Glad Jul! This set of Christmas lights purchased last year at Target remind me of an old imported Italian light set my family had when I was a child. Those Italian lights had a set of three concentric colored plastic "crowns" that reflected and transmitted the colored light from the bulb in a magical fashion. I used to stare into the tree and unfocus my eyes, watching the lights' myriad colors coruscate across the tinsel and ornaments like a kaleidoscope.

We used that set of lights for over ten years, until several bulbs burned out and the electric current running through the remaining ones increased to the point it overheated the others, causing some of plastic "crowns" to melt over the bulbs. Not the safest design, but they were the most beautiful Christmas lights I've ever seen. I'm pretty certain that 1970 set was not UL Listed (ha!) but they were still a sight safer than the actual wax Christmas tree candles my parents and grandparents used to have on their (natural) trees when they were kids.

Both of them have hair-raising stories of trees that caught fire and threatened to burn down the family home, if not for a quick-thinking relative that doused the burning branches with water or tossed the flaming tree out the door into the snow. Those were the good old days...

Labels: humor, safety, xmas

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  That's five whole years, not counting its earlier 2001-3 incarnation as Unzen Koans (now sadly deleted even from the Wayback Machine, alas). Actually, a number of pages (sans images) still exist at Archive.org.

Perhaps the posts haven't been spilling from these pages as quickly as they once have, but if you believe the adage that each picture tells a thousand words, farkleberries has been as wordy as ever - if not more so. Lately I've let my trusty little digital camera describe the scenes and sights around me. This red C7 bulb, all fiery glow to warm a winter's night, is part of my latest photo series on Flickr.

Coincidentally, as of tomorrow (Jan 11th) my thirties will leave the building. I am oddly relieved.

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. ~Madeleine L'Engle

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it. ~Arthur Schopenhauer

As fellow Capricorn Elvis always says, thanggyaverramuch....

Labels: photo, soapbox, xmas

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  No kidding. He's released an entire album of sneerin' holiday faves, kool kats.

Labels: video, xmas

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