If I ask someone, “What *is the Christmas spirit?” I generally get some rote story about how it’s a season of giving and goodwill to all or some cockamamie random noise resembling that. That’s all well and good, but if I ask that same person, “So, shouldn’t you have that frame of mind, like, all year instead of just around the end of December?” most people answer, “Well, yeah, but it’s Christmas, and that’s different.” Have you ever argued with a 9-year-old that your peanut butter sandwich is bigger than theirs and gotten the “nuh-uhhhh(!) mine’s bigger” treatment? It’s the same argument, just on adults with marginally more intelligence than the 4th grader.

So, generalizing, the argument is, “Be a good person all year, but during the holidays, be in the Christmas spirit”. Baffling. I sought to figure out this so-called spirit of Christmas, and maybe learn a little bit about how to elevate my goodwill towards humankind to some higher eschelon of awareness that evidently only surfaces as a year draws to its undeniable close. eHow.com evidently possesses a 12-step program (ok, 11) for how to get into this alleged spirit, but their most important tip is to “shop early”. I love how the difficulty of executing the article’s advice is rated as “Moderately Easy”, since the concept is evidently foreign to so many. So, according to this article, I’m going to be enlightened by doing some shopping, by donating some ching to a Christianity-based charity that (allegedly) runs with shady financial disclosures and (most definitely) discriminates against homosexuals, by decorating my house in an evil palette clash of red and green, and by exercising my fiduciary duty to not go broke?

Well, that can’t exactly be true. So, I continued my search. The article said I should decorate my house; maybe some of the traditions that Americans follow will be the correct path. Let’s see. How about a Yule Log? CERTAINLY a Yule Log would be a Christmas Spirit thing to do, right? Well, actually the yule log has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas at all – it was actually a druid/pagan ritual method of warding off harmful spirits that might come out during the extended darkness of the Winter Solstice. Christianity actually adopted the yule log as part of its own muddled traditions to try to gain more converts as the religion infected most of Western Europe. (yes, I said infected). So, that can’t be it, it has nothing to do with Christmas.

OH I KNOW, how about a Christmas tree?! Everybody knows that Christmas trees are what Santa puts presents under – boy oh boy it just wouldn’t be Christmas without one of those. Any good Christian that wants to celebrate the birthday of Jesus would have one, right? Well, honestly, bullshit. Even the Christian Bible says in Jeremiah 10:2-4 that you shouldn’t cut down trees – and though devouts will argue that it is out of context, it says what it says. But still, a tree for Christmas? Borrowed from Pagan tradition? Yes. Did Pagans cut down a tree and take it indoors? No, that would be against their fundamental values. Chopping down a perfectly good tree and fancying it up didn’t start until really around the 16th century, and of course that was done by Christians – Protestants, specifically, like Martin Luther. Environmental warfare is the key to the Christmas spirit? Doesn’t seem quite right. Maybe it needs salt.

How about “Happy Birthday Jesus”! I guess Christians really do need something to hang their hat on if they’re seriously doing up birthday cakes for Jesus. Wow, you people are really off your rockers, let me tell ya. While it is true that people give a rats to celebrate such a thing, why do they do that? Or, more importantly, why does history suggest that there is no accurate knowledge of his actual birthday and the Roman church arbitrarily chose 12/25 when his birthday is astronomically closer to May 14th? Happy Birthday my ass; that tradition didn’t even start until AD 336, so there were centuries of it not being celebrated – why start now? Oh, cake! Is it lemon cake with chocolate frosting? I’m in. Seriously, is this the Christmas spirit manifesting itself? Do I need to call up my Costco bakery and get a full-sheet Jesus cake to get my festive on?

“Picture and video messaging (MMS) is now available for iPhone. Your existing messaging plan includes unlimited send and receipt of text, picture & video messages. To enable MMS, connect your iPhone to your computer and click “Check for Updates” in iTunes, then restart your iPhone.”

Your mileage may vary on the actual text depending on your individual plan.

I hooked up to iTunes with my macbook, did the carrier settings update, then restarted my phone, and the fabled camera link next to the text input box was there. I was able to send a photo back and forth with a friend, so it appears to be “working” properly.

Enjoy.
Thoughts?

Anyway, I overcame by some miracle and decided to give it a go on Saturday instead. Reaching back into the databanks where I stuffed 4 years of high school French to make way for subsequent years of Japanese, I arrived at Samedi Gras. I could probably swing Toujours Gras with enough motivation and an appetite for going sloth.

So, I stumbled down to the best local cajun eatery and helped myself to a heaping plate of blackened catfish with some jambalaya. There was even some drinking – Dixie beer, no less – and it was all a great time swinging the karma wheel back to center.

Did anyone else have to put off their Mardi Gras plans? What did you do?

While the game does have a single-player option (in the form of playing the campaigns with some computer teammates against a team full of computer players), where it thrives with its player base is in the online play on “ranked” servers. I do take some issue with idSoftware’s choice in only allowing leased servers from GSPs to be ranked, but oh well – it’s not my money, and they’ve already made theirs.

I must say, I’m not exactly good at it when pitted against people probably half my age that have been playing since the game first came out. But, I do get the basic gist of the classes and how to work with them, though I have an early preference for the straight up soldier and the engineer.

Try as I might, I couldn’t advance past the first rank online. Either it’s hard, or I suck at it; probably the second one is true. Early on I adopted a strategy of jumping right into a firefight and I usually lost multiple times. Towards the end of my experience I tried to take a more tactical approach – as if I were really doing it myself. I’ll say that my lifespans were longer, but I was still getting my ass tin-canned all over the map.

All in all, it’s a fun game. The gameplay is very good – it does have a few points of concern, but none that are deal-breakers. I could use some advice, however.

Surely, you can’t take Shakespeare and make the bard’s plays better. Surely you can’t twist fate from some of the most widely-read scripts in the history of the world and make them better. Well, of course not. Chris doesn’t try to do that, either. He is recognized as one of the great satirists of our time, and with good reason. Fool doesn’t offend the purist, and doesn’t disappoint those seeking heavy doses of the elixir Chris provides.

I know that many have not yet read the story, so I shan’t spoil it for you, but it is a glorious mashup retelling of King Lear, with convenient borrows from other Shakespearean works, and from the perspective of Lear’s fool. In the play, the fool has no name – I found it great to have Chris name him Pocket (after his diminutive stature). We learn about his upbringing, about how he came to be the fool in Lear’s court, and about some serious misadventures in medieval Europe which spin the tale.

If you are familiar with King Lear proper, or even if you are not, you will love the tenacity that Chris brings to that world. I wouldn’t recommend reading “King Lear” before investing in Fool – there is certainly enough information in the story to carry it without foreknowledge of the plot.

But, the story is not for everyone. Even Chris says, as he is known to do, that it’s a bawdy tale packed with action and “action”. If you’re a reader easily offended by bad words and debauchery, you probably wouldn’t like the story at all – and let me recommend Pride and Prejudice as an alternative read.

Overall rating: 9.8/A+