A ridiculous discussion in rec.bicycles.racing (eventually, they all are) led to someone mentioning, in the context of personal art collections, this poster:



Which led me to declare that US aircraft carrier groups, collectively, were the greatest art installation ever conceived.

Yes, that sounds like my usual blithering nonsense, but it's actually extremely profound nonsense! Allow me to demonstrate:

I subscribe to the principle that art consists of useless crafts.

As the French philosopher Baudrillard pointed out, The Gulf War did not take place. So if carrier groups are designed for wars which do not take place, they must be works of art.

And I am not alone in this. Paul Virilio has written entire books on the intertwining of art and war. I am certain he appreciates these highly kinetic sculptures as much as I do.

In terms of most expensive art work of all time, I think its only competition is the International Space Station.

So, I had to read back to find out what I did this year. Here's what I did:

January: I rode in the snow
February: everything broke
March: I bought a bicycle built for two
April: I helped build a tiny bike
May: I built a black bike
June: I shaved my head
July: TLO and I went to the Kwik-E-Mart
August: TLO and I went to Greece
September: TLO and I went back to school
October: TLO's curriculum came late
November: nerd! Nerd!
December: month ain't over yet.

TLO and I would like to wish you a merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year, and the dog has this to day:

What were you expecting? Dogs can't talk.

We are, of course, speaking of the definitive Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated version.

Please don't tell TLO I did this.

So I was watching this classic Christmas special on TV the other day, and what struck me was how much of a jerk Santa is in this story.

"Great bouncing icebergs!"


That's what Santa says the first time he sees Rudolph's rather extraordinary nose. Then he says Rudolph's nose had better not glow if he's going to be a sleigh-pulling reindeer.

What? Oh, but it's okay, because then he sings a song, which does nothing to explain why glowing noses would be a problem in flying or sleigh-pulling.

Meanwhile, in a bustling warehouse on the other side of town, Hermey the elf is holding up the production line as he dreams of dentistry.


Hermey's boss is a genuine hard case, but he has a legitimate beef: Hermey is a terrible toy-maker. Even Hermey knows it, and as he sings, "you can't fire me, I quit!" because he doesn't fit in.

I support both the hard-nosed elf boss, and Hermey's decision to quit: Hermey wasn't doing anyone any favours by hanging around in a job he hated and did badly.

Okay, so time passes, through the magic of Burl Ives-powered narration, and Rudolph is at the reindeer tryouts or something. But we interrupt that actually interesting plot point to bring you Santa being a jerk:

I can't figure out why he's hating the elf choir here, but he is. They're singing fine, and he can only cringe.

Finally, we get back to Rudolph at the tryouts.

And you know what? He's great! He can fly like nobody's business. He's a regular Wayne Rooney of magical reindeer flight.

And then the excrement hits the air recirculation device.

At this point, for the shameful act of having a red nose, Rudolph's coach, best friend, all the other reindeer, and Santa all turn on him.

You know the drill: no reindeer games, whatever those are. Reindeer MMA? Reindeer skeet shooting?

And then there's a bunch of plot we don't care about, because it doesn't touch on the thesis of this ridiculous rant. Rudolph's girlfriend sings, and doesn't sound like Marni Nixon, surprisingly.

Finally, our pair of misfits meet, sing, and become friends.

Of course they do. They're both exiles, but Hermey really isn't working out. He needs to spend some time working on his career options. But who would exile the incredibly talented Rudolph? A predjudiced idiot, that's who.

I'm going to dodge another big meaty chunk of point, as we meet homeless toys, an abominable snow monster, and King Moonracer.

This photo of King Moonracer is included only because noble flying lions are cool. What can I say? I'm a cryptozoological monarchist.

I won't spoil the funny but essentially reasonable plot which ends up with our heros acting heroic, and teaches us the awesome power of dentistry.

Returning to Predjudice Village, Santa reads the weather reports, and says Christmas is cancelled.

Like I'd want a present from that hater.

But just then, Rudolph & Co. show up from the wilderness, and now it's all "that beautiful, wonderful nose!"

Super. So Santa is anti-mutant, right up until the very moment he needs a mutant, and then the scales fall from his eyes, and Rudolph is asked to guide the sleigh, and it's happy endings all around. Even the misfit toys get loved in the end.

But what's with Santa Claus being a hateful bigot throughout the show? At least the elf boss has an excuse: Hermey is a worse-than-useless toymaker, and all the elves do is make toys. His understanding of his needs is a little narrow, inasmuch as he can't understand the need for a resident dentist until later, and as for the reindeer, well, I'm willing to cut ungulates a fair bit of slack.

But what's Santa's excuse? He apparently hates Rudolph for purely aesthetic reasons, and he completely reverses himself the moment Rudolph becomes necessary to him. Why wasn't Rudolph using that opportunity to tell Santa Claus and the coach and all his inconstant friends in reindeerdom to go stuff themselves down a lit chimney?

Well, okay, at least he gets his dream gig out of it.

Now I want to step back and get a bit meta. What the heck were Rankin/Bass doing depicting Santa as such a hater? I know it's hard to remember, but he wasn't always a sugar-water salesman . Santa Claus started out as a widely beloved Catholic saint. And now he ends up here.

It's time to take a stand! You can't just depict Santa Claus as some sort of difference-hating fool with a selfish streak and get away with it. Think of the children!

And now, it is time for some nog. Merry Christmas, and God bless us every one.

Wrong! This is what happens when you really like coffee and are a really big nerd:

Ridiculous idea I thought up while sitting in the back of the car today: homeopathic products for six-moon audiophiles.

What's a six-moon audiophile? Exhibit A: a favorable review of a CD/DVD Degausser*.

For further reading (good if you want to push yourself over the brink of derangement) try their archives. The most fun is generally to be had in the accessories category.

I'm going to start by selling cables doped with a 100x preparation of palladium.

*If you're not sure what I'm on about here, degaussing (and by the way, that Wikipedia link will tell you the fascinating story of why they de-magnetized ships in WWII) is a process by which you remove a magnetic charge from an object. The metal CDs and DVDs are made of thin aluminum foil, and essentially can't hold a magnetic charge. The reading systems for CDs and DVDs involve lasers, which are essentially unaffected by unaffected by magnetic fields. On the upside, all of this means that degaussing a disc isn't likely to cause any harm. Being picky, though, I normally have higher standards for audio equipment than "doesn't wreck things."

It's been 10 days. All I do is cough.

Things I learned from Wikipedia: the Mc Donnell Douglas F-4, a wildly successful example of brutalist warplane design, had pretty much the coolest collection of nicknames ever accumulated by an airplane.

My favourite is "Luftverteidigungsdiesel," of course.