Situation report: ‘On the bottle’

5.16am local time, 13°c (55°F), constant showers

NOTHING to report, other than to say I’ve scrubbed an entire draft of a year-end recap post simply because it sounded weird (read: constructive).

For starters, it was longwinded. This blog has more than enough tl;dr posts to last several lifetimes over, yours and mine.

That about sums up why I scrubbed the draft

It’s been pissing down the last two days. Temperatures tumbled overnight to 13°C from around 20°C yesterday like The Worst Whorehouse North of The Equator.

So I’ve gone off the literary trail and went on the bottle instead.

And very tasty that IKEA akvavit was too — it better be at 40% alcohol by volume (80 proof to Americans or 70 proof to the British). Other than that, *hic*.

Which brings me to a longstanding lifehack of my family’s — rubbing alcohol to disinfect the outsides, drinking alcohol to disinfect the innards.

Please, it’s not an excuse for boozing — it really IS a lifehack. Every time the weather turns for the worse, drink some alcohol. It fortifies the body. Drinking it, not boozing on it — that’s the difference.

It’s a lifehack with a long history in Europe, especially in places where medical treatment might be pragmatically unavailable or underdeveloped. It’s supposed to go with some food as well. It’s very bad to take alcohol on an empty stomach.

The lifehack, by the way, doesn’t work in reverse — for when the weather turns for the better — for reasons which should be bloody obvious.

Other than that, I have a Christmas present for all of you, dear readers.

The best things in life are free … and not ‘things’ either

For tomorrow, I promise to post some interesting pictures around town. Or not. *Hic*

(Images via c4c and Imgur)

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2013. (B13432)

D’you not know your own traditions?

EVERYONE is desperate for money and looking for all sorts of crass ways to generate some moolah.

You’re tempting fate, mate
(hat tip to M.K.L.)

I hate to break the latest news to some of you, but just sayin’:—

Traditionally, the ‘Yule tree’ is put up on the 23rd December, or no earlier than the 20th December.

For Catholics, particularly those in Italy and Latin America, it can be put up earlier on Immaculate Conception (1st December), mainly on the entertaining idea that Catholics are considered more ‘devout’ than any other version of Christians.

(We’ll leave the meaning of ‘devout’ to our respective personal definitions. Your opinion requires self-assembly, just as IKEA furniture does.)

Not very interestingly, the Christmas tree was originally a German tradition dating back to the 16th century, and brought to the English-speaking world in the late 19th century by Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, consort to Queen Victoria of Great Britain. All the other Europeans wondered why it took 300 years for the Christmas tree to sink into English heads.

This version of Father Christmas will come visiting if you don’t listen
… if your credit-card debt hasn’t taken you down first
(artwork by R-Clifford at DeviantArt)

It is taken down on 6th January, Old Christmas Day, the day after Twelfth Night (5th January a.k.a. Epiphany Eve), which is the formal end of seasonal credit-card warfare … ahem … I mean, Yuletide.

To have a Christmas tree up before or after these dates is considered bad luck. No wonder everything is a friggin’ shambles nowadays.

Which is why John Connor was ‘terminated’ on 4th July 2032 by the Terminator Model T101.

You have been told, saps.

“Blrrrbbb” (via m4f)

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 2013. (B13383)