The Life of the Nickness

Wow. Decemberween has come and gone and with the arrival of my parents’ card in the mail today, I’ve officially received all my gifts.

I won’t be listing any joint gifts that Megan and I got as a couple, as they are mainly small items, giftcards from family/clients and stuff for the kitchen, and are too numerous for me to remember what they all are(except the Lenox martini set we got from her brother and sister in law)

So, other than the joint gifts, heres the breakdown:

Stockingstuffers:

candy, socks, shaving cream, deodorant, a weird looking dog figurine(meant as a prank gift, i hope) 3 scratch off cards(I won $1) and a kids pirate sticker book(probably meant as a prank gift, but lemme tell you: pirate stickers rock!)

Nonstocking gifts:

A Christmas Ornament from my Grandma

Cash from my parents(I love you Mom and Dad. Seriously. It was really unexpected)

2 really nice shirts, a red sweater(my traditional yearly sweater), some undershirts, a pair of jeans, and an awesomely cool shaving kit from Megan

Season 3 of House, from Megan’s twin brother and sister-in-law

a pair of lounge pants, nike tennis shoes and a Tomtom One GPS unit(which I love so much I’m sleeping with) from Megan’s parents

Yup. Pretty good decemberween season, if I do say so myself.

Oh, and for those of you wondering: I surprised the crap out of Megan with a Pink Dell Inspiron 1721 notebook computer. Mad props to my brother for helping me out with it.

Anyone have any ideas on an (inexpensive) gift I can get Megan for Christmas?

All you girls out there: What would you want your man to get you?

So, I know last year I had this huge post about why I hate posting Christmas lists, and I actually still agree with my previous posts. However, I’ve decided to set my personal feelings aside concerning the commercialization of Christmas and just post a damn list this year.

Here it is:

From Homestar Runner:
A Strongbad or Trogdor zip hoodie, size 3x
Strong Bad Overkill Combo and/or the Everything Else Combo

From Thompson Cigar:
Travel Humidor with Padron Londres cigars

From Amazon:

Anything from my Amazon.com Wish List

….sigh. I can’t think of any more items right now. How sad is that?

Dear Tube Socks,

It’s me again. I hope you had a good year. Free of athletes’ feet and toe jams. Lemme cut to the chase. On Decemberween morning, when I open you guys up, you’re going to hear…things. Hurtful things. Unforgivable things. Things like, Uhhh… and Oh, man! and This present of tube socks totally sucks and I hate it! Don’t you believe a word of it, Tube Socks.

I love you guys. I don’t know what I’d do without my yearly pair. But a guy’s gotta keep up appearances, right? If peoples found out I have a soft spot for tube socks, it’d be all over. It took me years to live down that Martina Navratilova poster…and I will not go down that road again.

We can be secret friends. Like that hunchback kid at school. In closing, please disregard any and all negative comments or negative burning you may hear or experience on Decemberween.

Stealthily Yours,

Strong Bad

Consider the following:

1) No known species of reindeer can fly. But there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

2) There are 2 billion children (persons under 1 in the world. BUT since Santa doesn’t (appear) to handle the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total - 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes. One presumes there’s at least one good child in each.

3) Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical).

This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children, Santa has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house.

Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75-1/2 million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man- made vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second - a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

4) The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight.

On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that ‘flying reindeer’ (see point #1) could pull TEN TIMES the normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine.

We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload - not even counting the weight of the sleigh - to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison - this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

5) 353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance - this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each.

In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second.

Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.> In conclusion - If Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he’s dead now.

Well Christmas has come and gone, and it’s been a few days since I first opened my presents. Now that I’ve had a chance to play with them, I figure I might as well let you all know what I got, and provide my oh-so-wonderful commentary on each and every item. The list is broken up into two sections; my Stocking and the actual girls. Enjoy!

