Stuff

[sobrique]

EVE: Trinity is Soon. Including 50 man-years of new graphics and art and stuff, to make Internet Spaceships prettier.

I am off in London, tomorrow and the next day. Learning about six sigma of all things.

Apparantly to 'avoid traffic problems' the day will be 09:00 to 16:30. In the middle of the London Docklands. I'm not quite sure how that works, but ... don't mind overly, because i'll be travelling by train. The 0700 out of Coventry. Woot. At least I might be able to snooze on the way.

I'm also off to see Bill Bailey on Friday. Well, not directly, but ... at a show, or something. Looking forward to that.

The thing I'm not looking forward to so much though, is upcoming Christmas shopping. Do you have any idea how difficult it is, being someone who's 'media exposure' is radio 4 some mornings, to figure out what it's IMPORTANT TO WANT? It depresses me somewhat, that I get asked by family about what I'd like for christmas, and I honestly don't really know - If I've decided I actually need something, then usually I have done a bit of product research, and acquired it already.

It's even worse when trying to figure out what other people are supposed to want. Add to this my utter loathing of bimbling around shops, heaving with people frantically warming up for their personal festival of capitalism, greed, and consumer debt ... well, yeah. Christmas is fine, Christmas shopping is an ordeal.

Maybe I should send people 10kg sacks of rice, and pasta and stuff. Or maybe go check out one of those 'charity gift' sites. (But those also for some reason, jar a bit of 'oh yeah, I gave stuff to someone else')

Ah well. Time for bed I think. 0700 train tomorrow (yay!)

Comments

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

What I want for Christmas, always, is MONEY DAMNIT, for emergency private medical treatment just in case fund, so I can sleep at night. My family refuse to acknowledge this, and buy me chocolate, which is a close enough approximation.

I dislike buying people things they don't want or need. My fallback plans are:
-Plants - they make oxygen, they are pretty, if they don't like them they can compost them and make better plants
-Chocolate
-Charity presents-for-other-people, if I have talked to them and made sure they don't mind my getting somebody a toilet on their behalf for Christmas.

[velvet-nothing.livejournal.com]

You could always get your family to set up a monthly donation type thing to a charity as your present from them? Then you'd just have to worry about what to get other people. Which isn't easy...

[elrohana.livejournal.com]

Plant a tree, or adopt an animal - these are charity gifts that most people are happy to receive

[cbr-paul.livejournal.com]

Flying monkeys? Surely, everybody wants flying monkeys if they're being honest.
In all fairness though, I despise Christmas shopping, but at least have the advantage of not having many people to shop for these days. I VERY useful trick I found a couple of years ago is to try to get a lot done if you are ever up in Whitby again; not only is it far less stressful than fighting your way through a crowded city centre, but the town is full of wonderful little book, antique and curio shops, not to mention the market.

[dj-rws.livejournal.com]

Although I can offer you no advice on gift ideas for your loved ones just remember that at least internet shopping will allow you to not go running around the hordes of other last-minute-buying-Xmas-shopping-consumers and it sometimes allows you to see the full range of stuff on offer even if the shop might happen to be out of stock of something good. The best bit is you can always do it alongside trying to conquer 0.0 sec space :) M&S do pretty good Xmassy stuff from experience and I'm sure it's all there on there web site. If nothing else internet browsing can just give inspiration. Also iwoot is cool.

[jorune.livejournal.com]

I enjoy the feeling and activity of shopping. I enjoy the time and effort people have made in store decoration and ambience. I am interested in style and design. I enjoy that I shop in large, well stocked places where I can buy anything that I see. I enjoy giving and receiving gifts, I enjoy the serendipity of finding something new and unusual.

Charity shopping, it's not just for Christmas.

[csi-ellie.livejournal.com]

I'd like tickets to see Bill Bailey for christmas please! That would be cool. I'll be getting you a box of poo, to send to africa from oxfam, for fertilizing or something. I think that is a wonderful gift to recieve, a box of cr*p!