‘Tis the Season…

  • by Drew

As we plunge headlong into the holidays, I know thoughts of plasma screens and wall mounts and Wii games are jousting with the remembrance of acts of mercy and redemption…and there’s that 24 hour Christmas Story marathon to think about… But there’s something nipping at my nose and it ain’t Jack Frost. I keep hearing all this nonsense about anti-Christmas sentiment, and it is getting on my nerves. I’m not going to get into the religious, mythological, sociological or simple cultural “reasons for the seasons” because let’s face it, there is single satisfactory response. I mean, you may think there is, but there’s not. This holiday seasons has roots that extend back many thousands of years, and no single race, creed, religion, belief system, or soft drink can claim full credit.

All that aside, I want to focus on something way more substantial than whether people say “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy Holidays” or something along those lines. First of all, if someone chooses to say something other than Merry Christmas, it does not mean that they hate Christmas or hate your religious beliefs or are persecuting you in any way. It may simply mean that they don’t know if YOU celebrate Christmas and are being sensitive to your potential cultural differences. Maybe you should take that as an object lesson.

Here’s something else to consider. I know a lot of people who celebrate Christmas. They are religious and kind and wonderful, but they do not say Merry Christmas for one simple reason. They do not feel joy at this time of year. They are not haters. They just have dealt with losses like a death in the family, and the holidays bring up sad memories. So, they are not feeling particularly joyous. Maybe all those good Christmas lovers should realize that their insensitivity is just making it more difficult for others.

Here’s another thought – many of the people who do not say Merry Christmas at this time of year also do not regularly say “Please” or “Thank you” or “Excuse me,” and most of them probably don’t use their turn signals. I am WAY less concerned about the seasonal greeting and way more interested in experiencing some common courtesy. How ’bout you?

Everybody must get loaned…right?

  • by Drew

I feel like I’m becoming the online university review clearing house here, but what can I say? The schools are out there, and distance learning is tied pretty closely to the higher ed affinity work I do, so I almost feel obligated.

I just learned about Western Governors University. It is online-only, nonprofit and fully accredited. Three big checks on the plus side as far as I’m concerned. Online only means the expenses of non-academics programs, campus buildings, etc. are kept to a minimum, so your tuition pays for your education and not the other stuff. Non profit means there are no shareholders to benefit from inflated tuition rates, and fully accredited means it is a real degree, not one of those faux-lambskins from Greedy-Televangelist-of-the-Moment U.

And WGU delivers in terms of tuition value. Their tuition per semester is flat fee, not by credit hour, so you can be paying as little as half what some other online institutions are charging. And the degrees available? You can get an online mba through their Master’s programs in business administration, healthcare management, or IT management. There are also several other available degree programs. Not too shabby.

Why Western Governors, I mean, as a name? Apparently the school was founded to serve students of the modern age. It is the vision of the governors from 19 different states and is supported by at least 20 major corporations. To date they have serviced more than 14,000 students across the country. Not too bad, in my humble opinion.

Ninja Floss

  • by Drew

A couple months back I did a review of a Dentek flavored floss pick product. It was, I think, targeted to the youth market, and my 7 year old helped me out. Recently I was offered the chance to do a review of another Dentek product, their new Custom Comfort Floss*. This stuff is made by winding two relatively thin strands of floss together to successfully clean the tightest spaces between teeth. I tested the stuff on myself, my kids and my wife and we all agree that it is pretty effective in those tight spots.

My oldest son, in particular, has ridiculously narrow spaces between his teeth. On several occassions in the past year I’ve torn the floss right off the pick as I tried to work it in there. So, in his case, this is complete clean floss, it really does the job. I even got a little silly making my own video review this time. Check it.

I don’t know if this narrower floss is beneficial to everyone, all the time. You definitely feel the difference when this is between your teeth and against your gums. I suppose if you have exceptionally large spaces between your teeth, or if you have really tender gums, this might be a less attractive option. But for getting into the tight spaces…you really can’t beat it.

*This review is a result of a feedback campaign by DenTek Oral Care Inc. The recipients were asked to give their honest opinion about the product they received. Good reviews were not incentivized and poor reviews will not be censored for their opinion of the product.

That’s Okay…

  • by Drew

“It’s colder in this house than anywhere in Boston. It’s okay, Christmas means little to me.”

That’s a lyric from an old Fuzzy song – pretty close anyway. Man, I used to love Fuzzy, even shared the stage with them one time. I’m sure I remember it far better than they do.

