December 2007 Archives

Last Christmas I wanted to see how excited my 3-year-old would be to receive a 14-cent box of raisins.

They did fairly well compared to his more expensive presents. Those results can be found here. For a quick refresher, here's that actual audio from Christmas 2006. I gave his reaction a 6 out of 10 (also factoring in how happy he appeared to be.)

The tradition continued this year to see how a now 4-year-old would react to receiving a 14-cent box of raisins.

Wow, what a difference a year makes.

Here is the actual audio from my video camera of him opening his fiber-filled gift.

RAISINS 2007 TRANSCRIPT

What did I get?

Okay...

RAISINS?!?

He gave me raisins!

(Actual foot-stomps of misery.)

(Handing box to my wife.) Put this back in your food!

I could listen to his shocked response of "RAISINS?!?" all day long. It is pure unadulterated disbelief. I might have to make it my ring tone.

I don't know if you can put a price tag on happiness, but 11 dried up grapes are no longer it -- at least for him. Hearing his little brain try to process why someone would think this is a good gift fills me, however, with great joy.

Some of you may remember John as the guy who created the awesome Pickles music video. (If that's before your time here, you should really start with the first "Pickles" thing over here. It also grew into this and this.)

John is back and has added a great new sound track to the Tree Brains animated postcard.

The words for the song have all been pulled from the Steve, Don't Eat It, Tree Brains edition.

The lyrics are:

Steve don't eat me.

Chicken of the woods.

The hunks got more intensely orange as they cooked down and soon it was go time.

Heartwarming to know that my wife is devoted and loves me and doesn't want me to die, unless her head hurts a little.

The tree brains wish you a happy holiday!

Thanks, John! (The original tree brain postcard is here.)

You can check out John's site at theglassviolin.com.

(And, finally, for those of you looking for the awful O Holy Night song, you can still find it right here.)

By request from my friend Kevin at Forgotten NY, here is a special Christmas post from a few years ago...

My four-year-old didn't ask for much this Christmas. His main request was a little scooter "with a horn so people will know I'm coming." He even drew a picture of it in his letter to Santa.

The fat man came through with the scooter, and being the awesome Daddy, I helped out by going to Toys 'R Us to get the horn. It's pretty funny to see this big ol' bike horn mounted on this little scooter.

It seems so obvious now, but the boy totally set me up. How could I not realize the horrendous combination of "7:30 Christmas morning" and "Bike horn?"

Under the guise of cute, my son had hatched his plan for the loudest Christmas ever and succeeded. He even used me as a pawn to make it happen.

I have created a special sound bite just for you. This is not a re-enactment. This is actual audio of my horn-filled Christmas morning pulled from our video camera. (To truly enjoy the experience as I did, I suggest you turn up your speakers as loud as they can possibly go. And play it over and over.)

_{(or download an mp3)}

Note how the official little brother babbles something in between the honking. He's speaking in Baby, but it loosely translates to "Ha ha!!! You wanted us and now you will pay! This is what you get for having sex with Mommy!!!"

The boy has a point. In the future I'm going to attach the horn to my weiner to warn my wife when I'm coming.

Let me be a cautionary tale, guys. Don't get your kids noisy presents. Get them something quiet like pillows or raisins.

(But for what it's worth, they still ride that scooter all the time.)

My buddy Don has an art blog called Doodle Monkey. The other day he posted about a vote between Yeti and Big Foot.

The actual vote turn out was small, but the subsequent war between The Yeti and Big Foot on his comment board is worth checking out.

On the post called "Battle of the Beasts", check out the 29 comments (which may or may not have had a small hand from me). You can find it right here.

I had no idea Yeti and Big Foot had internet access.

I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

If "Christmas song performed by Neil Diamond, Stryper and Barney" was in your letter to Santa this year, boy, are you in luck.

Presenting, I'm pretty sure for the first time, Winter Wonderland sung by the greatest mix of stars our planet has to offer.

It truly is a winter wonderland.

A boy stands at the counter eating directly from a canister. His father enters.

Boy: "This crunchy cinnamon is DELICIOUS!"

Father: "That's Sugar in the Raw."

(They're baby teeth. At least this set is supposed to fall out.)

