Christmas Day (yawn...)

I know I should be more excited on Christmas day but I'm not. There's no presents to be opened (they're already opened about 2 days before Christmas day and no they're not from my parents or anyone else, they're from myself and I).


I found that people don't usually give you something useful or something that you want for Christmas. Let's get a run through with 2 brilliant Christmas present ideas I've encountered:

1. Candles. This is the present that wins my "most sarcastically practical present of the year award". What possible use can you have for candles in this century? Please don't tell me they're relaxing because every time I have to light up a candle scented or not it's because there's something wrong with the electricity line and the power is cut right when I'm doing something important on my laptop. So every time I light up a candle I'm stressed about losing what I was typing. And that's not the only thing I have to worry about. Do you know how easy it is for houses to be on fire especially in Australia in summer? The damn candle can fall, set the carpet on fire and then the whole house's gonna be on fire. I can really do without these worries. Scented candles are worse and nowadays people only give scented candles. Not only I have to worry about losing data and setting the house on fire, I have to deal with the nauseating, supposedly "relaxing" scents. Relaxing my ass, they set my sinuses on fire and give me sneezing fits.

2. Bath stuffs. You know the, again, scented bath stuffs like bath salts, bath oil, etc... Again, they're supposed to be relaxing and again their purpose just fails me completely. I don't take baths. It takes at least 20 L of water to fill the bath and frankly that's a waste of water.

Those are the big no-no when it comes to buying Christmas presents for me and luckily I didn't get any of those this Christmas. Maybe you're wondering what I got. My family are a practical bunch and we don't usually give presents. If we do it's usually money or gift cards so people can get what they want themselves. It saves time and energy. You don't believe me? First you have to have an idea about what to buy, then you have to go buy it and it doesn't stop there, you have to wrap it in preferably Christmas wrapping papers, which are sold at heavily inflated prices. With gift cards, you just have to buy them and then pop them into an envelop and Voila! a present to please anyone, albeit a very lazy present.

Ok, back to my family, we don't usually give presents. Birthdays: definitely, Luna new year: definitely, Christmas: nah. There you have it, I don't get any presents from my family. It's not that devastating anyhow. I've never gotten anything on Christmas and I don't expect to get anything. This year however, I decided to start a new tradition. I got myself presents and am I happy. So these are what I bought:

1. Books. I bought Sam Harris' "The End of Faith" and Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". I've been looking for them in Australian book stores for a while and they're actually available at Christmas. From what the bookstore cashier told me, many people bought them as Christmas presents for their friends. That's actually a good idea. I might even do that next year.

2. An USB flash drive. It's not just any USB flash drive. It's one of those new released Toshiba flash drive. It was quite a stressed experience buying flash drives from eBay. After I paid for the drive and was waiting for it to arrive by mail, I found this article: "Beware of fake flash drive on ebay". While reading that I did a mental check list: Toshiba - common counterfeit brands on eBay: check; misleading slogan - new product not yet available in your country: check; high capacity flash drive: check; low price: check. So chances are I bought a fake and I was worried coz I paid more than a hundred bucks for that USB flash drive. The drive arrived 2 days before Christmas and it wasn't fake. I'm just too lucky, aren't I? From now on I'm not gonna buy USB drive from ebay.

3. Battlestar Galactica pins. These are also bought from eBay. I think I'm gonna start a collection of these, they're quite rare maybe one day I'll sell them for ten times what I paid.

Yup, that's it I think. May be I bought a new Xbox game but I can't really remember now, I think I did. It's really quite hard typing a post off the top of your head while you're still recovering from a mini-hangover. I'm still recovering from my Christmas Eve dinner. I think I drank too much beer + wine. Anyhow, Merry Christmas everyone, maybe I should say Merry fictional character's birthday, that's more fitting.

For the atheists out there, here are 2 links I think you would enjoy if you haven't stumbled upon them already:
10 ways to qualify your atheism this christmas
Religion does more harm than good - poll