Twas The Apocalypse Before Christmas

This post is a little shorter than usual for two reasons: the first is that it was Christmas and I was busy doing Christmas stuff. The second reason is that I’m planning a little something special for you guys for next post that I hope you’ll like and it's taking up a little time.

Also, I’ve had one or two people ask me why I’m not updating every week like I said I would, which is unusual, because I said that I’d be updating every second week back in my first post. But just to clear up any confusion: posting is every second Thursday, with the chance of special updates when and if something happens. Anyway, onwards.

Soooo, if you’re reading this, chances are that you’re still alive. If you’re reading this and you’re not alive, then thanks for reading. And, you know – sorry for whatever you did to deserve this.

He sends some readers my way.

Damned souls aside, all of you have now suffered through the crass consumerism, stilted conversation with little-seen relatives, and glorious, artery-rending binge-feast that is Christmas. Now, there are plenty of people who love to complain about Christmas, harrumphing as they pick fleas out of their green fur and steal all the Whatsits in Whoville. This is especially true here on the internet, where your standing is derived mostly from how jaded you can act and the number of tits you require to stay your demands to GTFO. Not me though: I normally really like Christmas. The food, the family, getting neat stuff (this year’s haul includes both an Xbox and a wicked scale-model kit of the Ecto-1); it's all normally really good.

Normally.

Not this year though. This year, I was embarrassed, humiliated, and severely let down by a certain someone. Someone who really should have known better: someone who I am very, very disappointed with. I think you all know who I'm referring to.

That's right: the Mayans.

Yes, the Mayans. It's been six days since they promised the world would end, and yet as I mentioned above everyone reading this is still totally alive in an unexploded, zombie-free, and wholly non-ended world.

Well...nearly everyone...

And that's just not on.

See, I expect a certain amount of reliability from my foretellers of doom and destruction. And yes, there have been scares before, but this one was different: I think we all sensed that, out of the various apocalypses predicted recently, this was the one -- the one to finally earn the label of Ultimate-For-Realsies-Oh-Snap-You-Guys-We’re-Dead. And it’s not just me thinking this: just ask the wise Dutch gentleman who spent thirteen thousand euro on an ark to protect himself and his family from the coming flood, or the surely-not-insane New Agers whose belief that a random French mountain contained a UFO willing to fly them to safety prompted them to buy one-way tickets to France.

And it’s not surprising: the Mayans just seemed so reliable. Yeah, maybe some know-it-all, blah-blah-I-study-the-Mayans-for-a-living-I-know-what-I’m-talking-about-blah killjoys tried to tell us that the Maya never actually said the world would end when their calendar did any more than we predict the end of the world every New Year’s Eve. And sure, maybe those jerks at NASA were so confident the world wouldn’t end that they released a video explaining why it didn’t a day before it was due to (I hear they have a spray for that, incidentally). And maybe, maybe actual, living Mayans right here in the present thought that the world was in no way going to end.  But that’s no reason to think that a wheel-less, Stone-Age society whose main hobby was tearing peoples’ hearts out so the sun wouldn’t go away didn’t know more about the world than every scientist living in the most technologically advanced civilisation in history combined.

I mean, the Mayans lived a long time ago. Everyone knows that ancient wisdom is automatically far superior to anything modern “science” says, with its “proofs” and its “results” and its “medicine that actually does stuff.” Just ask any self-respecting hippie.

Pfft. Not a crystal in sight.

And besides, I think most people alive today just know deep in their bones that the world is going to end in their lifetime. The proof is all there: between a string of perfectly ordinary natural disasters, a changing climate that no one could possibly have predicted, and the pitiful size of the ”Big” Mac nowadays, it’s clear that the Earth is edging closer and closer to its inevitable conclusion.

I mean, people have been predicting the end of the world in their lifetime since civilisation began: they’re going to have to be correct eventually right?

Right?

This time, for sure.

Right.

Anyway, some of you might be wondering how this lack-of-global-annihilation managed to ruin my Christmas since it is technically a good thing, pondering the point of all this nonsense as you stroke your beards/lady beards/pitchfork wounds writhing with maggots screaming a litany of your sins.

And I don't want to go into details but, well, let’s just say that some of us did the sensible thing and stocked up, thinking that we’d be slugging our way through an ashen, zombie-filled, cosmic-alignment-ravaged post-apocalyptic wasteland this week and couldn't afford to buy any presents, not that it should have mattered, Mayans.
And apparently some people just don’t appreciate getting four cans of beans and a machete from under the tree at this time of year, though I don't see how their lack of gratitude could be my fault.

Anyway, long story short, I dunno. Some people just can’t get in to the Christmas Spirit, I guess.