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Jan 8, 2009


The Show Notes

Where I Am
Show errata
Intro
New Year's Eve in Bethlehem
PFA's gig über turnaround
Rupert’s McClanahan’s Indestructible Bastards

- Leon Trotsky, Blackbeard
Flannel sheets, gift certificates
Abstinence Report
Minoishe Interroberg's To Make With the Good English
- Anyway vs. Anyways  from Hayden Bodily
- Couldn’t care less  from Seth Hanisek
- Spelling and grammar  from Dwight Dunlop
- Pipe or pike  from Kristin
Ask George 
- Losing Weight?  from Tony Steele
- Drummer's Career?  from Jason Reed
- Immortality?  from Ben Tylka
- Lyrics?  from Mike Oliver
Say hi at Long Beach
Show close

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lilbuckaru
almost sixteen years ago

Hi George,

I love gift certificates. Especially if they are to restaurants that I have not been to. I love to go out to eat but end up at the same restaurants all of the time. Gift certs to new places broadens the horizens.

Peter Sosna
almost sixteen years ago

George just keeps getting more popular. He got a brief mention on the latest Non-Prophets podcast.

posty mcposterton
almost sixteen years ago

ha... I wondered when you said Django (not Reinhardt) and thought, \\\"hmm... there\\\'s another Django who\\\'s a jazz musician? OK.\\\"

I guess I wasn\\\'t being skeptical enough.

~Dan
http://jazzsick.wordpress.com/

nolachief
almost sixteen years ago

Unfortunately our society has decided that giving cash is rude. Which is annoying since that\'s what I tend to prefer to get. It\'s practicality as much as anything else. My family is flung all over the country and we can\'t always afford to get from one end of it to the other to see. Nor can we afford to cough up a huge pile of money to UPS or FedEx to ship them something easily purchased around the corner from them. A card with a check through first class mail, though, is entirely useful and inexpensive to send.

I second Scott Adams\' opinion of gift cards. Especially this year, with so many outlets that sell them not honoring them in all cases (ahem, Circuit City, ahem) or going bankrupt before they can be redeemed.

As far as the weight loss, I need to get me one of those scales. I tried one out once, and knowing my actual body composition gave me something to throw back at my idiot doctor that insisted that BMI is the be-all, end-all of weight loss guidance. I figured out that, for my body type, I would have to lose every ounce of fat on my body, PLUS 10 pounds of muscle, to hit the \"healthy\" BMI he wanted me at. Nevermind that I would be in the hospital for malnutrition at that point.

Lauren
almost sixteen years ago

I guess I’ve always been an adult because I’ve always liked receiving books.

Gift certificates: I like getting them if they’re what I asked for or if they’re for a place I will definitely go to (a bookstore, for example), but if I asked for other things that are easy to acquire and I get a gift, well, that kind of irks me. It does seem impersonal, when I’ve given other suggestions. Gift certificates also run the risk of losing value for every month you don’t use it or sometimes they charge the buyer an “activation fee.” B.S. I say!! But if I asked for it, then I’m glad to get it.
I did give two gift certificates for the family exchange this Christmas, but that was specifically what each person asked for and it’s a set gift amount so they knew beforehand they were only worth $40 to me.

Personally, I would rather give up on the gifts altogether (except for the nieces and nephews) and give to charity instead...

(my captcha? Sundry pose. that I\'d like to see)

keisha
almost sixteen years ago

Happy birthday, CarrieP!

Or since this is the Geologic Podcast: Mnohaya lita!

JHGRedekop
almost sixteen years ago

Speaking of Django Reinhardt, there\\\'s a great 1998 short film, \\\"The Week Before\\\" by Dave McKean, which uses Reinhardt\\\'s music. There\\\'s a tr
ailer for it on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5iAn-8l7W8
As for gift certificates, my wife prefers to give them, but I prefer giving something more personalized, so we compromise: we generally end up giving a hand-picked book or DVD, plus a gift certificate for books or DVDs. In my family, that works out great. This year, my father got Kino restoration of Metropolis, my mother got the Met\\\'s production of Doctor Atomic, my brother got The Animation Show DVD collection, and my sister got the book of the website Kawaii Not! -- and they all got HMV gift certificates.

That\\\'s actually proven very popular, and some of the family do the same thing in return. Which ends up with the odd situation where, say, I
give my mother \\\"Doctor Atomic\\\" + $50 at HMV, and she gives me a book of dog photography + $50 at HMV. We might as well have kept the money
!

Scott Adams, creator of \\\"Dilbert\\\", refers to gift certificates as \\\"the same as money, only less useful\\\".

Walter
almost sixteen years ago

Gift Certificates are cool. I get the impersonal nature of them - especially considering they are for a specific dollar amount. So what you are essentially saying is, \\\"You\\\'re worth exactly this much to me\\\". But at the same time some people can be really hard to shop for (I\\\'m one of those), so a gift certificate assures they will get something they really want. I like receiving them but I don\\\'t like giving them. So there ya go.