She's like a rainbow (again)

The post after this one is not my post. When I went to publish my post, some sort of error occurred. However, I'm used to this happening, so I always copy my post before publishing, just in case. I'm not going to delete the post after this one, because it's so wonderfully random - I can only assume my post got crossed with two other posts to create the work of beauty you see below. Now, here is my actual post:

Anyway, Christmas Eve.

Mom, Bam, Janelle and Greg went to church, then back to Bam's for dinner. Mom's finally accepted that I'm an atheist, so she didn't bother inviting me to church with them, but she did ask me to come to dinner. I initially wasn't going to - my mood had reached a valley, and I really didn't feel up to an evening around family; Janelle called later and convinced me to come, though. Tried calling Lilie twice (once before, once after) to see if I could drop off her present, but to no avail.

Bam made homemade ziti; it was really, really good. I didn't hang around much later, though. Came home, and started playing some Diablo 2 (more on this later). I ended up staying awake until... oh, 3 or 4 am. Finally just passed out, but not for very long. I had this bizarre dream that I was supposed to open that morning (I'm really starting to hate having dreams about work. They're really, really annoying.) Anyway, I woke up at like 6:00, when I usually leave to open, and started quickly getting dressed. I had my pants on and was buttoning my shirt when I realized it was Christmas morning and not only did I not have to open, I wouldn't have to go in at all. Of course, I couldn't go back to sleep (despite getting only two hours of sleep), so I played some more Diablo 2 until I heard Janelle and Mom wake up and start moving around. We eventually all moved into the living room for presents and stuff. Went back to my room and napped after that, until Bam and Greg got there. More presents and stuff, followed by more napping. Eventually, we broke through that harsh regimine and moved onto Christmas dinner.

Oddly enough, it's only recently that we've started having a Christmas dinner. In past years, especially when I was in high school, we used to just all lounge around in our pajamas all day. There'd be various snack trays set out, and we'd have people stopping in throughout the day. I miss that, and in rememberance, I wore my new pajama pants all day. In fact, I'm wearing them right now as well. But no one stopped by this year; we just had an intimate family gathering. Don't get me wrong, though - it was very nice, and thoroughly enjoyed by all. Christmas dinner was fantastic - smoked turkey, honey-glazed ham, roast, garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus (mentioned only for completeness), stuffing, brocili and cheese, corn, rolls, and some smoked salmon, but that was mainly for Mom. Everyone liked dinner. We also had homemade cheesecake and tort, but I didn't hang around for that. As we were sitting around after dinner, I heard my message alert on my phone go off. I had missed a call from Lilie and had a subsequent voicemail.

I called her back, and headed over. Gave her her present, which she seemed to like, and came home. More Diablo 2, and then I crashed. Had to open Sunday morning, at 9:30 or so. Nothing terribly exciting there; Adam came in at 10, and I gave him my 5 - C shift, so when I got off at 1-ish, having worked a grand total of 3 1/2 hours, I was off for the rest of the day. Janelle and I, after showers, dishes, and cleaning rooms, went shopping. I had gift certificates to Best Buy and Dragon's Lair; she had ones to Blockbuster and Best Buy. Went to Dragon's Lair first. They had transformer decals, one of which now adorns my car; also picked up a new set of dice and Empire by AEG. I would have preferred Toolbox, but they didn't have that one. Darn. Anyway, on the drive there, Janelle started talking about wanting to get a job for this semester; that evolved into her wanting to be a carhop at Sonic. She *can* skate, which is a plus, and she's really, really smart. I let her know that I didn't think it was a good idea - Sonic is a terrible work environment, but she persisted. So we picked up an application for her. I now face a terrible, terrible decision - help my sister get a job at Sonic or not. More on that later.

Afterwards, we went to Blockbuster. I bought her gift card from her, because even though I don't rent movies or anything, I'm slightly more likely to find a use for it than her. Except I couldn't. Their used games were a joke (even more so than most used games), and NOTHING there was worth looking at. I eventually went with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King extended super-duper platinum 32 DVD edition, just to use it. Went to Best Buy after that, to see if Janelle was going to use her gift certificate, or I would buy that one from her too - after all, there's no limit to the amount of Best Buy gift certificates I can use. That's when I saw it. The same Lord of the Rings thing, for almost fifteen dollars less. Now, I normally don't care about different prices - if I see something a few dollars less than what I spent for it, I chalk it up to experience and move on. But as frustrating as it was in the first place to find something at Blockbuster worth buying, I wasn't going to if they had it RIGHT DOWN THE STREET for SIGNIFICANTELY LESS. So I marched back to Blockbuster to get a refund. Of course, they gave it to me... on a gift card. I'm not kidding. So I still have this completely worthless piece of plastic that entitles me to twenty-five dollars worth of goods and services from Blockbuster (assuming they offer services), none of which are even half-way decent.

So that was fun.

Went back to Best Buy and wondered around for another hour or so, after which, Janelle and I decided to go get some Subway, then go see Blade: Trinity (I will keep inserting the colon in there, despite the fact that there isn't actually one in the movie's title. I just like it.) using the two movie passes she had left. Came home, crashed, and that's where we are now. Fun times. More to follow.