The Wayback Machine: Holidays edition

So I meant when I said I need to start blogging more these days. So here is a holiday edition of the Wayback Machine.

This week we travel back to 1965 for what could be the greatest christmas special ever made. I'm talking of course about the wonderful slice of americana that is "A Charlie Brown Christmas". Now I just need to get this out of the way, I love Peanuts, I repeat Love and had somewhat of Linus complex as a child(I had security blanket). This is the one thing that I must watch every year without fail. Now that i've established that I can continue.

Now there are many things that make this a great special. Numero Uno is the music. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" was scored by Vince Guaraldi and remains at the top of my holiday music. The music beautifully underscores the quietness of Peanuts and accuentates the dryness of the characters. In a way the music becomes it's own character. One of my favorite tracks "Christmas time is here" has made reoccuring appearances in popular culture most notably in "The Royal Tenenbaums". Aside from that how the hell can you not like Schroder and his piano. You have to figure he was kind of the stud in Peanuts or at least Lucy always was after him, so he at least attracted one psycho bitch.

I digress though "A Charlie Brown Christmas" is special because of the one of the main principals that Peanuts ran on and that was heart. Peanuts was somewhat personal for cartoonist Charles Schultz, the characters were based off of childhood friends, so in that way he cared, the characters meant something to him. Charlie Brown in this story is down in the dumps over the commercilization of christmas and he feels that he and everyone else has lost touch. in an attempt to get back in touch he becomes director of the school play, it doesn't go well...there's some rude kids, a terminally ill tree and snoopy is being a diva as usual. Anyways at the end Charlie puts it all aside and finds the spirit of christmas along with the other children. (I cut out all the parts about the christianity stuff, hmm wonder why)



It's funny to think though that "A Charlie Brown Christmas" did suffer alot of problems one of the things is that the special was used by its sponsor Coca-Cola to hock soda to families. Too bad no one has seen a print with this since the first three years that it ran. Anyways I leave you with the opening of "A Charlie Brown"

The Wayback Machine

So I've been wanting to start blogging again and one of the things I've decided to do is weekly segment one that I can at least stick to so here it is my new weekly segment THE WAYBACK MACHINE!!

Basically a quick blog about something that is from the past, henceforth the Mr. Peabody and Sherman reference.

So my for the first entry we are gonna travel back to the 30's and 40's to the euphoirc sound of "The Ink Spots". The Ink Spots were an all black vocal group and were one of the most popular vocal groups of all time. The group was known for it's simple song structure, beautiful lyrics and excellent specifically the tenor. In there time and they had several number one hits and there music has been covered and used in popular culture frequently. Quite frankly though I discovered them and one of favorite tracks while I was playing Bioshock and then another song was selected as the opening to Fallout 3. The group even inspired one of video pieces for my independent study. So for your viewing pleasure I have my two favorite tracks "If I didn't Care" which is the most popular, followed by "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire". I would of had 3 but it's hard to find them on youtube.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, and I work in retail

I'm going to start off by saying that I haven't been blogging because I've been lazy/busy but today I realized that alot of interactions at work are blog worthy.

OK So picture it Long Island, present day. It is 10AM and it is a brisk December morning, the air is crisp and the sun is shining, and it's bright very bright. It seems like the sun is always brighter in the winter and yet today was no exception, or it was probably just my mild hangover. Anyways I drive to work and it's strangely easy, there's no one out on the road and the timing on all the traffic lights is just right and I breeze to work. I park, pay the meter and then go into my store through the front entrance since the gate is still down in the back. When I open the door and walk in I see my boss and a already in the store and I know this kid, and at this point it becomes clear this kid has been sent from some other dimension to punish me for something.

I walk behind the register hug my boss, we're cool like that and she shoots me a look of "You have to got to be kidding me, with this frickin kid" After our exchange he begins saying he wants to make an exchange the whole time being very antsy and not being able to finish a sentence. Nerds tend to get overexcited and can't finish sentences. Now straight nerds are annoying to deal with especially when your hungover and its even worse when they are quite strange looking. This patron in particular had front teeth that were not uniform and various size like a beaver that chipped a tooth.In addition he had one of those moustaches that's never going to come to fruition until he's in his late 20's til then it just looks gross but its so vile that you stare while trying not to look out of equal repulsion and fascination..

Anyways he plops his backpack on the floor and pulls out a 360 and 3 games and a 120 GB hard drive. So I ask so what you looking for and he exclaims the new 4 GB xbox bundle. Now follow here the customer is exchanging the 120 GB model for a 4GB just because its newer.So I do the return . Now we have no bundles so i inform the kid that they bundle in the ad is just some stuff thrown together which it is. I recommend buying the system with a hard drive and a game as opposed to the fore mentioned "bundle", which just includes a charge cable and an HDMI. He exclaims yea but this "bundle sounds like a sweet deal". I then drudge to the back retrieve the system. I plop the system on the counter and the kid looks dumbfounded and asks "I thought this was a bundle wheres the other stuff?". I turn from the customer and rub my temples I feel like ass. i tell him its not packaged together and he then steps aside to think about it. Now this is a no fuckin brainer would you exchange a system with a 120 GB hard drive for 4GB? FUCK NO

After a few he comes back and decides to go with the previously mentioned "bundle". I ring it up and then he begins to complain how nothing in the bundle is on sale. I then reassure the kid is that's what I told him and that it wasn't a wise decision. But once again he does not listen and then paid 100 bucks out of pocket for a system downgrade. All the while exclaiming wow what sweet bundle. Now in my line of work theres a fine line between idiot, nerd and aspergers, this kid was definitely the first one. He then proceeded to leave and get on his bike with the system in hand.

Later that day he called to tell us that the system he returned had a game stuck in it and they'd he'd be back after a week to get it. Yea he's never coming for it, people are dumb.