Post by thread:[OT]: More Xmas wishes

I'm not going to say "Merry Christmas" on the PIClist, because I did that on another mailing list and got severely flamed for it. So, in the best wishes of the season, here's a three paragraph alternative (well, four if you count this). Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all; .. And a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make England great, (not to imply that England is necessarily greater than any other country), and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual orientation of the wisher. Disclaimer: By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or theirs, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of another holiday greeting, whichever comes first. In other words.... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :) Later, -- Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB, spam_OUTphilpemTakeThisOuTphilpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice, http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI ... I call my computer Hole in the Desk

And from out here in super-freezing Texas as well, Happy Holidays everyone! Cheers, -Neil. On Friday 24 December 2004 06:26 pm, Philip Pemberton scribbled: {Quote hidden}> I'm not going to say "Merry Christmas" on the PIClist, because I did that > on another mailing list and got severely flamed for it. So, in the best > wishes of the season, here's a three paragraph alternative (well, four if > you count this). > > Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for > an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, > non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, > practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion > or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular > persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice > religious or secular traditions at all; > > .. And a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically > uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar > year, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other > cultures whose contributions to society have helped make England great, > (not to imply that England is necessarily greater than any other country), > and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, > religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual orientation of the > wisher. > > Disclaimer: By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This > greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely > transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no > promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for > her/himself or theirs, and is void where prohibited by law, and is > revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to > perform within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one > year, or until the issuance of another holiday greeting, whichever comes > first. > > In other words.... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :) > > Later,

and also from 15 degrees *F of pennsylvania happy holidays. > And from out here in super-freezing Texas as well, Happy Holidays > everyone! >> In other words.... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :) + here is a kewl link....enjoy:) http://www.riversongs.com/Flas/seasons.html

...and here in Ohio! (-1 deg F with 24 inches of squeaky white stuff). Aaron G. Tim_S wrote: {Quote hidden}> and also from 15 degrees *F of pennsylvania happy holidays. > > >> And from out here in super-freezing Texas as well, Happy Holidays >> everyone! > > >>> In other words.... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :) >> > + here is a kewl link....enjoy:) > http://www.riversongs.com/Flas/seasons.html >

At 09:38 PM 12/24/2004, Tim_S wrote: >and also from 15 degrees *F of pennsylvania happy holidays. -4.7 here in central indiana, with a foot of snow. Merry Christmas!

Dave VanHorn <.....piclistKILLspam@spam@mit.edu> wrote: > -4.7 here in central indiana, with a foot of snow. ... and happy holidays from sunny San Diego, where -- as it nearly always is -- it was 70 degrees F today. -Andy === Andrew Warren - aiwKILLspamcypress.com === === Principal Design Engineer === Cypress Semiconductor Corporation

and from balmy Philadelphia at 23 F, enjoy whatever it is you wish to celebrate ! ~Kevin On Fri, 24 Dec 2004, Tim_S wrote: {Quote hidden}> and also from 15 degrees *F of pennsylvania happy holidays. > > > > And from out here in super-freezing Texas as well, Happy Holidays > > everyone! > > >> In other words.... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :) > + here is a kewl link....enjoy:) > http://www.riversongs.com/Flas/seasons.html > > > -

At 11:40 PM 12/24/2004, Kevin wrote: >and from balmy Philadelphia at 23 F, enjoy whatever it is >you wish to celebrate ! I've been over that way a few times since november. How the hell do you guys navigate out there? One way, under construction, closed for repairs, "jug handles", "all turns from right lane".. No road seems to go in any particular direction, for any length of time, unless it ends up in a toll road.

Way to make me look like a wimp guys (it's *only* 20-ish deg F here), but remember that I'm from the Caribbean originally, so I freeze when it gets below errrr... ahhhh .... ummm .... 80 degrees. :-) Cheers, -Neil. On Friday 24 December 2004 08:52 pm, Dave VanHorn scribbled: > At 09:38 PM 12/24/2004, Tim_S wrote: > >and also from 15 degrees *F of pennsylvania happy holidays. > > -4.7 here in central indiana, with a foot of snow. > Merry Christmas!

And from cold 31 deg-F (cold for us) Duluth, Ga USA.........Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! > {Original Message removed}

At 11:15 PM 12/24/2004 -0600, you wrote: >Way to make me look like a wimp guys (it's *only* 20-ish deg F here), but >remember that I'm from the Caribbean originally, so I freeze when it gets >below errrr... ahhhh .... ummm .... 80 degrees. :-) > >Cheers, >-Neil. -16°C here in Toronto (3°F) not counting the windchill. Only about 6" of snow (with 1/2" of icy crust on top of heavy wet snow). A merry WHITE Christmas, and a happy, healthy and prosperous 2005 to all. Best regards, Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" .....speffKILLspam.....interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com

