That’s “Happy New Year!” in Tagalog.
I wrote this post hours before midnight and set it to automatically appear at the start of the new year. I’ll at my friend Liz’s house party at midnight, so please accept these in absentia wishes. Have a good one!
I don’t know how many current computer games have this feature, but back in the dark ages of DOS, many IBM PC games featured a “the boss is coming!” key. This key, when pressed in mid-game, quickly suspended the game and hid it with a screen that looked like a word processor or spreadsheet. Once the boss was out of sight, you could press the key again and resume the game. This feature has found its way into blogs: a number feature this “web fire escape” icon, which if clicked, takes you to a web page that looks more work-related:
.
(By default, that web fire escape should take you to Google. You can set the escape destination on this page.)
Dreidels once served a purpose similar to the “boss is coming” key and the “web fire escape” — but in reverse: they were used to make it look as if you were slacking off. In the time of Emperor Antiochus IV, study of the Torah and Jewish prayers were forbidden. When Jews gathered to study or pray, they had a dreidel handy just in case the “cops” or any “snitches” were passing by: if one did, they’d break out the dreidel and pretend to be playing a game of chance, which was legal. These days, the dreidel is a children’s game played at Chanukah, often using chocolate for “bets”.
I could write about the rules here, but it’s more fun to learn by playing. You can try out jewfaq.org’s JavaScript-based game, but those craving a much flashier version (using Flash, no less!) should give Babaganewz.com’s Dreidel 6000 a spin.
This is the first time that Wendy and I are
celebrating Christmas and Chanukah as a married couple. Since she’s
Jewish and I’ll celebrate any holiday as long as there’s food and
booze, I’ve extended the goodie giveaway started with the Accordion Guy
Advent Calendar to include the eight nights that make up Chanukah.
The “Jewish Christmas” description is a poor description of
Chanukah; whereas Christmas is considered to be one of the major
holidays of the Christian faith, Chanukah is a minor one in Judaism.
Calling Chanukah the Jewish analogue for Christmas is an exercise in
making poor analogies. It would be like calling a Playstation Portable
“the nerd’s prom date” (it’s overhyped, you want it in your pants, in
the end, it’s not as good as you expected it would be).
The traditional Jewish calendar, like the Chinese one, is based on
lunar, rather than solar cycles. This means that like Chinese New year,
the Gregorian Calendar (the calendar we use every day) date of Chanukah
changes every year. This year, for the first time in fifty-ish years,
Chanukah and Christmas fall on the same day.
While
the origins of Christmas are reasonably well known (at least here in
“The West”), many people don’t know what Chanukah is all about. Here’s
a little hint for my fellow Gentiles: most Jewish holidays have a theme
along the lines of “They tried to kill us; they failed; let’s eat!” For
a more specific explanation, I can point you to Judaism 101’s page on
the subject, but I thought it would be more fun to show you Steve
Greenberg’s comic, Is it the Jewish Christmas? [JPG file, 170K]
Have a great one, everybody!
Here’s a quick preview of photos to come: it’s our Christmas tree
during the first round of decorating. Note the dreidel ornaments —
they’re a gift from Eldon Brown. He bought some multicoloured plastic
dreidels, drilled holes in their spindles and attached Christmas
ornament hooks to them. Thanks, Eldon!
Click the comics to see them at full size.
I love Chappelle’s Show and I also love a good conspiracy theory, so I couldn’t help but enjoy reading The Chappelle Theory.
Its anonymous author claims to be a retired PR executive who claims to
have many “contacts closely related to the individuals involved”,
allowing him or her to “to fairly accurately recount the events” in
Chappelle’s strange fall from grace.
This excerpt provides a good introduction to the rest of the site:
Dave was haunted by a secret. One that only he was aware of, and one
he couldn’t share with anyone, lest his comedy empire crumble.
He
knew that at the same time he was signing his record-setting deal,
there was a secret cabal of powerful African-American leaders from the
business, political, and entertainment industries working together to
ensure that the third season of Chappelle’s Show would never happen.
At one time or another, each member of this loosely knit, informal group had played a key role in Chappelle’s rise to stardom.
They
had been instrumental in securing movie and television roles, offering
counsel, and simply aiding Chappelle financially when his stand up work
couldn’t pay the bills during his lean early years.
Over the last
two years, they had watched warily as Chappelle’s Show had become
Comedy Central’s premiere show, eclipsing even South Park and The Daily
Show in terms of buzz.
Whether
you think that the site is merely the raving of a consipracy nut or an
insider blowing the whistle on dark machinations within the
entertainment industry, it’s an interesting read.
Has it already been ten years?!
Ten
years ago, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, two film students from the
University of Colorado, were commissioned to make an animated short
that would be used as a video Christmas card to be sent to various
Hollywood types. Parker and Stone used contruction paper and
stop-motion animation techniques to create the now-legendary The Spirit of Christmas [6.8MB, QuickTime – lots of swearing, and offence-a-licious] featuring the kids who’d eventually get their own show, South Park, Jesus and Santa fighting over Christmas and Brian Boitano, who saves the day.