The Fluffy Prince of Darkness: Go, Go, Go or Run, Run, Run?

My son isn't sure whether the Japanese characters in this picture should be translated as go, go, go or run, run, run. C'mon. Look at the picture. Is there any doubt in your mind? If you're still debating, let me tell you a story about my demonic cat. Demonic, you say? Aren't you exaggerating? Although this sounds extreme I have years of research behind me. He's always been trouble and I'm pretty sure that he hates humans. But it's also become clear to me that he's opposed to Christmas. This reality more than any other has led me to the conclusion that he is in fact the spawn of satan.

1. A mysterious death. First there is the death of his sister, a sweet and beautiful cat who loved our family. He was inseparable from her -- despite her best efforts. He used to entertain himself by jumping on her and biting her. The two of them were together when she was run over by a car in broad daylight in front of our house. When I found him afterward he seemed distracted, panicked. I pitied him. In retrospect, I'm certain he pushed her.

2. A taste for human flesh. Until his sister's death he ignored humans. He existed only for her. After her accident he turned his attentions on us. Yes, he started jumping on us and biting us, too. He's drawn more blood from us than a physician's assistant. Once he wrapped his entire body around my arm and sent me to the emergency room for antibiotics to stop the swelling. Periodically we hear rumors about a mountain lion scaring the neighbors. I think I know where it lives.

3. His crazy eyes. There are times when he seems almost normal. At these times his eyes seem hardly stranger than those of any other cat. He almost seems to know who we are. Then there are times when the pupils swell to consume the entire eyeball, and he looks at you like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. You know he's sizing you up, checking for the vulnerable places, the tasty bits. Master wouldn't hurt the Precious. But what will the the Precious do to Master?

4. A biohazard. My cat emits a foul stench and pieces fall off him. I mean masses of hair that leave him with bald spots. All of this may be related to a strange illness he contracted a couple years after coming to live with us. He lay under a bush wheezing for hours. The vet believed he'd been poisoned and ought to have died. Looking back, I believe he probably did die or was already dead at that time.

5. He hates Christmas. Whereas his angelic sister would climb into the Christmas tree and go to sleep, her brother is always knocking the ornaments down. We've tried moving them higher, but now he's started knocking the whole tree down. My cat is clearly the tool of evil spirits. Our minister says if he does an exorcism then every cat owner will want one. And since Fluffy's a good mouser, I guess I'm stuck with him for now. My little demon cat. Who -- or what -- has possessed whom?

I'm Getting Nothing for Christmas

Seasons Greetings! I bet you didn't know that Santa lets me screen his mail. In cleaning off my desk I found a few letters that failed this year's naughty/nice cut. So here they are:

Letter #1.

Dear Santa,

I know it's been a while. I was kind of mad about last year. You can imagine my disappointment after hiking 90 minutes to Thackery Point, only to discover that another Christmas had passed and you'd let me down again. I specifically asked for a summer cottage. Not a summer sausage.

The bear cubs fighting over the lunch meat were cute. The mother was less cute. She seemed to prefer my leg to the lunch meat. Anyway, I won't be doing any more hiking, so I guess you can skip the cottage this year. How about a prosthesis?

Sherman

You can see why Santa's pissed at this guy. He doesn't know anything about sharing.

Letter #2

Dear Comrade Santa,

We have Rudolph. Honorable Vice Chairman Guo has informed me that Chinese commandos, in the name of the most Glorious People's Republic, siezed the target at 0:200 hours this morning. You have violated our airspace for the last time! Capitalism is doomed. Festive holiday.

Hu Jintao

P.S. Could you please send along any Chinese-speaking elves and the owner's manual for the sleigh?

I don't think I need to explain why Santa is not amused by this.

Letter #3

Dear Mr. Claus,

Thank you for the letter addressing your overdrawn line of credit as well as the other outstanding issues with our institution. We're well aware of the current economic situation and we hope you'll appreciate the fact that elves and reindeer are not the only ones who've been affected by it.

Visions of sugar plums notwithstanding, we want to impress on you the dire situation in which your ongoing failure to meet these obligations has placed us, and the absolute necessity of proceeding with foreclosure on the workshop and attached properties at the North Pole.

We're especially disheartened by your continuing refusal to deal with certain troubling aspects of your operation, including the recurring disappearance, every December 25, of massive amounts of your inventory, without any good explanation.

Yours most sincerely etc. etc.,

Fairytale Savings & Loan

Ouch. Poor Santa. This explains my empty stocking.

I hope.

The Horrific Blog of Doom Per-dicts the End . . . Finally!

Legends speak of the Horrific Blog of Doom. Few have ever lived to tell the gruesome tale. Dare you read on, foolish mortal? Before you decide, know that the Horrific Blog of Doom has turned countless innocents into smoking piles of vitreous ash (that's the glittery stuff puked out by volcanoes, in case you're wondering).

