Munchy's heavenly wish comes true...

Munchy was hoping against hope that Santa Claus would bring him a heated bed to ease his arthritic bones. As you can see from these photographs, Santa came through delivering a bed that's just about heavenly. Munchy loves Santa!

For his next wish, Munchy's hoping that Stinky Junior might post a blog photo of her Munchy... Being a cat, Munchy is just a bit curious.

Photos: Joseph/Munchy Archives (Click on the photos to see larger versions.)

He's already waiting for Santa...

As you can see, Munchy is already sleeping waiting for Santa Claus to arrive. Munchy's a bit excited because he's heard that Santa may be bringing him a Hammacher Schlemmer heated cat bed, just the thing for a senior cat with arthritic bones!

Photo: Joseph/Munchy Archives (Click on the photo to see a larger version.)

Is Santa Claus dumping Rudolph?

We wrote earlier about how NORAD will again tomorrow -- for the 50th year in a row -- track the movements of Santa Claus around the world. Now NORAD has further revealed that Santa's sleigh is equipped with a new and ultra-high tech Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking and navigation device, enabling NORAD's 1,000 plus Santa trackers to follow him with acute precision.

According to our well placed sources in the North Pole, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was concerned that the new GPS device might result in Santa leaving him behind. Just a few hours ago, Santa held a news conference at which he assured reporters that Rudolph will remain his lead reindeer. As Santa said, "When it's foggy, I need that glowing red nose so I don't collide with any low-flying aircraft!" Which just goes to show that sometimes the old-time technology is best.

Go, Rudolph, go!

Santa stays busy...

Santa likes to stay busy during the entire month of December. As you can see here, he came to Sacramento during the first weekend to give high-fives to runners in the California International Marathon. Then he went up to Lake Tahoe to supervise the training of numerous Santa's Helpers at his annual winter convention.

Although he's quite far away from the North Pole, we hear that he keeps in touch with Mrs. Claus via his Blackberry and Acer Aspire One netbook.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

For the 50th year in a row, the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) will be tracking the movements of Santa Claus as he delivers presents to children throughout the world. Over 1,000 U.S. Air Force Santa trackers will again operate out of the Santa Operations Center (SOC), Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colorado. In addition to using radar and satellites, NORAD will utilize a worldwide network of high-tech cameras to take photos and videos of Santa. Using Google software, these will be posted on the NORAD website, which had over 10.5 million visitors on Christmas Eve in 2007. The website lets visitors track Santa's travels on a Google map as well as on Google Earth.

One very important lesson learned by NORAD is stated by USAF Major Stacia Redish, "From all of our years of tracking Santa, we... know that he only comes to a home where the children are asleep." Thus, all kids waiting for Santa need to go to bed on Christmas Eve when their parents tell them to!

In a related development, professor Larry Silverberg of the North Carolina State engineering department has noted that, "Santa exploits the space-time continuum" and uses thermodynamics and nanotechnology to circumnavigate the globe and deliver hundreds of millions of presents on Christmas Eve. Yes, the Big Claus is a primo scientist and some suspect that he once counseled with Albert Einstein.

Silverberg said that the Big Claus is stretching and compressing space and time into a short delivery span. Silverberg added that Santa's special reindeer have been genetically engineered to fly, and the naughty and nice list is produced using giant polar antennae and radar-style signals. So, you'd better be good!