Glenn the weatherman:
I feel sorry for New York City…if you know what I mean! 
I just hope that system “passes” before NYE then!
Well, I’m back in Asheville after going home to Birmingham for five days for the holidays. It was really nice to get to see my friends from high school and just drive around my beautiful town (a small part of Birmingham to the south, not the whole city). Anyways, regardless of how much I enjoy being home, it’s always nice to come around that corner on the highway and see the mountains again. Always makes me feel good.
Supposed to be in the low 40’s during the day all week, with rain Monday and Tuesday, leaving us with low 20’s at night the rest of the week. Finally, it’s getting nice outside! 
Dooj touched on a few of the reasons, but for me, it’s mostly because I’m not close to my family…not physically, emotionally.
My mom and I hardly speak anymore and ONLY to talk about plans with Makenzie.
My dad is mostly cool, but he has my mom bitching in his ear so much about shit that he’s kinda pulling back too.
My sister had a cool period a few years back when she was on Mom’s shitlist, but now they’re tight again and my sister is a carbon copy of Mom.
My brother is the only one who doesn’t act like them and actually likes my husband which is nice. However, we have absolutely nothing in common so it’s hard to talk about anything except mom and dad and how fucked our family is currently.
Holidays with my family consist of me trying to say as little as possible (which you will be surprised to know is VERY difficult for me 
) because everything I say is met with resistance or causes a fight somehow. I can’t talk about my husband or the eye rolls start. Every idea I have, even something random in passing or as a joke, is the worst idea ever. I get bitched at for meaningless shit because it’s the nastiest thing EVER that I only make my daughter bathe every other day. “Ollie, I can’t believe you don’t make her bathe everyday. That’s so gross” when all the child has done was watch movies and tv all day.
It’s always some terrible crisis with them and I hate being in that negative atmosphere. But not being there reminds me how fucked up things are, so either way holidays fucking suck.
If you’re holidays are all happiness with friends, food, and family that’s cool. But it’s not that way for everybody. There’s nothing wrong with not being gung ho about holidays. People may have a damn good reason not to be 
^Well…I am sorry that you have uncomfortable relations with some family. Definitely makes the holidays something NOT to look forward to. HOWEVER…I do believe that you are probably in the majority here. Times are different than they used to be. I always tell my family “it’s not the fifties anymore” people get divorced, move, split up, etc.
You can still get excited about the holidays though. You don’t have to, but you can! What I have done is left the douchebag family members in the rearview and have begun focusing all of my holiday concentration on the family and FRIENDS that I do get along with and have things in common with. I would just rather come into the holiday season looking forward to it, as opposed to dreading it. When you sit back and think about it, the holidays have the possibility of being a great time of year. Why let shitty family relations get in the way? Everytime I see my Grandmother she asks why I don’t bring my son over more and why I don’t call more. I said " Grandma, I make it home only twice a year, and by the way Grandma…the phone works BOTH ways." 
Well, Ollie, I wasn’t really talking about you, since I know your situtation (or at least I know the gist of it). I was really talking to pretty much everyone else I guess. Like, even if you hate SOME of your family members, surely you can’t hate ALL of them. And even if you do hate ALL of them, you could seek out some old friends over the holidays, since you know where they will be. Like I said, my friends and the food are the reasons I look forward to the holidays.
Sometimes when you’re having a bad day, a nice juicy burger can really turn the day around. Especially when said burger comes from 5 Guys. I’m ready to take on the afternoon now! Well…maybe after a short nap.
So…I had an awful day. I was on my way to an insurance seminar and someone ran a red light and smashed into my car…my car is totaled, I just got out of the hospital with stitches in my head and whiplash. The person who hit me did not have insurance, so that makes it even more difficult. Thank God I do have good insurance. I keep just seeing this car come at me…my mind keeps replaying it…I really am lucky to be alive. My car–not so lucky. Wear a seat belt and hug your loved ones. I am still shaking just thinking about it. Peace OKP.
^Sorry to hear that. I know how awful car crashes can be having lost an arm and almost died. Luckily my mind has completely blocked out any and all memories from that night. I would hate to have to relive that like you are. Hope this doesn’t effect you to negatively.
damn man, that sucks
glad to hear you’re somewhat ok, it could have been way worse. hope you feel better soon.
^^ glad you are okay man. relax, take it easy and listen to some phish. But, yea same thing happened to me years ago when I was headed downtown to see a concert and i got hit by a car. Turns out the car that hit me was stolen and the police think that they had just committed a crime, so needless to say they didn’t have insurance either. so be glad you have good insurance. but yes, folks wear your seat belts, I was in another wreck after that and the seat belt saved my life.
^ Do these 25% exclusively use CD and/or 11 people exclusively use vinyl? I’d be surprised if anybody still exclusively listen to vinyl. Isn’t there only a limited amount of material available on vinyl? I can see only 25% of people using CDs exclusively.
I didn’t use an MP3 player until I got into Phish. I had all these shows and they wouldn’t split into CDs nicely and I got tired of playing them only on my computer so… here I am with an iPod. Shows are pretty much all I use it for though.
^^^^^Holy crap, man! So sorry that happened to you… that is some scary stuff! Glad you’re alright though. Like other folks said, sounds like it could have been a whole lot worse!
As far as music goes, I haven’t bought a CD, casette tape or vinyl in as long as I can remember. I switched over to digital music back in '98 or '99 when Apple was only making computers and mp3 players were actually called “mp3 players”.
I don’t buy books anymore either. Or newspapers. Or magazines. And the last physical “letter” I wrote (as in, using a pen and paper to correspond with someone) was probably a postcard I sent my family when I was living in London in 1997. 
I love ‘real’ reading still. I do not ‘collect’ books, but I do like to read real paper.
I love the opportunity we have to use multiple forms of media etc… I still buy CD’s, mainly local bands and some Phish too. I still subscribe to a few magazines, my wife still buys books and we still watch some DVD’s.
Overall, I think the multiple forms that allow us media access are great and I love it…
Might have to put in a great old CD now, though!!! 
so im at work, and i all of a sudden, out of nowhere get a million (exaggerated) texts saying that the house across the street from mine is on fire. 
woooo page 420
Burning down the house!
What are they called now?
^iPods.
Kinda the way tissue is called kleenex and copy machines are called xerox machines.
The best one I heard was from the sprint store a couple years back when I bought my HTC Hero and the guy said “it’s got like a little iPod in it so you can listen to music and stuff.” 