Obama may want your mamma to go back to school, but if she looks like this I bet most community-college teachers would be terrified of the prospects:

The only thing better would be if this turns out to be a picture of the person who writes the teabag tags.

Look, I never said springtime green is the right look for everyone:

I love this blog. I love writing for it, I love the variety of stuff I can post about, I love the comments you all make. I know that not every post is going to hit home to every reader: some of you might not be interested in dogs, or Shakespeare, or Judaism, or television, or fashion. That’s cool. In almost all my posts, I try to make it not just about the ostensible topic, but to include some kind of universal theme about how we live in the world. But I still don’t expect everyone to read everything, or check the comments on posts they aren’t interested in.

Which means that, if a comment thread goes off in a totally different direction, you might just miss something good. Somehow my Monday fashion post got into a discussion of menorahs, when EA Week asked me if I’d seen the Star Trek menorah:

… which of course I had, and I pointed out the awesome Steampunk Menorah on BoingBoing:

… and described it as “one bitchin’ menorah,” and then challenged my friend Molly to write a parody of the Dead Milkmen’s “Bitchin’ Camaro.” Molly, you may recall, is the author of the Pirate’s Prayer, and this was a triple-dog-dare she couldn’t turn down. So here, on the last night of Hanukkah, for all you punk rockers out there, I give you:

BITCHIN’ MENORAH

Bitchin’ Menorah, Bitchin’ Menorah!
Displayed to all the neighbors
Bitchin’ Menorah, Bitchin’ Menorah!
Each night, lightin’ more of the tapers

Got myself a bitchin’ menorah
With candles that light in a flash
I light it with a flamethrower so
I don’t need no freakin’ match

I set the curtains on fire
The first night of Chanukah
I didn’t get in trouble ’cause
I didn’t break halacha [or “Jewish law”, depending on your audience]

Bitchin’ Menorah, Bitchin’ Menorah!
Polished to a high gloss
Bitchin’ Menorah, Bitchin’ Menorah!
Latkes with bourbon sauce

When I take it to shul
They kvetch about it all week
Cause I’ve got a bitchin’ menorah
And mad lighting technique

So you’d better get out of my way
Whether it’s night one or eight
Cause I’ve got a bitchin’ menorah
And a dreidl game that can’t wait

Bitchin’ Menorah, Bitchin’ Menorah!
Givin’ the Gentiles fits!
Bitchin’ Menorah, Bitchin’ Menorah!
I’m drunk on Maneschewitz!

About three times as long as song it was based on, and four times as funny as Adam Sandler’s “Hanukkah Song.” Rock on, Molly!

Like all bloggers, I get a lot of spam, and I check my spam folder when it’s not too full, to make sure that no legitimate comments got shunted over there. One of the most recent varieties has been these really horrible, sub-Borscht-belt jokes, maybe the kinds of jokes a preschooler would like (if you are the parent of a preschooler, feel free to correct me on this). Things like, “What do young dogs sleep in when they go camping? Pup tents!” or “Why don’t fish play tennis? They are afraid of getting caught in the net!”

A couple of days ago, I got one that read: “What does it mean when the Post Office’s flag is flying at half-mast? They’re hiring!”

Am I missing something here, or is that a workplace-homicide joke? Because I can’t come up with any other way to make sense of it. The phrase was definitely half-mast, not half-staff, the latter of which would be 1) the proper way to refer to a halfway-up-the-pole flag on land, and 2) a poor-quality pun on “staff” meaning both “pole” and “workforce.”

What am I not getting? Or am I getting it?

Through Facebook, it was recently revealed to me that several of my friends were under the impression that “Up on the housetop, reindeer PAWS.” (The actual line is “reindeer pause.”)

Did you think this? Did you ever wonder why all other reindeer have hooves, but Santa’s have paws? (Genetics are complex, perhaps the mutation that allowed them to fly had unexpected consequences, sort of how like if you breed foxes for tameness they also develop floppy ears.)

