Candy Canes and Guilt Money
There's so much rain going on outside right now, yet I hear the sirens of the Santa truck. Every year as far back as I can remember, possibly even before I was born, Santa has come around on the fire truck passing out candy canes to the children of our community. The night before Christmas eve, he and the firemen travel down every street, the sirens announcing their arrival - loudspeakers on the truck playing Christmas tunes as they go.
I wonder how many children are braving the rain to get a candy cane? I wouldn't have missed a year when I was little, and my kids loved the event when they were little too.
I saw this website that seem to involve sending five dollars to your favorite musician along with a letter saying how sorry you are for downloading some of their music illegally - http://www.dearrockers.org/ . Some of the letters are pretty funny. I wonder if any of the musicians actually receive the letter/money, and if they write back saying either 'that's alright, no problem' or 'grrr, don't do it again!' or whatever. Though if you submit a letter before December 31st, you could win an i-pod shuffle, so that's pretty groovy I guess.
So I joined a couple of roleplaying games lately - and I noticed there seems to be this new standard of non-contact among players. It used to be (or at least, it has always been in my games) that when you game with people online, you exchange emails and AIM addresses and talk out of character and get to know the people you are playing with. But at least in the case of these games I joined, there isn't any contact list put together by the mods or anything. I posted an introduction in the OOC community listing my AIM SN, journal, and email and not a soul has reached out to say hi or talk about the game or possible plots or the characters or anything. It's a rather disheartening trend.
I put my column together yesterday, and the usual advertising today. I also sent off some emails regarding concert passes, and some interview questions - so at least I did get some work done despite the whole rush of the holidays. Tomorrow I have to pick up the lunch meat for our antipasto (that's our Christmas eve traditional meal - can you tell we're Italian? ;) )
Hope everyone's having a good holiday! So far, so good around here - but you know that can change nearly instantly when the house is full of relatives and everything is hectic. So wish us luck!
I wonder how many children are braving the rain to get a candy cane? I wouldn't have missed a year when I was little, and my kids loved the event when they were little too.
I saw this website that seem to involve sending five dollars to your favorite musician along with a letter saying how sorry you are for downloading some of their music illegally - http://www.dearrockers.org/ . Some of the letters are pretty funny. I wonder if any of the musicians actually receive the letter/money, and if they write back saying either 'that's alright, no problem' or 'grrr, don't do it again!' or whatever. Though if you submit a letter before December 31st, you could win an i-pod shuffle, so that's pretty groovy I guess.
So I joined a couple of roleplaying games lately - and I noticed there seems to be this new standard of non-contact among players. It used to be (or at least, it has always been in my games) that when you game with people online, you exchange emails and AIM addresses and talk out of character and get to know the people you are playing with. But at least in the case of these games I joined, there isn't any contact list put together by the mods or anything. I posted an introduction in the OOC community listing my AIM SN, journal, and email and not a soul has reached out to say hi or talk about the game or possible plots or the characters or anything. It's a rather disheartening trend.
I put my column together yesterday, and the usual advertising today. I also sent off some emails regarding concert passes, and some interview questions - so at least I did get some work done despite the whole rush of the holidays. Tomorrow I have to pick up the lunch meat for our antipasto (that's our Christmas eve traditional meal - can you tell we're Italian? ;) )
Hope everyone's having a good holiday! So far, so good around here - but you know that can change nearly instantly when the house is full of relatives and everything is hectic. So wish us luck!