The Obligatory Christmas Wrap-up

It's that time of year again... well actually by the time this is published everyone will be looking forward to the next big thing, which would be New Year's. Still, everyone talks about the holiday season far too much before the actual day, so this time around I'm being marginally different and wrapping it up instead (no pun intended).



By the time this post comes out chances are I'll be braving the stormy and turbulent waters known as the Boxing Day shopping spree. Americans have Black Friday, we have Boxing Day. (Actually, Americans might have Boxing Day too. Never mind.)

Boxing Day could easily be so-named due to the massive sales that tend to happen around this time, and quite possibly the fights over the heavily reduced merchandise. No seriously, in the couple of Boxing Day sales I was at Harvey Norman, we made especially sure to have the biggest staff member guarding the cage holding the net books keeping everyone in line. And that only lasted around 15 minutes. Not to say the rest of the day wasn't just as busy.

This year I'm working jobs here and there at my Dad's workplace, the Purebread bakehouse. Purebread does some great organic/gluten-free breads and baking-related goods that get shipped around the country. If you're interested their website is here.

More to the point of the story - my sister, who is working at Pascoes and doing a jolly good job at it, is working both Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. It was originally thought that I'd be doing the same at Harvey Norman, but due to changing circumstances that was not the case. So this year it was just my sister and I at home while the rest of the family went up to Auckland to visit the newly-extended family thanks to the arrival of another baby boy from my globe-trotting uncle.

So since the family is away, I'm actually celebrating Christmas a little later. All the Christmas movies are recorded on our MySky HDi (product placement!), presents are ready to open, Christmas dinner... well... eaten, but isn't the point of Christmas about giving and friendship between others? At least the latter I picked up from HRH The Queen's message (played hours later with MySky HDi... only a $99 installation fee, call Sky on 0800 859...

Enough on that.

Me and my sister still enjoyed each other's company and didn't kill each other... you can only do so much when the shops are closed and neither of you has a full driver's license so we stayed in eating hash browns and bacon for brunch and playing Monopoly.

Okay, so 2 posts ago I said I wouldn't be droning on so much about my personal life, but hey, it's Christmas... but those that want random content, it's about time to share the various Internet curios I found this week...

First up, during one of the Christmas functions this year I overhead a song by Tom Jones, which made me think of two things: firstly, a line from the movie Flushed Away; and secondly, this...

Also on the subject of YouTube, did anyone notice the secret 'snowflake' function on the video player? If you haven't seen it yet, go find a video and get some more of that falling snow action!

During one of my many Facebook rounds before the big day one of my friends posted this on their page... as soon as I got the pun I knew I had to post it. Judging by the obscured phone number it turns out some Americans do have an intellectual sense of humour.

And from the "irrelevant news" file, on the 29th of December Samoa and Tokelau will be jumping ahead 24 hours in order to change time zones and become more in sync with New Zealand and other neighbouring countries. So instead of being 11 hours behind GMT, both nations will be 13 hours ahead. It got me wondering a bit about time zones in general, and luckily in March the BBC was thinking the same thing, and compiled a bit of information about time zones around the world, in the form of an interactive globe! You can find it here.

Enough from me this week, best of luck surviving Boxing Day and we'll see you after the New Year!