an address...

I think I'm going to call them tomorrow and let them know the fire is still raging. I'll also let them know about Pearl Harbor, just in case they haven't heard that it was bombed by the Japanese.

In all seriousness, this fire has truly been a tragic event for all those involved - and my heart goes out to everyone who has or will be forced to leave their homes and possessions behind. But there is a silver lining to the clouds of ash spewing over the pacific ocean - Mel Gibson was forced to leave his home! That's right, Mel Gibson! I knew god didn't like the passion!

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Firefox froze/crashed on me for the last time, and I decided to make the leap over to using Safari. I thought that the password manager was the only thing keeping me with Firefox, but I soon realized a bunch of other features that I took for granted in Firefox that I would now need to figure out in Safari.

Here are a few things I've figured out to give Safari the kind of features I'm used to in Firefox. All the solutions I outline here are free unless otherwise noted.

Search Shortcuts

In Firefox, I have made several search shortcuts that simplify accomplishing common tasks. For example, in the location bar I could type "gg hotdogs" to automatically do a Google search for hotdogs. This is one of the most useful features of Firefox. There is no way to do it in Safari.

Enter Sogudi.

Sogudi provides this functionality in a very similar way to Firefox.

I can type in any of those shortcut words and insert my terms into the URL where you see the "@@@." I've migrated over my most used terms from Firefox, but there are more to go. For example, one I really liked is using the shortcut "801" to perform reverse phone number lookups. I simply type "801 5552504" and I can see who owns a number very quickly.

Tabbed Browsing

Tabbed browsing is not enabled by default in Safari. I can't imagine why. It is easy to switch on, though. Just hit the preferences and turn it on under the "Tabs" tab.

After it's enabled, it acts much like Firefox. Cmd+T will open a new tab, middle clicking a link will open it in a new tab, etc.

Plugins

Although Safari does not natively support plugins, there are ways of accomplishing the same thing as many Firefox plugins. To unlock a lot of this power, I use a program called Creammonkey. It is basically an implementation of the popular Firefox plugin called Greasemonkey.

I actually like the Safari version better because it is less obtrusive and easier to use. it sits right up in your menu bar next to the File and Edit menus.

Creammonkey is a general purpose plugin that allows you to run customized scripts in your browser. Browse around userscripts.org for a few minutes and you'll get an idea of how useful this can be. There are scripts for making myspace look good (well, better anyway), blocking different types of ads, and all sorts of goodies. Search for websites you use a lot and see what other people have cooked up for those specific sites.

This script tells me the pagerank of a site that I am visiting. This is a replacement for the Firefox livepagerank plugin.

Another script I use numbers Google results for me.

There's all sorts of useful things you can do. Creammonkey opens the door to a lot of Firefox functionality.

Find As Your Type

One great feature in Firefox is the ability to search the contents of a webpage very easily with the find-as-you-type feature. You just hit cmd+f and type away and the results of your search are highlighted.

Although Safari 3 supports this feature (in a really awesome way, no less), Safari 2+ does not. It still uses the old school "Find" window.

Acidsearch fixes this.

The main purpose of acidsearch is to pimp out Safari's search box. But as an afterthought, they included find as you type functionality as well. I'm still getting used to the different keystroke for invoking search "/" but I definitely enjoy also having a keystroke to move through the results "\" - something Firefox doesn't have (at least I could never find it or it wasn't easy to use).

Your search appears as you type it down in Safari's status bar. It seems a bit buggy but it does the job.

Auto Open

This is one place where Safari totally beats Firefox - but it took some coercion to make it happen. Safari can be enabled to automatically open downloads that are known filetypes. It even goes one step further and will do things like automatically starting the installation of downloaded programs and installing widgets. Unfortunately the list of acceptable filetypes is hard coded into Safari.

I regularly download .nzb files (for newsgroup downloads) and want them to open up in my new reader automatically. While trying to solve this problem I found out about folder actions. Basically, OS X can execute scripts any time various things happen within a folder. So for my purposes, I wanted to automatically open files landing in my downloads folder.

