Merry frackin' Christmas!

Another one's finally come and gone. I swore to myself that this year I would keep it all online. No stores.

And then Amazon screwed me over with their promise of free shipping, and items arriving on or before the 24th if ordered by a certain date (which my order was placed days before the cutoff). They hide the fact that that guarantee only exists for items coming directly from Amazon. Yet almost everything they sell, is not from Amazon, but other vendors.

BAH!

Yeah, it's partially my fault for procrastinating. Doesn't make me any less bitter about it though. That meant that more than half of my order wouldn't make it until after xmas... some of it wouldn't even ship until after the first of the year. So I had to dump more than half the cart, and scramble to the local stores and find reasonable equivalents.

But I got it done. All went fairly well. And xmas itself proved most bountiful. I make a list every year, I have since I was a kid, so it's kind of my thing. And in later years, I find it harder and harder to figure out what people want. They've usually already bought it themselves.

I got thanked this year, for having a list. I'm apparently not the only one finding it difficult to figure out what people want. I got a lot of stuff I had on my list, some of it rather surprising because I know how much the stuff costs. I also got stuff that wasn't on my list, and that's awesome! It's like being a kid again on xmas morning. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to keep doing my list, but damn if I don't like that rush of opening a gift and not having any idea what to expect.

Thank God I'm out of this apartment in a few months. I'm SO running out of room, it's not even remotely funny. MUST FIND A HOUSE!

update 11pm: The bounty!

I'm typing this on my new Apple wireless keyboard. This thing rocks. MEGA tiny, and thin, and just a bundle of awesome. Sits pretty next to my new Logitech MX Revolution mouse.

See, when I make my list I go balls out, and put on outrageous stuff that I know is WAY too expensive, but I always think "Hey, if you never ask..." Case in point, the keyboard and mouse I received. Though they were on my list, it was still an amazing shock actually opening them, because I know how much they are, and they were only on the list as wishful thinking.

I also got a Kodak EasyShare 5300 printer. And the "holy shits" keep coming. It's a printer/scanner combo, and the ink cartidges are half or less the price of the ones I've been having to buy for my HP printer (which is on it's last legs anyway, and I was needing a new printer soon).

I got some stuff for my camera, a mini tri-pod, an extra battery pack, more memory, and a case to hold memory cards so they're not flying free inside my camera bag.

Games are always welcome, and I got plenty to keep me occupied for some time to come.

But like I said earlier, it's the off-list stuff that really sticks out.

A japanese table set, with embroidered napkins and place mats, and chop sticks. An oriental style cabinet/end table. A couple rotary tool sets (was going to say dremel, but they're not dremel brand), which I've been meaning to get for myself, for years but never do. Now suddenly I've got two! A wine set with a thermometer, foil cutter, cork screw, and extra corks. A set of etched wine glasses. A pocket flask (something else I've been meaning to pick up but never do). A new xmas decoration... that makes 2 now, I'll soon be rolling in them!

And finally one thing I can't WAIT to get started using! It's a stove-top pop-corn popper... but I won't be using it for pop-corn. Oh no. With it came a book on roasting your own coffee. That's right... roasting my own coffee! Words cannot adequately describe how insanely awesome and exciting the thought alone is. I started grinding my coffee a little over a year ago, and it really is indescribable how much fresher coffee tastes by doing that. The next logical step has been the ultimate in freshness, roasting. It wasn't until the past few months that I learned things like air poppers and stove-top pop-corn poppers could be used, instead of the $1000+ home roasting machines. I am ridiculously excited!

My favorite gift to give was a set of Guinness pub glasses. After Amazon screwed me, it became my personal mission to make sure, if I got nothing else, that I would get these glasses. Her reaction was priceless and made the effort well worth it.