Wmcmanus

Rudolph actually is a bastard! Dasher is his father, but the mother is never mentioned anywhere. She must have come from the wrong side of Santa's Village. That, and Dasher must have undergone a sex change at some point (Rudolph as well) because all male reindeer shed their antlers every year around October or November. (True story, as Google will confirm.) Thus, all of the reindeer on Santa's official sleigh team must be female, which goes a long way explain why they're so highly organized and efficient. Only problem is that with Rudolph at the lead, to the extent that he still does display some male characteristics, he's still too proud to ask for directions. Anyway, Merry Birthday, Ric.

Happy birthday!

Takes a deep breath... the 12-14 hour shift of jolly madness is about to begin. Got my route all mapped out and sure hope I can stay on schedule...17 visits is a lot! I've actually hired a driver/photographer/elf who will also serve as my cell phone operator to keep people informed throughout the night. He's my neighbor, and says he'll do practically anything (including dressing in the elf costume) for a 10% commission, which will be over $300, plus he gets to keep all of the booze that I might receive as a gifts. The last party is adults only, which starts at 1:30am. That's why it's hard to tell just how long I'll be out there tonight! I'll be wearing 3 different suits as the night progresses and refreshing my cooling vests in between wardrobe changes as well. Rented a cargo van to make that process easier.

I sure hope he/she loves someone else!

So sorry, Mike. Somehow I missed all of this as I was fretting about silly and inconsequential things like losing my Santa toy bag. Wish I could be there to give Gail a hug. Hang in there and be strong for her and everyone.

We've kind of tried this. Nobody took the toy bag. I just left it on top of my SUV and drove home, so somebody obviously found it and said, WTF?!?!? Had it been found by a sensible person, they probably would have brought it to the local police station (lost and found). That's what everyone does here in Cayman. But not too many people here are sensible.

It gets worse! Last night on my way back home from another Santa event, someone crossed the center line and sideswiped me. Just caught the mirror on the passenger side of my Ford Edge and ripped it off, but no other damage at all. Oddly enough, this is the 3rd time the same thing has happened to me with this vehicle since I bought it new in 2007 (but only the 2nd under my command). So that's another $500 loss. Guess I just can't win until I actually buy a sleigh! I'm going to finish the season off in my Pontiac G6 convertible because the Edge is starting to spook me! Plus, people really love seeing Santa driving around with the top down.

Yup, that's pretty much it. Just stuff I'll need to replace. The most expensive thing was the pewter flask with a celtic knot design and matching leather holster and leather pouch that I kept the "magic snow" in. I think I spent about $300 to have all of that made for me. Probably a $600 loss in total counting the "good book" and the bags and special bag tags that said, "Property of Santa Claus. If found, please return to the North Pole" but silly me, I didn't think to sew my name and address inside the bags. What sucks mostly are the thousands of signatures I had collected from kids in the Good Book. There were about 50 pages of standard 8.5" x 11" plain white 3-hole punch typing paper in there filled (on both sides) with signatures and wish lists, as well as letters to Santa that I had stapled and/or scotch taped in. Here's what it looked like:

Lost my Santa toy bag last night and didn't even realize it until today. Did an event and when I got back to my SUV, since it had been raining, I put it on top of the roof while I opened the back and threw in my royal robe and a few other items I was carrying. Then hopped in and drove home. Inside the toy bag was my candy bag and Santa's Good Book (custom made leather 3 ring binder) and an expensive pewter flask encased in a leather pouch that contains Santa's magic snow. Yes, I can make snow. Or at I used to be able to! Lost about $500-$600 worth of stuff that would be worthless to anyone else. Went to Radio Cayman tonight and recorded a couple of entertaining spots that they will be playing over the next couple of days. Hopefully, someone will turn it in. Otherwise, I'll just replace it all and be more careful. Even as I was putting the bag up there on the roof, I was saying to myself, "That's a dumb place to put it... you might forget it!" ...and then I did.

http://www.flixxy.com/best-christmas-lights-display.htm

I'll need to add this to the mindless consumerism thread as well. This Santa season has been especially busy (actually making some money), so I bought myself a 100mm macro lens. Been meaning to do so for some time, and there are instant rebates going on now with B&H: http://www.bhphotovi...2_8L_Macro.html

Don't know if this has been posted on the Top Gear thread or not, but it's something that everyone should see, even if they don't follow that thread: http://biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=21927

I'm sorry to learn of your loss, Chris. My thoughts and prayers will be with you and your family. Having been there myself, I know how rough it can be.

Sure he's not just being a drama queen?

That, plus they only see a small fraction of it all in those fleeting moments as they're passing by, whereas we see the entire video with all of it's brilliance, as well as the music. Might just look like a bunch of Asian goofballs to someone walking past them. But I honestly had the same thought that Steve did. Of course, I grew up in a farm town in Illinois with 4,000 people, so anything like this would be pretty incredible.

Make sure you go to the beach, but you were probably already planning on that. Never been to Cancun. When my former finacee's mom died, the whole bunch of those lazy, good for nothing Jamaicans wouldn't even chip in to put the poor woman in the ground. It was left to her, which in turn also meant me, to come up with 90% of the funeral costs. Same thing apparently happened when her dad died, but I was long out of the picture by then, so it wasn't on my nickel. I don't think they even had a bottle of Appleton Estate to pass around. Consider yourself lucky, and have a great time with Nana, et. al.

