Although I am a proponent of capitalism, despite its shortcomings and long misgivings in the common market, it feels as though this holiday season is going to be a horn-locking contest between the pogey-baited bull of Wall Street and the economically strapped victims of last year's fiscal breakdown who are in mild recovery.  

I cannot recall in my life or in the history of this late fall/winter season where the celebratory tradition of gift-giving shifted from ceremony to mandatory.  The effort to spur economic activity usurped the basic solemnity that set the template of the season.  Today, ever the most cruel children get gifts on Christmas because something told the parents they had to and it wasn't just a child's voice.  

"Christmas in July" started as the piece of bread on the surface of the fish pond and has snowballed from making the pond look like Wabasha, Minnesota circa "Grumpy Old Men" into the frog-hunting scene from "Cannery Row".  Maybe that isn't quite the metaphoric comparison that it should've been but the point is obvious irregardless of what peace-to-chaos transition image you choose to create.  

Our beloved Internet has siphoned a considerably sufficient amount of the hassle brought upon the holiday season but we still observe Black Friday, the sick, sad reality that follows the dreaminess of the cold-winded, pre-winterland spectacle of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Whoever's playing the Turkey Bowl helps alleviate the infection from staring too long into the need to have to buy gifts before they run out while roiling the inane, prehistoric drive to win bets on the game has its own way as a substitute.  

I'm made to recall the cute TV Funhouse Christmas cartoon short of Jesus Christ wandering a typical business sector and seeing how dismal it feels.  He changes channels on a TV in a TV store and sees nothing of a semblance of the meaning of the Christmas that was... until he clicks onto a bit from 'Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown' where Linus recites the Bible passage of the angel appearing before the shepherds minding their flocks in fields (proof that Jesus wasn't born on Christmas Day but that's another rant).  Jesus smiles with a teary grin and the Peanuts theme plays so Jesus does that one silly dance from the cartoon where the one tall kid is in the back, upright, shuffling his feet, and bowing his head down while shifting left to right.  I think we should all bow our heads in remembrance and shame for the people who lost their lives, their osteopathic integrity, their balances (financial and physical), and their minds in the rushes of Christmases past. 

As of 2:09PM August 8, 2009, I completed my 1,000th test.  I know there are sarcastic "whoopees" and "so whats" in response to this herald.  Some may even think I have no life to do that many tests.  Still, it's a deed accomplished.  Considering I completed all 3,991 active staff tests we all take to accumulate personality awards to our profiles, and the fact that I have been an active member since June with a brief membership some time before, I have a 99-100% chance at macthing someone as well as more comparative factors to share with any of the viewing audience of OKCupid.  It may seem as if I am belying some braggart style of joy in success but I can vouch that this wil help.  I may do more tests because there are many others who took more tests.  Let's see what happens next...   

I was helping my best friend move out of his Bay Shore apartment to a new room half an hour away in Farmingville.  We drove north on Saxon Avenue in BayShore, headed toward the service road of Sunrise Highway, when a little critter bolted across the road.  It was a small, furry kitten that somehow wound up by a rental place and ran across Saxon Avenue during traffic.  With the threat of being run over present but of a minimal possibility, it came to go by my truck, which I had stopped and put into park.  I ran out to catch the kitten and bring it home overnight before going to my local PETCO to offer it up for adoption to the Tourniquet, Inc. Animal Rescue where I adopted my cat from.  The kitten ran off into the parking lot of a shopping center to the right of me but I could not find it.  I pulled the truck over to the lot, parked it, and my friend and I spent 10 minutes looking all over the parking lot for this kitten.  In the end, we gave up the search, hoped for the best, and returned to the road.