I found a script at Gelsomini.org to do it. Beware, however, the install instructions on that page are crap. You will need to put the script in your Folder Action Scripts folder (/Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts), then attach it to the folder by right clicking on your downloads folder and turning on folder actions. You then need to right click on your downloads folder once more and select "Attach a Folder Action." It should look something like this:

The script can be edited at any time to add filetypes to open. I went one step further and modified the script to include a list of filetypes to delete after opening them. So on my computer, an .NZB file will be automatically opened and then deleted (you don't need it after you've opened it in your new reader).

You can download my modified script here.

I've never done applescript before, so I was naturally amazed when my new script worked on the first try! You can add whatever kind of files you want to be automatically opened or deleted to the appropriate list at the top of the script.

Potentially, you could use this for a lot more. For example, you could have movies and audio files automatically moved to your "media" folder, etc.

Passwords

Safari includes a password manager similar to Firefox's that uses OS X's keychain as its back end. The problem is that I've never found a way to export my Firefox passwords to the keychain so they could be used by Safari.

There is a program called 1Passwd that integrates with both Safari and Firefox and allows them to share a common passwords database. I don't like it though because it doesn't work with the browser's existing systems, it makes its own system and it just feels a bit clunky. Also, it costs $30.

For now I've just relegated myself to the task of looking up my passwords in the Firefox password manager and inputing them into Safari as needed. I guess in a few months I will have everything of even remote importance transferred over.

Tab Switching

Firefox allows you to switch between tabs by hitting cmd+# - # being the number of the tab you want to switch to. Trying this in Safari, however, will open up the bookmark on your bookmarks bar that corresponds to the number you hit.

So the way to switch between tabs is to hit cmd+{ for back a tab or cmd+} for forward a tab. Note that you're hitting the shift key in there to get the { rather than the [.

I don't keep my bookmarks toolbar visible, but I have replaced the first three bookmarks with javascript snippets that resize my browser window. So now when I hit cmd+1 my window will go to 800x600, cmd+2 for 1024x768, and cmd+3 for full screen. It works pretty well, but I need to get used to the different keystrokes.

Other Stuff and Resources

There are some things that will always keep me opening up Firefox. Firebug and the web developer toolbar come to mind. But at least now I can separate my work and leisure browsing from my "hacking" browser.

A few other things still seem unfamiliar and annoying about Safari. For example, there is no warning when you close a window with multiple tabs. I've actually relied on this feature to keep me from accidently closing my browser (cmd+q) when I'm just trying to close a window (cmd+w). Tabstop looks like a possible solution, but I haven't tried it yet.

I also miss the ability to reopen recently closed tabs and to have target=_blank windows open up in a new tab rather than a new window.

Saft is a program that provides a whole laundry list of functionality to Safari - some of which I mentioned above. You can check it out, but I didn't mention it above because it is also a pay solution (cheap, though - under $10). I also feel like it does a lot more than what I want.

If you're interested in further customizing Safari, or just finding out what is possible, check out Pimp My Safari. There you can find a big collection of Safari add ons.

So How Do I Like Safari?

So far the conversion process has been easier than I expected. Every once in a while I'll hit a wrong keystroke and get an unexpected result. Also, although Safari is much more stable than my Firefox build, it's certainly not bulletproof. Adding extensions and hacks probably doesn't help, so I try to keep it to a minimum.

But overall I feel like Safari is a faster and more reliable user experience. To me, opening Firefox feels like getting into some big leaky Russian monstrosity of a car while using Safari feels more like driving a slick german sports car.

It's sad that Firefox has stopped improving as a browser. It's plagued by slowness, memory leaks, and instability. Granted, more Firefox problems are caused by bad plugins than Firefox itself, but its a catch-22 because one of the main attractions of Firefox is its plugins.

Overall I think the conversion will stick. Firefox has been a great browser and really helped me get through some hard browsin' times on my old PC when the alternative was Internet Explorer. It helped me when I transfered over to using a mac because it was a familiar face, so to speak. But now it's time to move on, at least until Firefox improves.

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While I was researching my last article about the lose/lose situation of pollution, I came across this graph which shows sunspot activity all the way back to 1600.

Sunspots are areas of cooling on the surface of the sun. Although this sounds like I would make things cooler overall, sunspots actually have the effect of making the sun warmer. This is because areas around the sunspot become even hotter than before.

