My Sick Mind

Longwood Gardens has its Christmas display up. I'm not that big a fan of Christmas, but flowers and trees are nice. Tonight's TV news was filled with stories of people out shopping (at 10:15pm no less) picking out that perfect gift for the people on their list. That we have been roped into buying things for more than our immediate family and close friends is a social phenomenon aside from the Christmas mess. Co-workers, casual acquaintances and newspaper delivery people are among the people who find themselves included in our holiday spending. At my office, people will be seen leaving on Christmas Eve with bags full of crap they've gotten from their co-workers. Women, mostly. Men couldn't be bothered, and I figure if more women thought like men the entire shopping season would be reduced to a gift for their spouse or lover and nothing more. That's probably why advertising is geared toward women. You hear a lot of complaints from people around election time...

I see a lot of people selling stuff on the Internet. Of course, Ebay is loaded with them. It's the point of the thing, don't you know, so you'd figure. There are plenty of people with hobbies that are both enjoyable to them and also earn a profit for them if they can find people to buy their things. At this time of year, you see a lot of home-made wreaths and ersatz Xmas trees. I'd guess they spend the other 11 months making the stuff. People sell homemade furniture, quilts, jewelry and candles . I have no mechanical or woodworking capabilities, so my best hope is some form of art. Since I can't draw a straight line without an edge to lay my pencil on, I'm left to either this stuff or my photography. I can't imagine anyone willing to shell out fifteen bucks for 300 pages of this junk, but I could imagine someone who might want to look at a nice photo of Philadelphia hanging on their wall. I think that's how it would work. Like a lot of things, des...

I have been neglectful. I could have been writing about how I found the coverage of Elizabeth Edwards' death a bit excessive. Aside from being the wife of a failed presidential candidate, what did she do with her life? Oh right -- she's the scorned wife of the failed presidential candidate who had cancer, and now finds that her death has a certain ironic-pity quality to it that the media eats for lunch. I could have been writing about yet another hike in DRPA bridge tolls, but that's beating the proverbial dead horse, and is of limited interest to the hundreds of people who access this page from Korea and Japan. I could have been writing about the Phillies' coup of signing scorned lefthander Cliff Lee to reprise his role of 2009. Fans are lauding the guy because he took less money to come to Philadelphia than stay in Texas or move to New York. As if people don't realize why you would take less money to live and play in Philadelphia instead of those two Hell h...

The roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis collapsed under the weight of about two feet of snow, cancelling the scheduled game between the Vikings and Giants. This video looks like it was produced by Pixar, but it's actual surveillance camera footage: That's an awesome sight, and it's fortunate that it didn't happen during a game. Can you imagine the panic that would ensue? Maybe Pixar can put some people in the stands and show us what would have happened. The snow wouldn't hurt them, but several would have been killed by the mob trying to get out. What's even more amazing is that it has happened quite a few times, leading me to wonder why they'd build a dome that they couldn't heat to keep the snow from building up? The roof looks like some kid flipped a wading pool over a refrigerator box and decided to call it a stadium. I bet you couldn't get the local building inspector to approve an inflatable roof for your house, but they can keep 60,000 peop...