unknown Buffista was Billytea.

Thank you!

For those in the know, from Lilty in Firefly:

I've now watched about 10 seconds of 'Trash'. I'd like to report that it is a very good episode indeed.

Sheryl :

Perhaps I have odd standards of tastefulness, but I'm finding far too many houses around here decorated in what I call the "Put the lights down and back away slowly" style of Xmas decoration.

Billytea goes house hunting in Bitches -

Oh, and a couple of observations from ploughing through the marketing material:

"Only the lucky few will get to enjoy this opportunity" does not so much say 'dream home' as 'teen slasher movie'.

A laps pool can be a selling point. Having three large, rectangular pillars embedded in it just makes it look like you're trying to cull the pretentious. Or encouraging water pistol fights.

Advertising a property as having "three or more toilets" can have no good explanation:

1. The builder suffered from a bizarre combination of obsessive-compulsive disorder and anal fixation.
2. The agent keeps losing her place every time she counts past two.
3. The agent takes an avant-garde approach to function. "Well, I guess you could use this in a pinch..."

Ginger in Bitches -

I'm wrapping presents. This is the way it goes:

Pick up present. Pull paper up around box. Look for scissors. Scissors have disappeared. Look under various piles for scissors. Go get more scissors. Pull paper around box. Cut paper. Now the tape has disappeared. It is apparently in cahoots with the scissors. Sit down. Find tape because the cutting edge is digging into my leg. Start taping package. Run out of tape. Get up to get more tape in the office. While in the office, check the internet. Forget why I'm in the office. Go back to the package. Realize I need tape. Come back to office and look for tape. Find tape and head back to package. Realize that it's time to put the clothes in the dryer. Go back to package. Go back to dryer and find tape. Finish taping package. Look for labels. Discover they've rolled under the chair. Get on hands and knees to retrieve labels. Put label on package and pick up package. Discover that the scissors were under the package.

Pick up present...

Cindy in Natter:

The Island of Misfit Toys is the last place for someone suffering from clinical depression. Hell, it depressed an elf.

TomW continues the Misfit Toys theme:

Who can forget Joself McCarthy on the floor of the Santate:

"I have here a list of exactly five toys in little Billy's stocking that are totally lame! Three toys in little Sally's stocking that are weak, AT BEST! And no less than twelve toys in spoiled little Nathaniel's stocking that blow chunks."

Rick:

We sometimes play a drinking game at banquets on the final day of scientific conferences. Based on the anticipated topics of the featured speaker, each person at the table chooses a word that the speaker is likely to say frequently. Every time the distinguished visitor says your word you have to drink.

At one of these dinners where the speaker was a well-known statistician one of my friends choose the word "variance." The speaker never said variance, but she kept saying 'standard deviation.' We held a quick conference and decided that our friend had to drink every time we heard 'standard deviation,' but she only had to drink the square root of the amount the rest of us were drinking.

Can we get through the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere without immortalizing Tom Scola's tagline?

Stupid Earth! Start tilting towards the Sun! [Kicks Earth]

(ETA: Obviously not....)