Merry Christmas!

I'm not going to do the whole list of presents I got thing. I'm just gonna hit the highlights.

Mom actually did get me the PS2 I accidentally asked for. This is a super-bonus, especially since Jim got me Tony Hawk 3 to go along with it.

And, in a strange cosmic-balance sort of thing, Grandmom decided that she didn't want to keep the old Sega Master System in her basement anymore, so she asked my mom what she should do with it. Mom told her that since it was originally mine (6th birthday present), she should ask me.

The result is that I will be bringing back to school a very new, very high-tech video game system, and a very old, very low-tech video game system.

This is assuming that the SMS still works. It's missing the AV cord, so I have to run out to Radio Shack and see what I can do.

Due to some confusion, instead of receiving Aqualung, I instead received "The Very Best of Jethro Tull". Now, I'm lukewarm on Best Of albums, but Tull's the kind of band where I'm not enough of a fan that owning a Best Of is any kind of affront to my fandom. I'm still planning on acquiring Aqualung, but I'm gonna let Aunt Bette get it for me for my birthday or something.

Christmas, like Thanksgiving and New Year's, is a two-part experience for my family. The first part is Christmas with my dad's family. This involves thirty-some people, including six small children, plus my cousin John, who is 12 years old and yet 6'4", 280 lbs. Needless to say this is a hectic affair.

Part two is Christmas with my mom's family, who are all very calm and nice and ever-so-slightly southern. Christmas with my mom's family is like our reward for surviving Christmas with my dad's family.

My grandfather (on my dad's side, natch) has commissioned me into doing legal research for him on the Internet. (Because I'm the one who knows about computers! That should qualify me to find him information on the Liberian secret police.) I asked Tom - a paralegal gets paid around $20-$30 an hour. No doubt I will be working pro bono. (That means I don't get anything.)