Christmas Cracked.com Article

Christmas

Christmas is the season of goodwill to all men. It’s a time for love, kindness and companies to up the prices on their biggest products.

Rudimentary Really

Just The Facts

1. Christmas was originally a pagan festival dating around 4th century in Germany. It was then known as Yule, which sounds so much better.
2. It has since been absorbed into Christianity to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, but is also celebrated by people from many faiths
3. Today, Christmas is celebrated by a lot of the world, but not all of it.
4. Coca Cola invented Santa Claus (citation needed)
5. Okay, they didn’t invent him, but they invented the image of the red suit, you know, for marketing.
6. Christmas is now a capitalist holiday that is all about greed and money. It’s still the most wonderful time of the year

History of Christmas

“Christmas is the most magical time of the year, more magical even than four bank holidays glued together and multiplied by Easter!” – Charlie Brooker, UK TV Comedian

Yule has been celebrated for a long time, but the first time it was noted down by anyone was around the year 730AD. It was obviously a winter festival celebrated by Pagans from Germany, and consisted of great feasts, yuletide songs and happiness all around. The traditions of Yule haven’t changed much since being converted to Christmas, apart from the inclusion of Jesus Christ.

Today, we follow the same traditions (nearly) as originally carried out during Yule. We eat ridiculously vast meals, sing songs that fill the heart with happiness and drink ourselves into an early depression in preperation for the New Year that’s looming on the horizon.

Christmas 101

This section if for the people out there who are new to Christmas and it’s traditions. Have a holly jolly Christmas folks.

You will need:

• An Evergreen Conifer Tree (You determine the size, depending on the height of your ceiling)
• Christmas Lights
• A Holly Wreath
• Fruit Cake covered with icing and marzipan
• Wrapping Paper
• Gifts for loved ones
• Tinsel
• Baubles

First, put up the tree in the main living area of your home. Put it in a christmas tree stand, or it’ll keep falling over, which is only funny the first 2 times, when it lands on a loved one or the dog or something. Next, you’re going to have to decorate the tree, so first, wrap one set of Christmas Lights around the tree, arranging so they look quite nice, and not like someones just thrown them on. Also, make sure it is facing the right way up, or people may think you are a brain dead imbecile.

Now for the Baubles. Arrange them so they aren’t too close together and so that they compliment the lights. There. You’ve just put up a Christmas Tree and decorated it.

Now, for the rest of your house/apartment/room/place of business. Hang the Holly Wreath on the front door, as if to say “It’s Christmas, didn’t you know?” to your neighbours, visitors and wellwishers. If you are in a house, you can also hang lights outside, either in a tree or along the front of the house. Make sure to throw a lot of tinsel about as well, since you can’t go wrong with tinsel.

The cake and the wrapping paper? It’s all on you. Do what you wish. Use the wrapping paper to wrap gifts and eat the cake, or vise versa. I’ve never tried wrapping gifts with cake, but it could be a fun experiment. Hell, throw the cake at passers by if you like, it can be entertaining.

Santa

Santa Claus goes by many names around the world, such as:

• Saint Nicholas
• Kris Kringle
• Father Christmas
• Pere Noel
• Baba Chaghaloo
• Santa Klaus
• Julemanden
• Weihnachtsmann
• And far too many more to simply list here

Santa is mainly known for delivering presents over the world to all the boys and girls. Of course, there are lot of sceptical people that say he doesn’t exist, which is absurd in it’s own right, but there are factors that they haven’t taken into account, like:

• Time Zone differences
• The fact that not everyone celebrates Christmas
• He has a reliable airline

We can see from these facts that the chance of Santa getting presents to all of his believers…is still pretty slim. But not completely impossible.

The real point of the Santa Claus story is to bring happiness to people at Christmas time. The idea is stronger than the embodiment, as shown in the film “Miracle on 34th Street”, both the original and the remake, but more so in the remake. The end states that if the people of America can believe in God without physical evidence, and believe in him enough to print his name on their currency, then surely the people can believe in Santa aswell.

