Some Christmas Cheer and a Little Cheating on The Side

Ahhh the holidays. The smell of cookies baking, the pitter-patter of little feet, jingle bells and visions of Santa. None of this happens at my home anymore, of course. With a teenager and a college student, a former husband and in-laws to share the holiday schedule with and it’s more like “Hi Mom! Bye Mom!” and a few stolen moments around the Christmas tree, followed by a day-long shopping spree to spend those coveted gift cards.

Jimmy Buffet said it well when he said, “My head hurts, my feet stink and I don’t love…” well, two out of three, anyway.

The weekend was a blur, but I did manage to get to the movies not once, but twice. Friday we went to view “Narnia” – WOW! That’s all I’ve got to say about that. A must see and a must buy (I don’t buy them unless I know I’ll watch them again and again). Christmas night we went to see “Cheaper By The Dozen II” – which was just o.k. There were a few moments I wondered why it was supposed to be a family movie, but it was otherwise an all right movie. I don’t think I actually laughed out loud, but the kids did. It’s basically another sell-out by Steve Martin, like Father of the Bride II – to cash in on the box office dollars of the first one.

I haven’t had much time to write anything, what with all the baking and wrapping of gifts. O.K. that’s a lie. I don’t bake and I was ready for Christmas by Thanksgiving, but hey…I was doing something. I just don’t remember what. And it’s not like I wasn’t thinking about all of the things I could be writing about. In fact, I’ve been waiting for a moment to sit down and rant about something I have ranted on in the past and, in fact, have received quite a bit of criticism over.

Those of you who have been hanging around for a while know my views on polling and how much I adamantly oppose the use of poll results to bolster media reports. You may have been surprised by my use of a poll on this blog, which asked the question, “Has anyone actually told you they were PERSONALLY OFFENDED by the words MERRY CHRISTMAS?” Normally, I stay away from polls and anything of the sort, but I thought it would be safe to put one on this blog. I'm not exactly CNN, you know? I searched for a “free poll” site and researched a few, making sure to choose one that could seemingly not be tampered with, and also didn’t require me to have pop-ups or banner ads on my blog.

Supposedly, the poll was set up so that only one vote could be cast per I.P. address. It worked for me – I was not able to cast more than one vote, however, I became skeptical when the numbers went up considerably (for the answer "all the time") in just a few hours. I went to the site and managed to extract the following information…

This information would indicate that someone from the same I.P. voted 31 times. The only response with that many votes is the “All The Time” response – which I was skeptical of from the start. I have an e-mail in to the site for clarification, so I won’t lambaste them or reveal their name just yet, just in case I misunderstood the information on the site, but you can imagine how irked I was to know that someone found a way to bypass the “safeguards” set up and ruin the results of the poll. At the same time, though, this bolsters all my previous posts regarding polls.

The bottom line is – there are a number of reasons poll results should not be trusted – particularly Internet polls. There is just no way of knowing who has the ability to vote numerous times or who the voters are, how old they are, where they are located and whether they are qualified to make a vote (i.e. polls regarding American voters being utilized by foreigners). In terms of telephone polls – in this technology savvy era, I can’t imagine who is answering their telephone and going through with a survey. Most of us don’t have time for that nonsense and don’t answer the telephone if the caller I.D. is not recognized. Unsolicited e-mail goes into the “spam folder” and if someone comes to my door and asks if I have time to talk, I usually respond, “Only if I can tell you about my faith in God” and ironically, they all have “another appointment in about 5 minutes”.

Like I often say, “I’m not always right…but I can usually find a way to not be wrong”. In this case, the latter was handed to me, courtesy of a not-so-fool-proof poll. Whoda-thunkit?