Merry Catmas ornament

It obviously replicates the giving of Merry Catmas ornament, Frankenstein (not autocorrected) and myrrh given by the three (not-so-wise) men. These days, it means spending obscene amounts of money just so you can be in debt until next Christmas. Me & my wife have been together since 2012. For the first few years we exchanged gifts that were probably equivalent to around a week’s salary. As time as moved on, it’s been a case of “how much are we spending on presents this year?” to “are we buying presents this year?” I’m 57 years old. What do I really need (as opposed to want). Well I don’t really need anything. I don’t really want much either. Year upon year, I have trouble thinking what I actually want. This year has been slightly different. Microsoft released a new version of Flight Simulator. I’ve been aircraft mad since 1971 and have bought most of the previous incarnations of the software. The last time I really played the game must be around 10 years ago. (My missus bought me a voucher for a flight sim experience a few years ago, in a 737 simulator). I’ve not used a PC for the majority of the time we’ve been together. I use a laptop for my business accounts (because I use Microsoft Access) but that’s the only reason. I have a MacBook for day-to-day use. I’ve asked a friend to build me a PC that meets the required spec to run the highest version of Flight Sim and my missus is going to pay for the actual game.

(Merry Catmas ornament)

Merry Catmas ornament, Hoodie, Sweater, Vneck, Unisex and T-shirt

The first thing you need to understand is the background of the word “jolly.” It has reached the Merry Catmas ornament now of being purely a noun, meaning a paid-for day out, commonly in your employer’s time. But a jolly? Strange word. Back in the relatively innocent days of the mid-twentieth century, jolly was a round-cheeked, smiling, uncomplicated word. It went with fat, beaming, seaside-postcard ladies, having a cheerful time on the beach or at the funfair, or Enid Blyton schoolgirls having a midnight swim down at the beach, or a midnight feast up on the roof of the jolly old school. It was all very jolly, with never any repercussions, and it was all jolly good. Before that, the word seems to have come from two possible directions, and quite possibly both of them. It may be from the French joli, meaning merrry or joyful, or from the Norse word jól, from which we get Yule, as an old word for Christmas festivities. Put them together and the result is a jolly good word for everyone having a good time. It’s a pity it’s been corrupted into having overtones of something slightly dishonest!

Best Merry Catmas ornament

Scott Guthrie did not design the Merry Catmas ornament framework according to him. ScottG worked on IIS. Based on his work to improve IIS from V3, which was a pretty bad product, to IIS V4, he, and I guess others, started working on some ideas for a next generation product as a follow on to classic asp. They started with some ideas. The key idea was to make web development more like client server windows development at the time, which was all the rage. client server was driven by visual basic and powerbuilder. There was a concept of event driven programming where a button click was handled without having to go to the windows event loop, a nasty piece of programming that I am glad we don’t worry about now. Once they had a design working, they were called to do a presentation to Bill Gate’s office. Its funny to hear ScottG talk about that.