About 3 days later, I went to PETCO to get food for my dog and cat.  After purchasing the food, I walked towards the door and encountered a nurse with a shopping cart that had a shoebox in it.  In the shoebox was a kitten that was rescued by a truck driver who found it in the wheelwell of his truck.  I saw the kitten closer and BOOM!  I was absolutely positive it was the same kitten I tried to catch 3 days before.  It was the kitten.  The driver said the kitten was found in Bay Shore.  In a dumbstruck state, I asked where in Bay Shore he found it.  He mentioned a street and I asked how far from Saxon Avenue was it.  He didn't know.  I told the story of the kitten.  They were surprised but not as shocked as I was.  I called my friend and my father and told them the story.  The nurse who adopted the kitten was going to name it some name but I suggested "Wheels" because he was found up in a wheelwell and the kitten ran so fast, a racer name like Wheels sounded just right.

The rescued kitten was being fawned over by me and other customers but it was going to a good home.  What made the day great at the PETCO for me was that two women, not one, made my day.  The nurse who adopted the kitten made me happy to know it was safe but it was a buxom woman in a low cut shirt who was adoring the kitten that gave me quite a nice view, which perpetuated the smile on my face for a couple of minutes more. 

    Have you ever seen someone you are attracted to, or have been for a long time, in the throes of a terrible argument/spat/fight/whatever with their date?  It's a mix of watching for a car crash on NASCAR and a dramatic moment on an MTV reality show.  The break-up is official when the women shuffles off, crying, and the guy jumps into his car in a big huff.  If you have ever seen that, focussed on the person you wanted, and said to yourself anxiously "They're single", you and I are among the refuge who never could score even when the target was sad, lonely, and in need of personal attention.

    Of course, there is that post-fight quandary where there is a chance at reconciliation.  It can happen and life goes back to normal with you still hoping while checking out the rest of the herd.  To know you will never obtain the affections of your crush, even in that one time you are both single, is taking Cupids arrow and using it as a pessel to the mortar of your integrity.   It sucks even more when the person is too young for you to even bother.  You feel more late and less bloomer.     

Paris Hilton's newest lie since her denial of having smoked pot or having any distinguishing talent or lifetime goals whatsoever occurred on a recent episode of "My Life On The D-List". Paris told Kathy Griffin that she doesn't go down on a guy, going so far as to paraphrase her mother who she claims said only ugly girls go down on guys.  This is the same Paris who tried to shoplift her porn tape.  Does anyone have the amount of money that would make Paris eat a guy as well as her own words?

As it stands now, Megan Fox has been the piece-of-ass du jour for the duration of the Transformers sequel bonanza that's being sold out.  Even with the big toe thumb photo expose, she tops the sexiest women's list.  Lindsey Lohan previously held the top spot for Maxim prior to Fox.  I tried to make comparisons to discern what similarities the two had to deserve such a grandiose accolade as 'sexiest woman' but I needed more examples so I threw in Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, and Eva Longoria, three more title holders. 

What similarities?  They're hot.  Hot - sexually attractive (all have done pictorals in scantilt-cladded garbs), talented (Halle & Angelina have Oscars, al have been on a successful TV and/or motion picture), physically fit (barring the binging or purging), and exude sexiness through their physical beauty that compliments the quality of designer clothing they don.

For me, being "hot" also has to involve some unseen attribute that you can never know of unless you are very close to the particular source of heat.  Why was Linda Lovelace nee Borman considered hot in her days when she wasn't anywhere near the Megan Fox-level hottie status?  If you saw "Deep Throat", you know why.  Ann Coulter can be considered hot...get my drift?  Beauty is only skin deep, my ass.             

    The mentality swarming in many of the dating circles is that once you've reached 40, there's no return to the youth you once held.  It seems that I have become the umpteenth product stocked at the you're-too-old-for-me shopping center for singles but 4 months prior to my inception. 

    The ninth year of each decade of your life is a turning point of sorts.  19, 29, 39, 49, 59.... It's the last year of your "-ties" where you will be allowed to use the numerical identification associated with those ten years, barring open lies about your age.