I saw that graph above and decided to compare it to a history of the temperature.

Well isn't that interesting. Around the 1600's there were no sun spots (cooler sun) and there was a corresponding "little ice age". I'm no scientist, but it seems pretty obvious that the two things are related.

Now for the Al Gore Version.

ZOMG! Look at the sunspot numbers starting after the 1700s! They've skyrocketed! The end is near!

Holy crap, look where the temperature is at the beginning of the graph compared to the end! The temperature is skyrocketing! Nevermind the scale, which encompasses about one entire degree, and nevermind the fact that it leaves out any history and only zooms in on the part where the temperature increases.

In the chart below, I have mapped the number of misleading charts used to defend global warming by year.

It's a sad state of affairs indeed.

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Ah, my predictions were wrong. The next big natural disaster that is going to kill us all wasn't the nanobot army - it's global darkening.

Here's a quote.

"Global Darkening [wikipedia.org] is actually a moderate problem, though it's actually caused by particulate pollutants in the atmosphere, not sunspots. The amount of light energy reaching the Earth over the last hundred years has been dropping slowly, until recently, when it started going up again -- as dirty pollution has been regulated and replaced with "cleaner" CO2 pollution.

There's a lot of concern among climatologists that global darkening has been masking the effects of global warming, and that as solar radiation on the surface goes up again, the effects of global warming might come upon us more severely and faster than our previous estimates."

Okay, so let's break this down.

Global darkening is happening because of pollution. We are doing better on pollution now, apparently, so the global darkening problem is going away. Alright, that sounds good for us so far, right?

Remember, global darkening = pollution.

The next part says that global darkening is counteracting the effects of global warming, and that when the sun goes into its next cycle, global warming is going to hit us a lot harder. A lot harder than 2 degrees per hundred years or whatever they've been able to measure.

So, wait - what causes global warming?

Pollution.

So pollution is causing global darkening which is cooling the earth down, and its causing global warming which is heating the earth up. And if the sun gets hotter, then the earth will get hotter too, only it won't be the hotter sun's fault, it will be the fault of global darkening/warming which is caused by pollution.

The bottom line is, less pollution is going to make the earth get really hot and more pollution is going to also make the world get really hot.

We have here a classic lose, lose situation (those are ugly).

Let's look at this from a scientific perspective.

We have these facts:
1. The sun is in a cooling phase right now (no sun spots)
2. The sun is going to eventually be in a warming phase (sunspots)
3. The earth seems like it might be getting warmer
4. I need grant money

Conclusion: Humans are at fault, and nothing they can do will fix it. Anything positive is part of a natural cycle, anything negative is caused by humans. Also, if humans stop doing whatever it is they are doing that is making things worse, it will only get worse. Because that makes sense (so long as we use lots of words and have fancy powerpoint presentations). But by giving me grant money to do more research, you will be responsible for saving the world that can't actually be saved unless all humans die/I become president.

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I just noticed a couple news stories in Google news that I thought had weird headlines.

Lawyer: Mother would kill man in Las Vegas child rape video case

Dude molests little girl, captures it on video, gets caught and identified, and this is the headline?

Are we supposed to be surprised that the mom would kill the perpetrator? Are we supposed to be disgusted with her proposed vigilante justice?

There might be some other motive, but read the first line of the story.

"The mother of a 3-year-old girl raped in an explicit homemade videotape is so angry that she would kill her daughter's assailant if she could."

Wow, that does sound angry.

So I guess out of all this, we're supposed to take away that the lady is unstable or irrational or something. Although, I'm pretty sure 99% of mothers in the same situation would say the same thing. I mean, I'd probably kill the guy given the chance, and I haven't even been effected by the case.

There are a couple other things to learn from this story as well.

Child molesters are dumb. This may seem obvious - I mean, they are child molesters after all, but why video tape yourself? Hey, I'm going to do something really illegal and make sure I create tons of evidence that points back to me!

And it's not just this Las Vegas guy - look at this guy:

Too dumb to use photoshop properly. I guess he never stopped to think that if he twirled the face in his child-molestation vacation photos, someone could simply come along and untwirl it. You don't even have to do anything special - I mean, it's an actual feature in photoshop.

