This is my official There’s Pie in the Lunchroom Holiday Greeting.

Happy Holidays!

Ah, Christmas Eve… A night of nervous anticipation for children everywhere: Santa’s on his way! Will he bring me what I want? Was I good enough? Is he here yet? Where is he??? Zoe and I just checked NORAD’s Santa tracking page to see where the old elf is (he’s just leaving Europe now), and she’s getting more and more anxious about his arrival.

As an adult, I’ve left the Santa-wonder behind, but there’s still that little thrill of anticipation for the gifts tomorrow. I’ve made it known to anyone who’ll sit still and listen long enough that what I really want for Christmas is a Road King, but I don’t really expect anyone to get me one. They’re $25,000 fer Chrissakes, and nobody I know has that kind of money to spend on Christmas presents — at least not for me. A Harley for the holidays is a nice pipe dream, but ain’t no way it’s gonna happen.

And yet… Hope springs eternal. I know there’ll be no Harley under the tree for me tomorrow — but there’s an insanely hopeful little part of me that hope-hope-hopes that maybe there will be anyway. Christmas is about joy and wonder and miracles, right? It could happen. Couldn’t it? Couldn’t it?

Merry Christmas, everyone! (And to you Godless heathens who don’t celebrate the birth of Our Lord — Merry Christmas anyway!)

At 7.5 years old, Zoe is reaching the outer boundaries of Santa belief. She asked us the other day if Santa was real and I explained it in a roundabout way where I never explicitly answered the question, but instead turned it back to her and suggested that it was more fun to decide to believe. (Beth wrote about it here in her blog.)

So we figure this Christmas is going to be it for ol’ Saint Nick. She sort of already knows the score but wants to believe strongly enough that she’s keeping it alive for one last season. We’re playing along; having her send Santa her wishlist by email, saying “Maybe Santa will bring one” when she pines for an electric guitar, explaining away the dozens of mall Santas by saying they all work for the “real” Santa… We’re working it hard and pulling it off pretty well, I think.

Or we were until this morning.

Zoe woke up while I was getting ready for work and we sat and talked for a few minutes. She was very concerned about getting this electric guitar that she’s absolutely dying for, and I told her that Mom and I definitely didn’t get her one because they’re too expensive, so ol’ Santa was her best bet. “I can’t say for sure,” I told her, “but Santa knows you really really want one, so I have a feeling he’ll probably bring you one.” She was satisfied with that, and I went back to ironing. Zoe went into the family room to watch cartoons — the same family room where we were wrapping presents last night. One of which was her new electric guitar.

She came right back out.

“I’m not stupid, Dad,” she announced. “There’s a guitar case in the family room.”

Oops. We wrapped the guitar, but stuffed all the cords and strings and picks and etc into the soft case we got to go with it. We didn’t wrap the case, figuring we’d present that to her after she opened the guitar. And then we didn’t hide the case after stuffing everything in it. Oops.

I played it off as best I could, reminding her that I said I had a feeling Santa was bringing her an axe and that we got the bag “just in case” he did, but she knew, I could see it. But she also still wants to believe, so she played along.

But she knows — that she’s getting a guitar, at least.

Buenos Dias!!

You have just received a Mexican virus!!!!!

Since we are not so technologically advanced in Mexico, this is a manual virus. Please delete all the files on your hard drive and send this e-mail to everyone you know.

Thank you for helping me.

Julio Garcia,
Mexican hacker

Headline: Bush to Have Knees Examined with MRI Scan

Reaction: His knees? How about his head!

I’ve been watching Survivor all season long (yes, I’m a loser) and am a little wrapped up in the characters and their machinations. The big season finale is on tonight, when I would finally find out if the girls got their shit together and voted “Johnny Fairplay” off the island. It’s on right now, recording on Tivo, and the plan was to dive into the Survivor/Tivo goodness in about a half hour.

Until I read the Yahoo new headlines. Which gave the ending away by trumpeting who the winner is.

I hate when that happens. Same thing happened in the first season, when a last-minute headline spoiled a season’s worth of build-up.

The solution, I think, is clear: Stop watching Survivor.

Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.

Well, I got out of Colorado ahead of the flu, then ran smack into it here in L.A. I’m sick. Wah.

(I know, I know — not much of an entry. But come on, I had to post something to push that Shemales quiz further down the page.)

Okay, this is one fucked-up quiz.

Your Secret Fetish Is Shemales!

Tits on top, dick on the bottom… It’s the new white meat!
You may be aspiring to be a shemale yourself,
or perhaps you just like to find them to fuck.
There’s nothing better than a sexual Transformer!

What’s Your Secret Fetish? Click Here to Find Out!

This woman was sitting next to me on my flight from DEN to BUR Friday morning. She was picking her teeth with an industriousness heretofore unseen in modern dentistry. The picking technique was a full body motion with full arm and wrist rotation and a forward lean for leverage, and after every “pick” she would examine the toothpick and its treasure with squinty-eyed intensity … and then suck the nugget off with noisy relish. It was really one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen in a long time.

So of course I snapped a picture with my handy-dandy phonecam and am posting it here to immortalize her skankness. Here she is in mid-pick. Enjoy!

Ladies and gentlemen, the Elvis tattoo has left the building!

Colorado Springs, you’re on your own.