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NC Christmas Tree CareOver the years, common myths and other misconceptions over the care and handling of cut Christmas trees have resulted in wasted trees, reduced tree ... Read full post here. (c) Christmas Tree PermitWhere hyper-linked, Christmas tree permits are also available online. ... Wasted tree remains left in the forest form a summer fire hazard. Clean up and ... Read full post here. (c) Aunt Maud's Selection Box and Harry's Humanitron Kit - An Elementary Marketing AnalogyArthur was, by and large, a bright and happy teenager but one event of the year filled him with dread: Christmas Day. It was not just the familiar clich?s of the carol singing, the comedians of a bygone era on the television, the plastic fairies with labial wings suspended indefinitely from the Christmas tree, or the obligatory turkey with bread sauce that sickened him so much; it was the present opening ceremony that disgusted him to the core. Every year, his father would stoically feign insipid enthusiasm at the Ceremony while his mother, always at the forefront of the ritual, sat beside him scribbling into what, in his eyes, seemed like a ledger. As each wretched and gaudily-decorated item was disrobed in turn, after first being detached from its little red stocking, it had to be described, with donor's name, and logged. The sound of his own voice nauseated him as, yet again, he looked away and nonchalantly pronounced: "Aunt Maud. Selection Box". His mother dutifully and instinctively entered this item into the credit side of the ledger, muttering, "that's nice, dear" (she had always maintained the ledger was merely a "thank you" column, but Arthur rather doubted it). Arthur would open the Selection Box, a six-piece assortment of chocolate bars, each as sugary and loathsome as the other, and place it behind his chair. But one year, Arthur was in for a big surprise. In amongst the usual red stockings and wrapping paper which buried his ankles in cherubs and seraphims, there was a box that had none of this angelic, elvan flavour; and it was not even masked in atrabilious silver tape. When his turn came to select a present, this was the one he grabbed at first, tearing at the wrapping in unusual haste. It had a note inside: "Design your own world with a Humanitron. With love, Harry." An unlikely and unusual gift from Arthur's maternal grandfather. That afternoon, Arthur set up the Humanitron in his bedroom and tremulously pressed the on switch. The machine breathed into life with a humming sound that excited him - an experiment that was at once to be understood and misunderstood. Reading the instruction manual carefully, Arthur discovered that the Humanitron "simulated meta-creation and pseudo-evolution for use by carbon-based planetary bipeds", with the proud owner defining the rules. Also, there was an eraser switch so that he could correct any mistakes along the way. This 3D machine whirled in front of him nervously. After a month of speeding evolutionary clang, Arthur became suddenly dispirited. It had been hundreds of thousands of years of evolution already, sped up by the accelerator warp, and still humanity was nowhere to be seen. All he had created was primates foraging for fruit on their hind legs. In despair he turned to the internet to find out the cause. There were literally hundreds of blogs on the hows, whys and wherefores of planetary formation and evolution, but none, as far as he could see, on how humans came to inhabit this space. Then, by chance, he clicked on one site, which to Arthur's young mind was perversely surreal. It said, in order to create humankind on a Humanitron one had to be mindful of the environmental controls. Arthur had created a peaceful world, a world in which all creatures lived in blessed harmony. But here was advice, coming from an "authority" source, that recommended adding "battle", defence of territory", "domination", "barbarism", "savagery" and "selfishness" into the model for any hope of success. Having the feeling that he had to create humans as his ultimate goal, he switched from the expectant "humanist" approach he had previously taken and ran the program again. Sure enough, whoever had written that advice surely knew their pseudo-evolutionary stuff pretty well as after a couple of weeks he watched in awe as his model started to create creatures who, in stark contrast to what he thought about himself, were of his own kind. The Humanitron positively buzzed and spluttered war and species annihilation; it marvelled at the deep blue planet of soldiers and slave markets; of rape, suffering and greed. His world had been brought into being. He, Arthur, the grand architect, a man of genius and significant insight, a god even, had created man. And, even better, it flew in the face of all his father had ever said about him. Now, recognised by his worshippers in different forms, in different lands and in different empires and of different audiences, the beauty and evil of Arthur's brave new world had been conquered. His immortal success was commensurate with being in the universally cherished #1 position on Google: God's very own search engine. In attendant mood, Arthur was applauded wherever he went and people showered him with gifts from near and far. But, after a while, Arthur started to tire of this godlike praise and adulation and settled once more for a quieter life, visiting Woolworths every Sunday afternoon for his Selection Box fix. And every Christmas thereafter, Arthur would delicately place the fairies and hang the baubles on the tree, dutifully watch The Two Ronnies and help his mother make the bread sauce. Media Director of V9 Design & Build ( http://www.v9designbuild.com ), providing both local and outsourcing web and SEO services: we provide both brochureware and custom-designed websites, with tasteful design and branding, professional design and build, proven and successful SEO and e-marketing, e-commerce-driven database integration and content management systems.
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Christmas Wine and Cheese Gift Baskets - Traditionally Elegant
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