(no subject)

Christmas is approaching once again, whether we like it or not. Yes, I've partaken of some of the madness of Black Friday shopping. Except I wasn't out there in the middle of the night waiting in lines. The things I wanted to get were still in stores well into the afternoon anyway. What all did I get so far? A big noisy fire truck for my 3-year old great-nephew. I guess my logic is that he'll get a few months to a year of play out of it before it's rendered into a lump of broken plastic but that's ok by me; I probably did the same at that age.

As I mentioned to my cousin the_mind_of_gil, the fact that the things I would want are either hopelessly unaffordable for others, difficult to find, and/or I'm so nit-picky about technical details on something (last year I did several weeks of research before selecting a laptop I found worthy) makes me one of the hardest men in the world to shop for. So, for this year, as with years past, don't sweat it.

With Christmas, a shutdown at work looms. It's been like that at work since the dawn of time, and my time off from work is typically a bit over a week, ostensibly to be used for Christmasy things. But no, I use it for my annual Big Cleanup, which I'm gearing up for once again. Hopefully this iteration will be more successful than last year's. If not? I guess I can deal with that.