Merry Christmas

My best wishes to everyone on this day and hopefully everyone will have a great day.

I'm kinda bittersweet about today. My mom and brother and sister are up in Tennessee and I'm stuck down here. There was no way I could get off to drive up there and get back for work tomorrow at six a.m. This is the first Christmas I have never been able to be with my Mom (and Dad while he was still alive), so I'm a little sad to be honest.

I've spent the day reading and cooked a ham and did some laundry and cleaning that I've neglected because of the extra hours I've been working. I've actually got to make a schedule for work and than a little more reading and probably to bed.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas.

Dancing Spiderman

This one's for Trav, a different type of Dancing with the Stars.

The Bail-Out

As regular readers of this blog know I am a big supporter of President Obama. When he was elected he promised change in the government. I think on the economic bailout he needs to go for more change than what has happened so far. We all were told that the CEOs of all these companies that were getting money from us the taxpayers would not be able to walk away with big paydays and bonuses for basically running their companies into the ground, but lately there's been a lot of news about these same CEOs ending their year ends with some big payouts. What's happened? For two looks at this go and read some news from Mother Jones and another article from Rolling Stone.

The Big Bang Theory

For my money this is probably the funniest show on TV right now. But what makes it great is that it's more than just the jokes, the characters on this show are so true. This bit was from last year's Christmas episode but it still is great.

Heroes

The dictionary defines hero as:

1.	a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.

2.	a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.

3.	the principal male character in a story, play, film, etc.

4.	Classical Mythology a. a being of godlike prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as a divinity. b. (in the Homeric period) a warrior-chieftain of special strength, courage, or ability. c. (in later antiquity) an immortal being; demigod.

In our lifetime we come across many types of heroes. Some are heroes that put their life on the line everyday to protect us. Police officers, fire men, men and women in the military; all are heroes the are willing to risk their lives for others. For some of us we are lucky enough to have our parents be our heroes. Now when I was younger I would never have admitted such a thing, but as we get older we see things in a different light. More than anyone else I would consider my Mom and Dad my greatest heroes, helping me see what right and wrong is and shaping my life more than any other person.

Still as we grow up we find heroes in other places. Some find them in sports. Growing up I was never the kid that was that enamoured of the baseball player or the football player. My Dad and brother were both sports fanatics, watching the games and rooting on their teams, but I never had a team or a player. I just never got into it, never looked at the players and wanted to be them.

Instead I found my heroes in other spots. One of my first was in the pages of comic books. I didn't learn right or wrong from comics, but reading the four color adventures of the Marvel Comic heroes helped me to see how such concepts operated in the "real" world. The man putting the words in the character's mouths was Stan Lee. These heroes were not dark, they were not going to kill or maim another. They would give up their own life before they allowed harm to come to another. For a kid this was powerful stuff.

Two other men that helped me see things in a different light were also writers. Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison were two writers that were more than just writers to me. Between their stories and their words inbetween the stories I saw life in more than just black and white, but that even with shades of grey you could still do what was right and maintain your ethical compass. From these writers I formed the desire to be a writer myself. I really don't remember wanting to be anything else but a writer since I first started reading their books.

And than there is one final man that I consider a personal hero. Twenty nine years ago today he was murdered in New York City. Of course that man was John Lennon. From his music to his life I am in admiration. Was he perfect? No, of course not. None of these men were or are, they just tried to live as best as they could and they tried to live their life as they thought it should be. John was more than just his music, he tried to save the world. He was willing to be thought of as a fool if he thought it might do some good. And of course there is the music. No matter how I'm feeling if I hear a Beatle song my heart skips a little and even if I'm depressed or upset I'm going to feel somewhat better. Even today their music matters and is listened to. For the last decade, the decade of 2000-2010 the Beatles had the number one album in sales. This is thirty to forty years after they stopped recording, their music is still selling. In this decade they sold over thirty million albums.

There's a saying that you should never meet your heroes because they'll only let you down. And that might be true. Heroes are only human after all and no one is perfect. But I think we need our heroes, we all have our own, for each of us our heroes may seem strange to another, but for us they touched us or moved us or made us want to strive to be a better person and that should be enough.

John Lennon lived only forty years, I've lived longer than he did, as strange as that seems to me. But in those four decades he lived as well as he could, sometimes not always the hero, but trying to live his life as well as he could, and creating some of the greatest music ever. Can we ask for more?

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Men Of A Certain Age

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

A new show starring two of my favorite actors started tonight on TNT. The show is Men of a Certain Age starring Ray Romano, Scott Bakula and Andrea Braugher. The two that are my favorites are Bakula who was in Quantum Leap and Braugher who was in Homicide. I have to admit that I was never a fan of Romano in Everybody Loves Raymond. It's a show about men moving into middle age, not what you see on network tv very often. The first show aired tonight and was interesting enough that I'll be back for more.

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White Christmas

I caught the last half of this on AMC tonight. I like Holiday Inn better but I still enjoy this one.