The song just popped into my head and set me on another one of those thought-spirals that go nowhere, but oh, what a ride. I was thinking about some of the apartments I lived in, particularly back in the day, back in Boston. I think of these relatively small houses. Or rather, decent sized houses, but with room after room. I mean, you could really cram a lot of rooms into one of those houses. And you could cram a lot of people and stuff in, too. Built-in shelves and such helped in that you needed less furniture, but there was just so much less wasted space. seriously.

I love my house. I really do. And the addition upstairs means we have a bunch of smaller rooms instead of two big ones. More nooks and crannies, too. And though it is pretty new construction, I feel that it is reasonably unpretentious. I would like a cooler kitchen, and if ever we renovate, that is where I would be willing to kick it up. Nicer, solid surface counter tops instead of laminate. Probably not copper kitchen sinks or convection ovens in our future, but some nice granite or marble, maybe. I mean, it is the room we spend the most time in.

But I think about some of those tight little apartments. Those little spaces I crammed so much into. White walls covered with the glossy printed temporary colors of my presence. Surround sound was not really necessary. Big screens…didn’t need one of those either. Different time, different priorities. No kids. But…not so bad, either.

So, Fuzzy. I’ve always loved Christmas, but it means more to me now than ever before. Kids and a fire in the stove, and no Boston… It’s not an anti-Christmas song, by the way. At least, it seems much more of a break up song. A you-broke-my-heart-and-even-though-I’m-lonely-on-Christmas-I’m-going-to-deny-it-and-be-alright. It walks a tightrope between depressing and empowering. Remember when pop songs could do that?

“Silent night and all the lights are low…”

Tone

  • by Drew

Look, dude, I know she looks like she lives her life on a Life Fitness treadmill, doing the old binge and purge and getting regular high colonics, but Jessica Simpson is a lowlife. She is a dim bulb with no morals and will happily go ho whenever necessary to boost her little blond ego. Deal with it.

Seriously. But this gives rise to another topic. Tone. Not muscle tone. Musical tone. Rock and roll tone. Read the guitar mags and it is all they talk about. Of course, in the guitar mags, tone is defined by the core readership. And if you haven’t ever been a reader of guitar mags you may not realize that 9 out of 10 guitar mag readers are metal-heads. So, the tone discussed in these pubs is not necessarily the tone that everyone would be interested in. For example, I am not so into the metal-head tone most of the time.

I have found the tone I love, though. My new Taylor acoustic. Holy geez, I’m in love. It was cheap, by Taylor standards, but man, what a beauty. It’s a grand auditorium style…quieter and less bass-thumpy than pretty much any other guitar I’ve ever played. Great for finger picking and mid-range noodling. Yup. I’m a-lovin’ it baby.

Silent Night

  • by Drew

See if you can follow this wacko train of thought…

All this truck talk got me thinking about NASCAR. I don’t know, I just associate the big rigs with racing. Is that so wrong? And then I started thinking about this guy Earl who was on of the bosses in the dining hall when I worked there in college. Earl was a big NASCAR fan, and he told me a detailed anecdote about an Eddie Rabbit performance…about 15 years ago. So I thought about the modern performance roster at a race, and realized that a good candidate might be Jessica Simpson (when she takes a break from hawking acne treatments) which reminded me of Christmas a few years back.

It was 2001, the first Christmas after the towers fell. There was a big thing at Rockefeller Center and all sorts of people performed. There was Liz Phair in a tragic performance that involved bad microphones and…well, not the best. And there was that Fireman who did a kind of opera thing.

Then Jessica came out and did Silent Night. And when I say she “did” it. Well, maybe “did it” is the proper way to quote it. I mean, she was pale and blond with massively pver painted lips and she more or less fellated the mic. Maybe this sells records to the good Christian boys and girls, but man, it was seriously tasteless. Yeah dude, good times.

Towed

  • by Drew

I was on the highway  the other day and saw something I haven’t seen in a few years. It was a tractor trailer without a cargo trailer. Instead, it was pulling a second tractor trailer, backwards. Like, towing it. I don’t know if there was something wrong with the second rig, or if maybe they were traveling together to save fuel or something. who knows, right?

But it got me to thinking about specialized tow trucks. I mean, are there tow trucks specifically built for towing big rigs? Is there a market for these things. And what about, like, towing small aircraft, or rv towing, or limo towing. Think about those crazy Hummer limos. Wouldn’t you need a specially made vehicle of some stripe to pull one of those monstrosities. Actually, considering that your standard Hummer gets about 6 miles to the gallon or so, it might make more sense to tow it.

Pre-flight Cocktails

  • by Drew

Ok, so maybe my last post was a little harsh. I mean, I shouldn’t disparage the elderly as a whole becuase of a couple of particularly nasty travelers. In fact, I tend to like old ladies a lot better than most people, including other old ladies.

