6 Measurements Of How Close Thanksgiving and Christmas Are

In Canada, Thanksgiving is in October. Some Americans make fun of that.

'Thanksgiving in October? Oh man. When is your Christmas? 2017?! hahahaha!'

Make fun of the way Canada does Thanksgiving, but it happens a good two months before Christmas. In America? Not the same. Thanksgiving and Christmas are smashed together. Don't think Thanksgiving and Christmas are too close together? Here are some units of distant between the two. 

Four Weeks

There are four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas in America. That's it. Four weeks. You have to give half of that time as notice to quit your job at Jamba Juice. If you gave double the notice, it would be Christmas. You give double notice on Thanksgiving? You are walking out of Jamba Juice with your last Kale/Eggnog smoothie on Saint Nicholas's big day. 

730 Hours

That is how many hours are in a month. 730 hours is the distant from Thanksgiving to Christmas. 730 hours after smashing turkey into your body, you are sitting on a floor opening presents under a tree that you smashed into your house. 730 hours after yelling at Aunt Bev to stop beaking about her embroidered sweater and pass the cranberries, you're yelling at Aunt Bev to put out her embroidered sweater that burst into flames because she dipped her arm into candle. Doesn't seem like enough time between the two. 

317 Viewings of The Dark Knight

Right after Thanksgiving, you think 'Screw it. I'm going to lay under a blanket with my bag in a tub of butter, and watch The Dark Knight until Christmas.' Well, you should know that you can only watch The Dark Knight 317 times between Thanksgiving and Christmas in America. 'What? But that's not enough time to REALLY get a deep buttering of my bag' you think to yourself. That's right. It isn't. You have to give more notice than this to move out of an apartment. You have to give 634 viewings of The Dark Knight notice to leave a building, but for some reason half of those viewings are fine distant between two super holidays. 

Two Maybe Three Gas Tank Fill Ups

Let's say you just use your car to cruise around your town. You're not hauling banana's across the country. You're not setting out on some sort of 'have to see Mount Rushmore AND Miami in the same day' adventure. You are just going to and from work, five days a week. You'll hit that gas station three times. In that time, two major holidays have happened. You hop in your car after Thanksgiving, drive around your village, the third time you hit that gas station, it's Christmas. Maybe two. You'll be at a pump, 'Jumping Christ! It's Christmas! I didn't get anybody anything. Hope they like gas station hot dogs and beef jerky. Thank you, Wawa! It's a Christmas miracle.'

13,904 Listens of RhineStone Cowboy

You can ONLY listen to Country Music Superstar's Glenn Campbell sing Rhinestone Cowboy 13,904 times between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That's insane. Day after Thanksgiving, you lock your iPhone into Rhinestone Cowboy, gear that sucker up 13,904 times, and it's Christmas. Hey, you might love the song enough that the first listen is Christmas. But you'd be an idiot and wrong. It's 13,904 til Christmas. 

Really Long Arms

If you had SUPER long arms, you could reach from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Easy. I mean, you need REALLY long arms. Arms long enough to reach into the future and bring two days with some distance between them together, but, it COULD be done. Arms that break the space time continuum and reach towards a day in the future or past, depending on where you are at the time? POSSible between these two days. 

Twitter @nathanmacintosh

Sports Bars With Dance Music

If you would have asked we what the worst way to follow a baseball game was, I would have for sure said the radio. Hands down, would have guessed radio over anything. Anything. Being set on fire and watching baseball? Better than radio. Having to sit with your ex while she tells you about all the sex she's having since you broke up while watching baseball? Weirder than radio, but better. Fighting a tiger with a playstation controller while watching a manager run at the mound to make a pitching change? Harder than radio, but better.

Drove around a lot in September/October, and wanted to follow baseball. The option was listening on the radio, or driving while holding my phone on the dashboard, WHICH I HAVE SEEN MANIACS DOING ON THE HIGHWAY. LOT of criminals out there. Speeding down a highway while they have a movie playing on a small screen right behind their steering wheel. Went with option one, and listening to baseball on the radio is pretty great, actually. Screaming at someone you can't see to throw a strike? People driving around you probably think you're really going through it, but then again they're texting their kids in the back to stop kicking the seats.

I found the worst way to follow baseball. No tigers involved. Sitting in a bar, watching it on mute while Keisha or some pop song is blaring. Sitting in a place that calls itself a Sports Bar, while Justin Bieber goes through a break up to a beat as sports are a forgotten memory hanging on a wall. Any bar that has it TVs turned to sports and it's sound turned to dance music should have it's liquor license removed immediately. No questions asked. No room to debate it. Liquor commission comes in, rips the liquor license off the wall, screams 'This is what happens! YOU DID THIS!', punches a TV on the way out and grabs a wing off someone's plate.

I get it if there are a lot of games going on in a night and you pick one. You pick the one that the most people in the bar want to watch. So some people will watch their sport on mute, while the one that the most people wanted to watch will have sound. Okay. Even with that though, a lot of bars will play the game, and when there is a break, half time, whatever, and analysts come on to talk about the game that is playing IN THE BAR, the bar will turn off the sound, and play dance music. For. What. Reason? People are watching the game. Do you think they'll just HATE to continue to follow it during half time? Do you think that whenever people watch sports they want a dance party in-between breaks?

