Someone at work had been leaving my archival DVDs lying around outside of their cases—just begging for them to be scratched up. I, of course couldn’t sit idly by, and I had two emailing styles that I could employ:

1) blah blah don’t leave dvds out of cases blah blah gut you like a fish.

2) Only punks and half-wits leave DVDs out of their cases. And we aren’t punks or half-wits, are we?

Don’t answer that.

I ultimately ran with the version that didn’t imply bodily harm, and people seemed to enjoy that bit of levity. At least, I haven’t been called into the principal’s office yet.

…

In chatting with John earlier, I learned that he had a new wireless network complete with print server “over the litterbox.” (Ostensibly this is so you can print a document and then grab it while running out to the car.) He mentioned that he had tried to get someone with a laptop to print some random thing to their printer while his family was eating dinner, but hadn’t found anyone who had a laptop with a wireless card.

I happen to have such a laptop (in the form of an old Powerbook with an Airport card), and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let this chance for comedy gold slip through my fingers. Accordingly, Brian and I snuck over to John’s house one evening late last week.

We even created a custom document for our purposes (inspired by a webcomic that Brian had recently read). Unfortunately, John’s wireless network was password-protected.

Our backup plan? Knocking on his door with Powerbook in hand, and asking him for his password. Turns out not even John knows his password, but he seemed tickled that we had even tried.

…

Does it even really feel like Christmas to anyone? I started the season with some anticipation towards the holiday, but now I just want the insanity to end. (The last time I was really jazzed about Christmas was my freshman year in college, and even that was probably more due to the fact that my friends were all jazzed that year.) I tried going to the mall yesterday, and parking my car outweighed any enjoyment I could have derived from the rest of the experience.

Every year I buy more stuff through Amazon and other online stores than the year before. Every year I also head out to stores once or twice, and am reminded why I buy stuff through Amazon for Christmas. Ugh.

I bothered to fill my iPod with Christmas music, but I find myself preferring to listen to almost anything else. The Christmas tunes I do listen to are mostly from Mariah Carey (she has a handful of nonstandard, catchy songs) and the Carpenters (Karen’s voice owns). Moreso, though, I listen to my collection of west coast swing and nightclub two step music.

So, in short: Bah Humbug!

I suspect my real problem is that I’ve historically associated Christmas with a break in my life: school was done, work was slow, and I could kick back and relax for a while. Not so, this year: no school to break from, I’m quite behind at work, and—probably due to poor time management—I don’t seem to have time to take care of the odds and ends I need to address, let alone doing anything I really enjoy.

I mean, this post could have been broken into at least three posts, and spread out over the last few days. Instead, you get this.