Belicove.Com - BeliBlog

December 20, 2004

MIKAL UPDATE

I've been so busy and stressed since Thanksgiving that I haven't done much in the way of updating my blog. In an attempt to make up for lost time, here's an update:

Working at The Mall: My gig as Santa's token Jewish helper at the mall is still in play. I've been working most weeknights and every Sunday since the day after Thanksgiving. Here's a picture of me along with Santa and John, our manager. For the most part, the gig's been a good one. Oh sure, we continue to get the occasional pain in the you-know-what parent or kid, but for the most part everyone's been on their best behavior. My last night in the booth will be this Thursday, and it'll likely be a sad one. It looks like Santa's going to move to Florida sometime over the next year, which means that I'm not likely to return next year. Santa's the glue that holds our team together, and without him in the booth it just wouldn't be the same.

Home for The Holidays: I'll be headed to Connecticut and Vermont for Christmas. I leave on Christmas Eve day (I can't wait to see my Mother and Brother, along with some friends and their families).

Live Like You Were Dying: My first Hanukkah/Christmas gift of the year arrived the other day... Tim McGraw's new album, Live Like You Were Dying. Two words... great tunes! I especially like the album's title song, Live Like You Were Dying, along with track #2: My Old Friend, track #3: Can't Tell Me Nothin', and track #7: Back When. From Back When...

Back when a hoe was a hoe,
Coke was a coke,
Crack's what you were doing when you were cracking jokes.

Back when a screw was a screw,
The wind was all that blew,
When you said, "I'm down with that", it meant you had the flu.

I loved my records, black shinny vinyl,
Clicks and pops and white noise, man they sounded fine,
Had my favorite station, the one that played 'em all,
Country, soul, rock and roll, what happened to those times?
I'm reading street slang For Dummies,
'cause they put pop in my country.
I want more for my money, the way it was back when.

My Search for a Car: I'm still looking for a dependable used car, so again I'll suggest that if anyone knows of a good one in the Indy area (that's for sale, that is) please do let me know. For now, I'm continuing to make do with my rental from Enterprise (a company which I highly recommend, by the way!).

Red Companies vs. Blue Companies: A bunch of friends and colleagues have encouraged me to visit BuyBlue.org, where you'll find a list of companies categorized according to the political party each supported via cash contributions in preparation for the 2004 general election. The idea behind the site is to encourage you to support just those companies who donated money to Democratic (Blue) candidates. So, for example, if you're a Democrat whose headed out to buy a book, BuyBlue.org recommends that you shop at Barnes & Noble because B&N gave 98% of it's 2004 political contributions to Democratic, whereas Amazon.com gave 61% of its contributions to Republican candidates for office. My stance on this... Give Me A Frickin' Break! Sure, this is Boycott 101 sort of stuff, but if people actually start to buy products only from those companies which supported either Democrats or Republicans in any given election, it's not the companies themselves which will suffer; it's the hourly wage earners who will go down in flames. Hopefully few people care so much about politics that they'll give it a higher priority than value and quality when deciding where to shop or what to buy. Even most Democrats I know would probably shop at Wal-Mart if, say, going to Costco entailed driving an extra 10 miles (though at least those who do the latter would be contributing to global warming, but that's a whole nother issue).

Running Picture: Here's a shot I just received from October's Indianapolis Half-Marathon. I think I actually look like a runner in this one:

The best part of this picture... as much as I may look like I'm just chugging along all smooth-like, I was eventually run down and passed by that 72-year-old walker off to the right edge of the photo! Too funny... happy Monday.

Posted by Mikal at December 20, 2004 6:55 AM | TrackBack