Stocking:

$50 from Jonathan–Pretty self explainatory. My borther didn’t want to buy anyone gifts this year(at least for my sister and myself) so he gave us money. Yay!
$50 from Abuella–She always sends money. I like her. I love her. Shes awesome.
Gillette Mach3 Turbo razor–I think my family is telling me I need to shave more often
Gillette Mach3 Turbo razor blades–Again, I think my family is telling me they like the clean shaven look. Anyone care to share a different opinion?
Colgate Simply White Toothpaste–OK, So I guess my teeth aren’t as white as I would like them to be, but come on! What is with all the grooming stuff I’m getting?!?
T/Gel Therapeutic Shampoo–Yes, I have dandriff
T/Gel Overnight Dandruff Treatment–So I guess my family doesn’t believe the shampoo is up for the job. Yay overnight treatment.

The Presents!

Socks–they are white. And manly. I love manly looking socks. Cause I’m a man. Thats right baby! Oh yeah!
Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando PS2 game–I have the first game, and this is the secoond. I played it a long time ago, and it is superb.
Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal PS2 game–The third game in the series. Oh, I love the weapons. **sighs…..**
Sweater–Every Christmas I get a sweater. This year was no exception. It looks cool. And um… slightly what an ‘old man’ would wear.
Boxers x4–Finally! I was holding out from buying my own hoping for a pair or 2. Now I have 4. Thank God. My old ones… well, lets just say that had so many holes I was ready to start worshiping them.
Pumpkin Pie scented Candle–mmm smells like pumpkin. Very good scent. Makes me hungry. I didn’t have any pumpkin pie this year. A tragedy I plan on remedying for next year.
Baby Jesus Nativity scene from Grandma–When she bought it I was still married and had my own place. Yup, she bought it like, over a year ago! I guess she didn’t feel like trying to get me anything else. Oh well. My brother got one just like it. Gasp! I didn’t know the “Holy Family” had clones!
Gift Certificate for a Manicure at Le’ Nails–Yup, I need a manicure. Just as soon as my nails grow out more and I can take Rhema with me. And please, no Gay jokes.
Spider-man 2 DVD Gift Set–Oh yeah. I wish I was spiderman. I could do whatever a spider can. Spin a web, anytime…..You know how it goes.
Stargate Season 1 DVD boxed set
Stargate Season 3 DVD boxed set
Stargate Season 4 DVD boxed set–This comment is for all the stargate boxed seasons I got, ok?? So…. Yay Stargate! I was hoping for all seven seasons, and I got 4! My mom says they were already sold out of seasons 2, 5, and 6. I don’t care, yay!! They were crafty with them though. Put them in a gift box made for sweaters, and made me believe it was clothes til I had fully opened up the box. I think I actually might have shed a tear. Yes, I know I’m pathetic.
Stargate Season 7 DVD boxed set from Melissa–Ok, Melissa rocks for this gift. Now I only have 3 more season to go! (FYI, my brithday is May 12 everyone..hint hint hint!)
The EA Games Collection: Sim City 3000, Red Alert 2, LOTR ROTK, 007 Nightfire, and Need for Speed 2 from Melissa to both Myself and my brother.–I like games. So does my brother. This will be fun.
TROGDOR Hoodie from Rhema–One of my most favorite gifts, from one of my most favorite people. I love the Burninator.
Kingdom Hearts Soundtrack CD from Rhema–OK, this was an awesome game and the soundtrack is awesome. Once again, I have to thank the wonderful and ever so beautiful Rhema. Shes so great! Now if only I could convince her parents for a Courtship……ahh, maybe next Christmas.

Hey everybody! Whats been going on? With me, not too much out of the ordinary, but wow–I sure am going to have a great time making you all believe I have an awesome and exciting life here in this journal entry!

I guess I should start out by saying that Christmas is only 2 weeks away. Wow. And I didn’t even post my Christmas list on here. Ah, maybe that’s a good thing, I think I’ll just post everything I actually get. I have caregroup tomorrow night, which is really cool cause it means I get to go over to Rhema’s house for dinner. Yay me! Oh, and I put up some Christmas decorations around the house today—lets just say that the ‘Homer Santa’ is up in the front yard, lookin’ pretty spiffy, and scaring away dogs and demon possessed babies. You have no idea how badly my block suffers from the evils of demon possessed babies and barky little dogs. But yes, ‘Homer Santa’ is doing it’s job and scaring them away.

