I am deep into the waves of Christmas cheer, by which I mean spending far too fucking much money. Mostly for shipping.

The suck part about moving 3,000 miles away from “home” is that occassionally you might want to be in touch with the folks back there. I think UPS anally rapes you with its special holiday packing and shipping. Sure they will guarantee delivery–for a fee.

Happily, only one of my gifts cost less than the shipping.

(By the way, I will say hats off to UPS for being cool with illegal trafficking. I sought to send one of the local products for which Cali is known. The ATF and various other federal and state agencies aren’t real down with bootlegging by mail. The chick at the UPS Store said she would wrap it thoroughly and not write the contents on the package. Rock on, UPS, and your intemperate spirit.)

For M., I’m channeling my mother. In terms of romance, this possession may not be a good thing. But, I’ve been bargain shopping and getting him the most mundane of goodies.

(By the way, if you have a cute, fashionable beau, with a personal sense of style, don’t suggest you were looking to get him Dockers for X-mas. This “jest” will only engender anger and a sense of classic alienation a la adolescence, “You don’t know me at all!”)

Completely unrelated to Christmas (or whatever winter holiday you groove), I have one word for Peter Jackson.

Fucking edit. OK, that’s two words.

Seriously, I enjoyed King Kong (maybe because it was a special date night with a special guy and a couple of glasses of wine and a fine dinner). However, every key scene could have had some time shaved. Stampeding dinosaurs cool, the ape getting all Tae Kwon Do with some raptors, various and sundry scenes of mayhem, chaos and prehistoric rage, all cool. But, dude, as soon as the visual message is sent and received you can move the fuck on to something else.

And, what is the deal with giant scary bugs. It seems like all special effects laden flicks now must have gratuitous, giant, scary, crawly things.

Back to the holidays, in this special time I want to bow my head and give thanks to President G.W. Bush. I’m hoping that his little speech the other night, the one where he basically said, because I’m the president that’s why, will help in his undoing. For fuck’s sake, the guy doesn’t even know Civics 101 and the basic three branches of government, checks and balances thang. We have a Congress, use them.

Finally, a welcome to the Brit guy who posted a few comments. Consider this paragraph my fawning and pandering to the readership of one. (At least til I piss him off or bore him to tears, both of which are well in the realm of the probable.)