Another sentence from the story caught my eye: "Stiles was about to have been named one of the FBI's most-wanted fugitives before he was apprehended..."

That reminds me of Brian Adler, a kid in my high school debate class from many years ago, who used to debate that the FBI's "most wanted" program was really a list of the criminals who were "most likely to be caught." You know, inspire confidence in the FBI by catching all of the top criminals.

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Today is blog action day. You're supposed to write something on your blog about the environment or something. I'm not sure, I wasn't really paying attention when I signed up for it.

Anyway, kids, please keep your tires properly inflated to maximize your fuel efficiency.

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Average: 1 (1 vote)

UVSC will soon become UVU (Utah Valley University), or maybe it has already - who can keep track? But they will not be dropping the "S" altogether.

Orem's #1 destination for kids who miss high school is one of the biggest sources of SPAM in my inbox. Sometimes I'll get someone's personal email that they accidentally sent to the whole school, but mostly its job and study abroad program emails that I get. I don't know why. I haven't gone there in years.

The inbox abuse was fine and dandy, buy now they've started spamming my cell phone too. I just got a call from someone named "Ronnie" who is apparently some basketball player at UVSC. He sounded like he was on drugs or maybe just woke up, which was surprising because it was a recording. You'd think they could get one good take out of the guy before calling the masses, but apparently not.

My initial reaction was to hang up like I usually do when people call me and start talking about basketball. But I listened in to what Ronnie had to say. I didn't listen hard enough though, and all I could remember is that they were having some event that I was supposed to go to.

I'm glad I stayed on the line, because after Ronnie got done with his little message, another voice came on and told me I could unsubscribe from UVSC's cellphone spam by pressing the star button. I went ahead and pressed it and the voice told me I was unsubscribed. Killer.

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I saw a cool plugin called Web Viewer on lifehacker today that will add tabbed browsing to Internet Explorer Mobile (as in - Pocket IE on a Windows Mobile Smartphone). I thought that sounded pretty handy so I headed over to download it and give it a try.

Before being able to download, I was presented with a license agreement, which I quickly scrolled through like I always do, looking for the "agree" button. I kept scrolling, and scrolling, and scrolling. When I got to the bottom I stopped for a moment and thought to myself "what on earth is all this that I am agreeing to?" So I scrolled back up, scanning the clauses along the way and found this gem:

12. Third Party Software

The Software may contain third party software which requires notices and/or additional terms and conditions. Such required third party software notices and/or additional terms and conditions are made a part of and incorporated by reference into this EULA. By accepting this EULA, you are also accepting the additional terms and conditions, if any, set forth therein.

Translation: Oh by the way, we might install a bunch of other stuff to - but we're not going to tell you what it is. Also, you agree to all of that other software's EULAs too.

Basically, if you install Web Viewer, you are installing every program Web Viewer has ever been with.

Okay, I can't say I'm surprised that they are installing some third party software, but to not tell you what it is and then make you agree to all of that other software's terms and conditions? Wow. Who is running that place, the department of homeland security?

See the EULA for yourself here.

Anyway, I'll skip installing this software and just stick with Opera Mobile, which already has tabbed browsing and a ton of other features as well.

By the way, this reminds me of a great piece of software called EULAlyzer which will scan EULAs for "interesting language" such as this. Grab a copy if you're on a Windows machine.

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At the beginning of this year, I thought the sky was the limit for Apple. They've been releasing great computers, iPhone rumors were high, people loved iPods, and new people were being introduced to the best alternative to Windows around. Vista was released and it became apparent that there was nothing that could hold Apple back.

Except themselves.

The iPhone was released to high acclaim, and it was obvious that this new device was the next step in the evolution of mobile communications devices. It had a great interface, a shiny exterior, an innovative touch screen, and more. It was truly something nobody had seen before - something better.

The iPhone was locked down. No problem - a whole community of hackers sprung up and in no time flat you could have an unlocked iPhone running all the 3rd party applications that your heart could desire. Despite Apple's locked platform, the iPhone became an open and amazing wonderland for 3rd party development almost overnight. Developers rushed to it like no other operating system or device I've ever seen.

