A donor, who shall remain anonymous but is awesome, just hit my tip jar. (If you’re reading this, I’m grateful and you rock! I’ll send a thank you note as soon as I figure out the e-mail features in my new cyber-bunker. Also this means I coded the tip jar properly. Whew!)
Suddenly I don’t feel like such a chump going through all this web gobbeldygook and wordpress-ology. Someone cares!
Recently I discovered there is (or was) an Abba Christmas album. My thoughts were swimming! Imagine the power of Swedish Disco and Baby Jesus as wielded by amoral sexist lesbian squirrels!
Let me repeat that last sentence: Imagine the power of Swedish Disco and Baby Jesus as wielded by amoral sexist lesbian squirrels!
The mind boggles.
My dog eyed me with that look it has when I’m about to do something stupid. It always knows when I’m skating on the thin ice of inspiration. I had an idea:
“I must buy the Abba Christmas album and experience it for myself. This will inspire me to continue the saga of Lesbian Squirrels.”
The dog replied. “You are an idiot.”
Man’s best friend indeed. “It’s a ‘muse’ thing.” I explained.
The dog was all business. “If you play that album in the house, everyone in the family… including me… will try to kill you.”
Undeterred I sifted through the web doing “research”.
It’s like a trainwreck. You want to look away from the colors… but Abba cannot be denied.
Fortunately for everyone (including me), I couldn’t find a modern version of their Christmas crap. All I found was this (which seems sketchy but purports to include Abba):
Upon inspection it’s a solid “don’t buy”. In fact it’s a solid “Amazon should delete this right now”. It costs $50 (or more!) and apparently includes Elton John. Elton John speaking to squirrels? Absolutely not! There are some ideas too dark to countenance.
By the way I encourage everyone to click my links and buy stuff on Amazon but that doesn’t mean you should buy shit! Regardless of what you choose I get a small kickback (and it costs you nothing) so find something cool. Please, please, please don’t but a $50 piece of shit with Elton John. I can’t have that on my conscience. (You can also hit my tipjar and skip Amazon entirely.)
Alas, Christmas carols are their own form of brainwashing and in a zombie like state I kept shopping. I found a “classic” that appealed to me. It seemed familiar and I associated it with pleasant memories. I love the jazzy soundtrack to old Peanuts! I added it to my shopping cart:
I totally recommend Charlie Brown Christmas. You might be thinking of Peanuts as a kid’s cartoon, but the soundtrack is actually sweet (if mellow) jazz. Good stuff. Put all thoughts of Abba out of your head and listen to the Vince Guaraldi Trio instead!
Then, I remembered something I’d left on a wishlist months ago. Might as well grab that too. There had been a good sale on these:
Unfortunately, the damn price has changed. They were cheaper a month ago. Ugh! I do this to myself when I buy airline tickets too. Fuck it, ammo cans can wait.
I decided to order the cheap Peanuts CD and get away from the computer. Just before hitting checkout I asked Mrs. Curmudgeon if she wanted anything while I was logged in. She glanced at the screen and (without a word) swished out of the room. Soon the stereo was playing excellent jazzy Christmas songs and she was standing in front of me holding the jewel case from the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s Charlie Brown Christmas. No wonder it sounded familiar; we’ve owned that CD for at least a decade.
I hurriedly logged out but not before Mrs. Curmudgeon saw what I was blogging:
“You were blogging about stuff you were going to buy for Christmas?” She arched an eyebrow.
“It’s a muse thing…”
“…and you wrote a blog with links to Amazon specifically telling people not to buy what you’ve linked to?”
“…I’m an honest man. I recommend nothing I wouldn’t buy for myself.”
“Like a duplicate of a CD you’ve owned for a decade? Apparently you studied at the ‘New Coke’ school of marketing?”
I grumbled “This is why I don’t buy things for Christmas!” and closed the laptop lid. Mrs. Curmudgeon chuckled and wandered away. The dog watched me as if to say “I told you so”.
The Vince Guaraldi Trio really is beautiful. In fact, everything is peachy. I’m an idiot but I didn’t spend a penny and I’m not listening to Abba. I’m truly blessed.