Year: 1981
Album: Controversy
Track 9: Jack U Off

Year: 1983
Album: 1999
Track 10: All the Critics Love U in NY

Year 1984
Album: Purple Rain
Track 7: I Would Die 4 U

The little dude's been trying to text you since 1981.

It's officially the holiday season. I know this because the cups at Starbucks are red and more stuff has nutmeg in it.

To get you in the spirit, please enjoy this awesome animated holiday postcard, courtesy of my old pal, Don.

And check out Don's art blog over at Doodle Monkey!

(If you'd like to embed this postcard on your blog, click here to pop a window with the embed code. Just select all the text, copy it, paste it somewhere and keep your fingers crossed. I have no idea what I'm doing with this embedding stuff.)

Thanks, Don!

(If you're here for the first time, this Tree Brain thing started a thousand years ago.)

A number of people spotted a member of our theoretical band last night.

Here's friend of The Sneeze, Adam Savage, sporting his shirt during a promo for an upcoming Mythbusters MacGyver special (hence the mullet).

As far as what instrument he would play, Adam says: "I play the Armonica. Not the harmonica, but the Armonica. That's Ben Franklin's instrument based on glasses of water being rubbed on the rim."

Thanks to Adam and everyone who wrote in. You may resume your theoretical rocking.

My wife and I are sitting here ready to check the final vote. I am typing this as we go...

Me: Well, you won.

Her: By how many votes?

Me: About 300.

Her: I won't lie. I do think it's a better song. And I'm happy people voted to agree with me for whatever reason.

Me: I think you're all crazy.

Her: Unlike you, I'm not going to rub this in your face. I'm not sure you would extend the same courtesy to me if the tables were turned.

Me: And all I can say is, when evil arrives and the Mystic Force Rangers show up -- don't be surprised when all they do is start popping and locking and not saving your ass.

Her: You have no idea the kind of power dance can wield. In Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo those kids SAVED THE COMMUNITY CENTER! (And I also think your readers were just being nice to me.)

Me: I dunno. This is a sad day for the sport of theme song evaluation.

(I'm working on talking to the composer of Ninja Storm. This isn't over. I will brave this storm like the mighty Power Ranger Ninjas.)

At 7 this morning my wife and I were lying in bed and decided to check the Power Rangers theme song voting for the first time...

My wife: I already know what's going to happen, it's just a question of by how much you'll win.

Me: Why are you so sure I'm going to win?

My wife: Because I think people are going to choose a rock song over a danceable song. It's pretty obvious that I picked Mystic Force and that you would pick Ninja Storm.

Me: But what does who picked what song matter?

My wife: In case people were going to support one of us or the other one. But I think people are just going to vote for the rock song because it's "rockin'."

Me: Maybe that's because when evil's afoot, people know it's time to beat evil's ass -- not dance with it. Okay, here we go, I'm checking the numbers...

My wife: It's going to be 80% Ninja Storm...

Me: 50-50!! In fact, at the moment Mystic Force is in the lead by 9 VOTES out of a little more than 3500 so far! (Here is the actual graphic from my control panel at the polling website.)

My wife: HAHAHAHAHA. That's really unexpected.

Me: Since it's so close do you want to end it and declare victory or leave the voting up for awhile?

My wife: Keep it going, we'll just need to pick an ending time. I guess there are people out there who like to dance. Yay!

Me: Let's say voting ends tonight at 9 PM, PST.

If you were thinking about voting, you can do it for the rest of today. I think it's your Sneeze civic duty. (You can vote in either post -- they're both the same polling window.)

If you're late to this, it started yesterday.

Voting ends tonight. Results in the AM!

Like CSI, there are now many incarnations of Power Rangers -- Overdrive, Zeo, Turbo, Time Force, Wild Force, Chalupa Force, Dino Thunder and the list goes on. (It is possible I invented one of those. And it is possible that one fights evil with a zesty blend of 3 cheeses.)

My kids are into all of the versions, but in the past few weeks there has been an ongoing argument over what is the best Power Rangers theme song: Ninja Storm or Mystic Force.

I should tell you this fight has nothing to do with my kids -- it's totally between my wife and I.

I'm not going to say which one of us likes which song or why. Just please give them a listen, decide for yourself and vote for your favorite.

The fate of the universe (and possibly a marriage) hangs in the balance.

I will reveal the results soon and my wife and I will be back to discuss the aftermath.