I think it is safe to say that I can no longer ignore the Christmas holiday. It is now three days away, and while I usually wait even later than this to get moving and procure some gift items, this year I have already gotten started. Yes, I started nearly a week ahead of time.

That’s planning, people.

Thankfully Christmas happens once a year, not once every ten years. If it came around once a decade, imagine the pressure! Smart people would be buying gifts and squirreling them away for years ahead of time. They’d be planning ahead. My family members would be waiting long after the date for presents to arrive, like Beach Boys fans for the Brian Wilson opus “Smile“.

Credit where it’s due, though, it may have taken Wilson over thirty years to complete the album, but at least it was good. Listening to “Chinese Democracy“, the 10-years-long-awaited Guns N Roses album, was probably a preferable experience to being jabbed in the ear with a sharp stick, but further research is required if we want to be sure.

All of these items are tumbling over in my mind like a pack of deranged weasels. I suppose one could argue that having rodents in place of proper brains is probably why I was accused of needing an upgrade last Friday by a man dressed as a taco.

That aside, a long-buried feeling of loss and sadness has stirred up my mind weasels, putting them on edge. Thanks for this goes to a Wired.com article about the failure of Duke Nukem Forever to be completed and released.

I’ll try not to nerd out about it too much, but suffice it to say that when I was a teenage kid, Duke Nukem was a silly, fun video game where you got to tip strippers, see their blocky, pixelated boobs, shrink your friends and then step on their tiny bodies. This was before video games really exploded, so we were easily entertained.

Then a lot of people made a lot of money making video games. We teenagers gobbled up these new games, each game better looking and more technologically advanced than the last. They were great! But still, we all waited for the latest, most updated version of Duke Nukem to come out. It was to be called Duke Nukem Forever… but it never materialized.

Odd that if your bike chain should break during a race as mine did at last year’s Fort Yargo cyclocross race, you get what’s called a “DNF” or “Did Not Finish”. Duke Nukem Forever… DNF. Did not finish… DNF. Cue the organ music!

But back to my teen years. Every so often, the people who were supposedly working on Duke Nukem Forever would release screenshots or a little movie of Duke, and each time we would all scream with glee that it was finally going to come out. Of course, during these long years we also discovered things like taking baths and driving cars and going on dates with girls.

Or so I am told. I still haven’t gone on a date with a girl or taken a bath. I blame the mind weasels.

But Duke Nukem never came. I imagine that in the fantasy world of strippers and shrink rays he inhabits, all those aliens he isn’t killing probably miss him as much as I do.

“Duke!” they plead, “Please come kill us. We miss you!” but the call goes unheeded, unanswered. Duke Nukem will never be released. 3D Realms, the developer, has given up and closed its doors.

Let’s have a moment of silence for a teenage boy’s dreams that will go unfulfilled.. Oh, and for Duke Nukem never coming out. It is with a heavy heart that I don my tattered Guns N Roses tee shirt and sally forth into the throng of holiday shoppers, barely a “Smile” to be seen.

Oh Duke Nukem… we could have been… forever!

On Friday night I went with my friends Mike and Chesley and some other folks to Twisted Taco, a midtown bar where my friend Lis is the marketing person. They were having something of a Christmas party, complete with holiday decorations. Most of the decorations, however, turned out to be hung around the body of a diminutive gentleman with a rather sour disposition. He was swaddled in what appeared to be a taco costume and a long Santa’s elf hat.

Lis and her annoying taco

Now, far be it from me to dislike any food item, but that taco just rubbed me the wrong way from the get-go. I was immediately accosted by him on the way in.

“What the fuck do you want for Christmas?!” he shouted, peering through spectacles.

I instantly knew I didn’t want to play whatever game we were starting but I couldn’t think of a good way out of it. I didn’t say much more than “Uh,”.

After a while, he gave up on me for an imbecile.

“You need a fuckin’ BRAIN for Christmas!” he declared, thrusting a piece of paper into my hand. I looked at it.

Lis said “That’s not anything, by the way”. How dare that taco insult me and then give me an item of no consequence? I fumed.

I squinted at the taco, who was now accosting my friends, intending for him to be seared by the sheer heat of my displeasure. His taco costume must have been displeasure resistant because he appeared unaffected.

I put all these matters aside and just enjoyed the company of my friends for a while, confiding in Mike that the taco was on my list to be thrown to the weasels. Soon the taco returned, however, to get a picture of himself with my friend Chesley.

During the photo he drew her close and grabbed a big handful of her ass. First he insults my intellect (however correctly) and now he’s handling our women? Aw hell naw.

Now, let it be said that Chesley is my friend and wing-woman. I want nothing more than for her to meet someone she likes and pair up with them, but I think I know her well enough to know that he’s probably not going to be five four, shouting at everyone, and dressed as lunch. He’s also probably not going to be pawing at her in public, or at least not this early in the night. Most importantly though, if anyone is going to be inappropriate with my female friends it is me. I will endure no grabby foodstuffs.

“Easy, taco!” I yelled. The taco and I locked eyes. I let him know by means of a squint and some menacing body language (leaning on one elbow at the bar) that I meant business. He went about his corn tortilla business, seemingly behaving more like a gentleman, and I returned to mine.

A few short minutes later he was back, this time saying “Cheers!” to our new friend Laura, but pushing his glass against her breasts instead of her glass. Aw hell naw part deux!

“Too grabby, taco!” I said. He looked at me. “Yeah! Take it easy over there.”

Later I saw him conferring with Lis. Thanks to my batlike hearing, or possibly to my unflagging feeling of self-importance, I knew that their conversation was about me. I saw her mouth the word “Ironman” and a look of incredulousness crossed the taco’s face. Even so, he kept his distance and his hands to himself for the rest of the night.

I really thought I was going to have to kick that taco square in the tortilla.

I had no intention of watching MTV’s newest reality show “Jersey Shore”, firstly because I don’t have cable and secondly because I had seen one of the trailers.

After hearing rave reviews of it, however, I thought I might be able to get a few laughs watching people act ridiculously.

Upon reading Daniel O’Brien’s Cracked.com article, Jersey Shore: Worst Thing to Happen to East Coast Since 9/11, I knew that the subject had been covered as well as it could be covered. The highlight line, which I am still laughing about, is:

Snooki is a cross between a goblin and another goblin.

I just keep saying that over and over and messaging it to my friends.

The thing is, it occurs to me that some shows are better enjoyed through the eyes of someone like Daniel O’Brien who is revolted and lashing out at it than just watching it straight.

I don’t want to say that I despair for the state of humanity, because that’s something old people say.