Buffalo Boy's Blog
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Recently in Christmas Category
Christmas Sucks Balls
Don't take this the wrong way, I like Christmas, I do. I like the lights, Santa, family, friends. Its a time of year that gets you through the darkest, coldest parts of winter, only it seems like the last 10 years or so its gone completely in the other direction. Greed, shelfishness and down right rudeness is the overall vibe.
You want to see what Im talking about? Go to the Best Buy/Target/Barnes and Nobles plaza in Amherst and try negotiating your way through that friggin mess. It was like trying to leave Darien Lake after a rock concert only people weren't in cheery moods or seemingly having a good time.
I recieved no fewer than five middle fingers from drivers in that parking lot because they couldn't go another 50 feet and all I was trying to do was get across a lane to get to another portion of the parking lot and then you have the assholes who won't let you through because they think you are going to get in front of them and so they refuse to budge, never mind that letting you in isn't going to speed things up.
When I left Best Buy, two cars almost hit each other trying to go for my spot at the same time, comical but at the same time disappointing.
Is this really what Christmas has become? Middle fingers, stuffed parking lots with people being rude to each other just because they are trying to negotiate their way through that parking lot. Its over the top. Next year everything I do will be done online and I will only do it through EBay or Amazon.com because I will no longer support these big retail stores that build these massive plazas that ultimately are a safety hazard and only get people more aggitated.
I don't pay any attention to the religious side of Christmas but Im pretty sure that Jesus didn't have the craziness I was witness to in mind yesterday when we celebrate his birthday. Its time to take a step back, maybe stop the midnight and Thanksgiving Day sales that get people hyped up and materialistic about this holiday. Stop making people believe they are getting deals that they will never get again on stuff. It is simply not the case. Christmas has become a holiday for greedy coorporations looking to maximize profit and when they get people like they were yesterday it has totally defeated any meaning this holiday has for me.
Not to mention, that parking lot in that plaza is a safety hazard, if I was having a medical condition.....a heart attack or there was a fire in any one of those stores or a car accident how would any safety or emergency vehicle get through there? Local government should step in and force those stores to come up with a plan to decrease traffic flow during their busiest season or knock some of them down and relocate to better areas that can handle the traffic flow and make that whole area safer for shoppers and maybe, just maybe the Christmas spirit would return.
A word of advice: Slow down, be nice, let people into traffic and don't be so greedy and shelfish around a holiday that is supposed to mean the opposite
Category: Christmas
My Top Ten Christmas Songs
These are my top 10 Christmas Songs in no particular order:
Snoopy's Christmas by the Royal Guardsmen The Beach Boys- Little Saint Nick Billy Squire- Christmas is a Time to Say I Love You John Lennon- Happy Xmas Bryan Adams- Something About Christmas Time U2- Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) Band Aid- Do They Know Its Christmas? The Kinks- Father Christmas her Christmas Sting- I Saw Three ShipsThe Pogues and Kristy MacColl- Fairytale of New York
Merry Christmas! BBM
Merry Christmas!: Cookie Monster Writes Santa
This is my all time favorite Sesame Street Christmas scene, Cookie Monster writting to Santa unfortunately Cookie Monster has trouble finishing what he starts:
Category: Christmas | Television
Christmas Treat: Humble and Fred and BNL 1998
Last year I posted the audio and since then the audio on those posts have been rendered useless. So this year I figured I would put the audio to Youtube. I can't believe its already a few weeks away, so to get in the Christmas spirit here is part one of 1998's Humble and Fred Christmas Spectacular featuring The Barenaked Ladies
Category: Christmas | Humble and Fred | Music
Christmas: Humble and Fred Style
I have been hanging onto this since I started this blog, waiting for the chance to convert this cassette full of Christmas cheer to MP3. It is the 1998 Humble and Fred Christmas Spectacular featuring the Barenaked Ladies. Humble and Fred can correct me if I am wrong but 1998 was the last year that the band played. Stephen made appearances after Humble and Fred switched to MOJO but for the most part that was it.
So, enjoy and Merry Christmas! I hear the guys are working on Humble and Fred Podcast #5 so this should provide some fun listening until that is up and running. There are 6 parts so have a listen!
Humble and Fred Teaser
If you didn't notice with my last post I had to switch to a new audio player. No its not as nice and detailed as the Imeem one but Houndbite will suffice. Mike Boon super technical guy referred me to Houndbite to get the audioclips running again as Myspace ate up Imeem. Above is a teaser, a week from Friday I will post a little treat for Humble and Fred fans for the Holidays.....You may use the comments section to guess and if you are a true fan you will guess without a problem...if you know, stay tuned, Im in the process of recording it and sometime next Friday I'll throw up some classic H&F.Category: Christmas | Humble and Fred | Miscellaneous | Music
Retro Christmas
Here are my top five favorite Christmas songs from back then....in no particular order. Chime in with more if you like:Category: Christmas | Sunday Retro
The First Christmas Song
I haven't separated the Christmas songs on my Ipod from the regular play list, I basically have a massive collection of 7600 songs at this point and if a Christmas song pops up from time to time I just skip right over it.
Well, after November 1st as long as its a good Christmas tune I let it fly. Today was the first of the good ones to come up while in the car so I let it go. It was Little Saint Nick by the Beach Boys. This is on my terms, not on some crazy radio stations terms who think they have to play Christmas music 24/7 starting November 1st.
Last year I let the first one play on November 12th, this year its 8 days earlier but I figured what the hell, after the crappy ass, rain filled summer we had we might as well push the cheerful part of winter into high gear because once the holidays are over its about 2+ months of hopelessness and nasty snow, sleet, ice and freezing rain.
So after today I will let the good Christmas songs that come on the Ipod playWay Too Early
Yesterday I walked into Rite Aid to pick up a few things and I was standing at the register and it hit me, its November. Why did it strike me right then and there?
Because we start celebrating Christmas now. Christmas music was playing overhead as I was waiting at the register. Way too early people! By the time we get to the actual holiday, the whole point of the day is completely lost with all the commercialism and stress from having to shop and buy gifts that most of us given these economic times don't have the money to buy and end up going waist deep into debt to buy a bunch of crap.
Whats wrong with waiting until December 1st? Hell I'd even say, wait until after Veteran's Day and then have at it. After that day there isn't much to talk about, the days are like 5 hours long and it helps to brighten the long nights. As a matter of fact, Im going to start a push right now for a law, okay more a rule than a law, that there is to be no Christmas music before December.
I ran into this a few times over the last couple weeks, I did not uncheck the Christmas songs in my Ipod and Snoopy's Christmas by the Royal Guardsman came on. Its one of my favorite songs period but its a Christmas song so I blew right by it.
How early is too early to start mentioning the holidays and specifically, how early is too early to start with the damn Christmas music? Call me Scrooge, call me what ever you want, but Christmas is just way too early. Really, Im more of a fan of extending the celebration, we spend two months before hyping it and then the day after we race to take everything down. Start celebrating it in December and then keep things up a few weeks into January to keep things lit up during the first half of the coldest and darkest month of the year.
Category: Christmas