He's like a brother to me, and in 14 years I've never really done anything substantial like this for him. He's been very emotional in recent years, and especially this year. His mom told my mom (they've been best friends for 50 years) that he's reverting back to childhood in terms of his emotions. He recently told her, "Nobody loves me anymore..." like you might expect to hear from a 12 year-old who is going through a crisis. It really sucks because he was one of these guys who had it all. College educated, very well employed, happily married, and doing triathlons. He would do 500 situps and 500 pushups every morning before doing a 20k bike ride. But most of all, he had more friends than anyone I know. Where they've all gone now is beyond me.

Planning to get him one of these as well (the "standard" model for $60): http://tv.toptenrevi...929-review.html Don't really know anything about this issue, except that you ought to at least do something to provide some backlighting to help reduce eye strain. Given that he watches TV pretty much all waking hours (or at least has it on in the background), I figured this would be important for his night time viewing. I'm hoping there will be a way to diffuse this lighting from behind the TV as well, because I don't want it to be blinding everyone else in the house when they walk around back there. The TV itself will be sort of in the middle of a very large room.

Sort of in this same boat myself this Christmas. Looking for a high end TV for a childhood buddy of mine who is in pretty bad shape these days. He suffered a major brain aneurism almost 14 years ago, and was lucky to survive it. Took him 6 weeks to come out of the coma, and he's been paralyzed from the waist down and on the left side of his upper body ever since. He's atrophied quite a bit in recent years, especially after his wife left him. Until then, he was at least attempting to do physical therapy, but in reality everyone always knew that he would never walk again. Apparently, he wasn't so innocent in his marriage back when he was physically able, so I don't blame her for ultimately leaving him. She has since remarried, and had a child. He, in the meantime, moved in with his mom and step dad. Moved into their living room to be exact. He's got a full-time care taker who keeps him company and his mom does what she can to help him and to keep his spirits up, although she's 70 now, so it's really a tough situation all around. Anyway, his 10+ year-old TV, which he brought with him when he moved in, has been on the fritz for some time now. It's a 52" boxy looking thing that never had much of a picture, even in it's better days. So I've been debating what to get him, and have ruled out plasmas because he'll have the silly thing on all day and night. There is no way to control the room lighting. It's a huge room with several angles, cut outs, and big windows. He's pretty much located in Grand Central of their home, if they tried to control the lighting for him, they would all be living in dark. His mom is retired and at home, whereas his step-dad is 10 years younger and still working. The LED LCD variety seem to be much better for day time viewing and when you can't control the room lighting. I've settled in on the Sony XBR-55HX929. http://tv.toptenrevi...929-review.html Although I haven't had the chance to view it myself, my mom and sister have done a lot of legwork for me and say that it really does look substantially better than anything else out there. They've looked at dozens of TV's and agree with me (based about what I've learned just by reading reviews) that this is the best thing out there right now. It'll cost $2,700, but I'll get over that. My sister and her husband want to get him some kind of Yamaha "sound bar" thingie which apparently simulates a 7.1 surround sound, and I don't know enough about it or have the energy to fight them about it. Besides, I really can't imagine that they would want a bunch of speakers positioned all over the place in there. My mom is going to buy a stand for the TV after working with his mom in terms of what will work best. I'm heading home the day after Christmas and will be bringing my Oppo BDP-83 for him as well since I don't use it anymore since upgrading to the 95. This kid really has it rough, but I've never, ever, ever, heard him utter a word of complaint. He's still 90% of what he ever was mentally, so he's always fun to visit with, plus he's still a big sports fan and I can't ever argue with that. He deserves the best, and unfortunately cannot afford it himself, nor can his parents. They just had to buy a very expensive hospital bed, etc., so it's the least I can do. It could just as easily be me sitting there all day, every day.

Nice tree, Nate.

"Here I briefly EDIFIER plan." Wow! Thanks for the EDIFIERcation...

No sir!!! That shit ain't happening on my lap, Mikey!!! Little boys, sure, and girls of all ages, but no big boys! No pets either! How many figgin' times do I have to tell the photo company people about that?!?! The excuse I use is that I don't want to handle a dog or cat and then an 8 week old baby 5 minutes later. But the reality is that I don't want shit, piss, grime, drool, and fur all over my expensive custom made suits!

Did 5 Santa gigs today, have 6 tomorrow, 7 on Saturday, and 1 on Sunday. Nothing Monday or Tuesday, thankfully, and then it starts again on Wednesday. Have 58 events scheduled so far with 47 left to go, and the phone keeps ringing. Have had to turn down a bunch of Saturday stuff already. Funniest one was this guy who owns a large janatorial company here who I bumped into a couple of weeks ago. He told me then, all proudly, about how he's having a big party for 300-400 guests, and that I'll be "invited" to attend. Got a call this afternoon from someone at his company as a I was driving from one event to another... "We have an invitation for you for our party for Saturday night. You can pick it up any time..." I said, "For me to attend or to hire me to be your Santa?" Then it was, "Oh no, it's just for you to attend, but Mr. Roper told me to tell you that it would be Ok for you to "play Santa" if you want to... then you can have some jerk chicken..."