How friend ship has changed from the ancient times to modern times.

http://chronicle.com/article/Faux-Friendship/49308/

A few paragraphs that stand out:

"As for the moral content of classical friendship, its commitment to virtue and mutual improvement, that, too, has been lost. We have ceased to believe that a friend's highest purpose is to summon us to the good by offering moral advice and correction. We practice, instead, the nonjudgmental friendship of unconditional acceptance and support—"therapeutic" friendship, in Robert N. Bellah's scornful term. We seem to be terribly fragile now. A friend fulfills her duty, we suppose, by taking our side—validating our feelings, supporting our decisions, helping us to feel good about ourselves. We tell white lies, make excuses when a friend does something wrong, do what we can to keep the boat steady. We're busy people; we want our friendships fun and friction-free."

"But surely Facebook has its benefits. Long-lost friends can reconnect, far-flung ones can stay in touch. I wonder, though. Having recently moved across the country, I thought that Facebook would help me feel connected to the friends I'd left behind. But now I find the opposite is true. Reading about the mundane details of their lives, a steady stream of trivia and ephemera, leaves me feeling both empty and unpleasantly full, as if I had just binged on junk food, and precisely because it reminds me of the real sustenance, the real knowledge, we exchange by e-mail or phone or face-to-face. And the whole theatrical quality of the business, the sense that my friends are doing their best to impersonate themselves, only makes it worse. The person I read about, I cannot help feeling, is not quite the person I know."

And yes, I do see the irony of posting the article on here.

x-mas eve is the big extended family get together. Its been at our house for the last 10 years or so. In about 2 hours people should start showing up. Its not as many people as it was back when it was at my grandparents house. Only about 25 or so instead of 35-40.

You know you have a big family when 25 people isn't that many.

I mostly enjoy my extended family get-togethers. They are fun people. My parents generation is getting a bit on in years so they are not as wild and crazy as they used to be (my 1st fraternity parties reminded me of my family gatherings). I do notice that most of the people in my generation are somewhat reserved. I think that might be because we are all surrounded by our parents at these events (many of my cousins are 18-25).

Some people will be staying over tonight, but the immediate family x-mas isn't happening til the 26th cause both my bros will be doing in-law stuff on x-mas day.

I do miss being together with my family of friends though (see my Wed. post).

This is awesome!

When I was showering I came up with a genetics question that I do not know how to answer, so if anyone can answer this for me, that would be cool.

A. 2 sets of parents. Both fathers are brothers and both mothers are sisters.

B. 2 set of parents. Fathers are unrelated and both mothers are identical twins.

which 2 sets of children are more closely related, the ones from A or the ones from B?

This is too funny...star wars through the eyes of a gaming group used to D+D.

http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0001.html

I just DLed 'White Christmas'. I haven't seen it before. Not sure when i will watch it though.

I forgot a x-mas time quote that I find amusing: "He's better than a doctor! He's Santa Claus!"

found by kradical

Looks like nothing is going on tonight so I will be finishing x-mas wrapping, re-watching A Very Brady x-mas, then probably playing some DDO. I wouldn't mind grouping up with people. I have a lev 4 rogue and a lev 3 cleric on Thelanis and a lev 3 Barb on Cannith

On a different note, it seems people I know aren't using google wave much.

I was thinking today of 2 things I really miss from years past.

One is J and Stacey's holiday party. Such silliness and fun every year! Often a goody large group of people. It was 'happy demon slayers'. We would game sometimes, and the group was made up of some selden house people and some who are now in the hangout4m group, along with a few others. I miss those times. Some have moved away, others had kids (which seems to mostly = only allow to hang out with others who have kids) and other faded away and some created the hangout4m group.

The other thing I miss alot is selden house. We no longer seem to have any places where people can just show up anytime and have fun. I miss those times. If i was ever feeling like I wanted to be around people and have a place to feel comfortable at, I could always go to selden house. During the winter it was always a fun place in from the cold and it was like going to a silly/funky/screwy family.

Tonight would have been a perfect time to hang at selden house.

I really miss things like that.

Since I am off on thursday, I am up for hanging out wed night if anyone else is up for it.

The sam adams winter lager was LAME. It was almost like drinking a regular beer. I miss Harpoons Winter Warmer.

The Mad Hat Winter Lager was a bit more interesting. The flavor was very reminiscent of a Guinness, yet not thick or full like you are drinking a meal. Not very 'wintery' however. I would say if you want the taste of a Guinness but dont want to feel full, go for this one.

A few teaser trailers...




This one is a 'red' trailer:

Sadness! No more Harpoon Winter Warmer! *cry*

So instead today I bought Sam Adam's Winter Lager and I will see how that tastes (supposedly has similar spices as Harpoon's). I also picked up Magic Hat's Winter Lager. No clue what that will be like.

I also noted that they have 'Delirium Noel' by the people who brought us Delirium Tremens and Delirium Nocturnum. I may have to try this sometime.

Ireland's version: http://www.doogle.org/

Cthulhu search engine : http://cthuugle.com/en/

Yay! Its a White Yule! Snow is great, and there is so much of it. Got all the shoveling done last afternoon and in the yard the snow is over my knees! Apparently its the most snow in one storm since LI started keeping track in like the 50's.

The only drawback is that my coven's private Yule celebration got canceled (Sunday) because of the snow. The more public one was on Thursday, but I missed that because of a seminar.

Enjoy the snowy Yule!

This was a random, yet interesting, google find:

http://www.armymedicine.army.mil/hc/healthtips/13/200309-10cigscombat.cfm

wow, having a hireling makes things much easier. I also discovered how much faster I can get XP by repeating a dungeon on 'hard' then on 'epic'