"Where the hell is seat 2B?"

Controversy with Christmas

There have been many controversies and arguments over Christmas, including an incident (well, more than an incident) with Oliver Cromwell, where he, along with some of his allies, attempted to ban Christmas. Obviously, he failed, but many others have tried to make significant changes over the years.

In recent times, the word “Christmas” has been replaced by many with “Holiday” in an attempt to convey that Christmas is for everyone and not just Christians. This makes very little sense, due to the fact that the holiday was not originally a Christian one and the fact that many people all over the world celebrate it already. Many people believe, to stay politically correct, the season overall should be referred to as the “Holidays”, replacing “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays”. This would sort of be like mixing different meals together to stop a family arguing. It wouldn’t stop them arguing, they’d all get even angrier. Keeping the holidays individual makes sense, as each would lose its own charm if lumped together with the others.

Actually, "Happy Holidays" is starting to sound a whole lot better!

Cracked on Christmas

History of this holiday be damned, we at Cracked realise that people celebrate Christmas in any way they see fit, such as sitting in front of a fire, singing heartily, or drinking in an alley, singing heartily. The festive season is upon us, and there’s no way of stopping it. Even time travel is useless.

"Your services are no longer required my good man!"

So, time to bunker down and make a plan. Survival of the fittest and all that jazz. Grab a pen and paper, this is about to get wild!

Season Of Goodwill Action Plan

Things are going to get ugly, so the first thing everyone needs to do is buy gifts for their loved ones before the stores get clogged by wheezing, smelly people. (All of this can be avoided through the use of internet shopping, but since when should we trust machines?)

"Sir, you aren't fooling anyone!"

So, assuming you’ve finished with your shopping and avoided the sneaky bastard pictured above, we’re ready to move onto decorating. The handy step-by-step guide written out above should cover the basics. For the correct amount of Christmas cheer, we recommend red and gold for wrapping paper, and green for tinsel (variety is everything when you’re trying to blind family members with shiny objects). Now, you’re ready for Christmas. Go to bed and await a visit from an old man who breaks into your house and leaves gifts, just to let you know he’s seen you sleeping.

When I’m not writing my miserable blog or hating myself, I’m writing for Cracked.com

Snow is falling! Yeah, right.

Christmas is just around the corner, and as the resident Christmas man, I feel the need to cover the subject with cynicism and depressing facts. There has been a surge in christmas commercials recently (meaning october), and they’ve become increasingly meaningless to the surpluss population. Sure, the first time that Coca Cola advert pops on, I squeal like every other psychopath in England and run around singing “It’s Christmas, it’s christmas, it’s christmas!” for twenty minutes, but other than that, nothing is grabbing me. Which is a real shame, considering christmas is a time for commercialism and money spending. Nothing like being bankrupt during the most wonderful time of the year.

They got the big guy!

I recently purchased an iPod Touch from Currys, for an exorbitant amount of my hard earned minimum wage. This was on a whim and I was worried that I’d be bored with it after a couple of days, but I haven’t felt feelings of regret at the time of writing. Thank god, since I doubt they’ll take back an iPod I’ve filled with Ricky Gervais podcasts and porn. My point is, even now, during Christmas, people are spending money on themselves. I usually berate people for this, but now I’m at fault. Damn! I work in a pub, and it’s constantly packed. Packed. Even when I’m not on a shift and I’m just driving past, the car park is full. Do these people have magic money that copies itself? Where are they getting the funds to go eating and drinking at my workplace? I thought there was an economy crisis on, I guess I was mistaken!

Obviously, Christmas hasn’t lost its meaning for some of us. I adore Christmas, the feeling, the music, the decorations, the way people are a little less bitter (including yours truly. Yes, really!). It’s a great time of the year, but it has been commercialised and anyone who can’t see that is a damn fool!

I R Backz!