Did you wonder who “Olive, the Other Reindeer” was? How about Round John Virgin? I’d heard those two mondegreens before, but not the reindeer one.

Because I am a theater geek, having to actually think about the lyrics of “Up on the Housetop” made me come up with A Very Pinter Christmas:

Scene: Up on the housetop.

Woman: Reindeer.

(Pause.)

But you don’t have to play my reindeer games. Instead, here’s an open thread for cute kid stories — your kids, or your own kid-hood — holiday-season misconceptions.

My own? Apparently, the first Christmas that I was cognizant at all of what was going on, I got really upset when it was time to go to bed on Christmas night (not Christmas Eve). Why? Because I’d taken “You’ll get presents on Christmas” extremely literally, and thought that they would disappear the next day as magically as they had appeared that morning!

This came up when I was chatting with a friend last night, and I can’t believe neither I nor any of the commenters thought of it back when we were discussing bad acronyms:

PCP for “Primary Care Provider.”

As I wrote to my friend (we were chatting on Facebook), “BTW, PCP = TLA WTF?”

Tired? Run-down? Not enough energy for all the family, work, and community obligations of the holiday season? Shaw’s Supermarket knows exactly how you feel:

You can find this graphic on their website, but it awesomely came up in a commercial last night during either “Parks and Recreation” or “The Office.” Reinforced Michael Scott’s statement that “Christmas isn’t about Santa, or Jesus — it’s about the workplace” in an oblique sort of way.

(Don’t even ask me why I’m still watching “The Office.” Just feeling too listless last night to turn the TV off after “Parks & Rec,” I guess.)

Teabag tag: “The mind is energy. Regulate it.”

Is that, like, a political statement masquerading as a bit of New Age advice? Kind of sounds like it to me. Drill, baby, drill!

For the history of the teabag-tag wars, go here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, and here.

Who chose this graphic for this ad? And will this give rise to a new dozens insult: “Yo mama so ugly even Obama don’t want her to go back to school?”

Coincidences never cease. Cousin Dan doesn’t always read my blog, so he’d missed my post on “When acronyms go bad.” But he’d left D.C. for his hometown of Springfield for Thanksgiving, and posted on his Facebook a photo of the local flea market:

The Springfield Trading Depot. From a review on Yelp:

Don’t let the state of the place fool you, either. You will always find the vintage treasures or tacky gifts here that you heart so desires. So, pack your hand sanitizers, some tissues and a soda and your set for your STD excursion!

Thanks, Dan!

(For those of you keeping track at home, Dan went as a 1970s undercover cop for Halloween, and thanks you all for your suggestions. I’ve seen FB pictures of his costume, too, and thought he looked good, although he claims not to have been feeling it. Cousin Dan is a Halloween artiste, and like all true artists is his own worst critic.)

Invented by the six-year-old son of Melissa, from Better Bag of Groceries. To the tune of “The Dreidl Song”:

Laundry, laundry, laundry, we do it every day.
Laundry, laundry, laundry, it never goes away!

No matter what winter holiday you celebrate, I’m sure we can all relate to that sentiment. Especially after a long holiday weekend!

Because eBay has thousands of them.

I don’t need a Christmas sweater — and given that there are twice as many ways to spell Hanukkah than there are nights in it, trying to find a Jewish holiday sweater on eBay would be an exercise in spellchecky madness. But I do like me some print cardigans, so I was poking about the other night to see what the offerings were. (Yes, clearly my weakness for print cardigans indicates that I still haven’t gotten that Michelle Obama fashion-worship out of my system.) And I found these:

And then I did a search under “sweaters” for “ugly” and found over three thousand hits!