And in truth, the trip wasn’t that bad. Yeah, there were some delays and the regular annoyed and thus annoying travelers in their wrinkled suits and rumpled demeanors. I actually enjoy the airport. Delays and such are always a drag, but the people watching is really good. Second only to those days in High School when my buddy Adam and I would hang out on the Grand Central balcony over the Pan Am Building escalator and watch the girls come in from Connecticut and Scarsdale wearing black and putting on their “cool” face. Good times.

And speaking of good times, can you just imagine the time when you could actually carry a bottle of booze with you, when you could get liquored up and enjoy your travels in a half blind stupor? I’m not talking about the little 50 ml mini bottles I stash in my quart sized plastic zipper bag stuffed with under 3 ounce containers of toothpaste and shampoo. I’m talking about real bottles, when people called their bottle a quart and metric measure had no place in the American booze market. I mean, in those days they could practically roll stainless steel drums of vodka past the security folks and hang out at their departure gate with a paperback and an extra large crazy straw.

Ahhhh, the golden age.

…and boy are my arms tired

  • by Drew

I just flew back from the corporate home office and my arms are really tired. No, that’s not a really bad joke. Well, actually, it is a really bad joke, but I’m not making the joke. My arms really are tired. Yesterday was a day of minor wind delays. Not major delays or cancellations, just minor delays. But that made it a good day to try and jump on an earlier flight that had been delayed, in anticipation of my regularly scheduled flight also being delayed. I was able to pull this off on the first leg of my journey, but the connection…well, the guy was being a schmuck, so I had to wait.

The thing is, I was running around airports, particularly the ever-lovin’ hub in Philadelphia, with my one stuffed carry-on in hand, checking flight status on the good old iPhone. That bag started getting a little heavy, and thus…tired arms.

Anyway, all that running raises in my mind a question. Maybe you have an answer, dear reader, maybe not. But here it is – why do the old ladies always step in front of me in tight squeezes so I am forced to cut my speed to a quarter of what I desire it to be. And I’m not talking about spry old ladies in their big hats and Hawaiian shirts. I’m talking about those spindle legged old crones with Santa bellies, wobbling between a cane and a rolling suitcase that no airline is going to let her carry on. I mean, suck it up and pay the fee and stop reminiscing about two-seater biplane rides. I don’t want to be standing behind your argument with the flight attendant with the “I never heard of such a thing” and “this is the last time I fly this airline” nonsense. Let’s face you nasty old social security disability biddy, this is probably the last time you fly any airline, anywhere. Period.

Demanification

  • by Drew

Interesting article in Popular Science recently – it would seem that the bass population is feminizing. That would be bass rhyming with ass, you know the fish. Not bass rhyming with ace, as in four-string lowenders. They’re always hopelessly masculine. Even the chicks.

The article and so-called science blame pollution for this problem…and it is a problem. Not only is the bass porn industry suffering from a sharp decline in customers, but this could ultimately lead to a decreased bass population because the male fish are turning female. They are actually turning female. Their little fish sacks (or whatever) are becoming useless and they are beginning to produce infertile eggs. Supposedly some species of fish do this naturally (probably those commie fish swimming around Chernobyl) but not bass. Not bass.

Before you start thinking I’m somehow homophobic – which would be stupid because these are not gay fish, they are more like…what? Transgender? But seriously, I have always been well in touch with my feminine side – so much so that half my family thought I was gay during part of the 90s. No lie. I was actually encouraged to move in with an ex-girlfriend because they were uncomfortable with my male roommate. I explained that we were both quite straight but you would have thought we were on a water polo team or something the way they fretted. So yes, I could pretty much franchise the whole sensitive new age guy thing circa 1996.

But these science geeks have the bass thing all wrong. It’s not pollution that’s weirding up these fish. No way. It’s the fashion industry. Yup, you read that correctly. I believe the blame sits squarely with the fashion industry.

Seriously. Check out the clothes available for winter. Puffer vests and coats. PUFFER VESTS. Do you really know any self-respecting dude who would go out in public wearing a puffer vest? Christ, puffer is what my kids call flatulence.

“Daddy, I made a puffer, tee-hee.”
“I know son, it’s making my incredibly gay vest so balloon-y.” 

I saw something in a circular (and yes, gentle reader, the guy who admits to reading sales circulars from department stores has the nerve to call someone else gay) this morning – a faux shearling microsuede coat, available in these colors: taupe or sunset.

Somewhere, Lee Marvin makes a puffer after pulling a 12 pound bass from a river of toxic runoff. Charles Bronson puts a firm hand on his shoulder and says, “Nice work sweet cheeks, now let me clean that little she-meal for you.”

© 2026 Drew Bancroft. All rights reserved. Totally.