Yes, a happy Generic Capitalist Holiday to you. I will be glad to see another one of these pass, that’s for sure. This year, I was just totally not into the whole Christmas thing, and almost outright opposing it, as evidenced by my many comments about it on the Twitter in the past month:
People need to boycott WASH-FM until after New Years when they stop playing that annoying #Christmas music!
Wishing that “criminally bad lighting displays” was a citable offense: http://twitpic.com/3egpdi #xmas #christmas
My idea of Christmas spirit this year: http://twitpic.com/3f3suv #scrooge #christmas #holidays
After all, “#Christmas” is really just a celebration of #capitalism and materialism, and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.
@Slate Considering #Christmas has no meaning whatsoever, why not? Just one more thing for retailers to sucker you into buying. (Note: This tweet was in response to a question from Slate about whether Jews should own Christmas trees)
How much would I have to pay the man playing #Christmas music on his trumpet to get him to stop?
Why don’t we just refer to #Christmas as “Shameless #Capitalism Day” and get it over with already?
Is it rude to refer to people who post “Happy birthday Jesus” status messages as delusional? #christmas #birthday #jesus
Happy Generic Capitalist Holiday to all.
Yeah, this year, “bah humbug” was my preferred term. I remember in 2008 when I ran the holding-the-stocking-like-a-soiled-diaper photo on the front of the site, and then this month with my “bah humbug” message. See, four Christmases at stupid Walmart will suck any holiday spirit from a person, and presumably, it lasts, considering that this is my fourth Christmas since having left Walmart, and I still hate Christmas. I guess hearing parents say, “He’s not looking – quick, scan this, because this is from Santa,” enough times will do that. Anyone who thinks the modern celebration of “Christmas” has anything to do with someone who may or may not have been delivered by virgin birth and who may or may not have died for anyone’s sins is only kidding themselves. It’s a celebration of capitalism and materialism, and brings out the worst in people.
And I have not set foot in a shopping mall this season, save for one early-morning trip to Target (for work-related purposes). Makes my life less stressful that way. Plus considering that I’m not seeing any family members until after Christmas, I’m still good for gifts (though I did do some shopping already, just not at a mall or any chain stores).
So what am I doing on Generic Capitalist Holiday? Well, first of all, I already accomplished one of my goals: the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear photo set is up. That set is the first one with the new format to mix horizontal and vertical images in a major way, and so I need to know how it looks. Otherwise, I plan on having a traditional Jewish Christmas dinner, as I am driving around Silver Spring until I find a Chinese restaurant that is open on Christmas. I haven’t had Chinese for a while, so this should be fun. I should find a bunch of other I-hate-Christmas curmudgeons to go out for Chinese with.
Then otherwise, I’m tossing around the idea of doing some night photography in the evening. Hopefully the outing won’t turn out like 2003 did. I did the same thing in 2006 without issue (in a different location), and so hopefully this will be uneventful as well.
Meanwhile, I’m just tickled that I got the Stewart/Colbert rally finished, because that means that for about a week, I have no photo set backlog! Seriously – I am caught up on photo sets! Then in a week, we have New Year’s, and that means that a 2010-review photo set for Life and Times automatically goes into the hopper, which requires different planning than most sets. But in the meantime, no photo set backlog! Of course, that’s not saying that I have no new material that needs to get posted, or am otherwise out of material. I have about two and a half years’ worth of stuff that needs to go up on Transit Center, and now would certainly be a good time to do that. While I have no photo set backlog, this would be a good time to work on my turnaround time for photo sets. In 2010, I think the Stewart/Colbert rally was my fastest photo set turnaround at just under two months. I have turned sets around faster in the past. Realize that J27 was pulled together in two weeks, and Building 7 Burns was posted one day after it happened.
And then I’m still looking at potential new layouts for Schumin Web in WordPress. I’m taking screen-caps of sites that I like the layout of, but ultimately, I will likely make my own skin. How much it will look like anything you currently associate with Schumin Web, I don’t know yet.
Now, though, I need to go to sleep. I’ve been up way too late working on Web site stuff…