Had you any idea that ugly Christmas sweaters (and socks, and vests) were such big business? I didn’t. It’s the unbridled glee in the sellers’ descriptions that I find so intoxicating:

Yes! That is one ugly sweater! Hooray! (Actually, maybe I’ve been looking at too many of these things, but this one doesn’t strike me as too bad.) And check out this vest:

The description on the vest is generally outstanding, in a kind of free-verse way (punctuation and spacing original);

Life of the party,Here it is A very Unique 1 of a Kind.Hand made
My Hubby is a XL and he can close it.There is no buttons up the.
Merry Christmas
Alittle bit of everything On this Sweater,
Thanks for Looking.Please ask questions.

Isn’t that great, in a “help i am ee cummings and am being held prisoner in a quacker factory” kind of way?

But it’s the phrase “1st prize,” I think, gives it all away, as does the word “contest” in a lot of other items. Apparently it’s been way too long since I’ve either celebrated Christmas or worked in an office (my HBS job is fairly isolated), because I’ve never heard of these “ugly Christmas attire” contests. Have you been to one? More importantly, do you have PICTURES you would like to share with all your friends on this blog???

And if you have been to one, and lost? eBay is here to help you, my friends. (But I doubt you’ll find anything on there quite as amazing as these gems.)

AND, if you want to look Christmassy but good, Peacebang at Beauty Tips for Ministers shows you the way.

I am enjoying all your tales of career advice and aspirations, both good and bad! Please keep them coming.

Here’s a fun experiment: post as your status update that you’re taking a day to contemplate your career, and ask your friends what you should do next. The answers will amuse you. So far I’ve gotten:

* Have a child
* Become a ballerina (those two were the “restructure your pelvic cage at age 40!” answers)
* Send your pic and bio to casting agents –especially those working on Star Trek
projects in need of Vulcans
* Become a high-class hooker
* Be a “slacker Oprah”
* Start a Kenny Rogers cover band
* Learn Spanish and get on one of their soap operas (“Can you beat your fists into the chest of your leading man and scream out raspy pleas of exasperation at his infidelity?”)
* Be a rabbi
* World domination. As a benevolent dictator.
* Rock climbing
* Parkour
* Go back to school and be a paramedic

Try it yourself, and see what your friends really think of you — or what their own projected fantasy lives are!

Hey guys, we’re having another creative contest over at the boston.com blog! This one is to write parodies of holiday song lyrics — thanks to all of you who came up with that idea!

Details are over yonder. You can leave your entries on this blog or the other one, and we’ll probably be doing voting here next week. Let’s get those parodies ringagling, ting-ting-tingaling too!

There are only 26 letters in the English alphabet, which has proven sufficient for a lexicon of some quarter of a million words or so, but nonetheless appears inadequate for creating non-repeating acronyms. How many times have you changed jobs to find out that at XYZ Corp., “TPS report” stands for “Tactics, Priorities & Strategies Report,” while at NewCo, “TPS reports” means “Talk to the President’s Secretary, she’ll report it to him so you don’t have to.”

I was thinking about that this weekend, when a friend of mine posted the following link to his Facebook page:

I’ve said it before: aren’t moms amazing? I swear, motherhood gives you political — and apparently hostage-negotiation — skills like nothing else. (As my friend said, “I feel sorry for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, but that’s got to be a hell of a recruiting tool.”)

I have to show you the graphic, because if you follow the actual link, someone at the Christian Science Monitor clearly had the big “D’oh!” and removed the last two words since it was originally posted.

(Author’s note: If you don’t know what a MILF is, I’m not telling you. You are by definition on the internet as you read this. Go look it up.)

So it got me to thinking about other acronyms that go two ways, or more than two. I used to work in central administration at Harvard when we were installing a new HR and payroll system, the doing of which required us to get clear on a lot of our HR policies and practices. Anyway, you can take two kinds of medical leave at Harvard: short- and long-term disability. Which are referred to by, of course, acronyms.

Which is why, when the benefits lady said, “We more or less consider pregnancy to be an STD,” I really shouldn’t have choked on my coffee and blurted out, “Good Lord, I don’t even want kids and I find that offensively cynical!”

Acronym lag. It happens to the best of us. Share your stories (SOS)!