New Year Foreshadowing

Happy New Year

I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. I went out to my car this morning - headed to church - and when I clicked my little key fob to unlock the doors, the alarm went off. At first, I thought it was because I pushed the wrong button, but then I realized that there was something wrong.
Something very wrong.
There's glass all over the place.
Someone tried to break into my car last night and was successful - with a brick. Half of the brick is sitting outside the car, and half of it is inside. In this picture you can see the dents they made in the door frame near the top when they must have been throwing that brick over and over. These would-be thieves also have bad aim.
I had my new GPS and my iPod in plain site. Yes, I'm that dumb. I'm grateful that they didn't actually take anything. Since they were successful at eventually breaking into the MirthMobile, but didn't take anything, I'm guessing that the alarm did go off and scare them away. That would also explain why the alarm sounded when I tried to unlock the car at the beginning.
Now some thankful moments...
1) Thanks to Tiffany over at Progressive. She was very nice and made the process of reporting my claim easy.
2) Thanks to Officer Brian Barry from the Kentwood Police Department for coming around and making the police report easy.
3) I'm thankful that they didn't take anything.
Now some dork moments...
1) There's snow all around the carport - meaning that indeed there are footprints in the snow leading to and leading away from my car.
2) I mocked myself for the CSI-type of thoughts I had.
3) I'm pretty sure that the foot prints are from Converse sneakers, about a men's size 9.
I shared my self mocking with Officer Brian and he also mocked me... "We can probably get some casts of these prints... naaaaahhh"

Nice...

Have yourself a creepy little Christmas

I've really been thinking about a certain Christmas Carol this year - Up On The Housetop - maybe you know the one? I've pasted in the lyrics below for your reference. I'm really OK with the chorus. I mean, who wouldn't go? I'm even OK with the first two verses, they tell a lovely little story about Santa Claus. The dolly for little Nell sounds precious.
I find myself stumbling on the stocking of little Will. What's this freak get for Christmas?
- a hammer
- lots of tacks
- a whistle
- a ball
- a whip
I'm sorry, but that's just creepy. Besides potential problems with child-labor laws, I'm concerned that for his birthday this kid is also getting half a pound of C4.
Perhaps I should point out that back in the olden days when B.R. Hanby wrote this song, there was no Nintendo. Little boys had to make their own fun out of wood and string.

Up On The Housetop

Up on the housetop reindeer pause
Out jumps good old Santa Clause
Down thru the chimney with lots of toys
All for the little ones
Christmas joys.

Chorus

Ho, ho, ho!
Who wouldn't go!
Ho, ho, ho!
Who wouldn't go!
Up on the housetop
Click, click, click
Down thru the chimney with
Good Saint Nick

First comes the stocking
Of little Nell
Oh, dear Santa
Fill it well
Give her a dolly
That laughs and cries
One that will open
And shut her eyes

Repeat Chorus

Next comes the stocking
Of little Will
Oh, just see what
A glorious fill
Here is a hammer
And lots of tacks
A whistle and a ball
And a whip that cracks

Repeat Chorus

And I'm not alone. Morgan is also clearly disturbed.

Facebook wackiness

So it turns out that "Brian Atkinson" is a rather popular name, and people find me on facebook and think I'm someone else with the same name. Nothing I've ever had to deal with before. Here's a recent exchange with someone named Ruben.


It should be known that when I wrote:

Wait, wait!
Is this: http://tinyurl.com/2alp3w
you?

The link went to this sandwich:

Ruben is my new best friend.

"Congratulations"

I'm an occasional contributor to the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, as some of you may know.

It's not one of those grammar-police blogs, but a just-for-fun snarky comment blog about the inappropriate use of quotes and their funny and not-so-hidden meanings.

The "good news" about the "blog" is that it just cracked the top 1,000 most popular blogs on the internet. So - "congratulations" to Bethany and all the other contributors!

We're number 997!
Yeah!

Home Improvement

The local and national news was all over this story today and I had to weigh in on it.



This guy named Steve Flaig just found his birth-mother. I'm overjoyed for him and I'd love to talk to him about his experience. The goofy thing of course is that when he met her, he found out that they work together at Lowes.
Seriously...
Mlive
WoodTV
MSNBC
Truemors
Is God awesome or what?



Why I'm excited about it.

A quick Christmas list

Usually we make Christmas lists for things we want instead of things we've done. However, every year some people write those Christmas letters listing and describing their accomplishments for the past year. Here's my list:
1) Name change
Following my recent adoption I've done most of the name-change stuff.

2) Followed by another Comcastic moment
Changing the name on my power, gas, bank, email, phone and a ton of other stuff that you have to change when your name changes was really pretty easy. Most of them took a phone call and sometimes an email with my old and new drivers license attached and that was that. Comcast took things to a whole new level of annoying and funny. First of all I couldn't just call. I couldn't email or fax them proof of my new name. I had to go to their office. Really? Yes, I had to go to a building so that their crack customer service staff could inspect my documentation and then change the name on my account. In truth, they inspected my documents, called a supervisor who also inspected my documents and then they gave me a form. They typed in a bunch of stuff on a computer and printed a form. They handed it to me to fill out. Most of what I needed to fill out they had typed into the computer, but it didn't appear on the form. Now that's all pretty Comcastic, but did you know that they accomplished all of this Comcastic customer service from behind one-and-a-half inches of bullet-proof glass? Oh yes.
Don't make your customer service so great that they staff gets thank you Christmas fruitcakes from grateful subscribers. No, protect your customer service staff from the so-angry-that-they-might-become-violent customers.
Way to go Comcast!

3) Didn't give anyone a fruitcake

4) Taught some people about RSS

You see here my Google Reader showing my friend Chris' blog. Until just a bit ago - no RSS. Now... RSS and I can subscribe to his blog. I taught Brooke, and she taught Chris.

I think that's how the Gospel is supposed to work too. Please let me know if you want to know what I mean. brianatkinson [at] mirthmobile [dot] com

Merry Christmas.

PS - ** didn't give anyone this kind of stuff.

Christmas for me

Come on you do it too!
You get yourself a little something-something for Christmas don't you? After-all, what's the spirit of giving without making sure you get just what you want.



This year I got myself some direction in life.
It's an older-model very basic GPS for my car. I set it up with the British English voice, so now I have this exotic sounding car-girlfriend. I'm driving the 16 hours to Gulfport, Mississippi this year. I think I will appreciate this gift to myself.



I also had 5000 Tivo points to use before they expired. So I used them to get another remote. My three-year-old remote is just fine. It works like a champ. But this one has flames! Seriously, how senselessly cool is that?

Looking ahead - into the mouth of despair

It's that time of year again. If you haven't selected a calendar for 2008, they make great Christmas gifts.

The lovely people at despair.com have their 2008 customizable calendars available and you might already know who desperately needs one of these.

I on the other-hand need someone to purchase this t-shirt for me. Size XL.

Day of the Ninja

Today is the 2007 Day of the Ninja.
It's the day when all ninjas together with non-ninjas (non-jas) gather in their normal everyday locations, in their secretive ninja attire. Don't confuse this with Talk Like A Pirate Day which involves no costumes and is all about your piratey language; especially since ninjas are silent.

Want to participate? All you have to do is pretend you are a ninja.

There's plenty to see and do today.
Check out Ask a Ninja and learn about the origins of Day of the Ninja.
Visit the official NinjaDay2007 site

If you're not prepared with a ninja costume today, learn how to make a ninja mask out of a t-shirt.

Today, the whole world is just a little deadlier.