Post-Xmas

This Christmas was a real surprise. I wasn't expecting very much, but I ended up getting a few of the best gifts I've ever gotten. We woke up pretty late, around eleven, and enjoyed each others company for a little while until Rachel joined us around noon. I hung out with her, we exchanged gifts (got me a lunch kettle, with Spongebob Squarepants on it), it was nice. Then my brother Jeff and his wife Amy joined us (shortly after Rachel had to leave to be with her family), and then we all gave each other our gifts and had a very good day.

I had given Jeff and Amy a list of CDs I wanted earlier in the month, for a Christmas list, figuring they were the most likely to come through in this area. When Amy handed me my gift -six CD-shaped packages all wrapped and tied together- I got that "intestines falling out of your butt" feeling (doesn't anyone else get that?). They got me almost every Beck CD I didn't have (which was everything except The Information)!! Beck has been one of my favorite artists lately, and I'd heard a bunch of these songs before, but now I have them all in CD form. I was expecting to listen to them all at once right in a row... but I never got past Mellow Gold. I put it on, played it, then played it again... I've played it probably five times since yesterday. It's so amazing!! I love every song. It's so fresh, so spontaneous. Anyway, now my expectations are unrealistically high for the rest of the albums which I'll slowly be making my way through in the next few days.

My mom got me the computer chair I wanted, which is awesome. So it ended up being a really great Christmas.

My brother assembled my computer yesterday, and started working out the software. See, my computer is a little... "special needs". It's hardware made for Windows that's running Mac osx on it. The day after Mac started running on Intel it was hacked and this was made possible, no longer do you have to pay for incredibly over-priced hardware that's completely un-upgradeable in order to have your Mac operating system. I need a Mac computer to run Logic, the music recording program I will soon be upgrading to. But I didn't want to pay a thousand dollars for that stupid huge fugly computer screen with everything built into it, a lot of which I don't need, nor did I want another sardine-can mini mac desktop, which can't run as fast and doesn't have the space I need. So this was the solution.

It requires hacking and general renegadery (don't install any updates -they'll find you!), but as far as I knew going in, as soon as Mac was installed, I would have a normal, stable computer just like anybody else's. So far we've had problems at every turn. Getting Mac onto it to begin with was a chore. Now there are still a lot of kinks that have to be worked out. Every time I want to plug something into a USB port I have to restart the computer. It won't have internet capabilities anytime in the immediate future (so for now, you are still reading what I type from the family computer downstairs). These are things that can and will be fixed, but let me just say I don't have such a great feeling about this. I wanted a stable computer that will last me... so far ol' Frankenstein's Macintosh chilling there on my desk isn't quite cutting it. Dan assures me it will be fine, it will work out... just don't install any updates!!

I'll let you know how that goes. In the meantime today I saw a movie with Rachel and her family- Marley and Me, a movie about a dog and the lives of the people who own him. I don't know, I'm not much of an animal person. I mean, let's get real... it is just a dog, there's only so much heart-wrenching drama you can get out of situations surrounding a dog's life. I like dogs fine, but to me, they're animals... animals is animals is animals. They're great companions for lonely or troubled people, me I'll take actual human companionship any day. The movie basically came out and said at the end, "Dogs make you feel good, therefor they are better than people". That kind of message never sits well with me.

Then I had work, which was long and horrible.

I wish I had had more time to spend with just Rachel... but luckily I believe I will be doing plenty of that tee-morrow. So I better get to bed!

Pray for me and Frankenstein's Macintosh.

-Dr. M

'Twas the Night Before... yeah

These past two days it's really started to feel a little more like Christmas. Yesterday was the big party we throw with the *mother says I shouldn't use real name* family. My mother has been friends with Aunt Sue (not a blood relative, but might as well be) since college, and my brother and I and her kids have grown up much closer than I am to any of my real cousins. Her daughters are all grown up, and married with children. We started this tradition of having everyone over for caroling every Christmas season, and yesterday was this year's party. Let's see if I can count all of the kids who were over...

Margie and her husband Joel have five kids, three boys and two girls. Becka has twins, a boy and a girl. Julie has one child. That's eight kids who all crowded into my house yesterday. Aunt Sue's oldest son Paul was on his way but broke down, that would have been another set of twins had he made it. Craziness! So many little kids.

Aunt Sue's two youngest, Andy and Josh (Andy is two years older than me, Josh is four years older than me) were very close to my brother and I through childhood. Andy recently graduated from a culinary arts program and is going to be a chef, and couldn't make it yesterday. Josh works for a security firm in da hood, he's already been shot at and everything. He was over briefly yesterday before leaving with Joel to have coffee with the other married men.

I'm not sure why I'm writing all of this (probably for my sake, just to make sure I remember all of it). Anyway Rachel was over as well, so I enjoyed myself somewhat, despite the noise and confusion. The cat went nuts, for some reason my mother was surprised. Singing Christmas carols is always fun as well.

Today I had work, but then in the evening I joined Rachel's extended family for their annual Christmas Eve party. I enjoy seeing them, they're pretty fun. Much more fun than her immediate family, I'm not sure how that worked out.

So I'm pretty well in the spirit, especially because I got my first gift yesterday in the mail. EEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT CAME!!!! Now my brother just has to finish assembling it and hacking the motherboard so it can run Mac. I guess it's safe to say I'm pretty excited.

Anyway, I hope you, whoever you are, wherever you are, are having a very nice holiday season. Happy birthday Jesus, another year older, though I suppose that must not mean much to you.

-Dr. M