Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Today I discovered the true meaning of Boxing day. It’s not, as some may believe, anything to do with boxing things. Nor is it to do with the gentleman’s sport of boxing. Nor, indeed, does it concern the 1900 Boxer Rebellion of China. It’s so people with more than one sat of family to oblige can have two christmases. I guess. A fine pseudochristmas it was too, let me say. I got up around midday, which isn’t exactly anything new, dropped Rob off at Dad’s, then made my way to Nikki’s, where I distributed her and her family’s presents, and then we went to Nan’s. On the way, I bought some petrol because for some reason all the petrol stations closed down at about 7:00pm on Christmas Eve and I was totally unable to get any, severely restricting my movements in recent days. I just know there’s a moral or social comment trying to get out there, but I’d really rather avoid it for now.

Anyway, at Nan’s I set up the Freeview Digibox Dad had bought them. He and Rob had been trying but totally confusing the issue, and I corrected things in about 3 seconds. Say what you will about my academic or social skills, but I can configure electronics in record times. It makes me wonder why people have so much trouble really, surely the easiest thing to do is read the manual and follow the instructions on-screen. This case was a little more than that but I speak generally.

Having set up the TV, it was time for food. I ate much and even got half a turkey worth of cold meat out of the bargain, which will serve me well in the coming days. After a while, Dad went home so Nikki, Rob and I hung around an played Scrabble. I won all but one game by a wide margin, except the last which I lost by 5 points. I don’t want to obsess too much over the game, though. In the rules itsaid something like “250 Scrabble Clubs across the country with 5000 regular players!” which made me think that for a game so well known, 5000 really is a tiny amount of people who care enough to play competitively. Bunch of goddamn geeks.

Anyway, as predicted, today’s gifts were…eclectic. I received: 1250g of Dairy Mlk, a Yard of Chocolate Fingers (4×150g), 2 Chocolate Oranges, A small 2004 diary, some Gel Pens, a set of Dominoes, 3 large chocolate coins (because all I really want at Christmas is chocolate and money, so they got both ;-) a park of socks, some lynx, (and this is where things get bizarre) some shampoo, some shower gel, and not one, but 2 tubes of toothpaste. The story behind those last couple of items is not that I’m some kind of filthy unwashed hygieneless human, but that they like to buy things I can use so I can spend money on myself instead of buying toiletries and occasionally, stationary. Fair enough, I guess. Out of the crackers we pulled, I got a semidecent screwdriver set and a decent pack of miniature cards, which are too small to do anything with, I guess, but maybe I could give them to a midget.

I dropped Nikki back in the evening, and sat and watched a bit of “Meet the Parents” in which Ben Stiller gets placed in all sorts of artificial and overtly embarassing situations. It’s the kind of humour I really hate, which is disappointing because Meet the Parents had such a good concept but they totally blew it with cringe-inducing scenes of horrendousness.

Soon I have to haul ass to the bank with my Christmas monies so that I can start to buy things again. I’ve got some eBay stuff to sort out, as well, and comics to collect. But unfortunately, tomorrow heralds the threshold for when I have promised myself I’ll start the dissertation/project. So I guess I’ll start researching that over the weekend. Still, I really can’t start that until I’ve finished Futurama DVDs, can I?

Anyway. Because I keep forgetting I’ll say now: I passed all my exams, even networking. Maths wasn’t as good as I hoped, HCI was about as expected, and networking was a bad mark, but better than the fail I believed was unavoidable. The final marks were BBC, respectively. I’m indifferent to them, to be honest. I could’ve done worse, but I would’ve preferred a little better.

Still, that’s all over and we rush, full steam ahead towards 2004 and, god help me, a further two new sets of exams.