Then Apple decided to take it all away. Jobs giveth, Jobs taketh away. Overnight anyone who put a stake in 3rd party development for the iPhone had all their hard work dashed away when Apple released version 1.1.1 of the iPhone firmware. Many people believe that Apple broke the hacks on purpose.

I don't intend to get into whether or not the iPhone should be an open platform for development, as that has already been talked about to death. But it's important to think about the affect that this is going to have on Apple and their overall strategy.

When the iPod began taking hold, people who would have never purchased an Apple product suddenly swarmed to Apple stores to get their hands on one of the new shiny audio players. Apple's recent success with their computer line is a direct result of their brilliant marketing with the iPod. They reintroduced themselves to the people and had a great line of products to back it up. Especially after the intel switch, you started seeing Macs everywhere. Things looked good for Apple.

But now we have the iPhone - a whole new realm for Apple. Their proudest achievement since the original macintosh computers, and unfortunately most likely destined to the same fate.

What are people's biggest complaints about Macs? "But I won't be able to run all my Windows programs!" people scream when you tell them how great macs are. While these perceptions are slowly fading away, the iPhone is making people re-building their perceptions of the Mac as a closed platform with no software choice.

Apple is ruining all the perceptions they have worked so hard to create.

Why would I buy a Mac when I can see how Apple treats iPhone developers? Why would I want to run OS X when Apple intentionally breaks their platform to get rid of programs that people want and use? All the old perceptions are coming back, and the great day of the Mac is ending before it even has fully started.

Just like before. Just like the Macintosh.

In a year or two, the market will be flooded with iPhone imitators. Once again we'll have the Macintosh and the P.C. The platform that gives users freedom and choice for less money, or the closed shiny toy that nobody can see a reason to buy. Even if the iPhone is better, it will be dethroned. People will flock to the stores and buy the Motorola IPWN - free with contract, and the iPhone will be a forgotten relic people will barely remember.

History repeats itself. As soon as Jobs picks up steam, he seems determined to ruin everything.

Apple seems to be making all the wrong moves - and they haven't even given any reason for their decisions. I'm not saying they have to - the iPhone is what it is, and Apple has no responsibility to do anything different then what they're doing. But that doesn't make their moves smart. How does an open platform hurt Apple?

More importantly, how does it hurt the customers? Apple is supposed to be for "the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the trouble makers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who think differently," yet they're trying to corral everyone into their nickle and dime iTunes store to buy ringtones and watered down applications (not Applications yet, but this seems to be the plan).

To add insult to injury, look at Microsoft. They have released their new Zune - not only did it get a design refresh, but it got a myriad of new features. And while Apple users are kicking themselves for buying 1st gen Apple products, Microsoft is letting users put the new Zune's firmware on their old 1st gen Zunes - giving them all the features of the new players.

If I was in the market for an MP3 player, I'd be taking a serious look at the Zune right now - because I know Redmond is going to back their product up, while Apple is going to abandon theirs.

I think Apple can still save themselves from ... err ... themselves, but it's going to take drastic measures. They need to open up the iPhone, like yesterday, and they need to start encouraging a development community. I understand leaving the phones locked, but they could take a slightly more passive approach to unlockers, or at least admit that under the DMCA, users have a right to unlock their phones.

Will it happen? Probably not, but only time will tell. Until then, I'm waiting for the first phone that can get it right - function and features all in the same package.

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Critical Mass is a monthly bicycle ride that takes place the last Friday of every month where tons of bikers get together and take over the city streets in a massive mob. In Salt Lake City, they also do midnight mass, which takes place the first Friday of every month.

Last night Jake, his brother, and I went to midnight mass. It was a bit cold and rainy, so only three other people showed up. They said there is usually 15 or 20 though. Last night's midnight mass was a halloween theme, so everyone was (more or less) wearing a costume.

Jake even prepared his bike using CCFLs - they turned out really bright!

To keep out of the rain, we rode up a parking structure. After hanging out on top for a little while enjoying the view, we all rode down as fast as we could - it was a blast!

After I got home, I checked the midnight mass mailing list and it had been canceled. Apparently it is rescheduled for next week. I guess we know who the real hardcore bikers are now!

