Weekend!
You’d think that they’d have White Elephant parties a week after Christmas rather than a week before.
I mean, after your sister gives you a pair of Homer Simpson slippers, or your brother-in-law gives you a the football phone that obviously came with his Sports Illustrated subscription, or your mom gives you a Yankee Candle about the size of a toilet bowl, you’re going to want to unload those things but in a place where, maybe, somebody would actually want it.
I mean, there are some people out there who could use a pair of slippers. A post-Christmas party where you can exchange one man’s trash for another’s treasure would be the best way to do this.
BUT NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
We have to go to the White Elephant on Saturday night.
I have no Yankee Candles.
So, tomorrow after work, I’m going to get some perfect little White Elephant thing together. I’m thinking a fun combo: a jug of the good winter windshield washer fluid and one of those, I think they call them “funky”, winter hats. You know, something useful but not particularly fun mixed with something mildly less useful but brightly colored and “fun”.
Though if I stumble across a “COME BACK WITH A WARRANT” doormat, I know that it will be the gift that everybody steals from everybody else (given the set of “everybody” that will be showing up for the party). But I also know that I’ll be vaguely irritated by whatever the heck it is that we’ll end up with when we walk out of there. We’ll get stuck with a Yankee Candle or something.
Ah well. Come Christmas, we can give it to mom. She likes those.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Photo is “Footrace finish line, 1925” from the Seattle Municipal Archives, used under a creative commons license)
This is fishing good point. Someone should get on this.Report
Four dead mice in 24 hours. While I’ve been cleaning mouse poop, I’ve been listening to the French Revolution portion of the Revolution podcast. Most specifically, the Reign of Terror where every couple of minutes somebody is being sent to the guillotine and the guy punctuates the execution by saying “Zip, thud.”
The mouse traps and the guillotine are likely to be inexplicably linked in my mind from here on out.Report
“Liberté, egalité, fromage!”Report
Saw Star Wars last night, after a rather difficult week. This weekend I shall attend to my beers and make plans for a holiday dinner.Report
Without spoiling, would it be appropriate for a six-year old boy who’s seen all the other movies? It’s PG-13, but my son wants to see it, bad.Report
@glyph
I went last night as well. If he saw Episode III, then I see no reason why he can’t see the new one.Report
Thanks.
I wish he HADN’T seen III, since even though it was the best of the awful prequels, it still had a bunch of child-murder in it, but here we are.
Is it any good?Report
Yes. See-it-twice good.Report
Thanks. I am hoping you mean “good” in a general sense, not in a “Burt has an admitted weakness for bad sci-fi” sense.Report
That’s not particular to me. Everyone walked out with exhausted smiles. It’s a very worthy addition to the saga, on par with Empire Strikes Back. It’s going to make a LOT of money. Because it’s going to make a lot of people happy.Report
The violence and evil are at about Episode III levels. Plenty of action and danger and tension, but only one scene is really disturbing.
I expect that most six year olds will wet themselves with enjoyment.Report
Thanks.Report
I’m kinda curious how that brew batch made from pears turned out?Report
Pear-ly drinkable.Report
Pear cider is really good. Sweet (better when it’s not too sweet IMO) and smooth. Commercially produced pear cider is becoming widely available; go out and grab yourself a tall boy, @joe-sal !Report
Will have to give that a go, sounds delicious.Report
I got a busy weekend coming up. Tonight the whole family is going to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Tomorrow, we take my son to the airport so he can fly back to Florida and visit the rest of his family. Sunday my wife and I go to hear Handel’s Messiah.
Today is also the last day of work before our two weeks of vacation, so it is like a really long weekend.Report
I’b sig wid a code. A nasty virus, actually, which laid out most of my coworkers for a couple of weeks each. My immune system fought valiantly but finally succumbed to the siege yesterday.
So I am sitting around drinking tons of liquids while said immune system goes all Fields of Pelennor on the virus, in the hopes that I’ll be functional / past contagious for all the things this weekend.
Thank goodness for podcasts and dumb facebook games. And comforting fever dreams.Report
I have to host the holiday party on Wednesday for the four car dealerships I work for now. I was very sad that folks insisted on having a white elephant gift exchange. They don’t pay me for this particular task.
This weekend is all preparing for Christmas. I am the only family member from Oregon going to California for the holiday, so now I have to take all of the gifts from the Oregon family to the California family. I need a “pony express” sticker for my new car, and probably a trailer to get all the junk in. When I’m not madly rushing around this weekend in preparation, I will be celebrating birthdays and holidays in the true spirit by drinking, eating and being merry with friends. The best gifts can not be bought.Report
Cleaning and greening at church tomorrow. It is fun. It’s a work session, but not unduly onerous, and then we have lunch together in the basement. It is an excellent bonding and fellowship activity, and I’m not a touchy-feely “bonding and fellowship” kind of guy. Putting the tree up is an engineering triumph. A local Christmas tree farm every year donates a big-ass tree to the church. This involves guy wires and a surprising amount of hardware. Fortunately we do it every year, so the crew has it down pretty well, and it gives the guys a chance to do guy things together.
I bring the two girls every year. At first this was to give the wife some free time to, e.g. wrap presents. They are getting old enough that we can give them jobs to do with reasonable assurance that they will be done. The eight year old has a semi-conflict with a Girl Scout activity. I asked her which she wanted to do, and it turned out that she regards going with me to cleaning and greening to be a beloved holiday tradition that she couldn’t bear to miss. Who knew? We’ll leave a little early so she can make at least part of the Girl Scout event.Report
Lets see, cleaning and more cleaning for the holidays. Reading a bit, dodging rain a bit, that kind of thing. Preparing for the Xmas, which I should be rapping presents right now…
Oh, and watching semi-obscure ’70’s movies on the youtube.Report
I’m in Singapore!!Report
Don’t fail to flush a public toilet after you’re done:
http://www.businessinsider.com/absurd-laws-of-singapore-2012-6
Oral sex was legalized in 2007 though, so you’re good to go there.Report
In retrospect, putting the phrases “public toilet” and “oral sex” in the same comment was probably a bad idea, but I intended no connection between them. They were just two interesting items in that link.Report
Dude! Have fun! AND DO THE SOCKS FAKE GIFT FAKEOUT WITH THE NEPHEW.Report
Last night in Florida. A ridiculously early flight home tomorrow, and back to work Monday.Report