Christmas

Well, it’s that time of year again. It has lots of different names: Hispanics call it Navidad, Norweigians call it Yule, and the politically-correct call it X-Mas. Scientologists combine the last two and somehow wind up with “Zuul”, the spirit from the original Ghostbusters movie. This is why we don’t talk about them.

No matter what you call it, it means the same thing: presents or parents who I don’t love anymore and who are going in a home.

So what are the big sellers this Christmas? Everyone seems to be getting lead poisoning, but that’s an issue for another column. As a geek, I like to look at the games. The hot items are the Nintendo Wii and the game Guitar Hero III. The Wii lets you swing the control like a baseball bat or golf club, and Guitar Hero lets you pretend to play guitar. Both of these are apparently preferable over going outside and playing a sport or getting a real guitar. The people have spoken, and almost doing things is what’s in.

 We can learn from this, because Christmas is also about the less fortunate. So please, this year, almost give to the needy. It’s the cool thing to do.