I felt relieved tonight when I felt a few flakes of snow on my face. :)

There are times when I wish I was actually older than I am. The primary reason for that would be to have had the opportunity to catch artists like James Brown in their prime.

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I wasn't really intending on blogging much today, but I did a quick scan of the BBC News website not long after regaining consciousness, and this caught my eye:

Not to be too nerdy (OK, a bit late for that now), but if the Beeb was getting one-tenth of its normal traffic today, then that would be a drop of 90 per cent. I'm not totally awake yet, and I'm certainly not caffeinated, but I can't figure out how you get to 269 per cent below normal.

Actually, I also can't figure out why I care! :)

Later (still without caffeine)

If "normal" traffic to the Beeb is 100, and today the traffic was 37.174721, then a 269 per cent rise would bring the level back to 100.

However, going from 100 down to 37.174721 is a drop of about 63 per cent.

Improving the world's numeracy: Bill Doskoch's goal for 2007. :)

Here's my wish that whether Christmas is a secular or spiritual day for you, it is ultimately a happy and peaceful one.

Salon on how Santa Claus emerged in Victorian-era America (thank the retailing genius of Rowland H. Macy).

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The lede to the AP story on CTV.ca: There's nobody nice on this Christmas list: snowman stabbers, Grinch snatchers, wreath-robbing weasels. 

From the AP story on CTV.ca:

Kevin Campanella hates buying and receiving Christmas presents that he says inevitably disappoint. This year, no such worries.

Campanella plans to seek "serenity now" by celebrating Festivus, a wacky holiday popularized in a 1997 "Seinfeld" episode. Billed as "Festivus for the rest of us," the holiday celebrated by the Costanza clan on Dec. 23 features an airing of grievances and feats of strength in which a guest must pin the host before the party ends.

In protest of Christmas' commercialism, character Frank Costanza puts up an unadorned aluminum pole instead of a tree. The metal, he says admiringly, has a "very high strength-to-weight ratio." ...

The Wagner Companies, a Milwaukee, Wis. firm, has started marketing Festivus poles, but alas, it doesn't sound like they'll be making a serious dent in the Christmas tree market any time soon.

"We did it mainly as a lark. We never looked at it as a tremendous moneymaking scheme," said Tony Leto, the firm's executive vice president of sales and marketing. "But in many ways, Festivus is taking on a life of its own."

From the BBC:

Chinese retailers and young people have embraced Western festivals

A group of Chinese students has criticised a rise in Christmas revelry, urging people to "resist Western cultural invasion", state media says.

The 10 students, all from elite universities, posted their views on an internet website, the China Daily said.

They condemned the proliferation of Christmas trees, seasonal messages in the media and people celebrating "until very late" on Christmas Eve.

The government was to blame for failing to maintain traditions, they said.

"Occidental culture has been more like storms sweeping through the country rather than mild showers," the students argued.

People were joining in Christmas partying without giving its meaning much thought, they said.

Yeah, well, same here. :)

There appears to be a shortage of Laphroiag in this city.

Update, Dec. 29

It was on the shelf at the Ossington LCBO on Bloor West yesterday. Who knew? The clerk at Spadina told me that only Summerhill or Queen's Quay would have had it. In any event, it'll have to wait until I work through a bottle of GlenDronach, which is okay, but doesn't have that peatiness I'm looking for.

Read this.

However, I believe the Done Right Inn on Queen West, here in T.O. (land of government regulated liquor sales) has been doing this for some time.

Dozens of eyewitness reports indicated that former vice president Al Gore deliberately attempted to raise the earth's temperature in order to boost box office receipts for An Inconvenient Truth, his documentary film about global warming that was released in May.

DESPERATE MEASURES Former vice president Al Gore takes a flamethrower to the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica to boost weekend ticket sales for An Inconvenient Truth.

"We have accounts from concerned citizens that Mr. Gore purchased a Cadillac Escalade SUV several months before [his film] opened in theaters," said Kimberly Blume, spokeswoman for the California-based environmental group Friends Of The Earth. "Not only did Mr. Gore use his new gas-guzzler to make short trips to the grocery store, he also left the vehicle running 24 hours a day in the driveway of his Tennessee home with the air-conditioning on full-blast."

In the weeks following the film's release, witnesses reported additional sightings of Gore engaging in activities such as discharging can after can of 1980s-era, CFC-laden aerosol into the air, and single-handedly clear-cutting over 6,000 acres of Amazon rain forest.

Gore is also rumored to have set a four-acre tire fire outside Akron, OH, and ordered his Secret Service detail to shoot on sight anyone who attempts to put it out.

"It's sad to see a man we thought was a passionate defender of the environment despoiling it for his own monetary gain," Blume said.

From The Onion