Hee! Have we seen this Japanese Matrix Ping Pong? The SO passed along the link.

Now that everyone but me has cells, it comes across as insane.

This is me wrt getting a group of people in different cars from Place A to Place B. I like to get everyone to stand in one place for five seconds and hear the route so that we all know where we're going. But everyone always says, "Don't worry, we have cell phones!" Yeah, sure, but..... I just don't like getting lost.

Laga, I don't know specifically what you're looking for, but have you tried Lark in the Morning? I'm not local, but they say they're still shipping in time for Christmas.

Cool thanks!

No problem.

Does anyone know why I am getting interstitial ads in Google? Because it's enough to make me stop using Google.

DH says if that doesn't work try Dusty Strings in seattle ( Liese beat me to Lark in the Morning)

[link]

McCabe's in LA is another place to try ( on Pico in Santa monica)

Random Santa-related-thoughts, because I've been out all day and clearly this is Vital Information You're All Desperate To Know:

I remember one Xmas eve driving back from... probably my grandparents'... and the car radio was on. So I probably would have been 4 or 5. My brother said, hey, did you hear that? They said that Santa's been sighted over the west coast. And then he pointed out the window at some satellite that was blinking and he said that was the sleigh. And then when we got home I had a new pinewood oven/toybox thingy by the tree with a ribbon on it! Magic!

But even so... I remember believing in Santa, but not very seriously. I don't remember "finding out" or any "that doesn't make much sense" revelation. I think I just filed it in with all the lets-pretend games I played. Normal life is already pretty weird when you're that young, so adding one more weird thing isn't all that startling. Part of Christmas was that you talked about Santa. We still all claim that Santa brings stuff for the stockings, even while saying, "It's funny that Santa brings this to Mom's house instead of dropping it off 10 miles away, where I live now." And as we open the stockings, we always say, "Thank you, Santa," and we mean, "Mom." Actually, maybe it's the loud thank-yous that made me go, "Okay, we're saying that for the benefit of someone who can hear it, aren't we?" I don't know.

One year I suggested that we should leave out carrots for the Easter Bunny, and then next morning there was a neatly cut overbite-mark in the carrot, and I thought that was funny.

I do dimly recall trying to stay awake a few times, to hear my parents sneaking out to lay (or build) presents under the tree. Which I failed at, because it simply never occurred to me that I went to bed before they did, and got up after they did, so they really had no need to sneak. Oh, and I also remember being, I dunno, around 8 and a friend being adamant that he'd woken up early and seen Santa poke his head through a wall one morning, and I was all, "Gosh, then maybe it's true," but in my head I was thinking, "Honestly, this really sounds like a dream, dude." I wasn't totally sure he was wrong, but I was definitely skeptical.

Random other-related-thoughts:

Do you think a vampire would be more likely to recoil from a yarmulkah than a Mogan David? I'd totally be thrusting the Star in front of me, if I believed. NSM a menorah or a prayer shawl.

In some canon... I think, or maybe it's just a hypothetical canon a friend came up with, but it's a good idea either way, so let me start over... I like the idea that it's the power of belief that scares off the vamps, rather than the object. If you truly believed in Cthulhu and held up a squid, that would work. Plus it would be an awesome crossover.

Oh, ita. I hope you feel better. Or are distracted from not feeling better, if that is possible. And Tom, I hope you are less stressed, since I have felt overwhelmed-to-the-point-of-tears for the past few days. If it's any comfort, so far I've found that the things I was dreading were actually pretty easy to deal with.

SNL was good tonight.

ETA: I hope "Cock in a Box" shows up on YouTube soon, unedited.

On the other hand, we also get presents from Golo, who is the giant that lives in Granddaddy's head. Golo is far more real than Santa.

This reminds me of my father's "evil twin" who lived in the basement, but would come out when the boy next door was over. He was very convincing.

My Grandfather used to tell my sisters and me about when he was a little girl. He had lots of stories. There was some question as to whether he became a little boy before he became a man or just went from little girl to grown man.

We didn't have presents under the tree until Christmas because the tree went up Christmas Eve. We went to bed with a bare tree and got up with everything magically done. I think we still have the same house rule as Laura.