Laissez Faire
I’m home for Christmas and I’m really looking forward to it this year. The last few years haven’t been particularly special for me (and 2 years ago I had the worst hangover I’ve ever had on Christmas Day) but this year feels different somehow. Maybe it’s because of my mum but I can just tell that I’m going to enjoy the holidays. The house has already been decorated and looks very festive. As per usual, we have 2 trees up, a real one in our living room and a fake one in our front room.

The Spirit of Christmas
To add to the Christmas spirit, and despite my dwindling finances, I bought “The Best… Christmas Album in the World Ever”. As well as featuring the typical Christmas hits such as ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ and ‘White Christmas’, it also features more recent songs such as Slade and Wizzard’s offerings. However, to my horror, it doesn’t have Wham’s ‘Last Christmas’ in all its glory, just a poxy instrumental version. Worse still, no East 17 with ‘Stay Another Day’, and most insulting of all, it has a Spice Girls rendition of Christmas classic ‘Sleigh Ride’. Now, I can just about live with Chris de Burgh’s ‘A Spaceman Came Travelling’, and I really like Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘The Power of Love’, but to put them on and NOT ‘Last Christmas’ is frankly ludicrous. “The Best Christmas Album in the World Ever”? More like “A Decent Christmas Album But Not The Best Christmas Album Ever By A Long Shot”. Bah humbug.

Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?
In terms of me me me, I haven’t really asked for anything specific for Christmas. I don’t have much money because I’m a poor student, and my parents don’t have any money because my mum isn’t working and my dad has been on strike a lot recently. (He’s a fireman and there’s been lots of strikes over pay rises in Britain the last few weeks). So, if Santa decides to only leave me some socks, a musical tie and woolly jumper with Rudoplh emblazoned on the front, so be it. I would really like the Lord of The Rings extended edition on DVD though. But of course, Chistmas is about giving rather than receiving, about spending time with family, and about celebrating the birth of our saviour Jesus Christ. Christmas would never become a shameless capitalist exploitation strategy in the name of ever-increasing profit margins. Never in a million years. But I digress. I honestly don’t care what I get, I just want to have a nice Christmas and think about nice things, like Turkey dinner and snowfall on Christmas Day.

Put your hands in the air like you just don’t care
I was trying to remember what I’ve got for Christmas in the past, and for the most part I can remember pretty well. Interestingly though, I have absolutely no idea what I got for Christmas last year. Seriously, not an inkling. I’m hoping this is because I was so blind drunk that even if the man in the big red suit had left me an island in the Caribbean inhabited solely by a group of twenty-something Blonde beauties, I still wouldn’t remember. Sadly, he didn’t leave me such a wonderful present (maybe this year?) and I wasn’t that drunk. So I have no idea why I can’t remember. Perhaps my present was so hideous that I’ve repressed the entire day. Or maybe it was so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that at the time it didn’t seem like it was worth remembering it.

I have had some pretty wicked presents down the years though. When I was 4 I got a massive Thomas the Tank Engine stuffed toy that I still own to this day (though I can’t ride it in the same way I used to and it’s a little bit grubby now), plus my first Mountain Bike which was so big when I got it I had to mount it with me on the pavement and the bike on the road, and my Super Nintendo which I still have tucked away in my wardrobe and occasionally bring out to reminisce with. Childhood is such a wonderful, innocent time and I’ll never forget the excitement of coming downstairs to find the mince pie and beer I had lovingly laid out had gone and the massive bags we left under our tree were full of presents. Running upstairs and shouting repeatedly at my parents “He’s been! He’s been!” has to be one of the most magical moments a child can experience. It’s not the same now, especially as I know that the mince pie and beer were wasted on my dad all those years, but seeing the faces of my nephew and niece when they come round on Christmas morning is almost, ALMOST, as good as being 7 years old again.

Space Year 2003
I’m fast approaching the halfway point of my second year at Uni, and I still have no idea what I want to do when I finish. I would really like to go into journalism, but its extremely competitive and the pay isn’t great. I don’t think I have what it takes to be the next David Beckham or the Extreme Ironing World Champion (actually, I haven’t done any ironing for over 12 months, quite a feat I think you’ll agree) so I’m going to have to go back to the drawing board and think of something a little more realistic. Hmmm, perhaps when the clock strikes midnight on New Years Eve, in my 100% sober state, I’ll have an epiphany that will map out where my life is heading in the next few years. Or maybe I’ll just stagger a few feet before collapsing in the middle of the road.

Quote of the Day
“The definition of a beautiful woman is one who loves me” - Sloan Wilson

Which WWE finishing move are you?
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Groovy
I know I keep promising, but I really will do a proper update soon. To keep you amused in the meantime, check out my lovely computer game reviews at:

http://vision.york.ac.uk/articles/142/games.shtml