That's the Christmas Spirit, Mommy #2

Well, I just called my dad's to ask if the boys could bring the xBox 360 over, and I got a major ass-chewing from my stepmother.

First I called my brother:

Katie (me): Hey tom, could you bring the xBox 360 tonight?
Tom: Uh... it's not Christmas yet. So... no.
Katie: Um, well, I just bought Viva Pinata for myself and I'd really like to use the 360.
Tom: That's nice.
-click-

I was confused as to what that was all about because he's usually not that much of a bastard. So I called my stepmother:

Katie: Hey Anj, Tom just hung up on me...
Angie: Yeah. I know.
Katie: I was just wondering if I could use the 360 tonight.
Angie: Of course you can't use it. Do you have any idea who's it is?
Katie: Uh... Danny's? (Danny is my stepbrother)
Angie: Yes, and he's not getting it until tomorrow.
Katie: You mean for Christmas? I thought they already had one.
Angie: No.
Katie: Well, that's what I thought. Sorry then.
Angie: Uh-huh.
-click-

Her voice was dripping with distaste, as it always is when I ask to use something that belongs to her son. It's really hard to pretend you aren't part of a shattered family when your stepparent treats you like the annoying kid-from-up-the-street who won't just take a hint and leave.

For the record, I wanted them to bring the 360 because I bought Tommy AND Danny a $60 game for them to open tonight. Bah, humbug.

Damn your soul for a free DVD today!

Creepy philosophical/religious discovery of the day: www.blasphemychallenge.com.

It's simple. You record a short message damning yourself to Hell, you upload it to YouTube, and then the Rational Response Squad will send you a free The God Who Wasn't There DVD. It's that easy.

I'm not particularily fond of this idea, regardless of the fact that I don't believe in Hell. It seems to imply that atheism exists only to be a tack in the ass of Christianity, which simply isn't true. It's also oddly reminiscent of the rantings of many a Sunday televangelist, although the content is a little... different.

But hey, some of these responses are just priceless:

Is there a Santa Claus?

Is there a Santa Claus?
SPY magazine, 1990, reports:

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn't (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that's 91.8 million homes. One presumes there's at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical).

This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight.

On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' (see point #1) could pull ten times the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine.

We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each.

In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second.

Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he's dead now.

World Domination via Pixel Polar Bears

Oh yes.

The PPB will be keeping a watch on my posts this holiday season. Feel free to bearnap one for your blog if you like.


                   

                   

                   

                   

                   

Newsflash: Harry Potter isn't real.

I saw Jesus Camp the other day, and it left me pretty righteously freaked out. Don't get me wrong - I don't think most fundamental Christians yearn for world domination via third graders. But when you find a group that does, you just can't help but bust out the ol' camcorder and make magic.

My personal favorite scene? Pastor Fischer expresses a desire for the blood of Hogwarts' students.