Nick's Blog

It’s a holiday everyone can enjoy!
And you can get a free short stack at IHOP.  Donations encouraged to support local children’s hospitals.

Welcome to 2010!  It sounds so futuristic.
Sometimes I make New Year’s Resolutions.  Sometimes I even write them down.  But the more I think about it, the more I think they’re dumb.  If something is worth doing, why wait for an arbitrary change in the date to start?
The tradition of New Year’s Resolutions dates back 4000 [...]

Hope your holiday is stress-free and filled with family, friends, and love.
Impressive how this Green Chri$tma$ song was recorded over 50 years ago, but still rings true today.

“What’s the percentage in that?”

According to some economists, the annual tradition of holiday gift-giving creates a massive “deadweight loss” in our overall utility.  The reason?  Gift recipients don’t value the gifts as much as they cost.
In Scroogenomics, author and University of Pennsylvania economics professor Joel Waldfogel explains that, on average, people value items they receive as gifts 20% less [...]

Imagine yourself in this dilemma: You’ve come to accept the complete commercialization of your savior’s birthday, but want to be sure to spend your hard-earned money at stores that honor the true meaning of Christmas.  How can you tell which major retailers love baby Jesus as much as you do?
You go to StandForChristmas.com!
Brought to you [...]

It’s been a great year with so much to be thankful for.  I figure Thanksgiving is a good a time as any to reflect on all the blessings we have.  Happy and healthy.  Still self-employed.  Wonderful friends and family.  Couldn’t ask for much more.
And then there was the food

It’s Cyber Monday, the unofficial holiday of online retail.  The term Cyber Monday was first used in 2005, after e-tailers reported a big spike in website traffic the Monday after Thanksgiving 2004.  The reasoning was that shoppers would browse the brick-and-mortar stores over the weekend, and then use the high-speed connection at their offices when [...]

There’s no question, Thanksgiving is a great holiday.  You get to down piles of food with friends and family and be thankful for all the opportunities that made it possible.  But I wanted to address some common Thanksgiving “legends” to see if they were true or not.
1. The tryptophan in turkey makes you sleepy.
This is [...]

Between costumes, candy, pumpkins, decorations, and drinks, Halloween has turned into a $5 billion dollar business.  Billion with a B.  I just want my share.
But it’s a great holiday.  For trick-or-treating, you get dressed, you go to work, and you get paid — in candy!  I like Greg Behrendt, and his comedy bit about trick-or-treating [...]

If you’re tired of the same old jack-o-lanterns, I thought these were pretty good.
A variation on the more popular Screamer pumpkin:
Drowning pumpkins:

Star Wars Death Star (way too many cuts):

My precious:

Dirty:

Crazy face:

Conjoined twins:

Tiki fire god pumpkin:

And the winner is: