Life of Brian

Our Christmas box arrived today from Donna’s sister in Stuart, FL. While Donna was squeezing and analyzing the wrapped presents trying to determine just what might be inside the pretty paper, I was dancing around the house shouting, “My favorite pants are here! My favorite pants are here!” like Navin R. Johnson with the new phone book.

Harry Hartounian: Boy, I wish I could get that excited about nothing.
Navin R. Johnson: Nothing? Are you kidding? Page 73 – Johnson, Navin R.! I’m somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity – your name in print – that makes people. I’m in print! Things are going to start happening to me now.

Are you as tired of penguins as I am? The ones in Madagascar practically made that movie, but then came March of the Penguins and this year’s Happy Feet. Tonight I even saw a Dawn dish liquid commercial about how they save mother penguins after oil spills, so they can go back to raising their babies. Enough! Take out your flightless black & white bird rage here: Yeti Batting Practice. Click once to make the penguin jump and then click again to make the Yeti swing.

For those of you who are not regular readers, Donna and I get our haircut every 4 weeks from a friend who owns her salon. Today was haircut day an on our way out tonight I spotted something on display that made me do a double take. As long as I’m on the whole relating life to movies kick…Remember in the movie M*A*S*H where everyone gathers around the woman’s shower tent and they are taking bets as to whether or not Major Hot Lips O’Houlihan is a natural blonde? Let’s just say that with modern technology she would have no worries about the truth now. Introducing – Betty Beauty.

The Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia puts up a ton of lights for the Christmas season. They boot everybody at five o’clock and then reopen the gates at 6 with a separate admission charge. Donna and I did this several years ago and have meaning to go back, but never make it. Tonight our neighbors invited us to join them on a trip to there, we agreed. Jim, Ann, daughter Ellen and the kids from across the street, Zack and Tanner piled into their big truck while Donna and I followed in the Miata dinghy. As a bonus, daddy Jim paid our way in and even picked up the dinner tab at the Cracker Barrel afterwards. Thanks, we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

And now for something completely different – New Voyages (link broken.) Independently produced episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series with new actors playing the old familiar characters. If you are a Trekkie or Trekker, check it out. After you get over the fact that the new Captain Kirk looks more like an Elvis impersonator than William Shatner, it is not bad TV.

Before going any further, read this post — Folding Bucket — from October. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Really.

Donna and I swap gifts with very few people other than family, but there is one couple and their kids that we have been doing so with for about the last 16 years. Even though we don’t see as much of them as we used to we still get together enough that we know likes and dislikes which makes present selection fairly easy. The woman in this family has become a quasi-regular reader here (Hi Rae!), so she knew exactly what to get me for Christmas this year – The Gift.

My college student, AKA The Hired Mouse, who was working with me during the summer to reduce my big ol’ pile of drafting backlog was a prodigious Dr. Pepper drinker. Adam usually downed a couple 20oz. bottles a day, but could finish off three of them before lunch on a dare. During this time frame Dr. Pepper was running a promotion that if you sent in twenty-three UPC symbols from the labels of the 20oz. bottles you would get a free Pepper Pack. The PP consisted of a ball cap, a T-shirt and a lunch box. Needless to say Adam responded to the challenge and in the span of a couple weeks had the required 23 labels.

The fine print said, “Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery – Offer good while supplies last.” There were no descriptions for the items, so Adam had no idea what any of this stuff would look like or when it would get to him. He tried to wait patiently, but he really did want to get his Pepper Pack before his employment was over at ASCO so he could show off his Pepper Pack.

Finally after about a month and a half he came in to work one day with a nice looking gray ball cap with a Dr. Pepper logo patch on the front. Not bad looking, I’d wear one of those. Adam was a big kid and he said even thought the Tee was an XL it was too small for him, so he gave it to his mom. And the lunch box was one of those old time rectangular metal things and was good for a collectible or collecting bits of junk in the garage.

Seeing as I drink Dr. Pepper too I thought maybe I’d go for a Pepper Pack as well. I don’t drink as much as Adam and with the offer expiring at the end of September I was in trouble. August was almost over, but my buddy Mark drinks and he offered to help. Sometime in the third week of September we had enough labels to mail in. With the phrase “Offer good while supplies last” and the fast approaching deadline, I didn’t think there was a very good chance I’d ever see a Pepper Pack, but what the heck it was only costing me a 39¢ stamp (we won’t count the cost of the soda as we would have drank that many in a month anyway.)

Having totally forgotten about the promotion, I was totally confused by the box from Minnesota in the mail last Saturday. Donna demanded to know what I’d ordered and I frantically search my memory banks for what I might have done. The only clue to what it might be was a small line at the bottom of the label that read Pepper Pack. I couldn’t think what that meant. Did someone send me a Christmas gift that consisted of the pepper of the month, January would be jalapeos, February might be habaneros, etc. It wasn’t until I saw the maroon metal lunch box that I remembered.

I’ve got a new favorite hat…