Christmas Eve

Morning. Went for a quick run in my new shoes. Summary: shoes feel super stable - there's no way I'm going to twist an ankle or anything in these. They're grippy as like all Nike shoes I've used so far. And they are sorta cushiony and slightly bouncy. They're sorta perfect in fact. Except for that bit of uneveness in that insole but it'll break in in a couple more runs.

This old wiseman at the park this morning taught me all the different combinations of using the hinged log exercise thingie. Cool guy. Really appreciated it.

Afternoon. Rain. Watched The Transporter 2 at home. And it was only after the movie, at 4pm, that I recalled that the barbecue was at 7 and I had not got the present for the host yet.

Oops.

It's December 24, that makes it Christmas Eve, the day when every single shopping mall is teeming with crazed people looking for last-minute gifts.

I'm one of them. Double oops.

When you're pressed for time and need to think of a gift, the best idea would probably be to recall what you've read in the person's blog.

'Hunky English gentlemen''s the first phrase that comes to mind. Colin Firth. Hugh Grant. He starred in About A Boy. Based on a novel by Nick Hornby. I have that book. The movie edition. The one with Hugh Grant on the cover.

Yes. I'm getting that book for her.



Along with a little card. And there's this promotion on recordable DVD blanks so I bought a spindle of 25.

The crowds and queues in Junction 8 were horribly depressing. Joined the queue of equally harried families, then managed to pay and leave the place. Found a table in the corner of the shopping mall and managed to quickly pack the book in wrapping paper which I had prepared earlier. Great success.

Wormed my way out of the crowd into the bus interchange, then made it to her place after a long wait for the bus and a walk through the drizzle.

Barbecue in the drizzle's sorta do-able, but it's not much fun. Luckily, most of the food didn't need cooking so it's quite alright. Met up with friends, kept each other updated. While the girls just kept on cooking and forcefeeding the guys. It's how barbecues go. The evil girls don't want to get fat themselves so they forcefeed the guys!

Ate loads. As in, really loads. How could anyone not eat all that lovely food? And oh, it's supposed to be this nightmare-themed dress code but only 1 person really followed it.

Had a taste of whiskey and yep. I nearly gagged.

It got stuffy and uncomfortable so that guy slowly took of bits of the costume piece by piece as it got late. Was joking at how the pants would go off later that night. And yep, I'm getting this reputation for jokes like that. I can't eat a sausage without making a joke about it. And I ate 4 of them.

Just hung around and slacked until 11pm, then took the bus back home. It was fun, at least, I didn't spent Christmas eve moping around at home like usual. And having a cosy barbecue surely beats moshing with the crowds in Orchard or any shopping mall.

No photos on my part. Lazy me. And nothing totally spectacular to document anyway. Just food. And friends. The latter will scream if I shove the lens in their faces.

As for Christmas day, well, nothing much happened. Homework, slacked, re-organised my older MP3s (I standardised all the filenames, made sure all the ID3 tags were complete, etc, took me hours), sleep.

Merry Christmas. Oh and gift exchanges are generally a bad idea, I was thinking. Really makes much more sense to take the money you save on buying others gifts, then buying your own gift. No one knows what you like better than you do. And if you receive a gift you don't like, it's just so depressing, knowing that the friend took so much effort to choose the gift, but well, the effort'd be wasted and you just can't bear to tell him/her that.