'Hey! Turn this trash off! The big men aren't holding any balls right now. It's just some idiot talking about the stupid game we're watching. Turn up the jiggle music! I want to jiggle, man!'

People who are watching a game will have NO PROBLEM listening to people TALK ABOUT THE GAME they are watching. None at all. People at home do it all the time. It's part of watching the game. Nobody cuts the TV off at home when a analysts come on. Just turn it off and jack iTunes all the way up. 

'Oh god, these people are talking again. If they sang their thoughts, I'd be in. But just talking? NOPE. Shut it off. Let's dance!'

What is the big fascination with dance music in a place where you can throw peanuts on the floor? Who in the hell is dancing here? Actually, I know who's going. People from small towns. In their town, an AppleBee's is Studio 54. No where else to go and dance except the place where you also take a lunch break. 

'Where do you want to drink tonight?'

'What do you mean 'where'? That a joke? We got one place! Captain Magillcuddy's. It's there or the woods.... Woods?'

Listening to baseball on the radio, you can hear the crowd. You feel as if you are somewhat apart of the experience. Watching the game on mute with Miley in your ear? You feel like you showed up to someone's party and begged to follow the game.

'Um, hi, I know it's your birthday and everything, but I really don't know you. I'm here because my friend wanted somewhere to hang tonight. I agreed, and here I am. Can I watch the game now?'

Why do bars do this? Why have sports on AND music? Are the sports for men? Is the music for women? Vice versa? Either way, no body is happy. Nobody wants to watch sports on mute, and even less people want sports to be on when they're trying to get in a dancing groove. Either way, I found the worst way to follow baseball. 

Twitter @nathanmacintosh

Black Storm Trooper

Someone told me the other day that there was a real man who committed suicide because he was so upset that during the first trailer for the new Star Wars movie, it showed a black Storm Trooper. Such a racist AND fan of Star Wars at the same time, that he killed himself after seeing this. Now.... over the top? Understatement. The most understated understatement of all time. Side note, it must be very hard to be racist and keep liking pop culture. GOT TO be hard. Just about every twelve seconds, you're going to have to throw away something you like. 

'You see this new movie? I loved it.'

'Oh yeah? You changing? It's director by a black guy.'

'Are you KIDDING ME?! Why in the hell did NetFliKKK recommend this to me?! Cancelling THAT subscription!'

Personally, do not care if a Storm Trooper is black or white. My issue? Is why is a Storm Trooper a human at all. Why? What was the point of that? I always assumed the Storm Troopers were mindless bodies just locked into helping the dark side no matter what. Like a zombie. They didn't really choose this, they just have to do it. Now we have to think of a Storm Troopers feelings? We have to think about their thought process in the morning while putting on the white plastic suit?

'You're just gonna go into work today, huh? It's your sons birthday and you're just gonna go into work.'

'Just go into work'. You here yourself? I work for an EMPEROR. You think a emperor who hates all things good is gonna give a Jar Jar's ass about our sons birthday?'

'Well couldn't you switch shifts with someone? Can't you ask Donnie to cover fo...?'

'Donnie was choked from across the room last week for taking an extra five minutes on his lunch break! Donnie is dead! DONNIE IS DEAD!'

'... Look, I know you're under a lot of stress, but please stop yelling.'

'Stressed? Stressed!? Janice... I can't even... Pass me my helmet.'

Why make them real people. More casting options? More roles to toss people into? 

'Hey, I want to put this guy in the movie.'

'All the roles are filled, man. No room.'

'Come ON! Make him one of the faceless drones out there.'

'... Sure, you're friends a faceless drone.'

'And have a scene where he takes his damn helmet off! I owe this friend a HUGE favour.'

Are we supposed to care about Storm Troopers now? When we see a Storm Trooper take a laser beam to the chest and fall into a bottomless pit, are we supposed to feel something?

'No! You can't slash that Storm Trooper in half! He's got a family! It's his sons birthday! I know he's wearing a mask that makes him look like a emotionless killer, but he's a PERSON! The Dark Side doesn't even have a good life insurance plan. There BETTER be a scene in this movie where other Storm Troopers go to his wife's house and telling her about their falling friend and her dead husband.'

Honestly, there are many other characters to care about who have stories that we follow. There is NO reason to make Storm Troopers people. Why not go back and show us that No Heart from the Care Bears was a loving Grand Father who was just trying to make a bear less world for his grand children who are horrified of them? Oh, it turns out that Scar actually donated to a lot of charities for the preservation of rare African birds. Mufasa told him once that was a stupid idea because the money doesn't ACTUALLY get to the birds. So now we're all conflicted. 

At the end of this WHOLE thing, HUGE chance that the man in the Storm Trooper suit in the trailer is NOT a Storm Trooper, but wearing one to break out of some sort of Dark Side Palace. It's a movie anyway. We're just talking.

Twitter @nathanmacintosh