Yes, back from the dead it would seem. Or as close to it as I can be without actually passing over to the other side. College is over, I’m unemployed and I am still enraged with the world. It’s all uphill from here. For a year. Give or take.

An interesting thing happened to me on Friday. I took a non paid script writing job for a series of 10 minutes episodes that will be shown on youtube. I’m hoping this keeps me occupied and stops me from doing anything stupid, which has become the norm recently (you try and resist alcohol when someone gives you free money). So there I was typing away like a busy little 170 pound elf, when I realised I was working. I was actually doing the exact same thing that had disgusted me for the past 6 months. I was writing a damned script and I was enjoying it. Which led me to the conclusion. School, College, University, any education at all. It’s all there to kill your hopes, dreams and spirit (and in extreme cases, your friends).

Yeah, um, the school did it! I swear!

I don’t know what it is. When you arrive in a school or college, you get this overwhelming feeling of dread that washes over you, eating at your very soul, until you’re close to snapping and giggling manically. Of course, it stops at that point, since it wouldn’t be able to torture you if you had lost your mind. Once you’re at this stage, you are more suggestable. You’ll follow the rules, if only to get out of there as soon as possible. It’s similar to prison, except there isn’t a 7 foot man called Leslie waiting in the showers (or maybe there is, I’m not here to judge what happens to you in your school showers). Of course, I’m just talking crap by this point, but I always assumed there was some sort of method of control in certain prisons, where they scare the shit out of the prisoners to keep them in order, or they push them to the brink of madness. This would make sense if there weren’t legal implecations. So instead, they do this in education.

Now, I’m not a paranoid man (much), but it does seem like there is truth to my ramblings. Why else would they push everyone to the limit at schools. And don’t pull that old argument about how they’re trying to get the best quality work out of us, because my FMP was shit and my teacher loved it. Or he said he did. Which means he was lying. Ouch.

 

n00bz r pwn takers

Earlier this evening, I was having a delightful game of capture the flag on Day Of Defeat: Source. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, shooting loud germans and annoying americans from every angle with my rifle and rocket launcher. After recieving what I took as a long and loud insult from one of the admins, I spent the next 10 minutes ruining his game by shooting his fat little head off. Running back and forth between locations, I laughed whenever his voice exploded over the microphone in rage. Suddenly, black screen. Main menu. The information box pops up with the message “You have been banned from this server for camping” written in the middle. I was rather insulted.

"Vere ist zat RandyChimp? Achtung!"

Yes, yet again I am complaining about games, but this time I have a reason. Let’s have a look at the definition of camping, shall we?

Camping: Camping is an outdoor recreational activity. The participants, known as campers, leave civilization and enjoy nature at its finest, usually a french camping ground, covered in dog shit, next to a field full of french cows. And their cows have the worst smelling farts in the known world.

Yes, I know, this isn’t the camping that is used in games. Camping in games involves sitting (or crouching) in the same spot for a lengthy period of time. This often results in a comical image, as the character looks like they’re having a very long shitting session. I half expect them to shout “Fuck you, I don’t care if theres a war on, I’m relieving my bowels” over the noise of grenades. Anyway, whilst squatting in the same spot  for said lengthy period of time, they take the time to aim at the same few people, making sure they don’t get to play the game at all. Of course, this would have been annoying for the people I was playing against, if I had been camping that is.

I spent most of the game running from location to location to location. All I needed were Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer and I’d have had a channel 4 programme! However, the administrator of the server I was on decided he didn’t want me to keep beating him, so he banned me.

So here I am, on my blog, bored off my arse, because some german bastard banned me!

I’m so angry!

Comics Thing

Hoo ho, turns out you won’t have to be subjected to my comics at all (unless you willingly click that link for some odd reason), mainly because WordPress blog space isn’t big enough to fit the comics and I prefer them being on my myspace only. So nevermind.