Rain

Today has been one of those days you just want to stay in bed and curl up with a good book. Unfortunately I had to finish up my Christmas shopping today. I need to get it all done and than I have to get everything wrapped by this weekend so I can bring it all to my brother. My Mom won't be coming down this year, she just doesn't feel like she's up to the drive. My brother will be able to make the trip up for the holiday, but unfortunately I won't be able to. Christmas season is just not a good time for me to be taking much time off. I'm really not looking forward to this Christmas Day, it'll be the first time in my life that I don't spend the day with my parents (or now my Mom). And with my brother up there I won't have any family down here. I'm glad he is able to go though.

So even though today has been cold and wet I've been running around finishing my shopping. I really thought I was done, but everytime I see something I think would be cool I end up having to get it. I really do have to stop it though.

In honor of the weather today I'm presenting Ms. Irma Thomas, the Soul Queen of New Orleans Music and "I Think It's Going to Rain."

Black Friday Deals A Day Early

Ok, I work in retail so Black Friday means something quite different for me than it does for most of you. If I was not working retail I would lock myself in my house and not even think about leaving for the Friday after Thanksgiving. But I do understand that there are a lot of good deals out there. Well Amazon (and this isn't a plug, I'm not getting any type of kickback from this) is running special deals throughout the day, for a certain amount of time, pre-Black Friday. I've got it open and am just picking things as they come on. I have the movie based on Neil Gamian's book Coroline for $4.99, so it's got some pretty good deals. We'll see what else I buy before the day is over.

Ho Ho Ho, More Christmas Music

I haven't been keeping up to date with this as I meant, but here's a local Christmas song from Benny Grunch and the Bunch. It's a local favorite, "The 12 Yats of Christmas."

Sarah Palin and her new book

From Mark Evanier's blog he links to Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi and his thoughts on Sarah Palin and her new book. It's worth clicking over and reading. Taibbi is one of the reasons I continue to read Rolling Stone.

One of My Favorite New Shows

I am loving Glee. This is one of my favorite shows on TV. This song was on the show tonight and I loved it.

Under The Dome

Image via Wikipedia

Last night I was within fifty pages of finishing the novel, but had to give it up after I would read a paragraph and not realize what I had even read I was so tired. So today I finished the book.

WOW!

This could be Stephen King's best novel yet. It's that good. I don't want to say too much, I don't want to ruin any of the surprises, let me just say again....this novel is very, very good.

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Veterans Day

I really only have one thing to say: THANK YOU!

Just because I might not always support the war does not mean I do not support the soldiers. The men and women that are willing to pick up arm are what keeps us free. Never forget that freedom is sometimes hard won.

Thank you to every man and woman who serves and has served.

Happy Anniversary to Sesame Street

Sesame Street is 40 years old today. There's not a lot I can say about the show that a lot of other people aren't saying right now, but Happy Anniversary! Besides helping more than one generation of kids learn, this show introduced me to my hero....Kermit the Frog!

Bashing Dems

I know most of my rants usually have a Republican as the target. Well, it's not because I hate Republicans, it's mostly because they do so many stupid things they make a good target. And it's definitely not because I'm a Democrat and feel like both parties do now that it's not just enough to oppose the other side, you gotta destroy the other side. I'm a registered Independent. I couldn't belong to the Democrat party, I'm a proud flag waving liberal and to Dems now days that's like the kiss of death. To see that the Dems can be just as stupid and evil as the GOP go read this article about the health care's passage in the House.

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President Obama at Fort Hood

"This generation has more than proved itself the equal of those who have come before. We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes," the President said.

The President spoke at Ft. Hood today. This article at Time makes a good point about a speech a President gives nowdays. It's something I've thought of before. No matter how good (or bad) such speeches are, you're going to hear people on tv, newspapers, radio, blogs and wherever else taking it apart word by word and making it fit whatever side they want. Go read the article, it presents some interesting facts.

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New Stephen King Book!

I've always been a big fan of Stephen King. Have all his books save for the most recent two and I know I'll end up getting them. Not sure why but lately I slowed down on reading his books, like I said I never got Duma Key and Just After Sunset yet. But today Under The Dome came out and I picked it up. I'm pretty excited to read it. I think Mr. King is a very good writer and most of his books I'm a big fan of. This is a big book, in size and tone of the story this book reminds me of The Stand, which can be a good thing since that was one of my favorite books by the writer.

Christmas Music

I think I've missed a week at least since I said I was going to try and post a Christmas song once a week here. Well, here's a new one. It's called "Santa Claus" and it's by the blues singer Sonny Boy Williamson. It's definitely not your typical holiday type song.

Still Needing Peace

On a day that we were trying to talk about peace a tragedy occurred at Ft. Hood. By now everyone knows the details. What can you say about such terrible events? Much smarter people than me will talk about the reasons and perhaps some of them will even make sense, but all I know is that we need peace now.