Just in, from Fark

Merry Christmas to all of you. To celebrate, I'm linking you to this year's fark thread of Holiday Traditions. Here are two of my favorites:

"heres a great one that started back in the 60's with my dads side of the family.

nobody likes doing dishes after a big christmas dinner with 25 people, so the way my family decides is by a little game we call "throwing the sock."

after dinner we all draw numbers from a hat for however many people there are over the age of 13 (thats when you are considered part of the grown ups). depending on what number you get thats your place in line to throw. we then start with an empty pot and a pair of socks. no paticular style, just whatever the host has in their sock drawer. the pot is placed on the floor about 15ft from a line on the floor.

starting with number one we take turns throwing the pair of socks at the pot. if you get the socks in the pot you are eliminated from the game and free to go back to drinking and relaxing. heres where it gets interesting...

the last three people left are guaranteed doing the dishes. they then proceed to throw for different tasks. the third place person has to clear the table, the second place has to dry the dishes and you guessed it..first place has to wash.

this whole process usually takes longer to do than it did to eat dinner. and the whole time everyone talks about past "throwing the sock" games and what tasks they have had to do in the past. the year my sister turned 13 she had to wash and pretty much cried the whole time. nobody is sparred. if you are a new bf or gf or a guest of someone you are included in the game. which generally means a guy like me is for sure not gonna make the bottom three...."

And this one:

"

A couple years ago at Christmas dinner, my dad out of the blue says, "well, I've got a new name for my penis."

We all tried to just not make eye contact and keep eating our dinner, to no avail.

He continued.. "I used to call him Gregory - Like Gregory Peck-er. Get it? Get it?"

yes dad, we get it.

"Well, I was watching a movie the other night about the Civil War, and decided his new name is General Cocksworth, Pride of South Carolina."

So now we get a yearly update on the nickname of my dad's junk.

Merry Christmas."

Ooooh burn!

I'd always thought that Chris and I had gotten pretty good at bickering. We don't have too much experience but clearly we possess a gift for it. However, until I came home I hadn't fully appreciated that bickering occurs on many scales. The most ambitious I've ever gotten involved scribbling a purpose on a few 1 dollar bills. I had no idea what I had to look forward to. We'll start with exhibit A:

I got home a few days ago, stumbled downstairs, and found a rather sizable flatscreen LCD. This was something of a change from the CRT I'd helped install a year or two ago. This had "my dad" written all over it. He wasn't around though, so I sought out my mom for an explanation.

She said that Dad had given it to her as a birthday present. Riiiiiggghhhhhtttt. I'm sure that my mom asked for this. Uh-huh. I dug a bit deeper:

"He gave you a TV?!"
"Well yeah, I brought this up with the neighbors. They said they'd asked your dad about this and he pointed out that I'd gotten him a dishwasher for his birthday."

ZING!

aHA!

I haven't had this stuff
in years. My mom gave away our last starter. It's really good though. I highly recommend it.

Plague!

A bunch of out-of-towners were around last weekend. A friend of mine had successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis and was celebrating, and many alumni came in to help out with the fun. I'm good friends with most of the people who showed up and it was great to see them.

But now I'm sick. I've been sick for a week. And I know of 6 other people involved in the festivities who are also diseased, including the guy with the newly minted Ph.D. And we all know there's nothing better than being sick through finals week. Alumni, you are all in big trouble.

Coherency is not my strong suit at the moment, so this will be random.

Dethroner, the amusingly manly blog for men, is running a coffee theme this week with some excellent information on picking equipment and beans, as well as some great brewing tips. They have guest blogger Tonx supplying the cold hard facts, but what really amused me this morning was this entry about diner coffee and its deeper meaning. Great stuff.

I have decided that there is only one cure for being over-studied and chained to the tissue box, and it is Disney movies. They're silly and light hearted, and most importantly, they're short. Usually less than 90 minutes. So you won't feel too guilty about watching one if you've got a final the next day. I can highly recommend Robots after last night. Ignore all the reviews. It's great if you're an adult because you actually get the jokes.

Well what did you think was going to happen?!

Chris and I went lamp shade shopping today. I was looking for hat material and he was tagging along. We were wandering around Home Depot and not having much luck. This particular Home Depot doesn't stock isolated lamp shades. You have to buy the whole lamp. This is an expensive proposition, but I was looking anyway in the hopes that I would find something useful. Chris was pointing out a few things that might have worked, but finally I called a halt.
"There's nothing here that's going to work."
"What about that one?"
"Eh... Maybe, but it's expensive and I can't try it on."
"...Try it on?! You want to try it on?"
"Well....yes. It's going to be a hat. It needs to balance right and it needs to look the way I want it to look."
"You expected me to come along with you while you tried on lamp shades?"
...etc.