So, what did you get then?

So, to start off a new post-Christmas entry into the almighty annuls of my blog (which had a surprisingly less amount of entries that I thought it did when I transferred them), I’d like to say that after using WordPress for Mental Gamers Wii and Xbox 360 sites (of which have been removed due to a possible move to Joomla), I decided to use it for my blog.

The thing on the left is a 1GB MP3 player that isn’t too bad, the only thing I’m not too keen on is that it doesn’t actually play MP4 files, which is a bit silly since it’s supposed to be an MP3/MP4 player. It plays AMV files which, to be honest, is a crap format due to it plays almost like a fast slide-show.

The thing on the right there is something I picked up in a supermarket, said to the missus they were pretty cool and she ended up buying them. I wouldn’t complain, but the fact they weren’t something I really wanted and that they only cost £1.99 means that she was desperate for presents to get me. They actually sound quite good and will be handy if I want music while in the bath.
I was pleasantly surprised when opening this one, I had a feeling I might be getting a Discworld book or 2, which is why I was quite looking forward to opening the one on the right…

You can imagine my surprise (read: disappointment) as I opened the prezzie to be confronted by the face on the cover that was almost a mirror of my expression. I like the guy, I think he’s funny and watch most of the programs he presents on TV, but considering I got her Gordon Ramsay’s new autobiography, I didn’t expect to get a 2 year old one in return.

I would have had these Aero Bubbles to munch on, but because they’re my favourite kind of choccies, they’ve already been pooped out.

Talking of chocs, once you reach a certain age of when people just don’t know what to get you and as an excuse that you apparently like them, the inevitable box of liqueurs becomes a permanant fixture on your ‘what you get every year’ list.

You know they’re hardly the mega-highly fantastically super special imported Belgian quality that’s plastered on the box, but you eat the dusty dry mis-shapen things on a night where you can’t be arsed to go to the kitchen and have a DVD playing that you also can’t be arsed pausing.

Insignia, the smell every teenager of the eighties used until Lynx came along.. which is why I was surprised that I received an Insignia set from my brother and sister-in-law, I thought they stopped making the stuff years ago due to it being the not-so-almighty homme de parfum of years gone by.

NEW STINKY STUFF AHOY!

Hackett of London, not a name that I know of, but it’s apparently endorsed by Jonny Wilkinson (a rugby player for those that don’t know of him) and is not a bad fragrance at all. I’m yet to try the hair and body wash as I’m not having a bath till later, but that just seems to be the standard soapy smell.

Another ‘manly’ item would be this pack of boxers which are somewhere on the list of ‘what you get every year’, but something you don’t get every year (unless you’re clumsy and have a habit of breaking clocks) would be this radio controlled clock. I had one previously, but in an effort to teach the kids how to tell the time, it was put in another room. It’s not quite the digital one I wanted with the date and temperature on, but it’ll do.

Don’t worry, I’m about to post the last couple of things now, could I just take this opportunity to thank you if you have read this far and that you are a valued reader! I’m boring, I know, this is something I’m hoping to change in the new year by knocking it up a notch and blogging about things that are actually interesting instead of just moaning about stuff all the time.

The ‘WTF?’ gift of Christmas 2006 was this ‘Soap Dish with Soap’ featuring Gromit in some kind of sliding action holding a rabbit. I’m a bit of a fan of Wallace & Gromit, but even this was baffling.

Finally, my eldest daughter treated me to a couple of packs of CD-R’s, no guessing where they were from as the barcode bit had ‘Poundland’ on it. Such is the price of the love of your offspring eh!

That’s it! Why did I do all this? Well, let this be a lesson to you, if you want to receive presents that are more suited to your taste and what you would prefer, make a list. Christmas doesn’t bother me, it hasn’t done pretty much since I left home at 18, it’s just another day to me, which is why I hardly bother with it at all. The kids obviously like it and that’s what’s more important now, the only thing I have a major complaint about is the presents I got from the missus. To hear her talk, she’d spent LOADS and got me quite a few things, in reality, she didn’t appear to have spent that much and got me 2 presents less than I got her. I reckon 3 of the presents I got her came to the same value of what she got me in total, but I’m not moaning about the cost of things, just that it helps to know what people like and surprise them with gifts that relate to that persons interests, guess I need to make things a bit more blatant…