Merry Christmas - whether you like it or not

Christmas season is upon us once again. And you know what that means.

Yup, time for people who do not observe Christmas to make a ruckus about how Christmas is being shoved down their throat.

It's become customary for public transit vehicles to bear the "Merry Christmas" greetings this time of year, but apparently that's offensive to people; for example, one Ashu Solo of Saskatoon complained to city hall that "Christmas messages on Saskatoon Transit buses make religious minorities, atheists and agnostics who do not celebrate Christmas feel excluded and like second-class citizen."

Well, Mr. Solo, that appears to be your problem, not mine.

How exactly does greeting one who doesn't observe Christmas with "Merry Christmas" make one feel excluded? If anything, it is the inclusive nature of the holiday that prompts the greeting. The very act of wishing you "Merry Christmas" is an invitation extended to you, to be a part of this holiday, rather than to exclude you from it.

If anything, not greeting you with "Merry Christmas" is more exclusive. It means I have decided to excluded you from our celebrations. For example, I would not normally wish Caucasians a "Happy Chinese New Year"; not merely because I recognize they do not traditionally observe such a holiday, but also that I have decided I need not include them in my celebration of it.

I propose then, that any feelings of exclusion or relegation to second-class come from the individual himself, and are misplaced. He has rejected an invitation extended to him, and chose to exclude himself from the holidays, not the other way around.

Tobias 3.0

A couple weeks ago, I was showering with Tobias 2.11, and he turned his back to me and stood with his feet lined up with mine, such that our feet alternated with each others. He then crouched down and started counting toes.

Tobais: (His left foot) "1, 2, 3, 4, 5," (My left foot) "6, 7, 8, 9, 10," (His right foot) "11, 12, 13, 14..."

At this point he lost count because the toes on his right foot had bunched up together (since he squeezed his foot between my feet), so he had to back up.

Tobias: (Restarting at his right big toe) "11, 12, 13, 14, 15..."

If you didn't catch it, here's why I was amazed: Before the age of three, he was able to recognize where he made a potential mistake, back up to a point before the mistake was made, and pick up from an arbitrary restart location.

That's right, he had created a mental checkpoint.

I had expected him to restart from the beginning, but somehow, he was able to determine where he had gone wrong, and back up just enough to correct his mistake without losing previous progress.

Then, two days ago, we were in the shower again. He (now 3.0) asked to play the same game, so this time I decided to throw in a little wrinkle to give him a bit of a challenge.

He lined up his little feet with mine the same way as before, but as he crouched down I bent over to put my hands on the outside, so our extremities lined up like so:

[My left hand] - [His left foot] - [My left foot] - [His right foot] - [My right foot] - [My right hand]

Off he went.

Tobias: (My right hand) "1, 2, 3, 4, 5," (My right foot) "6, 7, 8, 9, 10," (His right foot) "11, 12, 13, 14..." (Had the same problem as before, and restarted at his right little toe) "11, 12, 13, 14, 15..."

Me: (Sneaking my right hand in between my left hand and his left foot) "Yup, keep going..."

Tobias: (Notices me moving my right hand) "I already counted that one," (Pushes it away with his left hand and continues counting toes on my left foot with his right hand) "16, 17, 18, 19, 20!"

Me (Laughing hysterically): "Really? You've counted this one?" (Trying to sneak my right hand in again)

Tobias: (Gets a bit annoyed) "I already counted that one!" (Pushes it away again and continues with his left foot) "21, 22, 23, 24, 25," (And finally my left hand, while I was trying not to fall over laughing) "26, 27, 28, 29, 40! We have 40!"

Oh the fun we're gonna have together, my boy.

Goals for Tonight

Getting Wi-fi working on the iBook G4 running Ubuntu, then updating all installed packages.

Also want to add things like, languages, hardware monitors (temperatures, fan speed, etc.).

As for the Air... need to get Dashcode working again.

Constant Adjustments

That's what Parenting is.

More on this later.

EA Sports

Sometime ago, I vowed not to buy EA Sports' games full-price.

This year, it's looking increasingly likely that I'll have to renege on that.

Madden NFL 11 has the new GameFlow and Game Planning features. NHL 11 has properly implemented Free Agency. FIFA 11 has a new passing system.

And all of them are priced at $69.99. Damn.

Boxing Day, maybe.

2012 (The Movie)

Not impressed.

The science is crap. The plot is crap. The writing is crap. The acting is crap. But I guess that was all to be expected in a film where the focus is digital effects, which sometimes also bordered on crap.

It had nothing even to do with 2012 and the supposed Mayan prophecy of the end of the world, except that the events depicted in the film had the numbers "2012" conveniently flashed across the screen before it all went to hell.

Oh, and not to mention that the writers (Roland Emmerich and Harald Kloser) were too pussy to destroy Mecca, but were completely OK toppling the statue of Jesus in Rio and knocking out the Tibetan monk's humble abode in the Himalayas. Yeah, obviously because Christians/Catholics and Buddhists are a little more tolerant than Muslims.

Oh, this just in (well it's not news, but I just found out) - Roland Emmerich is gay.

Couldn't have put that better myself.

Cherry

What does Don Cherry represent? What does Don Cherry stand for?

Does Don Cherry represent Canada? Does Don Cherry stand for the Canadian way of life?

I hope not. Don Cherry just comes across as a grumpy old man, a septogenarian curmudgeon who has a singular idea of what Canadians are: gap-toothed, hard-working, win-at-all-cost hockey players who wear their hearts and patriotism (among other things) on their sleeves.

I don't think Don has looked around metropolitan Canada in the past 30 years. I don't think he's even close to understanding what it means to be "Canadian" these days.

I would not be surprised if Don admitted he didn't realize Adrienne Clarkson, the 26th Governor General of Canada, was Chinese.

Wake up, Don. Enough of the European-bashing. It's one thing to be proudly Canadian; it's another to portray all Europeans as pussies who whine and dive and wear visors and won't drop the gloves (though Alex Semin wasn't helping).

You don't represent Canada. You don't represent Canadian ideals. You may be fiercely proud of your small-town Canadian roots, but small-town Canada no longer represents Canada as a whole. Nearly half of the country's population now live in the ten most populous cities in the country. That's more than the total population from less than 60 years ago.

You may be entertaining. You may be controversial. You may even be entertaining because you're controversial. But times are passing you on, and until you are ready to admit that maybe there are other ways to play hockey and other ways to live life, you'll always go down as a stubborn grouch in my books.