 

Comics

I’ve taken to creating comics recently for my myspace blog. I don’t know why, they go unappreciated and eventually die with a slight titter. But nonetheless, I’ve decided I might start putting the latest ones on here. If you want to see the back catalogue, so to speak, visit http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendId=65634195

Actually, I wouldn’t bother.

 

Cheap Console or Expensive Toy

Whilst ploughing my way through German defense forces on the latest Call Of Duty game on my Playstation 3 the other night, a thought occured to me. An odd one, I might add, seeing as I was playing on a Sony made games console. The thought was about the console war, and, more specifically, the Nintendo Wii. Now, for some unknown reason, the whole world has gone Wii mad (when said out loud, this seems like a psychological occurance that changes peoples sexual preferences). Since its release, it has currently sold 44.96 million units, and it is the best selling console of its generation. However, I don’t actually believe it’s a console anymore.

Now, I would love to go into a mass conspiracy theory, where Nintendo are training children around the world to become an evil army of Ninjas with the help of virtual tennis, but my view is less intense. The Wii is currently the best selling as it has a select group of mini-game style products on sale, it is cheap and it doesn’t appear to bring about violence in three year olds like other consoles do (not my view, the governments). But is the Wii really a cheap console, or an expensive toy? Lets look at the facts:

1. The Wii’s best selling game is Wii Sports. Granted, it comes with toy, but it’s still its highest seller nonetheless. Apparently exercise isn’t enough any more, fat children need a stupid little pixilated version of themselves to be tortured aswell.
2. It focus’ mainly on party games and mini-games, like cooking, tests, and sports. It seems odd to me that kids are willing to fill out a test paper on their wii, but not in real life.
3. It’s games are full of bright colours and annoying music, kind of like a virtual legoland, which tries to rape your mind every chance it gets.

I’m sure everyone remembers playing restaurant, or teacher when they were a child. Sitting under the dining table with a toy pizza set was hours of fun until I tried to bite the plastic slice one day. Nintendo have glorified these childhood activities, put a silly beat to them and charged parents £180 for it. And the parents thing it’s a smart investment. That is of course until they’ve had it for a week and realised its the gaming equivalent of farting. Fun at first, but after a while, people start to leave the room, uninterested and almost always disgusted.

Glorified Childs Play Thing vs Mans Console. Its black, it has to be cool!

I blame the worlds problems on the BBC

The BBC makes me sick. Physically sick. If I watch any sort of comedy on the BBC, I run from the room, trying to hold down the contents of my stomach. Is it just me, or has the quality of television dropped over the…..well actually, it was always a bit shit wasn’t it? I mean, come on, if I have to sit through another Dr Who that revolves around David Tennant smiling like a gorm every time he finds the magic crystal that fixes everything, I’ll actully video my shit and send him a dvd entitled “Revenge of the public”, the premise being I watched his shit, so he has to watch mine! Obviously, this show keeps getting made because the plebs watch it. Of course, I’m calling myself a pleb, so we’ll move down another path. The fact of the matter is, there is absolutely nothing else on. And after watching the same films on DVD over and over and over again, you need the television for some sort of ancient entertainment, a kind of “oh, I remember this” feeling, realising that you’ve spent about 6 years using the internet for what the television usually spews out all over the living room carpet.

I wouldn't trust this man with a toothpick, let alone the fabrics of time!

Comedy on the BBC is no better. For example, picking a name out of a hat randomly, Horne and Corden. Okay, it was a metaphorical hat and there was only the one show, but I stand by my decision. Horne and Corden may be the worst comedy since Gavin and Stacey. Oh, right, yes they were in that aswell. Okay then, it’s the worst comedy since the Catherine Tate show. Ah, damn, that skinny runts in that aswell isn’t he? Are we seeing a pattern here? Example of how unfunny Horne and Corden is, you say? Certainly! The viewing figures are interesting, check them out:

• Episode 1 – 817,000
• Episode 2 - 600,000
• Episode 3 – 502,000
• Episode 4 – 650,000
• Episode 5 – 392,000 
• Episode 6 – 434,000 

Aw, did your viewing figures go down? Did people not like your show? Apparently not! But shit like that doesn’t stop two zany idiot’s who think they live in the land of makebelieve, no, they’ve managed to get themselves another undeserved shitty series! A sequel of crap, so to speak.

