My plan for tonight was my traditional Christmas Eve plans. Now, tonight isn’t Christmas Eve, but I’ll be in Scranton with the folks and the sister and the grandmother and one of the aunts tomorrow and part of Sunday, so I decided to just spend tonight like I usually spend Christmas Eve. Here then, is what that usually entails:

Beer. Movies. Christmas Present Wrapping. Band Aids.

I also planned on writing some time-delayed posts for Christmas Day — twenty-four hours of Christmas themed Lego creations, one per hour. I’m about halfway there and wanted to knock it out of the way. Laundry, packing, all of this and the above to be done by midnight, allowing me to get drunk on Natty Boh while watching Shaun of the Dead and possibly playing with myself.

Anyway.

Flash forward to getting home from work at eight pm. Perfect, right? Sure, until my Wireless decided to become a fucking douche and instead of not just refusing to connect to my wireless network (as it sometimes does), displaying a message saying “Oh, well, sorry, I hate you today and refuse to even admit I have a wireless card.”

*grumble*

Thinking the problem was that I needed to reset my home network connections, I even went back out to get a flash-drive from Target. Fun. Even then, still no connectivity. I don’t know if the laptop is just having a bad few hours and it’ll start working again later tonight or tomorrow, but I really hope I don’t have to send it back to Dell or find one of their mall kiosk places. I know the only reason it crapped out on me is because it knew I wanted to have a nice relaxing evening, and it couldn’t stand that because it hates me.

Yes, I do believe quite seriously that my laptop hates me. It’s frustrating, but as long as I don’t smash it into a million pieces, helps me deal.

Thank goodness I have a desktop in the backroom, but it sort of takes away from sitting in front of the tv in my cozy living room with a cat purring at my side and another one mewling because I haven’t fed her all day. Anyway, I’m going to roll old-school, post this, take a shower, put some hot pockets in the oven, and go spend my evening wrapping presents, getting drunk, and watching Shaun of the Dead…

… because that’s how I fucking roll.

That was a question asked to me a few days ago at the Indy by one of a group of construction workers who came in for lunch. They were sitted at the center table in our small lobby, and he was standing by the counter, finger pointing at the open pizza box, displaying a sixteen-inch meat lover’s deluxe — pepperoni, ham, sausage, beef and bacon, topped with mozzarella cheese. Fresh out of the oven, paper plates and napkins out, fountain sodas arrayed around them. His companions were looking at him oddly. So, for that matter, was I.

“The … huh?” I managed to get out.

“The round black meats!”

“You mean … black olives?”

I thought about telling him, “Thems ain’t meat”, but I felt bad for him as his coworkers overheard my reply and exploded into laughter, telling him that they’d always known he was a moronic fuckwad (and so on and so forth).

Following the whole stupid Miss USA controversy, where The Hairpiece bailed Tara Conner out and will let her keep her crown (but Miss Nevada is out, and Miss Teen lost her MADD contract), Rosie ripped him a new one:

“Left the first wife, had an affair, left the second wife, had an affair. Had kids both times, but he’s the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America…”

The Donald was not amused, and fired back:

“Rosie attacks me personally? I know her fairly well because her show failed. She didn’t retire. She didn’t get the ratings! Her magazine called Rosie was a total disaster, she’s out of her mind. I will probably sue Rosie for a number of reasons. I’m worth a lot of money. She’s doesn’t tell the facts” and “She is a very, very unattractive woman who really is a bully.”

I don’t much care for either the Donald or Rosie. I listen to their bickering, and I find myself nodding and saying “Yep, right on the spot.” Personally, I think two rich celebrities shouldn’t be behaving like schoolchildren. Anyway, what would Donald be suing Rosie for? Slander? What does he think he’s doing?

Oh, right: the new season of Donald’s show, The Apprentice, premiers in about two weeks, and you do know what the Prime Directive of marketing is, don’t you? “There is no such thing as bad publicity.”

