Anne sent me a link to this video showing the One Laptop Per Child program in action. I wish I could embed it, but since that’s not an option, follow the link.

Pictured from left to right: Mac “The Scorpion” Gargan, J. Jonah Jameson, Farley Stillwell, and a fish that breathes air and thinks it is a rat.

There is also a rat that breathes underwater and thinks it is a fish, but it’s too far to the right of the panel.

(From THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #20, January 1965)

Seen on magazine stand at the grocery store.

(sent from iPhone)

I liked writing THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: SECRET INVASION and SECRET INVASION: FRONT LINE quite a bit. It was fun to be in the heart of the Marvel Universe storm, even if it meant dancing between raindrops from time to time.

I enjoyed paying off nearly all my bills. The world is a different place when you just have to worry about paying the utilities.

I had fun watching my kids grow another year older, watching my friends have kids, and learning my sister has a baby on the way. They’ll all be the age we are now too, too soon.

And I couldn’t be happier to be ticking off year 15 with my wife tomorrow night. (We got married too young, but we’ve had a lot of fun, and there’s more to come.)

I have also rather enjoyed this bottle of wine I am drinking tonight.

And to all a good night.

St. Nick and a couple Krampus. They’re coming to your house tonight.

Here’s a repost from last year for the newcomers:

DECEMBER 2007
I’m so sad I didn’t know about the Krampus as a kid. He was a tale that got left behind in Europe for the most part. Santa’s dark half. This is Krampus:

Long story short, Krampus would accompany St. Nick on his gift giving tours. When The Claus ran across a kid on the naughty list, Krampus would set about beating the living shit out of said naughty kid. It was Good Cop / Bad Cop on a cosmic scale.

Given America’s religious history, and the fact that Christianity’s central tenant is “be good or go to hell,” it’s weird that our culture ditched the Krampus in favor of Solo Santa since “Get presents or get beaten half to death” seems a reasonably corporeal analog to the more cosmic Heaven/Hell promise/threat.

Instead, the whole threat in (at least American) childhood is “be good or Santa won’t come.” And kids are, this is no secret, dumb, so they don’t do the math and realize “there are 364 other days of the year where Santa doesn’t come so let’s burn the house down and pee on the dog and have fun, we can steal all the toys we want later.”

But in Europe, they’re still rocking the Krampus. From Wikipedia:

Today, Schladming, a town in Styria, over 1200 “Krampus” gather from all over Austria wearing goat-hair costumes and carved masks, carrying bundles of sticks used as switches, and swinging cowbells to warn of their approach. They are typically young men in their teens and early twenties and are generally intoxicated. They roam the streets of this typically quiet town and hit people with their switches. It is not considered wise for young women to go out on this night, as they are popular targets.

And an article from 2002 by Clay Risen covers an evening of debauchery themed around Krampus.

And while many regional European traditions are giving way to international consumer culture (the fat, red-bedecked Santa is in fact quickly replacing the rail-thin St. Nick throughout the continent), the Krampus is alive and well. He even has his own day—December 5. His success is certainly thanks in part to the lack of a parallel in American society. But he has stuck around mostly because Krampus Fest, like most holidays in alpine Europe, is a beloved excuse for small towns to get together and drink their brains out.

And I thought it was hard falling asleep on Christmas Eve when I was a kid. Imagine if I’d been fearing this thing dragging me out of my bed by my ankles at 3 AM:

Kids today. They’re soft, I tells ya.

You either love this movie, or you’re a heartless bastard, or maybe a stuck up prude.

The tale of Willie, one of an absolute piece of shit human being, doing heists as a shopping mall Santa Claus. It starts as a cynical “fuck you” to Christmas and Christmas films and all their tropes, and is an unapologetically raunchy movie — but then you realize all that raunch is wrapped around a heart of gold, and by the end of it all you’re actually touched by the whole thing without feeling like you’ve stepped in a pile of sugary schmaltz like you get with most holiday films.

A cheery Christmas tune from 1986.

Santa, getting his early electronic music on.

I almost bought one of these when I saw them 50% off on Amazon last week. Now i wish I’d bought 12 of them.

Found on Gizmodo