November Holidays: I’ll Quit Smoking If You Quit Eating Like A Pig
[ Comments Off ]Posted on November 1, 2009 by admin in Holidays
Sunday, November 1st, 2009The pope tries to get the heathens back to church after a wild night of partying, more celebrations of death and war, and some health reminders as Thanksgiving approaches.
For all you faithless heathens out there, don’t forget that Halloween was just the evening before All Saints Day. Or so some Pope would like you to believe; it is widely agreed that the church chose the date to coincide with the Celtic festival of Samhain, so that they could point at all the celebrations going on and say “Look, they’re celebrating our holiday!“, or at least get all those rascally pagans back in a church ASAP. Like the rest of the year, a lot of November’s holidays are devoted to somebody killing somebody or at least trying to do so. On the 5th we have Guy Fawkes Night, which celebrates the guy that failed to kill the English aristocracy in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Yet another example of the little guy taking the fall for the intentions of the rich and powerful. Much like Veteran’s Day, which honors all the brave citizens who have done the dirty work when the politicians and generals decided it was time to start killing again. November’s also a big health awareness month. First of all, although the desire to make a joke that their seizures should be a dead giveaway is overwhelming, in the interest of taste I won’t go there. But November is also Epilepsy Awareness Month and the Epilepsy Foundation is running a slightly humorous campaign to do away with some common myths. The Alzheimer’s Foundation also has their rather ironically named Memory Walk campaign. Just make sure granny has her GPS unit if she joins you. Closer to my heart (and lungs) this year is the fact that it’s Lung Cancer Awareness Month, culminating in the Great American Smokeout a week before Thanksgiving. In spite of the fact that last year I was explaining Why Cigarettes Are Yummy, this year, I’m trying to quit. Later in the month, we of course have Thanksgiving, which between Native American slaughter, auto accidents, and gluttony (obesity is second only to smoking as a killer) has probably killed more people than cigarettes. So I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll quit smoking if you quit eating Bacon Turgooduccochiqua. If you happen to be a smoker who’s thinking about quitting, check out the Quit Smoking Counter, which tells me that if I had quit smoking at the beginning of 2009, I’d have $2016.00 more in my pocket, and six more weeks at the end of my life. Read the rest of this entry »
Happy Hollowmeme!
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on October 27, 2009 by admin in Holidays
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009This year, take an easy out and go as an Internet meme. We all know Halloween is really here to remind us that there are only 55 shopping days left ’til Christmas, and that Dachsunds taste great with mustard.
The other day, a friend asked me: “What are you gonna be for Halloween?” to which I replied: “Happy I survived another Michigan October!“. Let’s face it, the real purpose of Halloween is to remind you that there are 55 shopping days ’til Christmas, and that it’s time to pull out your Turgooduccochiqua recipe. My only Halloween plan this year is to call all my weight-conscious friends November 2nd and ask them if they want me to take all the mini chocolate bars off their hands, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have some costume ideas! A few of our ideas from last year are still pertinent; I have yet to see the amazingly simple-to-execute Surreal Homer Simpson getup at a party. But for this year, why not go as an Internet Meme? The folks over at Rocketboom have assembled a list for you, complete with product links to all the things you’ll need. To dress up as the Flying Spaghetti Monster for instance, all you need is rope
Jolly Diwaliween & Other Politically Incorrect October Holiday Ideas
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 17, 2009 by admin in Holidays
Saturday, October 17th, 2009Did Diwali sneak up on you unexpectedly again this year? No worries, we have a solution. And like last year, the scariest thing about Halloween is probably the economy.
  The author of this article is an alien and is not offended by this costume. |
If you missed the fact that Diwali was a little earlier in October this year, we have a helpful tip. With Halloween only two weeks away, just carve your pumpkins early, stick candles in all of them, and celebrate “Diwaliween”. Just so you don’t make the same mistake in the future, here are the dates for Diwali through 2022. Also on the 17th this year, we have that dose of artificial sweetener called “Sweetest Day”, which – although charming on the surface – was actually created by businessmen in Cleveland in 1921 to sell candy. With equally shallow sentiments, we have United Nations Day on the 24th, when – much like the rest of the year – United Nations members aren’t. By the way, Diwali wasn’t the only celebration we almost overlooked; in case you weren’t aware that there’s energy, October is Energy Awareness Month. For those of you who need all your information in the form of an interactive Flash game, EnergyStar has graciously complied. Because you know, simply listing things would be boring. Who knew that turning off the lights saves energy? Personally, I think they could’ve saved a lot of energy by firing the person that created that interactive graphic. Still to come this month, we of course have Halloween. Last year, the scariest thing about Halloween was the fact that Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson were in charge of averting global economic collapse. This year, the scariest thing is that they don’t seem to have fixed much; retail sales appear to be down about 18% for the season. Perhaps if retailers like Target stopped offending middle-income liberal elitists by selling tasteless “illegal alien” themed costumes, sales would improve. We’re not offended, so in the interest of a healthy economy, we’d like to point out that although Target pulled the product, Amazon and others haven’t. Buy one today
October Holidays: Columbus Go Home!
[ 3 Comments ]Posted on October 7, 2009 by admin in Holidays
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009How can we celebrate International Newspaper Carrier Day if there are no newspapers to tell us about it? And a quick explanation of why we’re starting a campaign to replace Columbus Day with Leif Erikson Day.
We wanted to tell you about the Newspaper Association of America’s International Newspaper Carrier Day, which is supposed to be celebrated on October 10, but as you’ll learn if you click that link, the “Full text of this content is available to subscribers only“. I’m personally not going to fuss about it, because as is more often becoming the case, my town doesn’t even have a newspaper. What I will fuss about though, is this character Christopher Columbus. I’m on a personal mission to have his holiday replaced with Leif Erikson Day for two simple reasons: 1.) Leif was here first, by 500 years, and 2.) He went home without making a big mess like Columbus did. As we all now know, the whitewashing of Columbus’ life we received as kids in America was bunk; he was brutal when in power, and messianically delusional later in life. I’m kind of joking (at least in terms of my personal activism on the issue) but this is a serious topic; as the people of the Transform Columbus Day Alliance point out, “Columbus Day is an inherently racist statement of cultural domination“, and Columbus was a “slave trader whose legacy is steeped in blood, violence, and death“. I’d like to add that his movie
September Holidays: How Come On Labor Day, You Don’t?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on September 1, 2009 by admin in Holidays
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009And…everybody loves National Chicken Month. Except the chickens.
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| National Chicken Month, The Way A Chicken Would Prefer To Celebrate It |
As I’m sure you all know, September is Baby Safety Month. Unless of course you’re a baby chicken, because it’s also National Chicken Month, and as far as I can tell, it seems the only way people know of to celebrate a chicken is to eat it. September holidays are rife with contradictions like this. On Labor Day you don’t, and September 11 is not only Make Your Bed Day, it’s also And Lay Down In It Day as well. Writing about International Literacy Day clearly presents another intrinsic problem a problem thats pardon the pun punctuated by National Punctuation Day which is on September 24 2009 National Punctuation Day reminds us that without proper punctuation reading becomes rather difficult to say the least. Continuing the contradictory nature of September holidays, please note that Citizenship Day and Native American Day highlight a pretty significant difference of opinion about who the residents of America are. They’re more than a week apart. We’ll be back to touch on other important holidays later in the month, with a more serious, respectful look at sacred traditions like Rosh Hashanah, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Talk Like a Pirate Day. Argh.