What kind of holiday greeting is this you may ask? I was afraid of that. It so happens that in the course of advertising this silly blog I may have casually referred to it as the Horrific Blog of Doom. I thought it sounded cool in an absurd way. And now I've committed myself to delivering on these rash promises of gloom and doom.

In fact, I went out and looked for gloominess. I really did. Our local theater advertised the movie 2012 on its website only this morning. Probably you're aware of this film. I believe it's mentioned in the prophecies of Nostradamus as one of the disasters that signify the end times -- either of the earth or John Cusack's career.

When I arrived at the theater this afternoon, the marquis sported the letters A-L-V-I-N above a lobby packed with eager movie-goers who averaged three feet tall. A gratingly pleasant usher informed me that the website hadn't caught up with the rush to deliver holiday cheer and that it was all laughter and glee from here on out.

Bah, humbug. I wasn't going to NOT let my holiday be ruined. I recalled that my neighbor across the road has a magazine that warns we'll all be living in the Yukon in ten years to escape global warming. Well, not all of us. Only the fastest runners, I guess. That sounded hopeful to me, but I couldn't bring myself to run across the road and borrow it.

Then the thought struck me. Why bother, with the internet at my fingertips? It's the lazy person's answer to everything. And now that I think about it, this is all rather appropriate during the holiday season. Why list New Year's resolutions when there might not be a New Year? I'm saving you people a LOT of work. This blog rocks.

Instead of inspiration for the days ahead, here's some of what I learned about our imminent destruction:

1. Experts in this field aren't the most careful and correct spellers. You can't be -- right? -- if the headline of your article contains the word "perdictions." But, to be fair, if you thought the world was ending soon you'd be writing pretty fast, too. That's the mother of all deadlines.
2. You can buy everything you need to survive the end of the world online. Wait a minute. If that was true, then wouldn't everyone survive? Anyway, as far as I can tell I'm already well-stocked for any potential disaster with plenty of my own t-shirts, caps, and mugs. See you in Canada!
3. The experts tell us that the countdown to the end of the world began with 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, flooding in Iowa and fires in California. How quintessentially American. We'll end the world on our own and we honestly don't care if anyone else joins in or not. Go find your own Apocalypse, Sarkozy.
4. The end of the world is connected to tons of stuff that you wouldn't have expected, like the Survivor TV show, Bill Gates, and prison gangs. I'm not making this up. You kind of get the feeling I'm the only one, though.
5. Almost forgot to mention that the end is somehow tied to the idea that President Obama, with the help of international banks, intends to make us all slaves on his global plantation. See, that's what happens when you don't have to worry about getting re-elected ever, ever again. Hmmm. Is it possible that light-skinned people fear this because that's what they've been trying to do to dark-skinned people like Obama for hundreds of years?
6. The end-of-the-world business is pretty good work when you can get it. It's one of the few jobs that pays you to be wrong over and over and over again. All you have to do is update the logos on all those t-shirts, caps, and mugs.

Funny how we're willing to listen to anyone who says the world's coming to an end. As if the ancient Mayans knew more about 2012 than we do. Wow. What if I told you that the Mayans had predicted that you would turn into Megatron, travel backwards in time, and give them something else to think about? Would you believe it? What if I per-dicted that you would send me all your money? You might as well. If you send it to somebody who's headed for Canada, it'll only slow them down.

An X-rated Cookie Bake is a Crazy-Ass Place to Start Anything

I had no intention of beginning my blog like this. But isn't that just like life? So here goes. I have to share this story. We had a little holiday cookie bake last night at Grandma's house. The x-rated variety. You want to see pictures, don't you, you naughty person? I don't have any yet, although I will share a link to my favorite showcase of baking disasters later on.

I did none of the actual work involved with baking cookies. I was there to shovel Grandma's driveway, take Grandma to the store, put lights on Grandma's potted plant, listen to Grandma's Christmas Carols from the 1920s, hold Grandma's hand as she snored in her rocker -- that sort of thing. But I learned a heck of a lot about what's involved in baking cookies. More than I perhaps wanted to know.

It was my wife and daughter who did most of the work in the kitchen. My daughter, who's back from her first semester at college, decided she'd use the angel cookie cutter to make gingerbread men. It's not hard. You stamp the dough with the angel cutter, make two slices in the angel's skirt, remove a triangle of dough, and instead of an angel in a dress you have a man wearing a sporty pair of gingerbread slacks. It's the magic of Christmas!

The only problem with this little operation is that if the two slices you've made in the angel's skirt don't meet exactly as they're supposed to in the angel's little crotch, you have created a very naked gingerbread man with a perfect, anotomically correct penis. Oh, crap. And you've created this festive little holiday treat in Grandma's kitchen, under Grandma's very nose! It's a good thing Grandma don't see too well anymore.

And if you really want a good laugh, then you need to take a look at some of these holiday disasters: http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/