Yesterday was Friday the 13th

So today is Valentine's Day. The origin of the lamest holiday ever isn't entirely certain, but it is basically as commercialized as Christmas, and fewer people (as in no one I know, including me) knows what the true meaning of Valentine's Day is, unless it is to further empty men's wallets, as if an excuse was needed. Unless, of course, you happen to marry someone super cool, like I did, who likes to boycott the holiday. When we told our friends we were thinking of getting married sometime in March or April, a lot of them said, "Oh, pick Valentine's Day!" to which we replied with fake vomiting. After another friend suggested April Fools' Day, we split the difference and got married an an extra cool day of heavy drinking: St. Patrick's Day.

This year marks the first year that I have gotten my wife a gift for Valentine's Day, and that is only because it is a super appropriate gift for those who boycott stupid holidays: I got her a tin of Bittersweets from www.despair.com:

Right-click the photo for a bigger version where you can read a few of the candy hearts, and the list of flavors at the bottom. There's a minimum order limit at despair.com, so I had to order something else, too; so I got the Pessimist's Mug:

How cool is that?

If you've never been to despair.com, go! Their main product, and their funniest, is a big series of "demotivational" posters, or Demotivators, parodies of those stupid motivational posters you see in offices that have an eye-catching photo and an insipid quote about leadership or teamwork that is supposed to make everyone in the office automatically like their job. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Okay, so that was more than just a few....

There's one more to share that's particularly relevant here despite my vast audience of dedicated readers:

Good stuff. They also have a few shirts, including this one that unfortunately is a promotional item no longer available as of tomorrow:

This is of course a response to the facebook plague of the "25 Random Things" list. On the other hand, I've been tagged by an actual friend on that one, and so might actually respond at some point.... maybe. We'll see. I do have lots of bored time now....

The other option for celebrating Valentine's Day is by sending people pictures of Dwight Shrute, like Jim sends Pam in The Office. That's frightening enough to make everyone want to boycott Valentine's Day.