Another edition of Geekback in the house, yo...

1.) I know all the people who live in the Midwest, Northeast and anyplace it gets colder than we do are going to think me a total wimp, but it's too damn cold and windy for my tastes tonight. What's more, the Cold Santa Ana condition is kicking up tons of crap that is making my sinuses cry Ave Maria. I was supposed to meet some LAVC friends at the Skirball Center for the Einstein exhibit, (Thursdays are free admission days/nights at the Skirball) but that's in the Sepulveda Pass and no doubt it would be like being in a wind tunnel.

2.) I found an interesting thing to add to my collection of O-Bento. It's easily the most functional Bento box I have yet found, but it's not from Japan or Korea. It's from Venezuela. It's got a thermal outer container that holds two containers inside of it...the whole package is about 3" tall and it's a flat cylinder...about 7.5" diameter.

Wait, I don't have to tell you, I can just show you:



Pretty amazing, neh? It's definitely in the "I can't believe it's not Japanese" category. The "About us" statement on the website of the company who makes it says they distribute to Asia amongst other areas so perhaps this wasn't necessarily meant for domestic consumption but rather for Asian markets. Why did it show up in a discount store in Panorama City, California, USA? Dunno. It's just kewl.

3.) Still waiting for my grade in Linguistics 1. I'm going to be waiting around annoyed until I find out. I think I'm going to try emailing my Prof and see if he has the goods. I just don't enjoy being kept in suspense about something like that.

4.) It's weird about the Holidays...there seems to be this new kultur-kampf developing over how one greets another during this period of time when so many cultures have celebrations. Now "Happy Holidays" isn't enough...there is a new trend where a certain loud group of Evangelical Christians are peeved when people don't say "Merry Christmas" to each other. They are peeved about shops and malls and whatnot with their "Happy Holidays" displays. They want CHRIST back in CHRISTmas, dammit, and they are on a jihad to get it back.

The reason why the trend to "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" happened in the first place is because we aren't homogeniously Protestant Christian in this country anymore. Truth be told, we never were. But the idea that the US started off as homogeniously Protestant Christian is a cultural myth, one taught as recently as the 1970s.

Being raised Jewish in a culture dominated by WASPs was no big deal until I hit Junior High. (Now called Middle School...wow, that dates me!) Sherman Oaks Elementary School had a very large Jewish population, and the "Holiday Musical" was always scrupulously set up to feature the least-religious Christmas Carols and balance them out with Chanukah songs, some in Hebrew, some in English. It was only when I arrived, disoriented, at Van Nuys Junior High that I found out that I was a cultural minority.

I never got the "Christ-killer" crap from people but I got more subtle ugliness from some of my schoolmates when I mentioned the family Chanukah party and stuff...things that one need not have thought twice about mentioning when you were going to a school where half of the population was Jewish and half was something else.

I think what I'm just going to do next year is wait for someone to wish me the best of their given holiday season, whatever that may be, and then say "And the same to you, sir/madam."

BTW happy Oshogatsu. Well, I'm a bit early, yet. But have a happy one, anyway.