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Dec. 26th, 2009 07:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmxratedHope you all had a Merry Christmas yesterday. Of course, Chelle told me that she doesn't celebrate that where he lives, and Jake finds this time of year to be nothing but stressful to him. And as it turns out, I made the right choice to get that MCC stuff typed up in its own entry yesterday. (Jake did suggest that it take place in media res, but I'd prefer that that whole thing be early chronologically. I was also kinda hoping Chelle would have some ideas, or at least comment on it, but no biggie there. In any case, I still have yet to decide about that.) But anyway, let's get started...
The night before Christmas, Marie realized that we had no balloons to blow up and eat breakfast under. Mom was too tired to drive to Target just for those, but we agreed that we could blow some up when we have Mom's family over.
I was the first one to go to bed that night, at around 7:00, after eating some cookies that Amy gave us for Christmas. I was also the first one to wake up for Christmas, but decided I would update my blog after we all opened presents and ate breakfast. In the meantime, Marie was the next one to wake up (Dad did wake up before her, but went back to bed shortly afterwards), and some wacky hijinx ensued.
First, I picked up Mabel, and me and Marie went into Mom and Dad's room. We told them to wake up, and Mom told Marie to get them some coffee. Marie delegated that task to me, and I offered to do it if she would hold Mabel. (Let me tell you, that cat is not the least bit fond of Brian or Marie, and for that matter, nor with Vincent when he used to come here.) Soon, both of us would each fetch a mug of coffee, and I told Marie to spill her's, explaining that it's a good moe point. She asked me what that is, and after Mom and Dad woke up, I pulled up Television Tropes and Idioms' page about it.
(Moe? For those of you who don't know, this is pronounced "mo-eh". The definition seems rather vague, but it does involve cuteness and innocence. Not sure if there's more to it, but I can definitely tell that the girls in Game Tengoku would definitely fall under this trope. As for what "moe points" are... well, that was a term coined by Konata in Lucky Star, episode 1, when she explained to Miyuki that her "faults" are an element of moe. ("Clumsy is sexy.") And where the coffee-spilling comes into play, I don't remember it with my own memory, but somewhere on TVT&I, in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Haruhi brought Mikuru into the SOS Brigade specifically because of her moe appeal, expects her to spill coffee when serving it dressed as a maid, and forces her to do so when she doesn't.)
Anyway, back to Christmas. So, as usual, we started with digging through our stockings. Brian got the MAD Magazine this year (I think), and this is the first time I ever got this magazine called Retro Gamer, which I glanced through later on.
Next up, scratch cards. Me and Mom each won $5, and Mom told us that someone who cleans the animal cages at the hospital won $169 million in the lottery. I asked her to repeat that amount, and after she did, she and Dad explained that when you win the lottery, you can either get a lump sum of roughly one-third of your winnings immediately (which is still significant), or you can have it all paid to you in the course of 20 years or something (minus income taxes). They also mentioned that people who win the lottery become famous, and I told them that I read before that people who become rich tend to become the target of ulterior-motive friendships, although you can ask to remain anonymous if you do win. I then proceeded to tell them that if I ever start up Retro Savior, I will not host links to my blog on the website (although I probably would mark such an epic milestone in this blog). Mom then made a reference to my Retro Gamer magazine, but I told her that R.S. will be all about translating games, anime, and manga that either got butchered upon N.A. release, or never got officially translated completely or at all.
Anyway, other stocking stuff we got included Best Buy gift cards, Kinder Surprise Eggs, and the usual chocolate coins. I also got a $100 bill, which Marie asked to take pictures of me holding. Then, there are the chocolate fruits. Until this year, the only kind we ever got were chocolate oranges, which was what Marie got. However, Brian got a chocolate pear, and I got a chocolate apple.
