Rob of the Sky’s Guide to New Year’s Resolutions

Well, Christmas is over.  Yes, people have stopped killing each other over the last action figure in the store for little Johnny.  Now, people are killing each other to return little Johnny’s action figure that was the last one in the store.  While the big box retailers remain a blood bath, these days after Christmas are a reminder that the year is almost over with.  What a crappy year it was.  But this post is not about the terrible year that was 2010.  Instead, I’m looking forward, not backward.  Upward, not forward.  And constantly twirling, twirling, twirling toward freedom.  Instead, I’ll be focusing on the new year, especially in regards to new years resolutions.  You see, New Years Day, a date randomly selected by some guy a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, is a symbol for new beginnings.  Is there a such thing as old beginnings?  Anyway, many people come up with New Year’s resolutions as a way to have a fresh start.  However, most people make resolutions like “lose weight” or “make better grades” or “stop cheating on spouse a la Tiger Woods” that they generally have little motivation to, well, actually keep.  Thus, it is up to Rob of the Sky to tell you how to make a real New Year’s resolution.
Now, you might be thinking “Well, Rob of the Sky, what do you know about having the motivation to keep a New Year’s resolution.  After all, you can’t even keep up with your blog enough to update every hour on the hour.”  Well, you may be happy to know that I’ve kept my New Year’s resolution for the past 8 years or so.   Impressive, isn’t it?  Now, you might be wondering what my secret to keeping my resolution for all these years.  Well, my resolution for all these years was to not eat any hot sauce, and I have been able to keep this resolution because I don’t really like hot sauce.  You see, I realized that I could continue making high-aiming resolutions that I wasn’t going to keep, or I could make a low-aiming resolution that i could easily keep.  After all, if at first you don’t succeed, lower your expectations.  Mediocrity rules!  So yes, my advice to keeping you New Year’s resolution is to make one that you will probably keep anyway.  Another route you can take is the reverse New Year’s resolution.  Because in this country, you make resolution.  In Russia, resolution makes you.  Eh, that was lame.  Anyway, the reverse New Year’s resolution is where you make a resolution that is the opposite of your goal in hopes that you don’t keep you resolution (and thus keeping your goal).  For example, if you want to lose weight, you make a New Year’s resolution to gain weight.  Then, you fail to keep the resolution to gain weight, which means that you lose weight and thus have kept your original goal of losing weight.  Win.  I haven’t tried this idea, so I don’t know if it will work.  If you do decide to try it, let me know how it goes.  Until next time, remember that if you have a leg growing out of your head, you should contact a doctor immediately.  Have a Happy Easter!

Rob of the Sky’s Guide to Christmas Presents

It’s Christmas week, which means everyone will be opening presents in a few days.  Now, we all know that the main reason for the season is to give and receive presents.  Well, it’s really supposed to be about the birth of Jesus, but the holiday is so commercialized that the religious aspect is pushed to the back burner.  Anyway, presents are extremely important in the modern Christmas experience.  Thus, it is important to give a good gift.  The following is a list of gifts that are not always a good idea to give.  If it is the thought that counts, then I gotta wonder what the people who give the following gifts were thinking.  So without further ado, I present gifts you should think twice before buying:

• Chia Pets – Despite what the commercials say, Chia Pets do not make a wonderful gift.  I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who enjoy Chia Pets.  Those who enjoy Chia Pets must be out there though.  After all, they keep advertising Chia Pets on television.  Or perhaps Chia Pets continue to get made because people buy them as a half-ass last-minute Christmas gift.  The point is, don’t get me a Chia Pet for Christmas.
• Gym Membership/Equipment – If any gift hits below the belt, it is the gym membership or gym equipment.  The person who is giving the gift is not so subtly telling the recipient that he or she is larger than most safari animals.  There are better ways to break it to a loved one that they are getting a little pudgy around the waistline than giving them a Christmas gift that they would probably find insulting.  The point is, don’t get me a Chia Pet for Christmas.
• Christmas Stuff – The temptation to get something Christmassy for a friend or loved one is certainly there, as the stores tend to start selling Christmas stuff in September.  However, while the ornament that you get your friend may look good, they won’t be able to use it for another year, and that’s no fun.  Perhaps the exception to this rule is Christmas Specials on DVD, which can be watched on Christmas day and then forgotten about until spring cleaning 2015.  Of course, if the Christmas special in question is the Star Wars Christmas Special, then it is still a bad gift idea.
• Lottery Tickets – Lottery tickets are a horrible Christmas present because most of the time the lottery tickets are losers.  Thus giving lottery tickets as a gift is often times the same as not giving a gift at all.  What’s worse is if the lottery ticket hits big.  Stuff like that can end friendships.  A gift that can end friendships is not much of a gift at all.
• Gift Cards – In an economy where there are more “store closing” signs in any given area than “help wanted” signs, getting a gift card to say Sears might not be a good idea because Sears may not exist in a few months time.  In fact, I thought Sears wasn’t going to last through this year.  Thus the gift card becomes little more than a useless piece of plastic in a wallet.  Oh, and remember that if Sears doesn’t make it through the recession that I predicted it right here on my blog.
• Snuggie – No explanation needed.
• Snuggie for Dogs – Some people feel compelled to give their dogs Christmas gifts.  This is to make the humans happy, because Rover doesn’t even know what Christmas is.  I would imagine that the Snuggie for Dogs would be a popular gift for those that have so much money that they’ll buy Rover a present.  Poor Rover will be stuck with a gift he’ll certainly hate.  If you’re a man and you give Rover a Snuggie for Dogs for Christmas, you very manhood may be at stake as Rover will probably bite you in the crotch.
• Crappy Pharmacy Toys – Nothing says you got little Johnny’s Christmas present at the very last-minute than a crappy toy from the local pharmacy.  To add injury to insult, the crappy toys at the pharmacy tend to be overpriced and found cheaper elsewhere.

Well, these are some gifts that might not be a good idea to give.  Do you know any other crappy gifts that one should avoid giving?  If so, let us all know via comment.  Until next time, remember that the point is, don’t get me a Chia Pet for Christmas.

Rob of the Sky’s Guide to Annoying Christmas Songs (Part 2)

Last time on Rob of the Sky’s Guide to Crap, Rob of the Sky wrote about some Christmas songs that are annoying.  This post was so popular, yet there were certain songs that should have been on the list.  Well, Rob of the Sky was never one to half-ass do anything.  Actually, that’s a lie.  Rob of the Sky frequently half-ass does stuff.  The point is…Rob of the Sky doesn’t know what the point is.  So just enjoy a list of more Christmas songs that are annoying.

• Winter Wonderland – Who the hell is Parson Brown?  Why are pretending the snowman is Parson Brown?  It makes no sense.  In fact, what does this song have to do with Christmas anyway?  It’s more about snow than it is about Christmas.  What does snow have to do with Christmas anyway?  It seems like every Christmas movie has snow in it.  Even “Ernest Save Christmas”, which was set in that great arctic town of Orlando, Florida, had a snow scene.  Apparently the world undergoes severe global cooling on December 25th and December 25th alone every year.
• Feliz Navidad – Here’s a song with two languages that ha no depth in either language.  The whole song is like two sentences, one in Spanish and one in English, with tons of repetition.  The point is, put more depth into the songs that you’re writing.
• Silver Bells – Apparently it’s Christmas time only in the city.
• Last Christmas by Wham! – Wham! is an interesting name for a band.  They could have simply been Wham, but that wasn’t good enough.  No, they had to add an exclamation point after the band name.  How many other bands have exclamation points in their names?  The only other band I can think of that meets that criterion is Panic! at the Disco.  Anyway, back to Wham!  I have a bit of a love-hate feeling about Wham!  I find some of their songs like “Wake me up Before you Gogo” to be incredibly annoying, while at the same time I enjoy some of their songs like “Careless Whisper”.  Unfortunately, “Last Christmas” is in the annoying category.  The song is about a guy who gave away his heart last Christmas, only to find that the girl he gave it to dump his ass the next day in traditional gold-digger style.  This could have easily been a Valentines’s Day song.  Why did the singer give his heart away anyway?  He needs that to, well, live.  After all, you only get one heart, and once it’s gone, you’re gone.
• Wonderful Christmas Time by Paul McCartney – You may know this song as the song that says “simply having a wonderful Christmas time” 459,327,168 times.  For a song writer of McCartney’s caliber, he really did get lazy with this song.  I’ll stick with John Lennon’s “Merry Xmas (War is Over)” instead.