My little bit of holiday cheer: <RANT> Just remember guys: "eCommerce" -it's the reason for the season... In the words of writer Charles Bukowski: "[America is] not a free country -- everything is bought and sold and owned." What? Christmas is about Christ? Christ, how did I miss that? Oh, I know, its because he [beep]ing sold it to some evil genius toy maker who is trying to take over the world one broken parent at a time. Hey, you Christians out there! Doesn't it piss you off that "your" holiday got stolen? I googled all over the place and although there are plenty of "reason for the season" pleas to put the Christ in Christmas, I didn't find ANY organizations seeking to boot eCommerce out of the holiday. No pastors saying it's a sin to exchange gifts on 12/25. I guess you think that just because YOU still remember the cross dude, Christmas is still yours? Y'all need to read some history, or go walk around town with your eyes open... During the winter, several pagan festivals were held which created conflict with the church. Saturnalia, a decadent Roman festival lasted 2-3 weeks. This festival honored their agricultural god and there was a lot of feasting, drinking and merry making. The Winter Solstice was (and is) celebrated by many cultures. Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year and the days begin getting longer and so the rebirth of the sun was celebrated. The Persians feasted and paid tribute to Mithra and the Teutonic tribes honored Woden. Yule is in there somewhere: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule Although this day was initially suppose to be a solemn occasion as decreed by Telesphorus, Bishop of Rome in 137, the influence of the different pagan holidays was destined. After several attempts to ban pagan rituals and customs from the Christian holiday, the church eventually gave way and incorporated many of them into Christmas by "Christianizing" them. So says dyslexic of gorb: "Resistance is futile, your ass will be laminated." There may be some people who still celebrate Saturnalia, Yule, the solstice or even the picking of the navel lint, but this time slot HAS been pre-empted for Christmas: THE most widely celebrated holiday world-wide. And in exactly the same way, the most holy church of the eternal buck has "incorporated" Christ-mas into its holiday sales frenzy event. Christmas:tm "A Corporate Holiday" What? Christmas isn't about buying, selling, and owning? You still holding on to a thread of hope? Ok, maybe it's about death: http://my.webmd.com/content/article/98/104769?src=rss_cbsnews "Researchers found that more heart-related deaths occurred on Dec. 25 than on any other day of the year among people not already in the hospital. The second largest number of deaths was on the day after Christmas, and the third highest peak occurred on New Year's Day." This comes after years of us being told that Suicide rates do NOT climb during the holiday season. Be that as it may, depression and related abuse, stress, crime, and the deaths caused by things like that DO rise. Why more people don't directly off themselves, I don't know. But we are stressing ourselves to get that last obnoxious "Bratz Tokyo-A-GoGo Play Set" and dying of a broken heart in the attempt. A friend of mine said it best on a public forum: "I am a cashier at a small chemists/drug store in Canada and I have seen what "holiday" stress can do to a normally tolerable species. I have seen elbowing and sneers, and heard shouting and malicious fights. I have even been sworn at, all while the words "Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright" were softly playing on the tinny store radio." Yes, December is a stressful time of year, and has been made so by the commercialization of the holiday. But is anyone *forcing* you to celebrate? Well... Do you have kids? Do they watch TV? Do they have friends or school mates who watch TV? Read on, doomed one... In the primetime slot, the part that isn't a show on network television was 16:43 minutes per hour. The daytime level of advertising was 20:53 minutes per hour. Network news showed 18:53 minutes of commercials per hour and late night news aired 19:06 minutes of ads per hour. http://www.turnoffyourtv.com And what makes television different from other forms of advertising, is that the viewer has absolutely no control over the images. Sure you can change the channel, but you're really only watching more of the same.... Since there is no way to stop the images, one merely gives over to them. So if your kid is one of the very, very few who watch only an hour of TV each day (the national average is more than 4 hours PER DAY) http://www.csun.edu/~vceed002/health/docs/tv&health.html then they will have seen something like 32 30 second advertisements per day. Or 11,680 ads from last Christmas to this one. And believe me, that is WAY conservative. How many times A DAY do you tell your kid about giving, caring, loving, or any other positive action not related to... Well, Lloyd Dobler said it best: "I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that. " http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098258/quotes Your only hope is to convince kids that ALL advertisements contain a lie, toys are bad unless you make them yourself, and keeping up with Jonnie isn't all that it is cracked up to be. Good freaking luck! Hah! http://techref.massmind.org/techref/other/ads.htm But why did I say eCommerce? Well, this year is special folks! For the first time ever, or so reports the Post, "Americans who regularly use the Internet for shopping -- researching or buying products at least once a month -- will do more shopping online than at shopping malls and stores, from catalogues and by phone." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62355-2004Dec13.html So Xmas, no matter what you would like to believe, Virginia, is all about eCommerce. </RANT> --- James Newton, eCommerce guru "Helping your business write off that bigger Hummer, for a very reasonable fee" http://www.ecomorder.com ...ok, now its </RANT> > {Original Message removed}

At 04:41 AM 12/25/2004, James Newtons Massmind wrote: >My little bit of holiday cheer: > ><RANT> > >Just remember guys: > >"eCommerce" -it's the reason for the season... > >In the words of writer Charles Bukowski: "[America is] not a free country -- >everything is bought and sold and owned." Day after Christmas, year zero.. Mary: Joseph, did you get the receipt for this myrrh? I want to exchange it for a cradle. What's a baby going to do with this junk? Wise men my donkey! :)

> At 11:40 PM 12/24/2004, Kevin wrote: > > > >and from balmy Philadelphia at 23 F, enjoy whatever it is > >you wish to celebrate ! > > I've been over that way a few times since november. > > How the hell do you guys navigate out there? > > One way, under construction, closed for repairs, "jug handles", "all turns > from right lane".. > > No road seems to go in any particular direction, for any length of time, > unless it ends up in a toll road. Yes, construction on the major arteries seems to be never ending. You should have come when the gas tanker took out an overpass on 95 going into Philly, talk about traffic nightmares ! But, hey hopefully we are all off enjoying the holiday season. Plenty of time to worry about gridlock on Monday. Enjoy, Kevin

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 01:19:07 -0500, Carey Fisher - NCS wrote: > And from cold 31 deg-F (cold for us) Duluth, Ga USA.........Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Likewise from the "Frozen North" of England, where it's an almost-tropical -5C (23F) this evening... so I'm driving further North into Scotland tomorrow, along narrow, windy, hilly, windswept roads, and it may well be snowing - Fun! :-) So a Happy Hogmanay to all when it arrives! Cheers, Howard Winter St.Albans, England