Now for presents. First thing's first, one thing Brian got was a new bicycle, which was never wrapped, and Marie wanted to take pictures of him standing next to. As for me, I did get that drawing book I wanted, as well as Pokemon Ranger and the respective player's guide (and I didn't even have to ask for the guide this year, unlike two years ago and the year before). Other than that, nothing too special. Mostly more chocolate and a sweater. And I was kinda disappointed to find out that I didn't get any anime DVDs this year, although I'm at fault for telling Mom that I didn't really care for anything aside from the game and the drawing book. I had forgotten all about that, but Mom and I agreed that she'd surprise me with something to open when her family came over.
This year, I didn't buy anything for anyone. Mom kinda talked me out of it because of my financial situation, telling me that Marie hardly has any money, Brian has nothing, and Dad had been mostly out of work this year. I had forgotten about the whole thing until just a week before Christmas, at which point I was about to look for a DVD to get Brian this year.
(So, to review, we had no balloons to blow and tie up onto the chandelier, I never bought presents for anyone, and I didn't get any DVDs this year, but Christmas has still been merry. If you think about it, this is kinda like the Angry Video Game Nerd's Christmas special for the year, which hadn't been as unique as previous years. This year, he only reviewed one game, but the game itself is an appropriate choice for the video, plus he made a winter-themed intro, with the standard AVGN theme, but also including footage from some good games, and he did implement a remix of Jingle Bells at the end of the video. Not half bad!)
(As for the game... well, I'm at least glad to now have it on hand, but I mainly wanted it so that I could eventually download Manaphy's egg to my regular Pokemon games when I completed that game. I'm still immersed in Grandia III, so it will be a while before I actually play Ranger.)
Anyway, for breakfast, we all had pancakes with oranges, bacon, pineapple chunks, and Coca-Cola in Mexican glass bottles. Earlier that morning, I was about to pour myself a waffle, but then remembered that Christmas is when we eat special meals for the day, so I put the stuff back away. As for the soda, there were a lot of bottles placed haphazardly in the snow-covered planter outside the front door, and we had to use a bottle-opener to get the lids off.
Dad wanted us to shovel snow off the driveway and the apartment stairs. Marie tried talking him out of it because it was Christmas. Mom assigned me to the stairs for when I finished my blog entry, but by the time I was done, someone else already took care of them.
I didn't eat lunch, so the only chocolate I had were some of those coins and my Kinder Egg. Speaking of which, as far as the toys go, Brian got some kind of orange cat, Marie got some blue rubber thing, and I got the female mammoth from the Ice Age movie series. (It's really part of a set for the third movie, Dawn of the Dinosaurs. I never watched any of those movies myself, though.)
Marie had to go home at 2:00, but will come back in time to see our relatives.
Throughout the day, I played Grandia III. Me, Dad, and Marie also watched some stuff from several episodes of Mythbusters that had aired, and we also saw this Lego commercial where a father and son put together some elaborate house. That commercial had played twice, and Mom came to see it the second time before it was over. Brian, meanwhile, played this computer game called Starcraft, which he also used to play so many years ago. I asked him if this was an updated version of that game, but he said it's the same game. (I also remember at least once, watching Matthew play that game. Jake had once asked me if I ever played it, but I should say right now that that game never had interested me enough to play it myself.)
To top things off, Amy had stopped by briefly, and she and Brian went out somewhere for the night. Brian still hasn't come home, and for that reason, I was able to get some time in with my game right when I woke up.
The night before Christmas, Marie realized that we had no balloons to blow up and eat breakfast under. Mom was too tired to drive to Target just for those, but we agreed that we could blow some up when we have Mom's family over.
I was the first one to go to bed that night, at around 7:00, after eating some cookies that Amy gave us for Christmas. I was also the first one to wake up for Christmas, but decided I would update my blog after we all opened presents and ate breakfast. In the meantime, Marie was the next one to wake up (Dad did wake up before her, but went back to bed shortly afterwards), and some wacky hijinx ensued.
