Another night, another handful of bands. + Stinkmitt + Peter Pan Speedrock (or the official site. + Nashville Pussy If nothing else happened, I did bump a long-standing “Worst Live Act I’ve Seen” record holder. The previous champ was a band by the name of J Brian and The Cassettes, which consisted of J Brian, [...]
Read more →I have this problem – I get much of my current information from this thing called “The Internet.” The trouble is a number of the people who you’d think would benefit most from this Internet thingie don’t even try to provide up to date information. One of the sleaziest hardcore bars in town… well, okay, [...]
Read more →Tonight’s lineup of bands wasn’t half bad… – Hissyfit – Thor – D.O.A Hissyfit wasn’t billed, so I’m assuming that they’re local. They went onstage about 10:00pm and they didn’t entirely stink up the place. Female lead singer who had a decent voice, but after the 3rd or 4th song, the songs all tended to [...]
Read more →Okay, I know I’ve seen craigslist before, but I don’t think I’ve given it the patience it truly deserves. Re-acquainted with it thanks to feedroll which is powering that little box in the sidebar… nice bit of feed display from other sites… I’d like to get my hands on a really good RSS feed aggregator [...]
Read more →Are they trying to start a stupid meme? I just don’t understand… a bit of searching on google revealed a link to http://www.lukefictitious.com/ which is THE WORST web page I’ve seen in a while. That’s saying a lot… From SuFan@ILoveGiraffes.net Wed Nov 5 01:50:09 2003 Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 09:56:50 +0000 From: Wonderful Day [...]
Read more →Just realized that I have a lot of content on the paid-for web server at Warped and I don’t really feel like paying for the 100MB of extra disk space any longer. So, I moved a whole bunch of my lesser-used items and bigger files over to my home server and enabled Redirect on a [...]
Read more →Read more →I would like to propose a change. This change would be very large, yet not difficult. It would dramatically reduce the stress in our lives during the most stressful months of the year. It would save us money where money would normally be thrown away to debatable purposes. It would save gas, electricity, paper, plastic and, on some level, your soul.
I propose a No-Shopping Christmas.
Maybe I’m a Scrooge, or a Grinch, or a disgruntled youth. Or maybe, I’ve just seen enough. Last year, I got to view capitalistic Christmas from the front lines: working at a popular multinational economical clothing store, in West Edmonton Mall, more commonly known as the world’s largest mall. Out of 800 stores in “The Mall”, I would venture to say that mine was one of the busiest.
When I looked up from my cash register, I could see the line stretch all the way back into men’s denim. I looked at all the faces: tired, stressed, wanting to smack the whining children around them. Nobody really wanted to be there. And with the exceptions of the moments when I stood up on a ladder and gave out coupons, no one was having fun.
Why were they there? Why were they buying clothing that would probably fit poorly and be returned in a few weeks? Obligation, of course. Centuries of the Christmas Holiday, and decades of the modern “Consumer Christmas” has instilled the idea that gift giving is a social obligation, that you will be judged poorly by your peers if you are incapable of presenting them with a satisfactory gift. This has led to Christmas becoming recognized as an economic booster. A terrific booster, actually: Hundreds of billions of dollars in retail sales that wouldn’t otherwise exist.
However, the economy isn’t the only thing Christmas boosts. It’s also a stress booster, a divorce booster, and a credit card debt booster. A dead tree booster and a garbage booster. A greed booster. Make careful note of that last one folks; does the world really need more greed?
Somewhat similar to Buy Nothing Day, No Shopping Christmas is a simple, yet heavy concept: buy no gifts for Christmas out of obligation, and inform others of your intent so that they do not feel obligated to buy you gifts in return. Don’t waste money on lame decorations, and thank you kindly for not killing the trees. Spend time with your family and friends instead of spending money on them. Participate in the traditions of your religion of choice. Or not. Accept Christmas as a time for rest, relaxation, and spending time with people outside of shopping malls.
Implementing this concept, I see a world with much less stress and much more value. A world where children would receive fewer cheap plastic toys, but have their college education paid for. A world where we plant a tree in our backyard, not our living room. A world where time is valued more than money.
This holiday season, go out and don’t buy something.