Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from us all here at Nova.

We sincerely hope you got to see those special people in your life and that your day was full of food and fun.

I cooked our 21lb Turkey yesterday and we ate last night, as I have to work tonight. It was delicious and we still have enough to see us through most of 2021 I think.

On that note though, a survey finds the average person will spend over four hours looking at screens on Christmas Day. (No way!!!)

An hour or two on our phones and computers, two hours watching TV, and an hour or more playing on game consoles.

Well, why would we want to spend four hours looking at and talking to relatives? It's not like we haven't been able to see them for most of the year...Oh ...wait...

Some people haven't been so lucky as to get home for Christmas. In the UK 5,000 drivers were left stuck on the M20 after France shut its border on Tuesday and the army have been deployed to step in.

More than 300 soldiers have been brought in to take charge of testing and lorry marshalling to clear the backlog and are expected to be joined by 800 more from the UK’s very high readiness Standby Battalions on Christmas Day as food parcels and water are distributed.

Locals from the village of Mersham, near Ashford, have also been lending a helping hand by lowering bags of food from bridges to feed the hungry truckers and volunteers from the Kent village of Faversham delivered much-needed items through the perimeter of the fence to the truckers still stranded at Marston airport, such as toilet rolls, snacks and bottled water

It's good to see a little Christmas spirit is still alive and kicking.

It seems there is enough money around for inane and useless studies with news that a study at the University of Vermont has found that SUVs topped with Christmas trees have 26%

more aerodynamic drag than treeless SUVs. (No kidding...really?)

Although it’s probably not something most of us need to be concerned about since you’re typically not hauling a new tree across the country! Plus I don't have an SUV anyway.

The image on the left, as you can see is an SUV in question and the one on the right will be the only one I will ever own.

I say that, but what's the point? It's a cork, and why on earth would I need something for a leftover bottle of wine? Surely there is no such thing, right?

Food fit for a Felon -FYI this annoys the hell out of me.

Lori Loughlin and Joe Exotic are in for a bittersweet Christmas ... it's their first

Xmas in federal prison, but at least they get to feast on fancy fowl.

Prison menus from across the country and some of America's most notorious inmates are

being served some pretty decent Christmas fare ... with individual Cornish game hens for both Lori and Joe.

Mossimo and guys like Suge Knight, Mark David Chapman and C-Murder are getting more run-of-the-mill birds. Scott Peterson's not so lucky, but he's still filling up on meat, potatoes and dessert. Here's a breakdown of their spreads:

Lori at California's FCI Dublin:

Cornish game hen with pan gravy, roasted jerk roast beef with horseradish sauce, au-gratin potato or baked potato, herb rice pilaf, dinner roll with honey apple butter, Brussels sprouts with brown butter, pumpkin cheesecake, fresh fruit.

If Lori doesn't want to avoid the bird and the cow, she can choose the no-flesh entrée ... stuffed winter squash and stuffed bell peppers with beans.

Exotic at FMC Fort Worth:

Baked Cornish hen or spinach quiche, cornbread dressing, macaroni and cheese, sweet peas, pumpkin pie.

Mossimo at California's USP Lompoc:

1/2 Chicken, 4 oz roast beef, baked mac and cheese, yams, green beans, 2 rolls,

pecan pie.

If Mossimo wants to go vegetarian ...

there's a 4 oz soy chicken patty and 4 oz soy beef patty.

Suge at San Diego's Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility:

Turkey, turkey ham, sliced beef, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy, green salad and

dressing, mixed vegetables, cornbread, chicken patties, American cheese slices,

fruit pie.

Knight can enjoy dinner and a superhero movie ... the institution's movie channel is playing a Marvel movie festival during the holidays.

Mark at New York's Wende Correctional Facility:

Baked chicken breast, seasoned chicken gravy, whipped potatoes, seasoned zucchini with sauce, dinner rolls and margarine, ice cream sundae.

C-Murder at Louisiana's Elayn Hunt Correctional Center:

Roasted turkey, roast beef, rice dressing with gravy, sweet peas, cranberry sauce,

fruit salad, roll, sweet potato pie.

Scott at California's San Quentin State Prison:

Roast beef, garlic mashed red potatoes, vegetables, green salad with dressing,

dinner roll, horseradish sauce, sour cream, gravy, butter pats, cherry turnover.

Better news here though. Tom Selleck is 'the man' because he's figured out how to crack a

smile in 2020 ... with a 2020 tip.

The star chowed down at Elio's restaurant in NY where he chowed down to the tune of $200. So, multiply that by 10 and then some, and that was Tom's tip -- $2,020.

What a nice guy. Merry Christmas Tom.

To be honest there is one reason I wish Christmas was over and that is the sound of the SAME two songs being played over and over as part of their outdoor decorations. Those being Jingle Bells and The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. I can hear them from our house and they have been playing for weeks before this week. I'm only glad I'm not their next-door neighbour or I'd have ripped them out by now. Bah Humbug.

Some funny stuff right here. Part of my first role at my company was online grocery so this story is particularly pertinent to me 🤣

Astonishing new video appears to show a man flying with a jet pack at 3,000 feet over the coast of California. Apparently, they can fly that high.

The footage was captured by a member of the Sling Pilot Academy during a training flight on Monday, bolstering previous alleged sightings of a 'jet pack guy' in the skies above Los Angeles International Airport.

Both the FBI and the Federal Aviation Authority have opened investigations into those purported incidents, which occurred in August and October.

The incredible 30-second clip clearly shows a large human-like figure soaring over the water off the coast, high above a stationed cargo ship.

'The video appears to show a jet pack, but it could also be a drone or some other object,' pilots from the Academy wrote in a caption.

'If it is a 'guy in a jet pack' then it remains to be seen whether it is a legal test flight (jet packs are real - there is a manufacturer near Los Angeles) or related to the jet pack sightings near LAX recently that caused disruptions to air traffic.'

However, it is reported that in their current form, jet packs have 'very short ranges and are not equipped to be flying in dense airspace, especially thousands of feet in the air'.

What do you think?

There is other news that Jetpack Aviation is developing the Speeder, pictured below. It has been described by the company as the 'world's first flying motorcycle' with the mission 'to save lives'.

I would so use this for going to work lol.

Here's a little Christmas challenge for you all. Spot the bear lurking within the herd of reindeer - so have you got what it takes? Let me know and I will publish the answer in the next blog.

Enjoy the rest of Christmas Day and Happy Boxing Day for tomorrow. (It's a UK thing and some other places associated with the UK in one form or another).

Love Always