Fozzie Bear looks slimmer!

Unfortunately, theres nothing anyone can do, these morons are here to stay. Anyway, I won’t bore you with anymore, since I’m sure you’ll all be wanting to go watch Little Britain! Oh wait…..

Rage

People that know me know that it is rage and anger, with a side order of toilet humour and wank jokes that keep me running through the day. And of course, 50% of pepsi’s stock, but I’m getting sidetracked. Rage is an interesting thing, I never see rage, yet I absorb it from other people, until I’m just about ready to explode and punch someone in the face with both fists. In fact, the only way to calm down my rage is (or at least was) to go to a Theme Park, which A) is expensive, B) difficult to get to and C) apparently doesn’t work anymore. I recently took a trip to Disneyland Paris. I’ve been before, and for some reason, have a vast knowledge of the rides, layout and routes of the park. However, visiting the land of makebelieve and dreams, didn’t calm my rage, in fact it ignited it. The reason? Children. French and German children to be specific. Now, I don’t like children, they’re needy, grabby little gits who think they know everything. However, I noticed whilst on this holiday, that the children walking around that were speaking English, didn’t seem to be misbehaving. In fact, they were extremely calm. Walking around, not kicking people in the queues, not trying to maul that pre-pubescant mouse or the retarded duck. Unlike the French and the Germans (for sake of ease, I’ll now refer to them as Europeans, because Frogs and Sausage eaters seems a bit racist). Their kids were a nightmare. Queues became more tedious than they already were, mainly due to kicking. The adults are just as bad, since Europeans have no concept of personal space. There was a german bloke behind me in the queue at one point, if he’d have taken one more step, it would have constituted as rape. Not exactly the happy memory you want from Disneyland.

Oddly enough, I found myself wanting to go again soon after leaving. November is my planned date, since it won’t be a holiday and hopefully there will be less bloody kids around and less bloody Europeans around. Nothing ruins the day for everyone, like an 18 year old English man shouting “EXCUSE ME, my legs are not a punching bag, you little bastard!” Happy Days!

 

When will the working end?

Work is shit. Everyone hates work. Anyone who doesn’t hate work is either dead or has been on Big Brother, and their conceptions of work include walking around the house in a swimsuit eating crackers and being racist. Don’t get me wrong, it sounds like an interesting afternoon in, but it doesn’t count as work per se. I am in the middle of a very large work load for college, and along with my classmates, am close to ending it all. No, not suicide, maybe some sort of coma would do the trick. It isn’t so much the workload, but the fact that the number of assignments never seems to diminish. For the life of me, I can’t remember the last time I had some free time. By free time, I mean time where I didn’t have any work at all, not times where I was just putting off work to get in a few hours of beating pedestrians to death on Grand Theft Auto shouting “Think this is bad, try my FMP!”

The assignments that I have mentioned have come to a stop near the end of the year, but there are, by my count, still four to be done, all including some sort of production work. We have our FMP, which is currently making sure we will have some sort of Vietnam flashback style breakdown any time a person mentions the word “research” or “questionnaire”, we have Experimental Film which, as harmless as it seems, is taking a long time because no-one can take it seriously, there’s Animation, which puts us right back into year 3 when the teacher would slap a lump of clay onto the table and demand that we make a model until our hands bled, and we have Studio Work, which I detest the most, since yet again, I have been put into the role of presenter, which makes me ask “why?” since I have less screen presence than a piece of toast.

All in all, I think I’m done with this year, since it’s bored me to tears and make me more angry than I’ve ever been in my entire childish life. I think it’s time to pull out the old baseball bat and start beating pedestrians down again. “YOU DO A FUCKING QUESTIONNAIRE!”