Holiday Tidings, Courtesy of CWMP

If, over the next few days, I scream at you, give you a hot foot, and/or steal your underwear and sell it on Ebay, please do not retaliate. I'm just working out my Christmas frustration. This has been, without question, my most overloaded holiday since Louis Pasteur's birthday back in '03. I had to buy the gifts, go to South Carolina, do all of my family stuff, look after the cat, caddy Laura's dog to and from the kennel, obtain provisions for and attend a bachelor party, make airport runs, etc. It was all done for a good reason and I enjoyed it all, but by 6 PM last night, I was firmly in crazy hermit mode. Calls and emails went unanswered, and the site went unattended. If my house were to burn down, I probably would've just draped a wet towel on my head and gone back to watching TV. The only entity I wanted to correspond with was a bottle of rum, and all I wanted to tell it was, "Say good-bye to your friends; you're going to a dark place."

As you can tell, I'm not real adept at operating like that for a long period of time. I need my leisure time, damnit. I need time to sit around in various stages of undress, watching some weird Darts Championship on TV and demolishing a jar of peanut butter. I need time to frolic, rollick, and cavort in the 10 feet between the X Box and the computer. And most of all, I need time to roll around in the backyard, repeating, "I am a nature boy! I am a nature boy!" until the neighbors call the authorities. Okay, I went to my unhappy place there for a second.

Christmas was a complete success. I got lots of grilling paraphenalia (no, that's not a euphemism), an adapter that hooks my iPod up to my car stereo and was unfathomably hard to install but rocks my butt off now that it works, a trip to the humongous Georgia Aquarium which I enjoyed very much, a little weekend getaway thing from my mom, and a talking Yoda. If I ever get my camera back (I hate you, Paul), you can look forward to hours and hours of video of me and Yoda, interacting in the many ways possible between an idiot and an animatronic Star Wars character. Good times, amigos, and more packages to open tonight.