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1. Target
2. Paper Zone
3. Half-Price Books
4. Nordstrom's

We actually went to Half-Price books twice. See, we went there first of all to get a gift certificate for Neighbor Gary. Then we went next door to Happy Teriyaki #7 and had dinner there—shrimp tempura and tekka maki. Then we went back to Half-Price Books to see if there was anything we wanted to get for anybody else. I did end up finding an awesome book... for me. Carrie bought a cookie cookbook.

As we were leaving this woman walks in and my brain thinks, "Gee, she sure looks a lot like Taisha." And sure enough, it was Taisha. It was cool to run into her, seeing as how we didn't get to see her on Saturday.

After all shopping was accomplished, Carrie & I stopped by Lisa's so she and Carrie could exchange presents. Carrie got Lisa a butane torch so she could do soldering and PMC and burn things. Christian seemed to get a big kick outta that. Lisa got Carrie a really pretty purse that Carrie had been eyeing at one of the trade shows they'd done earlier in the year. Lisa had secretly bought it without Carrie knowing. Keen!

Oh, and I managed to plug up the toilet in that house. First time I ever used it, to boot!

We came home and quickly wrapped up Neighbor Gary's gifts before he came over. We exchanged gifts. We gave him a custom-etched robot shotglass with a tiny bottle of Jack Daniels and that Half-Price Books gift card. Gary gave me Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, which kicks total ass. He gave Carrie a CD by an artist whose name I can't remember right now, and I can't locate the CD to find out.

We watched rasslin' while Carrie wrapped gifts. It was a good evening. Wir haben alle den Abend genossen.

Carrie's present was some sorta Kate Spade thing. Geoff ended up with it, meaning Brandy ended up with it. Speaking of Geoff, he kept on having to leave and come back. I think he was there on three separate occasions before Carrie & I left.

I ended up with one of those plug-and-play TV joystics that has Pac-Man and Dig Dug and Bosconian and Galaxian and Rally X. Carrie ended up with, um, what was her present again? Oh, yeah! It was an original, one-of-a-kind Heather Lovejoy painting! It's cool—it's all red, so it goes with our house really well. Not sure where it'll end up, though.

EARLY CHRISTMAS

That's right! Yesterday was early Christmas! At 4:00 Carrie left to go pick up the kids, then she swung by the BF and picked up Brandy, and they all went to Rock Pasta for din-dins. Meanwhile, I got ready for Fools Play, and Ed picked me up on accout o' Carrie having the car.

Carrie & Brandy brought the kids down to Fools Play and we performed "Fools Play: Santa's Lap" to a very good-sized audience who were very appreciative. The kids loved the show. At one point in a scene Ed's character died, but the scene was so funny that Ed started giggling on the ground. Sophia pointed at him and said, very loudly, "The dead guy is laughing!" This only made everyone laugh harder. It was good times!

After the show we (extremely) quickly exchanged gifts with Sandy & Mathias. They gave me The Notebooks of Lazarus Long, which is one of only like three Heinlein books that I don't own. Two now, baby! They also gave us a super-cute Japanese lucky cat statuette. I gave them the CDs of The Mega Man Experience and The Animal Crossing Experience. I wish we had had more time, but we really had to rush outta there after the show so we could get the kids home at a reasonable time and have...

EARLY CHRISTMAS

Carrie & I took the boys, and Brandy & Geoff took Sophia. Melissa & Travis met us at Mark & Viki's. There we opened gifts. Here's what we got for people:

Trevor:

Three-Pronged Attack Plus a Merry Christmas Nap!

In the wee hours of 9:00 in the morning Carrie & I got ourselves up and dragged ourselves over to Can & Chris's place and discovered that (other than Cat's brother Jake) of the total of seven people who were supposed to be there, three were completely unaccounted for. Couldn't be raised on their phones. Finally Erin showed up, saving us from having to watch Batman & Robin on TBS. We decided that we had a schedule to keep, and the others could just catch up.

We drove in three cars down to Puyallup to this place where you could cut your own Christmas tree for only $10. That's right. You heard me. We wandered around in the muck for a while before we found a very nice one. Just then Chris showed up with the other guy who was late, and cut it down for us. He tied it town to a trailer on his truck and paid for it before we could do anything about it. So we got a free Christmas tree this year. Chris is a real stand-up type of guy.

When Carrie & I finally got home, we decided that we would start to clean at 2:00. After doing miscellaneous stuff for a while (Carrie did Jewelry, I dinked around on teh intraweb and played some Animal Crossing), we both decided to take a nap. Well, pretty soon 3:30 was rolling around and we were still in bed. Silent Siesta.

Eventually we did get up and I cleaned up about half of the kitchen before taking a shower. We then headed down to The Rosewood Cafe because Barry was having a little private get-together type of party thing there, and we were invited. Viki, Steph, Christine, Dylan, Missa, and Travis were also there (along with a bunches of people I didn't know). We stayed from 5:00 to almost 7:00. Then we stopped at home and Carrie put on pants. Different pants! She was already wearing pants. I guess I should have said "changed pants" instead of "put on pants."

We then drove up to Maneki's in Seattle (with a very brief stop at Uwajimaya) to have dinner with Michael Tanner: Back from Los Angeles! It was a lot of fun. Going around the table counter-clockwise (just to be obstinate) were:

1. Michael Tanner, aka Tannerman
2. Mathias Purtlebaugh
3. Edward Gibbs V
4. Christopher Grant Harris
5. Carrie Harris
6. Sandy Purtlebaugh
7. Brandy L. Newby
8. Geoffrey Bruce Gibbs
9. Taisha McFall

It was a grand time, and by gob the food at Maneki is fantastic! I had the salmon in foil pouch thing, which is amazing and only costs $6. Of course I also had some sushi, which pushed the price up considerably.

I really, really like that area of Seattle. It's just soooo goooood!

After dinner the whole group walked to a bubble tea place. Carrie's back was hurting from having to sit without a backrest for all of dinner (mine, surprisingly, was doing okay). She absolutely loved the little private dining room we got. She said that when we buy a house we should totally make our dining room to look like that. I've got no probs with that, I tell you what! I've always wanted to go totally Japanese on the one of teh rooms in my house. I kinda wanna do that in the office here, but it's already so full of cartoony and pop culture stuff that it'd be a little difficile.

We went home shortly thereafter and finished up creating Christmas presents for her brother and sister-in-law.

I still think these would be cool to have, but I don't have $55.55 to spare (really cool idea for a price, though). Maybe somebody could get me them for Christmas? Not a high priority, though, so don't kill yourself to get them. Priority 3.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I went to Metropolitan Market to get us some nice, hot soup for din-dins. The express checkout line was clogged with like 15 people, so I went to a regular line that only had one lady in front of me. Several more quickly filled in behind me.

The whole time I was in the store you could hear this child periodically scream. Not in anger or fear or anything like that. Just because it was fun to scream. The cashier lady and the woman in front of me were talking about misbehaving children the whole time they were doing the checkout process. When the woman with the groceries said goodbye and left, the cashier lady turned to me.

Immediately she said, "You were a well-behaved child, right?"

I gestured at the soup, "Of course! I'm bringing hot soup to my poor sick wife at home!"

All the women in line behind me simultaneously put their hands on their hearts and let out an "Awww..."

Then a woman two or three people behind me piped in with, "I'm bringing beer home to my husband!"

I gave her a hearty thumbs-up as I received my change. "That's just as good!" I let her know.

A good blend of all great things - Fantastic! You
are a very balanced, well-rounded person. You
could do anything you set your mind to. Just
like Benjamin Franklin, you're known to be a
bit strange or even eccentric, but you are also
wise and generally very charismatic. You like
to stop and think about things, like to
surround yourself with intellectual pursuits
and lofty dreams, but you are also
down-to-earth when it comes to other things.
You are a dabbler: that is, you try a lot of
new things. Risks don't seem to frighten you,
as long as they are well thought-out first.
You like to have theories and ideas, but you
are never detatched. People generally see you
as one to be admired. It is very difficult to
get you really, really angry. This is good
because, when you do get angry at someone, you
tend to stay angry for a very long time. You
should probably keep at what you're doing if
this is all the case; but just be careful not
to let it all go to your head! Be sure to use
those abilities!


What kind of a Founding Father would you be?
brought to you by Quizilla

Our narrator, Jingle Bill, is putting a jingle bell on his reindeer. He explains that people didn't always use jingle bells. It all started a long time ago in a town called Hilldale. There, a single father and his mute son (who hadn't spoken since his mother died) lived in a small shack at the bottom of the hill. The father worked in the flour mill, which was run by Mr. Greenjeans. The father had to work all day long in the mill, so the child would get bored. One winter day the child wandered into a magical clearing, which was delightfully warm, and none of the animals were either threatened by him or threatened him. He was so delighted he spent the entire day there.

When the father came home that night and found his son missing, he set right out in search of him. Unfortunately, he went in the wrong direction! He stumbled upon the castle of Dr. Tubular, who with his goblin workers was making a machine to suck all the warmth out of the world to heat his castle. He was an old man, see, and the cold wreaked havoc with his joints. The goblins were helping because they knew that if all the warmth was sucked out of the world, the humans would freeze, and there would be no more Christmas Spirit in the world—the one thing that goblins hate more than anything else! Fortunately, the machine is missing a vital piece. Unfortunately, when the father set off in search of his son, he packed a bag full of all sorts of tools!

The father climbs in a window and is immediately captured and put in the dungeon. Dr. Tubular uses the father's tools to create the missing piece: a small metal ball with a small pellet of iron in it, that would conduct electricity. It also made a certain "jingle" noise when you shook it...

The next day, the son wakes up in the magical clearing and realizes he spent the whole night there. He heads for home.

Mr. Greenjeans, because his only worker (the father) is not there, has to shut down the mill. Even though he's disappointed because that basically destroys his livelihood, he's even more disappointed because he had a Christmas present he wanted to give to the father. He heads down the hill towards the little cottage.

Dr. Tubular completes his machine and activates it. The entire world begins to slip into a freezing winter, colder than any ever before. Tubular's castle, on the other hand, was warmed to a balmy 90 degrees.

The boy gets to his cottage and finds his father not there. He figures he must be at the mill, and so heads into town as the temperature drops. Right when he leaves, Mr. Greenjeans comes to the cottage and finds the father not there. Mr. Greenjeans notices a trail of tools leading off into the forest, though, and decides to follow it...

The mayor of Hilldale has gathered the entire populace in town hall to try to figure out what to do about the ever-dropping temperature. The boy comes upon town hall, and as he opens to door to go inside, the door freezes open, letting the chilling temperatures inside! Now there is no place in town that is warm! Suddenly, the boy remembers the magic clearing that kept him warm all night long, and for the first time in four years, he speaks! He leads the entire town towards the clearing...

Mr. Greenjeans sneaks into Dr. Tubular's castle and defeats a goblin guard by hitting him with the present he was going to bring to the father—filled with the power of Christmas!

The townsfolk arrive at the clearing and are amazed at the warmth, and the unfrightened animals that they can kill and eat at their leisure! They wonder where the father and Mr. Greenjeans are. The mayor figures that they must be bringing their stores of flour to the clearing so they won't starve once the animals run out. Everyone stops worrying, and begins to wait for the flour to show up.

The Goblin King pays Dr. Tubular a visit, and expresses his displeasure that Dr. Tubular's warmth-draining machine can't penetrate the magic shield around the magic clearing. The humans there will survive, and that means so will Christmas! Dr. Tubular realizes with horror what he's done. He never wanted to kill off Christmas, only to keep himself warm! The Goblin King orders Tubular thrown out into the freezing night, as they steal his machine to take it inside the magic clearing to freeze those humans directly!

Mr. Greenjeans breaks the father out of the dungeon using the tools that he picked up along the way, and they come upon a freezing old Tubular, who explains the goblins' nefarious plot! They go after the goblins and their freezing machine.

In the clearing, the townsfolk are starting to get worried because Mr. Greenjeans hasn't shown up with the flour yet, and they've killed and eaten practically all the animals! Just then the goblins burst into the clearing and turn on the machine, sucking all the warmth out of the clearing! Greenjeans and the father show up right behind them. The father gives a moving speech about how goblins and humans shouldn't hate each other, but should love and share because that's the true meaning of Christmas Spirit! The speech is filled with so much Christmas spirit that the Goblin King falls dead on the spot, and the other goblins flee into the night. The good guys pull the power lever on the machine to "off" but it doesn't do anything! Then they hear a distinctive "jingle" coming from within the machine, and they remove the little jingle bell, shutting the machine down. The whole world heats back up to a normal cold winter. They attach the jingle bell to the neck of a horse as a symbol of something or other, and as they all ride back to Hilldale in the sleigh, they sing a rousing rendition of "Jingle Bells." They also stop along the way to pick up Jingle Bill!