Well, that’s nearly the end of my post.  However, there is one more song I want to talk about.  This song is so annoying that many people feel that any list of annoying Christmas songs is invalidated by the lack of inclusion of this one song.  That song is…wait for it…wait for it…wait for it…

• Santa Baby – Boy this is a train wreck of a song.  Where do I begin with what is wrong with this song?  Well, for one thing, the woman singing this songs has the unsexiest voice ever.  If the singer wants to turn Santa on, she fails miserably.  It’s not much of a stretch to say that some male singers have a sexier voice than the singer of “Santa Baby”.  And why is she going after Santa anyway?  Santa’s old as dirt.  Then again, some old guys like Hugh Heffner and Bob Barker have young, barely legal women chasing after them.  So I guess in that sense chasing after Santa could work.  Plus old men like Santa have a miracle drug called Viagra that gives them up to four hours of fun with barely legal women.  Still, I don’t think all the Viagra in the world would turn Santa on after listening to “Santa Baby”.  Though he might end up being turned on by listening to “Last Christmas” by Wham! instead.

Well, that it’s for today.   Until next time, remember to have a Happy Fourth of July!

Rob of the Sky’s Guide to Annoying Christmas Songs (Part 1)

Well, it’s that time of year.  Yes, it’s the time of year where Christmas songs are all over the radio and in the stores.  The thing about Christmas songs is that they are incredibly repetitive.  It seems like the play the same Christmas songs over and over and over and over again.  Every once in a while there’s a new Christmas song, but most of the Christmas tunes on the radio today were written by the dinosaurs.  You gotta admit that the dinosaurs were fairly evolved if they were able to write Christmas songs.  Anyway, some of these songs get annoying after a while.  So let’s go ahead and roll that beautiful bean footage:

• Santa Claus is Coming to Town – Santa Claus is a stalker.  Why is Santa always watching me?  I’m not that interesting.  Besides, what is this song teaching the kiddies?  That some fat guy in the North Pole is always watching them?  How does Santa watch all the kids of the world all of the time?  He must have some great tracking equipment.  So why does he waste his time watching kids when Bowser keeps stealing the Princess.  I’ve come to the conclusion that the Mushroom Kingdom should hire Santa to guard the Princess.  If Santa is unavailable, then they can get the band The Police to do it.  The point is, don’t get a Chia Pet for Christmas.
• I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus – I saw daddy file for divorce the next day.  As if stalking everyone in the world wasn’t enough, Santa goes and adds insult to injury by cheating on his wife with other married women.  Lets see, Santa stalks little children and kisses their mommies.  Why is he not in prison?
• Jingle Bell Rock – Now, you may be familiar with Jingle Bells, the song where Batman needs a shower, Robin is about the experience avian motherhood, and the Joker escapes, forms a band, and changes his name to Steve Miller.  Well, there’s a rock version of it.  I use the term rock loosely because there’s not much rock in Jingle Bell Rock.  Now, I understand that the song was made a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away when rock was just beginning.  However, the song has been covered 396,784,586 times since it was created.  Certainly someone covering it could put a kick-ass guitar solo in it or something.  I mean, if this song can have a guitar solo, they why can Jingle Bell Rock?  You know what song lacks a guitar solo?  The infamous rick roll.  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.
• We Wish You a Merry Christmas – What the hell is figgy pudding and why should I give you some?
• Any song about snow or winter weather – These songs may be fine in certain area, but for those of us who live below a certain latitude they are completely inaccurate.  It never snows here during Christmas time.  Get cold weather?  Of course.  Rain?  You bet.  Tornadoes?  It’s been known to happen  Snow?  Wait till March and it may or may not happen (and in recent years it has happen less often than not).
• It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year – That’s debatable.  I say summer is a better time of year.  This time of year it’s cold and rainy and there’s too many people in the stores trying to kill each other over those motorized hamsters that are popular this year for some reason.  Summer, on the other hand, includes warm weather, roller coaster, and women in bikinis.  I’ll take roller coasters and bikinis over fighting over motorized hamsters any day.
• Frosty the Snowman – Am I the only one who thinks that flamethrowers would make this song more interesting?
• The Little Drummer Boy – I don’t recall there being a drummer boy in the Bible during Jesus’ birth.  If there was, I would’ve learned about him is Sunday school.  Granted, they may have taught about him in Sunday school while I was busy sleeping.  You see, I always slept during school, and Sunday school was no exception.  Why do they have school on Sunday anyway?  That’s a question I pondered many of times in my youth.  Actually, if there really was a little drummer boy in the Bible, I probably would’ve been paying attention because drums are cool.  Think about it, if Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight didn’t have that drum solo toward the end, would it have been as cool?  I rest my case.

Well, that’s all I have for today.  Until next time, remember that drums and guitars make everything better.