The Brickshelf Gallery describes it as a “part … Aston Martin Vantage part Ford Mustang.”

It looks fast and fun to drive. Hope it comes in manual!

So now I had to wake up at like nine this morning to get down to the Tea Company shop — Baltimore Tea? I don’t remember — off Aylesbury Road in Timonium. I’d meant to go past there yesterday for a gift basket for my Grandmother, but then, y’know, I forgot to check the list, so I didn’t. I also had to go back to Big Box Book Store because I forgot a few people — again, the whole “list” thing. Stupid list.

Earlier yesterday afternoon, coming home on Lakespring Avenue, I noticed an individual in the passenger seat of a Mustang waving his arm out the window and flicking, what appeared to be me, off. Nah, I thought. I don’t know that person. Then, that night, Ghetto Boy swung past work for some food and asked if I’d seen him flicking him off. I was puzzled, then remembered. Last laugh is on him: he flicks me off on Lakespring for half a dozen people to see. I flick him off on the internet for my vast reading audience to see.

Anyway, I decided to switch with Chewbacca so that I could get out earlier and get most of the remainder of my Christmas shopping done tonight. After a relaxing night at work — Greg finally decided not to just give “Best Wishes” cards, but also give bonuses: $15 Best Buy Gift Card, hooyah! — all of this was spoiled by the fuckwad cunt asshole shitbag who decided I wasn’t going fast enough on Timonium Road and swerved around me, nearly hitting oncoming traffic. As you might imagine, we both got to the traffic light at York Road at about the same time, except, stupid fuckwad cunt asshole shitbag got into the left-turn-lane, and then I, very cruelly, refused to allow him or her back into the “go straight” lane. Serves you right, dumb fuckwad cunt asshole shitbag. I hope you die a slow, miserable, painful death in a roasting fire.

I picked up a few books and gift cards from Big Box Book Store last night and was thanful the line was short. I get to the register and the guy asks me for my photo ID — written on the back of my debit card is not a signature, but rather a directive: CHECK ID. When he asked, I had no problem flipping open my wallet and show him my driver’s license. So the dude at Big Box Book Store tells me this story about a time when he was working in some cool independent book shop and a customer got really indigent about showing his driver’s license. In the end, the cool book shop’s owner stepped over and informed the customer that if he didn’t show his driver’s license, he wouldn’t be getting his credit card back until the police arrived. In a whispered aside, the clerk told me, “Management here is cool … but not that cool.”

Someone who was cool was the Asian clerk at the Timonium Post Office yesterday. I was in line and she was coming back with my package from Amazon. There were a couple of middle-aged women at the next register trying to mail a package to China. Apparently, there was some confusion about the mailing address, and they were discussing it with the clerk. “People’s Republic … or just China?” One of the ladies had the brilliant idea, “That clerk is Chinese! Let’s ask her!” I heard this, clearly the Asian woman heard this too, but she didn’t even bat an eyebrow, handing over the box and conversing with me in perfectly Baltimorean accented English.

Y’know what Christmas time needs? “Peace on Streets, and Goodwill to Fellow Drivers.” I could use a dose.

(Another thing I forgot? Scissors and tape. I remembered the wrapping paper, though, thank goodness for small favors).

I don’t get the concept of buying toys for pets. Maybe its different for dogs, but as far as cats are concerned, or at any rate, as far as my cats are concerned, toys suck. After being egged on by someone the other night, I bought two catnip-stuffed rag mice dolls, one with orange trim and one with blue, for my two felines.

When I throw the catnip dolls across the apartment, the cats will chase them … and then leave them alone once they land. They don’t get the same enjoyment out of them as they do the first catnip sack I ever bought them: it is under the dining room table right now, and I’ve had it for close to eight years. I’ve bought other catnip sacks of the same type, but as the catnip mice prove, my cats are interested in only one toy.

(And even then, they’d rather find a dark corner to curl up and go to sleep in, or attack each other, or something.)