Why do people have to be so “people-like” all the time?

One more Christmas song. 

Happy German Christmas. This picture makes the candles on the tree look like lightbulbs..

This tension is pretty much impossible to dispel in a world so big, especially when issues of commerce are involved, but they did result notably (and amusingly) in the formation of the Barbie Liberation Organization, which, in 1993, switched the voice chips in three hundred Teen Talk Barbies with those from Talkin’ Duke G.I. Joe “action figures.” The Teen Talk Barbies were then under fire, as one of the pre-recorded phrases that the doll would speak was, “Math is hard.” Now, math is hard, of course, but out of a Barbie’s mouth it’s a horizon-limiting moment. Out of G.I. Joe’s mouth? Weary, existential observation.

-12/8/11 The Awl

“What is happening behind that door?” (dancing lights and Bruno Mars music are flooding out of room).

“That’s the game room.”

“Should we go there and play foosball?”

“Oh yeah.”

“After we get nachos.”

“Yes.”

…This is not a party. It’s a scene from one of those films from the 90s where a kid has rich parents or finds some way to come into millions of dollars, and then uses it to make the awesomest place on earth, where you are surrounded by fun things and chocolate and soda. Only, there was plenty of booze.