Robo Christmas (Blog 172)

You may have noticed I didn’t add a new joke or shape of the day on Christmas. Why could that be? How long does that take? A few seconds? Unfortunately not; there is a dark side to my site. On the one hand I try to keep things light(ish), but on the other I have a very real phobia of writing stuff I don’t mean, but could get me into trouble. In secondary school I remember my friend unintentionally writing something weird on his work and it (mostly) stuck with me. I can’t remember what he wrote, I think it was something like ‘penis’. Imagine a teacher reading and grading that. Now I worry I could type something like ’Joke of the day: What’s the most dangerous soft drink? Gren-ade.’ And then the highly worrying ’P.S… Kill!’ I also have a Twitter account for my daily jokes, and if that kind of stuff gets retweeted everything’s over. I’ll get sectioned for public safety. Consequently I check what I type for several minutes. For just one day I wanted a break from all that.

As I waited for my brother’s family to visit me and my dad, I watched an episode of Breaking Bad. Not traditionally Christmassy in that many lives were in very serious danger in it and everyone was panicking. If anything that’s the opposite of how I see the holiday, it’s certainly the opposite of how it’s advertised. However, someone of my age watching Home Alone 2 is a little weird. Well it’s weird to watch on my own. I suggested to my dad we could watch it as a family, not so much for everyone else’s benefit, but for mine. It is surely the best seasonal film of all time. Fault it. Go on, try. I will never understand why it only got three stars, but then again, I don’t understand how The Shawshank Redemption is apparently one of the greatest movies ever. It’s not Forrest Gump were a whole life gets documented, with loads of interweaving stories, it’s just a guy getting to know everyone then escaping prison. Is the escape spectacular? Hardly. Are the characters interesting? No more so than any others. #confused.

At around 10:30 AM my brother and my two nieces did indeed come round. I was looking forward to giving my baby one her present. (My older one’s Steps CD, is not to my taste so much). It was a walking elephant that occasionally made trumpet sounds. (Yes, as implied, I prefer that to Steps, as would any right-minded man in his 30s). A musical elephant? Nope, that’s what the sound they make is called. I just found that out on Google. I’m glad the packaging didn’t say ‘trumpeting musical elephant’ as that could be extremely confusing for a baby. Imagine growing up thinking animals played instruments. Infants have a hard enough time saying words with one syllable, the last thing you want to do is create a grossly false reality for them. If you knew an adult who thought animals could play in bands, you’d think they were mad, wouldn’t you? That’s no way to raise someone. It’s cruel.

Unfortunately, the mini woman seemed a little creeped out by my gift. That’s understandable. Imagine a robot coming towards you with no concern whatsoever of your cries. Whatever you do, whatever you say, it acts in the same way. That actually sounds horrifying. Hopefully the baby will get used to it though, as a strange phobia could develop later in life if not. As all the mechanical terror was going on, my older niece was playing with my very loud keyboard in another room. She was actually improvising some reasonable film style music, even though she has no musical training. She seemed to be using the Phrygian scale. It’s not so easy to make it work, because of the diminished chord on the fifth degree of the scale, but she pulled it off. I’m assuming she was playing in E Phrygian as that key is all the white notes. As long as you don’t play the black keys, you should be fine. If she was playing in the far more complex D# minor, she is more talented than me. Hard to take as I studied music at university.

After an hour and a half or so of me eating everyone else’s chocolates, my niece got bored on went home to where the rest of her family were staying an hour and a half or so away. Two hour and a halfs? What does that mean? Nothing. It’s a coincidence. A sane, rational Christmas for me. Well not completely. Some of the music my brother got me is basically demented. Tom Waits really is out-there. On the plus side, it’s very fortunate his last name begins with a letter near the end of the alphabet, as that does mean I have to shove less CDs to make them all alphabetised. Shame I’m never going to listen to the artist, though. No, only joking. I might. Would me and my dad be invited to an hour and a half away later on in the evening? That’s what I’ll find out. I’m actually typing the first drafts of these five paragraphs at around 1PM to 4PM, in suspense. I hope Christmas isn’t over for me, as the day will be little more than eating chocolates and scaring a baby with what could be perceived as a small, fluffy terminator. Again, I do have many CDs to listen to to pass the time, and I’m expecting a perfectly reasonable Christmas dinner. (Me later on - yep it was good).

A little later on in the afternoon as I waited to find out my family’s plans, I thought I’d watch an epic, pro Age of Empires 2 battle on Youtube. I used to love playing the game when I was younger. What I like about it is it’s pretty realistic. (At least in ways). All the sprites from archers, to knights, to axemen, etc. all have their strengths and weaknesses. But what the HELL is realistic about building a castle in someone else’s base? Did that ever happen? Did the French ever build castles in England at any point? Or in the heat of battle as thousands of archers shot each other, did anyone EVER start constructing houses or whatever a few meters behind the warriors? ‘But when that happens in the game, it’s only because the players don’t know what they’re doing.’ Not true, I have proof. I also doubt that people with swords alone could knock a castle down. Certainly not in minutes. And why would swords clashing with stone set the buildings on fire? Because of the sparks flying everywhere? Come on. Still though, it was a good battle I witnessed and I watched all 50 minutes of it. Anyway, great news! Christmas could continue for me, as my dad received a confirming phone call!

Oh my mistake, turns out only a short drive was needed to where my brother and co. were staying. That was good, as it left more time for celebrating in the form of Monopoly. Interestingly, the board game was based on the sitcom ‘Friends’, but the rules were basically the same. Was the game funny? It was more odd than funny. I know funny is another word for odd, but Friends isn’t supposed to be odd. If it was, its audience would be far smaller, I’m sure. Why was it strange? Because instead of building houses and hotels on properties, you place cups and sofas. Hm. Well cups or houses, the effects were the same, so I didn’t have to worry. You land on real estate with lots of cutlery, expect to hand over lots of dough. Just like in real life. Eventually, I acquired two of three properties of the same colour, meaning I nearly had the ability to cupify, but another player stopped me by buying the last one! Not to worry, I bought it off her for more than double what it originally cost. Bargain right? Not until a player landed it on it with my four mugs. He had to pay me $700! Eventually we all got bored and decided to give up and work out who won by adding up the money we had and the value of our residences. I thought I was going to win, but I came second. Damn. I was the only player who had the honour of screwing someone out of lots of cash though, so there was that. And…. That’s all from me. Bye!