1. Less, but not because of the economy. Fewer little kids in family = less x-mas shopping.
2. Not too bad, thankfully, considering I got 4 hours of sleep last night and drove from Seattle to Portland at 6AM today.
3. Not at all. Their decisions are not my concern, and my desire to work outweighs someone else’s desire to slack so I’ll take their work no problem.

Oh, and AC/DC rules.

Seriously, this is like the 3rd time this has happened. I had good tags too. Christ.

1) None
2) Not at all because I’m currently unemployed.
3) I don’t care unless it’s someone I rely on, like a supervisor in a collaborative environment.

Many of the friends I’d shop for have graduated (as I have) and moved out of Salem. I’ve got to do something family-wise, but I’m not too concerned about that.

This week at school is the week from hell. I have two presentations to give and finals to get ready for.

I’m a little bit pissed with a coworker right now who didn’t so much call in sick as say “I don’t want to wake up at 9 and be prepared for a meeting because I work late.” Well, I work too, and I take care of my shit. I came back from my break to work on this shit; did I have to do that? Respect my effort.

1) About the same. We have only bought for the kids, except for gifts for both my parents and my wife’s parents, as well as our brothers, for most of the time we’ve been married. My wife & I don’t usually buy for each other on Christmas, but we go pretty far out on birthdays and Mother’s/Father’s Day. For example — on our 10th anniversary this year, well, we sorta bought each other the house (we listed our old house a few days before our anniversary)…

2) Yaaaawwwwn. I have spent most of the morning trying to figure out which brainless static HTML page I was working on.

3) Depends on what else I have to do that day. Normally people interrupt what I’m doing, and if I’m busy with a project deadline, I like to be left alone. So if people around me call in sick, I’m fine with it. Unless, of course, they have that final piece that I need. Then I get furious!

Naked Brothers Band and iCarly? Wow Harmonix . . . just . . . wow.

1. Less. The economy plays a small role, but there are other reasons. My girlfriend’s taking family leave to care for her terminally ill mother, so our cash flow will take a hit for the next month or so. Plus we kinda already bought a bunch of stuff we wanted this year, so we’re at a loss for gift ideas. And we’re moving this month. And there’s no reason to spend money just to spend it. So it’ll be a light Christmas as we pay down some debt and put money away for a vacation or two.

2. Not at all, really. I busted my ass last week so I could take Thursday and Friday off. So the workload is back to normal.

3. It used to be annoying when I was part of a team, but nowadays what I do really isn’t dependent on other people pulling their weight. I sit in a corner by myself and do my thing.

Morning with my Girlfriends fam, evening with mine. It worked out pretty well. Thank Christ her Mother and Stepfather kick ass.

We do a secret santa, so I only buy 3 gifts every Xmas. One for my chosen person and one each for my neice and nephew. Easy.

1) Probably less if I can help it. I have no income at the moment.
2) I actually bailed on going to classes today, but in my defense, my plane was delayed three hours leaving SeaTac and New Jersey Transit doesn’t run from 1:45 am to 4:45 am and by the time I got back to my apartment it was six in the morning. But I’m not behind… that much.
3) I did it this time, but I used to work with some people who would do that about once a week. This was a job where you could get away with such things. Fortunately, they outgrew it, and then both got promoted over me, because life is fair and just.

1) Probably the same amount of shopping this year.

2) I am slammed, but I worked Friday so it isn’t too overwhelming.

3) Mostly I prefer sick people to keep their germs at home. What pisses me off is when I take time off and no one bothers to cover my desk for me when I was gone. Usually takes at least a day and a half to uncover my desk after a week vacation.

1. I will likely shop a little less. I will only be buying for my Mom, my Dad, my fiancee, and my son. The kid will get the most stuff, but I’m tired of buying for everybody I know. My fiancee works 10 hours a week on Oregon minimum wage, so she will not be able to buy me a damn thing, so we already agreed on a $20 limit.
2. Not slammed at all, but that’s the way things are in my line of work. Nothing piles up when I’m not here, and I worked Fri/Sat/Sun so I didn’t miss anything
3. Doesn’t bother me at all, because I don’t have to rely on anybody to supplement my work. However, I can see where the annoyance could be. As a fun bit of coincidence, I am horribly sick and still here at work. I hate being a slave to my paycheck…

1) Doing more or less x-mas shopping this year?

Depends. Most likely less, I spent way too much last year, thanks to a check from an insurance for an accident that wasn’t my fault.

2) How slammed are you at work after a (hopefully) four-day weekend?

Well, considering I am working a part time job, I don’t think I will be too slammed, unless we get busy during the holiday.

3) How annoyed do you get when other people call in sick to work on a busy day?

Happened before, when I was working in the kitchen and this one guy had a knack for calling in on Fridays with a new excuse every time. It screwed the rest of us over very much, considering people who had Friday night off wouldn’t want to come in to work.

Grilled bacon-wrapped stuffed sausage dogs.

I suggest adding cream cheese to the bun.

Clint plays a crochety old man/himself. And there’s a scene where a gang or something is threatening one of his neighbors, and Clint comes out on his porch with a shotgun, points it at the gang and growls “Get off my lawn.”

I was in a movie theater when I saw this. I was laughing my ass off. Nobody else laughed at all, and it was a mostly full theater. It was great.

If only he’d done that wearing tall dress socks with sock garters, old-man boxers, and a plain white T-Shirt

Going to the George & Dragon fully expecting Arsenal to get their, uh, arses handed to them by a far stronger Chelsea side. Having to listen to an annoying frat boy at the end of my table shout “WHERE ARE THE ARSENAL FANS NOW? IT’S REALLY QUIET IN HERE” repeatedly at no one in particular for about 5 minutes when Chelsea went 1-0 up.

Then laughing really, really hard at that same guy when Arsenal leveled.

Then, when the whistle blew at 2-1 Arsenal, looking this douche straight in the eye, raising my glass to him, and shouting “IT’S REALLY QUIET OVER THERE” at him and knowing that he had no response.

(Yes, I’m fully aware the first Arsenal goal was at least a yard offsides. No, I do not care.)

So this means I can use my laptop around the house without plugging it in? I’m clueless when it comes to this stuff.