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Good news everybody, the hole in the ozone layer closed up by 30% this year! Clearly we're doing something right. It must be all the aerosols that we gave up, or the fact that more and more of people are ... umm ... walking places.

"Scientists" have long stated that we are the cause of the ozone hole, that it is bad, that we should be ashamed of ourselves, and that we need to go to our rooms until father gets home. So what do they say about this latest development?

"Scientists say this year's smaller hole... is due to natural variations in temperature and atmospheric dynamics... and is not indicative of a long-term trend. 'Although the hole is somewhat smaller than usual, we cannot conclude from this that the ozone layer is recovering already' ... "

Wait - wtf? So the hole can't get bigger due to variations in temperature and "atmospheric dynamic," but it can get smaller? I see - only selfish resource-hogging humans can make the hole bigger, but only a bit of magical atmospheric dynamics can make it smaller. Why are we even trying, then? I want my aerosols back!

Here is the true story, for anyone interested:

Researches don't get paid a salary by some company for their efforts. They rely solely on grants from foundations and the government. Therefore, the more they can ring the alarm bell on environmental issues, the more they can get grants and continue their hippie lifestyles. Therefore, all through the 90's it was "ozone layer, ozone layer, ozone layer!" but now that its obvious they were wrong, they've move on.

Now everyone is jumping ship to the rising tide of "global warming." I mean think about it - nobody cares about the ozone layer anymore - its all about melting ice caps, baby! It's really a much more lucrative psuedo-science to get into. You can't really keep sounding the alarm over a hole that isn't going to get any bigger.

As a /. commenter noted, just wait another 10 years and you will see the next great alarmist trend. In the 60's and early 70's it was the oil crisis, the 70's was global cooling, in the 80's it was overpopulation, the 90's had the ozone craze, and now we have global warming. Anyone care to place bets on the great catastrophe of the twenty-teens? I've got some guesses:

• Nanobot armies are going to destroy humanity! Scientists say "Sorry, this time its OUR bad."
• Shrinking ozone hole causes penguin overpopulation - pending penguin invasion means certain doom!
• Global Boringness: The temperature is staying the same because of bagels! Think of the children, stop eating bagels!
• Global Positioning: We're falling into the sun, and it's all Wal*Mart's fault!
• Global time travel: Jets are causing the earth to spin slower! It will eventually start spinning in the opposite direction! Stop flying before it becomes too early!

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I went to Costco today, which a glance at the post date will reveal is Oct. 1, 2007. I was immediately surprised to hear music while walking in - Costco doesn't usually pipe in music for maximum shopping pleasure. What was even more puzzling was that it was Christmas music. Bewildered, I stopped and looked around to find the source of the offensive melody.

To my horror, I saw two full rows of products, up front by the register, full of all things Christmas. Lights, lawn decorations, and various other nick-nacks - shamelessly being hocked off to the masses.

Okay, the day after Thanksgiving thing was okay. Black Friday - I get it - one month left, better get shopping. In recent years, Thanksgiving itself has had the dark shadow of Christmas drawn over it and had been turned into a practice Christmas - as if Thanksgiving had become Christmas's bastardized little brother - unworthy of having 100% of holiday attention given to it.

But I ask you, which is the better holiday? On one you get to eat a bunch of delicious food and fall asleep, on the other you have to endure weeks of stress, horrible traffic, stupid people, lines at the malls, spending money on worthless crap nobody really wants, and traveling in the worst season for travel ever. Thanksgiving is awesome. Christmas, though? Meh.

The market doesn't care. If businesses could start Christmas preparation in January they would. All other holidays would follow the path of Thanksgiving and merely become stepping stones toward Christmas. "It's already St. Patrick's day! Have you done your Christmas shopping yet?!" Already Halloween has been taken - Oct. 1st begins Christmas season, at least at Costco (and probably elsewhere - who knows, I don't get out much). They'd probably even have us preparing for next year's Christmas before this year's even happens. Give the elves a break!

Labor Day: Watch out, you're next on the chopping block.

In closing, I would like to remind you to vote for me. Not only will I get chocolate milk in the drinking fountains, but I will put a maximum 30 day preparation limit on Christmas. People will get tickets if anything Christmas related is on display or in public view.

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