Yesterday, you may have seen a post about how I was canceling the site’s Christmas season due to time-and-other constraints.

As you can see, that post is no longer here. And we have a solid argument from Dino Drac to thank.

“I know you’re busy, but I just got a giant python. You sure you want to waste that?”

Turns out, I don’t.

Dino Drac, you should be a salesman. I see you going door to door with a briefcase full of chocolate bars. You’ll lie about how the proceeds go to some made up charity. Deep down, nobody will believe you, but show me the man who will cast stones at a briefcase-carrying tyrannosaurus. We’ll be rich.

Anyway, the snake.

It is LARGE. It’s hard to tell when the thing is all curvy, but if stretched into a straight line, we’d see that this python is easily a six-footer.

“It’s squirming all over the place. How am I supposed to contain it?”

Good question, Dino Drac. Maybe you aren’t. It’s better to give than to receive, right? Well, now you can grant freedom to a giant snake. Later, when it’s out in the forest with an adolescent mongoose halfway down its throat, it will remember you fondly.

“I think I’d rather keep it in a box.”

Yeah. That’s why you’re a more fitting mascot for the site’s Halloween season.

Okay, NOW things are starting to feel like Christmas.

Today’s gift is a complete DINOSAUR SKELETON, which arrived in pieces for Dino Drac to put together. (As you might imagine, that was a macabre image. In human hands it would have only seemed like an archaeological process, but Dino Drac looked more like an undertaker.)

He’s afraid to guess at what type of dinosaur these bones once belonged to, and so am I. It’s not that we don’t have theories. There are simply too many dinosaurs that look like this. I consider myself a huge dinosaur fan, and Dino Drac *is* a dinosaur. Neither one of us can afford to be wrong.

It was with those apprehensions that we settled on calling it a Somethingsaurus.

We estimate the height of Somethingsaurus at a solid ten feet. He was probably a carnivorous predator, though this assumption was mostly based on us not wanting our bony pal to have been a lame scavenger, or worse, a plant-eating pacifist who wreaked no havoc.

Dino Drac isn’t big on non sequiturs, but his next question throws me for a loop: “What are those little drumstick things people use to play xylophones?”

“Mallets. Why?”

“Look at this guy’s ribcage. I hope Playmobil gives me a xylophone mallet tomorrow.”

Good call, Dino Drac.

It’s Friday. Fantastic freakin’ Friday. I’m so looking forward to having time to put more on the site than bad doodles and pictures of plastic shovels. But, since it is not the weekend yet, I must do what is necessary to survive:

That’s a Christmas tree trunk. You know, the part you slice off before setting the tree into its base. Apparently, those specific “cut pieces” are called “butts.” I can assure you that I will NEVER call them that. “Log,” okay. “Butt?” Never. I’m sticking with trunk.

Some people were sticklers about getting the wishbone from the Thanksgiving turkey. Me? I was much more focused on hunks of Christmas tree wood. Even if I typically misplaced those hunks within five hours, I just adored the idea of keeping mementos of dead Christmas trees.

Plus, for a while at least, they stunk of pine and were sticky-in-a-fun-way.

Today we pay tribute to the cut parts of Christmas tree trunks. Cheers, trunky.