12/21/05: Pine Mountain's Yule Logs! I didn't grow up in a house with a fireplace, and I haven't lived in a house with a fireplace since. While I'm sure 97% of the world could say the same, I'd prefer to think that I'm a special case, and that my no-fireplaceness will ultimately justify my actions as I gun down every one of you motherfuckers using whatever bullets hurt the most. I've never lived with a fireplace, but I've surely sprawled out on the floor beside one from time to time, with a cup of something in one hand and a Far Side book in the other. That shit can make the insane sane. My eldest sister, naturally the one who moved out first, quickly married and moved with her husband into a nice little condo a neighborhood away from my old house. As her family increased in size, they finally settled into a formal home where they remain today. Both the condo and the house had/have fireplaces. I don't know what kind of voodoo lord my sister offers live chickens and Rice-A-Roni to, but her husband is half Puerto Rican, and I'm pretty sure being half Puerto Rican means being able to summon fireplaces with at least a 50% success rate. Whatever, they had fireplaces. They'd often be charged to babysit me overnight, and despite the many beds and couches available to me, I'd always opt to sleep on the floor, by the fire. This all connects, because I don't live in a city with readily available "real" firewood. You can't go chopping down trees because all the trees here belong to somebody, and it's really just not worth the trouble to dress like a ninja and do the chop-chop all quiet-like in the middle of the night. No, they relied on Pine Mountain's ready-made Yule logs. Why? Because they came in damn pretty bags. While not very Christmassy at all, I feel perfectly in the right including this old Pine Mountain commercial on the Advert Calendar. At Christmastime, everyone wishes they have a fireplace. Even people in hot climates. They'd just deal. Also of note is that the ad stars live penguins, which in the world of advertising is a veritable no-fail expense. Mix visions of live penguins with your product, and the suckers'll line up. You dumb suckers. Click here to download this commercial! (.WMV, 5 MB) ....close this window!