I’ve always loved the Super Bowl. After our 2009 Super Bowl party (which inaugurated our media room and drew 45 guests… eek!) we have toned down the celebration a bit. This year will include just a few close friends. (Sorry chi’ren.)

I also love great, creative commercials. The Super Bowl has been the… well Super Bowl for commercials for decades now. In years past, I have blogged about my favorite TV spots from the big game (here and here). But, at least to my feeble old-man memory, this is the first year that such a large crop of Super Bowl commercials have been leaked before the big game. Frankly, I’m concerned that, like a bad movie preview, I’ll know all the jokes before I see them and that would just be awful!

I’ve already seen 2012 Super Bowl ads from Honda, Toyota, Audi, Doritos, and Volkswagen (and Volkswagen) commercials all on YouTube. There are even YouTube channels (yes, plural) dedicated to leaked 2012 ads. Really?!

What do you think? Have Super Bowl commercials jumped the shark? Will leaked ads ruin the game day experience? Is anyone still reading this post (if so, give me a *wink*)? The comments are open.

I get a lot of spam. I mean a lot! But it’s not so bad because I know how to handle it. My personal advice for anyone who connects to the interwebs ever is to create a spam email account. I use HotMail. HotMail has a feature that sends all emails to a junk folder unless I know and have allowed the sender. Then, whenever a website (even a website I trust) asks for my email address, I use darkmanwork@hotmail.com. See?! I’m so confident that I’ll put my email address right here in the blog post!! Because I know if a spammer gets hold of it, they can do me no harm. Their scams and junk mail will end up harmlessly sitting in my junk folder. Because I do, on rare occasion get valid emails to that address, every couple of days, I scan through the junk folder. Some phishing emails I report to the owners of the site being phished (like when a get a fake email from PayPal or eBay). But most of it just gets deleted.

I get a lot of these Nigerian style scams. I scan through a few of them to chuckle at the grammar. But this one was so bad, it was too good to just toss in the trash. I present “Urgent!”

I suppose me posting a link on my blog to an article about internet addiction is a bit like one drunk hobo passing a half empty bottle of hootch to another drunk hobo. But it is an interesting read.

So… ‘ere ya go, buddy. *hic* Drink up. (Clicky clicky.)

There are times when you wish you could recapture the innocence of youth. Remember how simple life was before 9/11? Remember how awesome the Matrix was before the sequels came out? Remember when girls had cooties and the only thing you wanted to do was make them cry? (Ok, me neither. But still…)

I think this YouTube clip can remind us all of that moment when life stopped being simple.

It’s been a while. I know. So, you should be very excited to discover the first white board quip of 2012!

If Dracula can’t see his reflection in the mirror, how come his hair is always so neatly combed?
-Steven Wright

This was a lot of fun! It’s my first use of split screen! Cooool!

I’m pretty sure you need to watch this on YouTube in order for the embedded links to work.

It’s Work From Home Friday! And, “Oh Fudge!” I’m asking for trouble in this one. At least I don’t have to wash my mouth out with Lifebuoy!

Clicky clicky to view on YouTube.

We got an earlier than usual start on the holiday season this year. We had to start early because of a special event. It was the realization of a vision we had all the way back in 2009, when we were still house shopping. We hosted Thanksgiving dinner for Tammy’s family.

Since the Fam was coming to see the house (some for the first time) we had to get it all prettied up and decked out. We put up our Christmas decorations the weekend after my birthday, two weeks before Thanksgiving.

Now, me from a couple years ago would’ve thrown an absolute fit over that. “Christmas starts AFTER Thanksgiving!!” I would’ve said. And, yes, that’s still true. But, maybe I’m getting soft in my old age. Maybe Tammy is wearing off on me. (Her iPod has been known to play Christmas music in June.) But, in my own mind I’ve realized that we’re so busy during this time of year that I don’t really get to enjoy “the season.” So why not start a little early and have some more time to take it in?

Thanksgiving was a huge success. The meal was fantastic. The company was great. A good time was had by all.

Immediately after Thanksgiving, rehearsals started for the Christmas musical at church. The show is pretty easy. I don’t have a ton of lines. So there’s not been much stress about the show itself, but the rehearsal schedule has been kind of a grind. I posted about our holiday traditions.  What I didn’t mention is that many of those traditions have been sorely missed so far this year. We missed the Parade of Lights in Grapevine. We haven’t yet been to Holiday in the Park at 6 Flags nor the light show at Joe Pool Lake. We still haven’t watched most of our traditional Christmas shows together. (We did squeeze in “Elf” on a Sunday afternoon.) And now, we’ve got a previously unscheduled Wednesday rehearsal, so I’m going to miss the Middle School Christmas party.

I’ve been in (and even directed) a lot of Christmas shows. I know there is a huge time commitment. I believe that no show is worth doing unless you do it well. I understand that Christmas shows are a great outreach. And I have to admit, we’ve had a lot of fun putting this show together. But I really do feel that this will be my last Christmas show. I’m not giving up theater. I still love it and there are plenty of other shows to do. But Christmas time is just too precious to me and my family to spend half of it at rehearsal.

Having said that, I hope that everyone will come out and see the show next Sunday (12/11) at either 9:20 or 10:50 at Glenview. And if I don’t see you to say it in person, “Have yourself a merry little Christmas!”

Merry Christmas from the Ladd Ginger Bread Village!!

(If you’re reading this via Facebook, click here to see the actual post on my blog, where the video below actually works!)

As traditions go, Christmas is the “coop duh grassy” (stupid French). Christmas lights, trees, stockings, caroling, the gifts, the food, the poorly animated TV specials from the 60’s… the list never ends.

And even in my little family of two, we have a wealth of traditions and it seems to grow a little each year. Such as…

– Putting up the tree while drinking egg nog and listening to Christmas music.
– Getting a new themed Christmas ornament to commemorate some event for the year. (This year’s is a yellow ATV.)
– Going to the drive-through light show at Joe Pool Lake.
– Watching “A Christmas Story”, “Elf”, and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (Boris Karloff and Jim Carey).
– On Christmas morning, we deliver miniature stockings with candy to the people who have to work (Starbucks, Waffle House, etc.).

Please share some of your favorite (or least favorite) Christmas family traditions in the comments.

And now, here, my faithful SYNS readers, is this years traditional Christmas music video, “Oh Holy Crap!”