Lets see here…. what else can I tell you? I got my cavity filled earlier this afternoon–yay for me–I got some laughing gas to go along with it–I’m tellin’ you man. Ain’t nothing like the gas to make you feel all light headed and allow you to forget that some weird guy you don’t know has a drill aimed right at your head.

Rhema and I started a contest on All Poetry.com. I must admit it’s been getting an interesting turnout. Chances are, I’ll post the winner’s poem on my Lj, just so you wonderful folks out there to lazy to go to the site can see what we consider awesome poetry.

I have to pay bills today, and tomorrow I have to go to the bank and get a loan for my car. Yay me for becoming more financially stable! We all know the wonderful benefits that has!

Ok. this has just been a jumbled mess of randomness. Hopefully I’ll do better with concrete thought processes next post.

OK, so I’m back at my apartment. Just got home in order to take a shower, get changed, and go back to my house so my sister can have a picture of her, my brother, and myself by the christmas tree. I could have showered and changed there, but my dad is being a dick and said I wasn’t allowed. When I got to my parent’s house, My gifts were the only ones left. Everyone else had already opened theres. Then Sierra started being a bitch cause my mom was handing me my gifts(my mom wanted to) and I was not physically getting up and getting them myself. Oh Joy.
Toby couldnt even come in from inside and help me open gifts this year. He loves halping me open my gifts, and then playing with the paper. That was kinda like my present to him, since I didn’t get him anything this year. Actually, I was so poor I didn’t get anyone anything, but I only really care about Toby. Tiffany tried to bite me last night when I was petting her(the bitch) so I don’t care about her(ok, I’ll be honest, we all know Toby is my favorite)
Christmas was….ok. I could say other things, but hey, it’s christmas, and I don’t want to seem like I’m being a dick myself. Heres what I got:
socks (lots of them, hell, I could probably give everyone I know a pair and still have some for myself,lol!)
Newton’s Cradle (I made the mistake of looking at this too long while I was with my mom one day at JCPenny’s, and telling her how cool it looked. Now I have one.)
Pair of Workout clothes (Levi will be happy)
Nail Kit (OK, so I knew I had this one coming, I just forgot about it. two gay french guys in the mall sold like, four to my mom and I. I think it’s an awesome product)
Sweater (From my sister. Usually I don’t like sweaters, but she has great taste and they are the only gift I ever get that I actually wear all the time. Heck, I wore her sweatergift from last year to this year’s christmas get-together)
Smallville, Season One (I was with my mom when she picked this up. I knew it was for me. I like smallville.)
Nothing from Grandma (for some reason, when my grandma on my dad’s side was packing our gifts, she either forgot to include mine[which is what my dad thinks] or just didn’t get me anything
Money from Abuella (I can always count on her.)
Money from my parents (Ok, so they said they weren’t going to give money this year, but they did. good for them! But, not to sound like an evil, spoiled child, including the money my abuella gave me, I’m still 175$ short on the rent money. Something tells me I’ll be begging Levi or someone else to loan me the money til I get paid)
A giftcard for Food Lion for Levi and I in the amount of 50$ (from my sister. Thank God for her)
A giftcard for a free haircut at HairCuttery (my mom wants me to go get a haircut. I think it’s a wasted gift;I like how my hair looks, not too long, not too short. Sierra made some bitch comment. Oh well.)

Well, that was it. Only one slice of Pizza(for some reason my dad only wanted me to eat one slice for breakfast, even though there were six left and no one eats pepperoni pizza except me. can we all say “se chow!” I know thats probably not the correct spelling, but oh well) No Stargate Boxed seasons and not enough money, so now I have to beg others for it. Breena said she’d pay the electric bill this month, as long as I pay her back. If her offer still stands I might just take her up on it.
Again, it was an ok christmas. I just have to remember that there are other out there who got less than me or even nothing for christmas.
Joy to the world.
I hope y’alls day was better than mine.

