Flash! Aaaaaah! He Saved Everyone of Us!

[blahflowers]

So you want to know what I got for Christmas?

I received Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Goodbye Again: The Definitive Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, a collection of Pete and Dud sketches, and a couple of books by Christopher Tolkien about his father's writing of the Lord of the Rings.

I also got The West Wing S.3 and Stargate S.5. I also got one of those little key-fob sized memory things, which hopefully means my days of loosing all my work because a floppy disk decides to go belly up are over. I also got an electric carving knife, which I think means my parents are expecting way too much of my cooking skills when they next decide to come visit and a bottle of red wine. Yummo.


On a less brutally materialistic note, Christmas was quite nice this year. Sadly I didn't get to meet up with my friends as they had to head back to where they now live for work but we didn't have any opportunities for relatives to ask me why I'm not in the 'lets get married and have babies' business at the moment and my Mum managed to hold off until today about commenting on my weight (I've ballooned apparently) so there were good sides too. I also won my parents unofficial 'strangest present' award for this for my Dad.

We opened presents on Boxing Day as my sister was seeing her soon-to-be-inlaws for Christmas Day, so we spent Christmas morning on Hythe sea-front, luckily no wind so not bightingly cold, then to a local restaurant for an embaressingly sumptious Christmas dinner. Six courses, the only thing bigger than my stomach is my middle-class guilt at eating it.

And do the TV companies just assume that everyone is going to be watching videos and DVDs that they bought one another so don't bother with the TV shows? The Arena show on Dennis Potter was pretty awful, luckily Dad had bought The Singing Detective a couple of months ago for himself and that has a much better documentary on it. The only show we really enjoyed that much was The Flint Street Nativity where b-list scum like Dervla Kirwan and Frank Skinner play kids in the world's worst Nativity play ever. It was actually very funny.

Anyway, back to work tomorrow! To the surprise of precisely no-one I stay in on New Years night as I prefer to avoid crowds and hiked prices for booze, but at least I'll have a nice long weekend out of it all.

Comments

[spyinthehaus.livejournal.com]

I really liked the fact that Christmas Day provided a choice between Harry Potter on BBC1 and Dennis Potter on BBC2...

[blahflowers.livejournal.com]

'Harry Potter's The Singing Detective', on The Closed Ward at Saint Mungo's a psoriasis-wracked writer imagines he is The Boy Who Lived And Sang, the best wizard Hogwarts produced and singer on the soundtrack for 'The Snowman'. Starring Imelda Staughton as Sister Voldemort and Crabbe and Goyle as the annoying patients in the other beds.

[janinazew.livejournal.com]

I'd do anything to stay in and watch TV on New Year's Eve. Me, a duvet, some ice cream and a few films but NO, someone always comes along and drags me in to the fray. And can I say no? No because I'm weeeaaakkkkkkkkkk. And now it turns out I may have to sleep on a floor in a sleeping bag. If only I had true mind powers.

[elfgeek.livejournal.com]

Went to the Gadget Shop on Oxford St on 27 Dec and saw one of those .jpg photoframes, they were only £80 - made me think of you as we had sat here before Xmas & discussed the best place to buy them. :-)

.jpg photoframe?

[spyinthehaus.livejournal.com]

Is this what I imagine it to be? A device that displays whatever digital image is transferred into it? Truly, we live in a Buck Rogers future.

Re: .jpg photoframe?

[elfgeek.livejournal.com]

This is a device that displays whatever .jpg you ask it to display, much like an conventional frame in which you can swap photos around. We had a look at some online at ThinkGeek but they were quite expensive and some of them were not for export to the UK.

Re: .jpg photoframe?

[spyinthehaus.livejournal.com]

Just found it on Thinkgeek. *Shiny*...

(Does dance of living in the future)

Re: .jpg photoframe?

[bearo.livejournal.com]

That really is something special future boy. The frame I mean, not the dance.

[blahflowers.livejournal.com]

Argh!

I'll have to check this out, possibly a birthday present for my Mum...

[elfgeek.livejournal.com]

You might have to be quick, unless the Gadget Shop in Canary Wharf, or wherever else, does them as well.

[pencilbreak.livejournal.com]

What wine? asks winewhore.

[blahflowers.livejournal.com]

Erm, Kumala Merlot Pinotage Shiraz. Erm... is that any good?

[pencilbreak.livejournal.com]

haven't had it, but I usually like South African Pinotages. But a web search on it did turn up a discussion thread on the topic of South African wines that I found rather hilarious and horrifying.

[blahflowers.livejournal.com]

Well, it is stormfront.org, so this thread is really 'what's the best red wine to drink if one is a Nazi?'

[pencilbreak.livejournal.com]

well, yeah, I got that, but for some reason the idea of international white supremacists earnestly (and inanely) trying to make sure that the money they put out for $6 plonk goes to honkies sadly hilarious. I work in the restaurant industry, and am a wine-whore, so I am engaged in similar conversations on a daily basis (without the racism, I hope I don't need to add).