   It was J. W. Woolworth who created the innovation of placing .99 as a cents value after a dollar value as a marketing tool to get people to buy things by a knee-jerk reactive behavior of his targeted consumers.  A $4.00 product won't sell as fast as a $3.99 product because the buyer sees the 3, gives the 99 not much interest, and buys they item with a $4 bill, getting a penny back in change.  The buyer thinks 3, spends 4.  It's the same trick at gas stations as you will have observed with the opened eyes of shock when you see how much gas prices have risen.

Am I too late to sell myself as 30's-something?  Technically, I can but the 9 is a giveaway that the value of the product will change when the 3 becomes a 4.  It's a silly, trite, insignificant but interesting bit of ageist behavior on the parts of people to look at a 39-year-old and a 40-year-old as two greatly differently-aged people merely by the fact that the latter has begun a new "age" unlike the latter that's ending theirs, but, because it's 'getting older', appeal gets somewhat lacklustrous.  It's amazing what one year can do to a person in the eyes of everyone else who set their biological clock to the beat of social mores.  Aw hell, how about one day?  A lot could happen in one day irregardless.  Can you remember your last day as a 17-year-old and what were you going to do tomorrow when you officially were of "legal age"?  Anything you haven't already done?  If you don't have a DWI under your belt, pun intended, you'll be driving to that activity.  Well, then, you are older...and those days where you weren't allowed much are over and they're never coming back.  

For those who say that age is only a number, remember that 9 is as well but it's the person behind it that is of concern.      

By a show of hands, how many of you have been rejected by someone with this line or something like it?.....Whoa!  A lot of guys I see.  Personally, it hearkens me back to a time when I first heard "we can still be friends" and "you're too good for me", two of the sweetest "No" variants the rejected could hear, that is, if it's their first rejection.  After a series of failures, the sweetness disappears and the pain grows.  

Only masochists are suckers for rejection.  For those of us seeking success in relationships, we see through this bittersweet bit of semantic diplomacy like used Neutrogena.  Hearts will be broken but will heal until the next rejection and then scarred in the psyche of the victims for the rest of their lives until.... a "yes".  It's more a small achievement but it is a success when compared to "no", a blatantly obvious fact never really brought up because it's axiomatic to know it.

As I write this journal, American society is regressing back into the 1980s, the decade from which I suffered many a disappointing rejection.  However, from that time to the present, I learned that the all-excompassing factor in meeting approval to someone you seek companionship with is image.  It's starts with initial physical image, which gets overviewed by prospective viewers.  Looking good is the essential front for image.  It's when more in-depth analysis is performed that a fuller scope of image is learned. 

Personality....You pass, check! 

Interests, ....hmmm!  Are they like mine?  Not that one.  Why do they like it?  Oh, I like that one.  I guess that's O.K. but before I check it in, let's know something else.

Background....Where are they from?  Where do they live?  Do they have a car?  What kind?  Do they have a good job and make good money?  How about the rest of the family?  Who are they and what do they do?  

If you have good looks, by default, you're in like Flynn but a diagnostics check will determine fitness for companionship for the chosen companion.  It's at this point where both peer and clique pressures leverage the decision-making with image, i.e. activating geek repellant (unless you're a geek yourself).  What many conclude when it comes to interrelations is that no one is the same as the next person but you will have similar interests.  What some fail to conclude is that opinions can be swayed by ego, exclusively by those who are defensive of their egos if their image is fueled by it.  This seperates the babes from the cunts and the hunks from the dicks, although the seperation will be of different widths of strata.  I won't go any further into discerning who's who.  I'll leave that to the rest of the world.

Back to soft soap rejections like those of the above, having the heart to break a heart in the gentlest way possible is an artform and the canvas, parchment, marble block, instrument, or scape of any sort expressing it is based on the quality of charismatic tact through presentation.  It's sort of telling someone to go fuck themselves and they go out and buy condoms to do it, making "I know you'll find someone out there" the candlelit dinner of rejections.