9:46 PM - Alternative Holiday Letter Writing

Music: “Boom Shakalaka” from “Muppet Treasure Island”

Meme - Noun

Definition: A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

A concept that is passed from one generation to another by nongenetic means (as by imitation); "memes are the cultrual counterpart of genes."



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It’s interesting to watch some of these things spread from blog to blog.

One of the most recent memes I’ve seen is the Dear Santa automatic tabulator of your good and bad deeds for the year.

As of the approximate time of this posting, it had generated 1,187,521 letters. According to the creator, it was only started Sunday night. Just to let some of you know, it only works for those who have a LiveJournal account and it has been so popular its server crashes occassionally.

I thought the results were generally clever (and it was cute to see your LJ friends list incorporated into the results, creating some interesting mental images).

I didn’t fair too badly:

Dear Santa... Dear Santa, This year I've been busy! In June I saved a busload of nuns in Angola (326 points). In May I helped misslizzy see the light (8 points). In February I set shinobo's puppy on fire (-66 points). Last Monday I signed my organ donor card (28 points). Last Thursday I helped beyondthehavens hide a body (-173 points). Overall, I've been nice (123 points). For Christmas I deserve a shiny red ball! Sincerely, jakcal922

Write your letter to Santa! Enter your LJ username:

You’d think I’d get more credit for my luminance, though on the other hand I should be thankful I wasn’t more penalized for the whole dead body thing.

Anyway, I wouldn’t normally mention such results until I encountered a twisted variation on the original theme.







Submit your own plea to Cthulhu!

I stumbled across H.P. Lovecraft’s writings in college and liked the way he crafted such creepy, moody scenes without revealing too much stuff. His stories leeched unnerving terror in its ambiance and left much to the imagination.

For all the conspiracy stories he crafted, often led by tentacles of the cult of Cthulhu, it makes sense somehow that someone compares the creature’s fanatical followers to the equally determined Santa petitioners.

In conclusion, I’d like to insert a random punch line that only my sister will get: And then the monk turned to the rhinoceros and said, “What’s Thucydides doing here? Does he think it’s the Peloponnesian War, or something?”

Happy letter writing everyone, and may you be found as good or bad as you desire.

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 Hannah said...

I've spent twenty minutes now trying to come up with a fab, historically accurate, yet biting retort to the above and have instead decided to move on with life. This is a combination of my staying awake until 4 a.m. (which included conversations about Evil Cinderella and slippers), my lack of real knowledge of Greek history, and that the best I could think of was along the lines of Sink any fleets lately, Conon? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conon)  

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 Caleb Michael said...

And then the large grey mammal turned to the monk and said, “That’s not Thucydides – it’s Hannibal. And I’m not a rhinocerous – I’m an elephant. And we’re fixing to dish out of Punic-tive damages!”  

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 Anonymous said...

I'm not a stinking member, so I'll write my own letter to Santa.

Dear Santa,
Don't screw me again this year. Last year I didn't get poop from you! What's the deal!? I was completely friggin' awesome last year! Jealous? You oversized fat faerie. This is your warning. Don't let it happen again. Just don't.
Your buddy,
Cory West  

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 Anonymous said...

You WANTED to get poop last year?!?  

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