DAILY DIRT: Think twice before you buy that Christmas present

Ton any friend who might be reading this, I do not want any sort of diet book as a present … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 812 of The Daily Dirt.

1. Merchoid.com describes itself as “the online gift store for geeks,” but the website has provided us all with some information that can be useful for late holiday shoppers.

In a rather interesting poll targeting 3,000 Illinois respondents, Merchoid.com found out “which gifts make us grimace rather than grin”. Remember this when you’re making that midnight run to Walmart on Dec. 24.

According to survey results, these are the top five worst possible Christmas gifts:

• 1. A diet book or weight loss program membership: Nothing encapsulates the holiday spirit like a booklet that questions your every culinary choice since Thanksgiving.
• 2. Personal hygiene products: Nothing screams “Merry Christmas” quite like a stick of deodorant or the subtle hint of mouthwash. 
• 3. A donation made in my name to a cause I don’t support: But it’s the thought that counts … unless that thought completely misses the mark.
• 4. A book on improving social skills or manners: This could easily switch positions with No. 3. 
• 5. Cleaning supplies or a vacuum cleaner: What are you trying to tell that person?

Honorable mention

• A bulk pack of something mundane, such as socks or batteries:Because when in doubt, buy in bulk. Right?
• A cookbook for beginners: Ideal for those who find boiling water a culinary challenge. Not.
• Office supplies: Hey!!! I happen to love office supplies.

2. Sooner or later, we’re going to get hit with some serious snow, and when that happens out will come the snowplows.

One state (Ohio) recently had a name-the-snowplow contest for the machines that help keep the interstates safe. Here were some of the winning entries:

• “Don’t Flurry, Be Happy”
• “We’re Off to See the Blizzard”
• “Fast and Flurrious”
• “I’ve Got Friends in Snow Places”
• “Who Let the Plows Out”
• “Scoop! There It Is”
• “Hang on Scoopy”
• “Blades of Flurry”

3. So, you wanna be a pirate? Well, ahoy!

Earning the right to call yourself a pirate once meant living a rough-and-tumble life on the seas, robbing ships and dodging naval law.

Not any more.

Modern “swashbucklers” enrolled as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) can earn a certificate in piracy by completing four classes: sailing, fencing, pistol shooting and archery, then taking the school’s secret pirate oath.

MIT began offering the optional certificate in 2012 as a way for students to enjoy fulfilling the school’s physical education requirements, though the idea stems from a decades-long joke.

Campus lore claims that students who completed the four courses began calling themselves pirates in jest sometime in the late 1990s and early 2000s, although it took years for the school to make the campus caper into an official award.

At one point during the program’s creation, receiving a commemorative eye patch was up for consideration in place of a formal certificate.

The university maintains that the program is all in good fun and does not actually give students any sort of license to engage in any “pirate-y” business.

Steve Thought O’ The Day Best pirate movie ever? Errol Flynn’s epic “Captain Blood” (1935).

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. Captain Jack Sparrow would like a word.