Hmm,

~~ok, so I originally wrote this at 1:34pm, but my mom’s computer was messing up, so I had to post it later.~~

Well, as a post for christmas eve I think it’d be a cool and great idea to just answer the questions someone has been asking me in the comment section of my journal. I like reading comments. It makes me feel as though my life is so important people keep “tuning in” to see whats going on. Much like a reality Tv show. Yeah, I should have one of thoses. It’d be a hit. hey MTV, or Fox, or whatever station that does them!!—-Give me my own show!! You’ll make money, I’ll make money, people will laugh, and we’ll all be happy. OK, time to start the real entry.

First off, in case I didn’t make it clear enough, I had to wake up at 5am those past two days so that I could drive my roommate levi to my parents’ house so he could finish working on the kitchen floor(he is tiling it for my mother) yet today, we woke up late, and he will not be able to come and do it until later(probably tonight)

Wow. Today is Christmas eve. Tomorrow is Christmas. I can hardly believe it. Do you realize last year at this time I was married, living a very way cool happy life? Now I live in my apartment with my best friend(no offense Levi) with no life, a bad job, and no relationship prospects. What a difference a year can make.
Looking back, it has always seemed to me that my past has been a lot happier than my present or my immediate future. I’m one of those people who tend to live in the past. And why not? I’ve had so many great experiences in so many wonderful countries.
But I remember watching the Twilight Zone one night, and an episode came on, about this 30 year old man who kept living in the past. Remembering the good old time, so to speak. Well, it’s difficult to describe it, but through some weird time warp, he was able to remember that his past was not all fun and games, there was some heartbreak in there too.
Thats what I have to remember. Even those my past seems really great, it’s got ALOT of heartbreak and torment in there. I remember when I was getting rid of Breena’s stuff, it was really difficult to just throw it away. So I didn’t. I kept it up, sort of like an “alter”. I called it the “alter of my failed marriage” complete with dead roses. It became some what of a joke. Then Levi had to remind me that with that there it’d be really hard to move on to something better. So what did I do? I burned the unity candle til it went out, packed it all up, and gave it to Breena. I was done with that part of my past. And even though my present isn’t doing too great night now, I gotta look towards my future. Thats really want my life is all about–What I want to do, who I want to become.
If I don’t focus on that, I will continue to do what I have been doing these past few weeks since I quit my job–nothing. And even though doing nothing seems really great, as the days go by and time passes, I find myself wanting to do something–anything different than what I am doing now. I really want to be a Pastor of CE. Thats really want I want to do. I just have to gain the willpower to tread towards that goal and not loook back.
Wow, I really typed alot there, didn’t I? I’m sure there so much more I could type. Infact, I know there is. If anyone is interested in knowing more of my crazy thoughts, you should email me, nick@ztug.net
lol. I pretend like my life is so interesting, lol.
But hey, back on the subject–it’s christmas eve! Now I don’t know about you all, but Christmas eve is almost better than Christmas for me. For one, On Christmas eve, We usually have a big dinner(this year it doesn’t look like we will, since the floor won’t be done) but then we get to pick one gift from under the tree and open it. That is always so exciting to me. I always try to pick the gift that I think will like the most–that way, if all my other gifts are horrible the next day(which they never are) I am still surprised and happy for that one night. Does that make sense? Actually, reading back I kinda sound really greedy. I hope my parents don’t read this thing, lol!
Christmas morning I used to wake up sooo early, like if I didn’t wake up early someone would come in and steal all my gifts. Nowadays I tend to sleep in and enojy a morning off, then strool downstairs and, once everyone else is up, find my spot on the floor(If I’m lucky I get a chair)then we all open one gift at a time until the tree is empty.
We then pick up, take out the trash, and eventually take down all the Christmas decorations.
Thats pretty much my christmas right there.

OK, so I would write more, but my mom is home(I’m typing this from her house) and I convinced her to drive me around town shopping so I can find some last minute gifts for some people(my dad surprisingly gave me 20$ to do this!)
ta ta for now!

ps: I still need money.