Head Tale

Monthly Archives December 2013

2013 “End-of-Year Questions” Meme: Sasha’s Born & Paul’s Not Dead, Ryan Meili Loses and the Riders Win

1. What did you do this year that you’d never done before? Well, since Pace was born by caesarean section, this year I got to see my wife give birth (I mean, *really* give birth!) which is the type of thing that, as a husband, makes you less likely to complain about anything ever again! […]

¶ Posted 31 December 2013 § Meme § MemoryLane ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: google, history, holiday, language, parents

First Lines From My First Blog Post of Each Month in 2013

This is always one of my favourite posts of the year for the uniquely random spin it puts on a “year in review” type post. . Click on the month below if one of the “first lines” grabs your attention… January – “As he did in 2009, Ryan Meili is once again spearheading an extremely […]

¶ Posted 30 December 2013 § Blog § List § Meme § MemoryLane § Randomness ‡ Comments (0) °

Christmas 2013: By The Numbers

I haven’t blogged for a few days as I got overwhelmed and busy with that “real life” thing as Shea’s folks and mine joined us from the 27th until the 29th to have a belated Christmas together. Here are a few numbers from the past week… 0 – number of times I’ve left the house […]

¶ Posted 29 December 2013 § Family § List § MemoryLane § Pace § Sasha § Shea § Xmas ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: holiday, language, parents

Time: The History and Future of Everything

I know my Atheist Advent series of technically over but I’ll share one final video I had bookmarked that I thought addressed one specific issue really well, namely that a big part of the reason that human are religious is that we simply fail to grasp the time scales involved in things like evolution and […]

¶ Posted 26 December 2013 § Video § Wisdom ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: cool, history, philosophy, science

The Best Christmas Ever?

Only partly tongue-in-cheek, I often think that the best Christmas I ever had was when we were living in Calgary and Shea had to work on a 7am to 3pm shift on Christmas Day, leaving me all alone for the day. It sounds sad but it turned out to be a wonderful, relaxing, enjoyable day. […]

¶ Posted 25 December 2013 § Family § MemoryLane § Pace § Sad § Sasha § Shea § Xmas ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: alberta, holiday, parents

Atheist Advent Calendar – Day 24 – Keep Christ in Christmas (aka Another Fictional Superhero On Our Van)

I had a few ideas of how to wrap up this series of Atheist Advent posts – a look at how politics and religion intersect, a review of my theories of why people (really) are religious, a disclaimer about the nature of offense in general. I will spend some time on that last point. My […]

¶ Posted 24 December 2013 § Censorship § Family § Humour § PopCulture § Wisdom § Xmas ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: atheism, language, music, parents, xmas

Atheist Advent Calendar – Day 23 – Music Monday – “I really like Christmas/It’s sentimental I know/But I just really like it/I’m hardly religious/I’d rather break bread with Dawkins than Desmond Tutu to be honest”

There was a method to my madness in posting a Tim Minchin song as my Music Monday selection for each of the past few weeks during my “Atheist Advent” series. It was all to lead up to Minchin’s ultimate achievement and one of the best non-traditional Christmas songs I’ve ever heard – funny, insightful, wistful, […]

¶ Posted 23 December 2013 § Censorship § Family § Humour § MusicMonday § PopCulture § UK § Video § Wisdom § Xmas ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: atheism, language, music, xmas

Atheist Advent Calendar – Day 22 – The “War” on Christmas: One Atheist’s Perspective

Every December, the stories about “The War on Christmas” pop up once again, like mole heads in a fair game – how various people in society – the politically correct, civil libertarians, atheists – are oppressing Christians by trying to neuter Christmas, make everyone say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, and forego the holiday’s religious elements for commercial/secular ones (read […]