I have born witness to the great battle between “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays”. Now it is getting a bit sick.

I work/play/study/socialize in many Christian circles. It has gotten to the point where the word “Holiday” is often frowned upon.

I was at church recently and commented on a recipe I had received. I mentioned it would be great for the holiday parties.

I was quickly corrected; “Don’t you mean Christmas parties?”

“No”, I stated, “I will not be having a Christmas party on New Year’s Eve”.

Completely Unrelated

I was sent this link to a facinating commercial. (thanks to Whitey)

I love it when real effects are used in place of CG effects.

www.bravia-advert.com

Here is another interesting example of odd news writing style.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/15/presidential.poll/index.html

Because I know the live version is constantly being edited, I will post it as it exists at the time of my publication.

What I want you to notice is that, in this article about an upcoming campaign, it isn’t until the 15th paragraph (if you can call them paragraphs since most of them consist of one sentence) that we given a glimpse at what the specifc race is.

I will admit that I knew immediately what race they were talking about, so perhaps they have enough faith in their readers to know that it is a detail upon which they do not need to waste bits. However, it does seem like the most basic of information to the story. It may well have been the New York Senatorial race they were mentioning.

Here is the text of the article as it appears now.

(CNN) — If the results of a recent poll pan out, voters will see two big names from the Big Apple on the ballot in November 2008.

Those names are Sen. Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican.

The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Thursday indicated Clinton and Giuliani were the early favorites to win their respective party’s nomination.

But those polled said they believe the former first lady would have a smoother path to the nomination than her GOP counterpart.

Conducted December 9-11, the telephone poll asked 393 registered voters who described themselves as Republicans and 446 registered voters who described themselves as Democrats who they were most likely to support in their respective primaries.

The survey had a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Clinton snared the majority of the Democratic voters polled. And with more than two years before the primaries, she was ahead of her two nearest potential competitors by nearly 30 percentage points.

Giuliani, on the other hand, edged out Sen. John McCain of Arizona by only 8 percentage points, 30-22.

Another 18 percent of those polled selected Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, despite her repeated assertion that she has no plans to run.

Bringing up the rear on the GOP side were Sen. George Allen, of Virginia, 7 percent; Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, 3 percent; Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 3 percent; and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, 2 percent.

The remaining 15 percent of Republicans polled said they would support someone else.

Clinton was the favorite of 43 percent of the Democrats polled. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina — the party’s candidates in 2004 — each had 14 percent.

Eight percent of the Democrats polled selected Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware; 3 percent chose Virginia Gov. Mark Warner; another 3 percent picked New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; 1 percent opted for Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana; and 1 percent favored Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

The remaining 13 percent of Democrats polled said they would support another candidate.

The 2008 presidential race could be the most wide-open contest in more than five decades.

With President Bush unable to seek another term and Vice President Dick Cheney insisting he won’t succeed him, the table is set for the first race since 1952 in which neither a sitting president nor a vice president is on the ballot.

In that race, Republican Dwight Eisenhower defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson by a landslide electoral vote of 442 to 89.

Whoops, I almost forgot, I promised to add a link to each day’s post.

Something interesting I came across in my web-travels.

Nothing too deep today. Just the first trailer for Xmen 3

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/x3/

This week it is very cold where I live. Colder than normal.

We are about 20 degrees colder than average.

Last night, I was watching one of my less credible local TV news broadcasts, and the meteoroligist pointed out that we were, in fact 20 degrees colder than average. The anchor then harkened back to early last week when we were about 20 degress warmer than normal. and they both seemed to take note of the fact that the temps seem to be all over the board. There seemed to be an impression that “Something was up” in our world.

I am not a student of weather, but I did study statistics in college.

Additionally, I studied “Averages” in 5th grade.

If, last week, we were 20 degrees warmer than average and this week we are 20 degrees cooler than average. Doesn’t that seem to indicate that, over the past 10 days, we have pretty much been average?

The one thing I remember about averages is that, the average may never be a part of your data set.

If the daily highs are something like:
50
50
48
16
8
18

The average high temp is around 32 degrees. Never did it hit 32. Infact, each day was significantly higher or lower than the average temp.

So, this percieved variance form the average, that the news team was talking about; was, in fact, quite average.

I believe that Internet broadcasting took quite a hit when it was erroniously associated with Internet file sharing.

During, and following, the high profile Napster battle, the recording industry began a strict enforcement of Internet broadcast music licensing. Also introduced was a fee structure that frightened many large broadcasting corporations out of the streaming industry.

That battle (I am not sure that is the appropriate term for it) appears to have settled somewhat, but I believe I have seen the next wave coming.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3000_7-6326030-1.html?tag=txt

I was reading an article in PC Magazine today about blogging. The original blogs, it appears were intended to be a log of articles and information on the web. A log of web content, or… a Web Log if you will..

Many, however, have become simple diary entries (such as the Blog you are currently reading). With that in mind, I am going to make an effort, hense forth, to enhance all of my entries with an informational or amusing link that may, or may not, have anything to do with what I talk about.

Speaking of Logs, I had a fire in the fireplace tonight. Quite nice and quite warm. The only problem is that the only thermostat in the house is in the same room as the fire place. So, everytime we heat-er-up, the rest of the house tends to cool down.

That problem is worth dealing with, for the pleasure of the fire in the place.

I should really get some wood. I am running out of dining room furnature.

Now for the link.

I could always spring for one of these