Why yes, my new decoration really does put me in the Christmas spirit, thanks. After all, I’ll probably be doing a significant chunk of my Christmas shopping there. And it’s so cute with the little skylights and all.

And no, I don’t really care how much they paid the person who hand-painted it.

Things I love today:

• Pop-up Video re-runs on VH-1 Classic: my only complaint is that no one ever shows my favorite: the Pop-up Behind the Music with Leif Garrett, which was one of the single funniest things I’ve ever seen on TV.
• My fast food cup overfloweth: The McRib and Burger King’s Italian Chicken Sandwich have returned simultaneously.
• Best of all, in only six more days, I get to have my boy home for nearly an entire month. Which is nice, because it’s getting cold here.

Y’know what’s really cool? Realizing what you’re about to do BEFORE putting that chip that you’ve just dipped in margarine into your mouth.

Happy 125th anniversary to the LA Times, still one of the four best newspapers in the US. Long may it remain Gannett-free.

If Wachovia opening a new ATM across the street from Bank of America — in a city where both banks have operated for decades — warrants a front-page “news” story in the Observer, I expect an entire commemorative edition the next time Bojangles opens a fast-food joint across the street from a Hardee’s.

Must’ve been a really slow news day in Charlotte yesterday.

It’s Christmas.

There are a few new photos in the Triad gallery, if you’re so inclined.

We’re a week away from our first Christmas in the new house. There are lights. There are presents. Domesticity abounds.

Mark has posted his salute to the Christmas spirit. I’ve done my annual posting of the official Otherstream Christmas anthem. Our wish lists (mine and his) are both available for last-minute browsing. All is well with the world.

We made our first fire Saturday night. We plan to spend Christmas Eve and morning in the basement, since that’s where we keep the fireplace. This particular Christmas morning will be especially nice since it will (a) be the first one in our new house, (b) be the first one I’ve ever spent adjacent to a fire, and (c) will allow us to wake up and have our morning to ourselves without having to share it with my parents or whomever, but will still allow us to drive over and spend the afternoon with them.

Apologies for all the domestic bliss and stuff, but Christmas is the squishiest time of year, after all.

In case it was ambiguous, my philosophical intent Monday was to demonstrate that the “reason for the season” is PRESENTS! And lots of them. Participants in The Compact might disagree, however:

John Perry’s worst temptation was a plumber’s snake for his clogged drain.

…

But Perry has not veered once from the Compact rules. His bathroom sink has been plugged for months, and it’ll stay that way until he finds a drain snake at Thrift Town.

I don’t see a real moral crusader here. I see a dumbass with an old, stinky hairball festering in his drain. But I probably won’t be using his bathroom anytime soon anyway, which is something for which I’m infinitely grateful. I’d hate to imagine what he does for toilet paper.

More randomnesss for a Wednesday after Christmas:

• Interesting LA Times piece on the entrepeneurial spirit of a marijuana retailer in San Francisco and the special joy he’s provided for everyone lucky enough to live near one of his establishments.
• Is it just me or does the “Rosie vs. Donald” catfight seem like the pilot for a new series called “Battle of the Nobody Gives a Damns”?
• Goodbye to former President Gerald Ford, perhaps the last of the moderate Republican chief executives. With him goes a certain calmness the party lacks now that it’s mostly controlled by religious nutjobs and other assorted reactionaries with persecution complexes. Of course, one could perhaps make that claim about the Democratic party as well.

Alas.

After six months or so, an update to the “home” page. There’s even an “interactive” floorplan, using 1997’s most cutting-edge technology: the client-side image map. Netscape 1.0 or higher is required:

This is our beautiful new house in Winston-Salem. We took possession on 26 May 2006. If you want, you can see a video I shot the day we closed here. We own it, so we can make all the holes we want in the walls. We can also paint everything lime green if we so choose. Fortunately, we don’t so choose, but still…

It’s a big house. But we’re big boys, so that works out just fine. For comparison purposes, it’s five or six times the size of the dingy hovel I called “home” in San Francisco for thriteen years and a good three times the size of our apartment in Charlotte.

Our house was built in 1963 (the year before me) and has had two previous owners. In the fashion of the time, it’s somewhat overbuilt and should withstand considerable punishment over the years without collapsing. It also features parking, a yard, a shed, utilities that work, and a refreshing lack of mold in the bathroom.

Sadly, there’s no psycho living downstairs, and the neighborhood lacks roaming bands of crackheads and drunk guys who piss on the front steps. There’s also no big gang mural across the street and I’ve yet to find a single used syringe or condom by the curb. I’m happy to say, though, that I’m learning to live without these amenities.

If you’d like to see the inside, you can click on any arrow below to see a photo and description from that viewpoint. If you prefer, you may also use the thumbnails at the bottom of the page.

OK, so you all thought I was making up my story about people in North Carolina treating the word “license” as a plural just because it ends in an “s” sound, didn’t you? Listen as the presumably well-educated attorney below very clearly says “your license are revoked for thirty days”. You’ll believe me next time, won’t you?

I’ve been pondering this for several weeks now: is a world without its own best pecan pie really a world that I want to live in? Fortuntately, I always end up remembering that I never really liked pecan pie all that much to begin with. I’m usually OK after that.

All the same, I’ll miss Anderson’s. At least, though, its owners chose to close. The owners of Athens, my favorite diner just up the street, didn’t have that option. Athens is being demolished so that CPCC can build another neo-Colonial building. There’s nothing Ch

Hooray for Valleydale.

I’ve been desperately seeking those damned pigs for many years now, especially for this specific commercial.