Boycott Christmas.

I heard a report on the radio this morning which said that there are 26% more Americans who will be more than 30 days late on credit card payments during Christmas this year than the same time last year.

Christmas is becoming more and more difficult to afford as the cost of living in this country continues to soar, while at the same time, big business is doing everything it can to instill the belief that it is customary to spend thousands of your hard-earned dollars on gifts during this season.

I mean, pay attention to the commercials... you'll see companies advertising a Plasma screen TV (that costs $2000 or more) as being "The perfect Christmas gift"... either that or a "Suzuki ATV or Dirt Bike", a diamond ring, a Mercedes Benz, etc.

I remember when an elaborate Christmas gift was something that cost $75. It's just really sad when we need to bleed the common man dry in order to "stimulate the economy".

It was estimated that the average family spent $910 on gifts during the 2006 holiday season, and that was expected to increase by 5% or 10% this year.

In response to all of this, most of my family has decided to only buy gifts for our children (in the name of Santa), and to limit those gifts to less than $50 each. So, we've managed to keep our spending to less than $200, while still getting together to celebrate and enjoy the season as a family without having to worry about how much credit card debt we'll all be in next month!

I wouldn't want to be in Geordi's shoes...

Alright, I know I'm a huge nerd for even noticing this stuff, but whenever I watch Star Trek: TNG I like to pay attention to the technical terminology that they use.

I was just thinking about one of those things today and would like to put it into context for everyone (all two of you who might read this).

Data says something like: "The neutron radiation must be interfering with my positronic net..."

First of all, if Data is being exposed to neutron radiation, that probably means that everyone else is too, which would be incredibly bad. After all of the times where the Enterprise crew is exposed to one type of radiation or another, they should all be covered in tumors.

If Data has a positronic brain, that suggests that his brain is at least partially composed of positrons, which are the antimatter counterparts of electrons. In case you didn't know it, antimatter is the same stuff that they use on the Enterprise in their photon torpedos. Whenever antimatter comes into contact with regular matter, it releases a huge amount of energy in the form of an explosion. If even a small amount of antimatter were to find its way into Earth's atmosphere, there would probably be something like a nuclear-bomb-sized explosion as a result... plus gamma radiation to boot.

That being said, I would hate to have to be in Geordi's shoes when he opens Data's head up to work on it. Dr. Noonian Soong, who built Data, had better have taken a hell of a lot of care in making sure that the positrons in Data's head stayed there. Otherwise, Data would be a walking nuclear explosion waiting to happen: