Gifting and such.

I got back home early, early Thursday morning and went back to work on Friday.

Yay, work.

Friday night we had roommate present gift exchange at Ms. Scott's. This consists of me, Scott, Alex, and Matt. You see, back when Scott and Alex and I were roommates, we did present exchanges around Christmastime (that's a word, right?), and Alex won't let it die. This was the third roommate Christmas we have had without actually being roommates. Matt was never a roommate, but he got sucked into the friend circle. It's fun though, we have a good time and it's an excuse to get together.

The first year I didn't think they were serious, but Alex started placing boxes wrapped in newspapers with our names on them under the makeshift Christmas tree he had set up. It was this potted tree/plant that he had brought when we moved in together with ornaments hanging off it. Scott then started putting presents there too.

When Alex announced present unwrapping, I was like: "Wait, what? You were serious about that?" So I had to run out to Target and buy people stuff. My presents sucked and I felt like a douche. I was more prepared in subsequent years. I think.

This year I was surprised we were doing it again, but, like I said, Alex won't let it die. That means each year I have to get people presents. Guys aren't supposed to get each other presents (at least not on Christmas and birthdays).

Ms. Scott volunteered her residence because she is nice. Scott said not to get her any presents but I got her some Twinkies and a laser pen. Laser pens are fun.

We usually just get each other weird crap we find at thrift stores and/or ebay. This year I decided to just go small and get everyone a CD/DVD from from my list of favorite comedians: S. Lynch, M. Hedberg, D. Cook, and some of their favorite beers.

I brought them a couple Fat Tires I got from back home, some Guinness Stout, and a 4-pack of Tetley's.



(I think I should clarify that the second picture is not a box of Tetley Tampons. It's picture of a box of Tetley tea bags. Ms. Scott was questioning if the beer was made by the same company that makes the tea. I don't think it is. I wonder if Tetley makes tampons too and decided to package their tea bags in the same box in order to cut costs.

I hope I'm not the only one that thinks that looks like a box of tampons.)

It was a good time. Scott got me a book of popular electronic gadgets from the past 30 years. It had big pictures and listed the street values of the electronic gadgets. That's good because I like electronic gadgets, big pictures, and street values.

Alex got stupid as usual. He got me:

-Amarillo Slim's 7-card-stud. This is a PC game from 1992 on 3.5" diskette. Sweet.
-The manual to the Atari Trak-ball. This is good because I haven't been able to figure out how to use my Atari Trak-ball:


(The first thing the manual said was: "Take the tape off the ball." Wow. That's much better.)

-And finally, he got me a Magnavox Odyssey 400 system. In the fucking box:



That's a pong variant from about 30 years ago. Jeezus. I wonder what the thrift store was asking for this. Some of the features that are highlighted on the box are: "Works with any TV: black-and-white or color!" and "Onscreen digital scoring!" Awesome.

Now I have a boxed game system from the Pong era to add to my collection. Seriously. I have a collection. I bet no one else you know has a boxed Bally Astrocade system.

Moving on...

Matt got gay and gave everyone expensive liquor. We each got to choose four bottles from a mystery box. They were all cool beers except for the three bottles of Diet Mountain Dew that he threw in there because I don't like beer.

He also got me a bottle of Grey Goose, Scott a bottle of Jameson 12-year, and Alex a bottle of expensive wine. That was unnecessary and made me feel weird.

It was a good time. We ate lots of cookies and sandwich rolls provided by the Scotts. Matt drank a 24 oz. bottle of Guinness, two cans of Guinness, 4 cans of Tetley's, and a year-old bottle of Red Dog that has spent it's life being avoided in Ms. Scott's fridge. Good ol' Matt.

We then played a four-hour, knock-down, drag-out fight of DVD Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit. I won't bore you with the details. The game ended at 2AM. Scott's team won. Mine lost. In sudden-death overtime.

The next day was New Year's Eve. I'll let Scott talk about it in the comments. It was gay.