First, I picked up Mabel, and me and Marie went into Mom and Dad's room. We told them to wake up, and Mom told Marie to get them some coffee. Marie delegated that task to me, and I offered to do it if she would hold Mabel. (Let me tell you, that cat is not the least bit fond of Brian or Marie, and for that matter, nor with Vincent when he used to come here.) Soon, both of us would each fetch a mug of coffee, and I told Marie to spill her's, explaining that it's a good moe point. She asked me what that is, and after Mom and Dad woke up, I pulled up Television Tropes and Idioms' page about it.
(Moe? For those of you who don't know, this is pronounced "mo-eh". The definition seems rather vague, but it does involve cuteness and innocence. Not sure if there's more to it, but I can definitely tell that the girls in Game Tengoku would definitely fall under this trope. As for what "moe points" are... well, that was a term coined by Konata in Lucky Star, episode 1, when she explained to Miyuki that her "faults" are an element of moe. ("Clumsy is sexy.") And where the coffee-spilling comes into play, I don't remember it with my own memory, but somewhere on TVT&I, in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Haruhi brought Mikuru into the SOS Brigade specifically because of her moe appeal, expects her to spill coffee when serving it dressed as a maid, and forces her to do so when she doesn't.)
Anyway, back to Christmas. So, as usual, we started with digging through our stockings. Brian got the MAD Magazine this year (I think), and this is the first time I ever got this magazine called Retro Gamer, which I glanced through later on.
Next up, scratch cards. Me and Mom each won $5, and Mom told us that someone who cleans the animal cages at the hospital won $169 million in the lottery. I asked her to repeat that amount, and after she did, she and Dad explained that when you win the lottery, you can either get a lump sum of roughly one-third of your winnings immediately (which is still significant), or you can have it all paid to you in the course of 20 years or something (minus income taxes). They also mentioned that people who win the lottery become famous, and I told them that I read before that people who become rich tend to become the target of ulterior-motive friendships, although you can ask to remain anonymous if you do win. I then proceeded to tell them that if I ever start up Retro Savior, I will not host links to my blog on the website (although I probably would mark such an epic milestone in this blog). Mom then made a reference to my Retro Gamer magazine, but I told her that R.S. will be all about translating games, anime, and manga that either got butchered upon N.A. release, or never got officially translated completely or at all.
Anyway, other stocking stuff we got included Best Buy gift cards, Kinder Surprise Eggs, and the usual chocolate coins. I also got a $100 bill, which Marie asked to take pictures of me holding. Then, there are the chocolate fruits. Until this year, the only kind we ever got were chocolate oranges, which was what Marie got. However, Brian got a chocolate pear, and I got a chocolate apple.
Now for presents. First thing's first, one thing Brian got was a new bicycle, which was never wrapped, and Marie wanted to take pictures of him standing next to. As for me, I did get that drawing book I wanted, as well as Pokemon Ranger and the respective player's guide (and I didn't even have to ask for the guide this year, unlike two years ago and the year before). Other than that, nothing too special. Mostly more chocolate and a sweater. And I was kinda disappointed to find out that I didn't get any anime DVDs this year, although I'm at fault for telling Mom that I didn't really care for anything aside from the game and the drawing book. I had forgotten all about that, but Mom and I agreed that she'd surprise me with something to open when her family came over.
This year, I didn't buy anything for anyone. Mom kinda talked me out of it because of my financial situation, telling me that Marie hardly has any money, Brian has nothing, and Dad had been mostly out of work this year. I had forgotten about the whole thing until just a week before Christmas, at which point I was about to look for a DVD to get Brian this year.
(So, to review, we had no balloons to blow and tie up onto the chandelier, I never bought presents for anyone, and I didn't get any DVDs this year, but Christmas has still been merry. If you think about it, this is kinda like the Angry Video Game Nerd's Christmas special for the year, which hadn't been as unique as previous years. This year, he only reviewed one game, but the game itself is an appropriate choice for the video, plus he made a winter-themed intro, with the standard AVGN theme, but also including footage from some good games, and he did implement a remix of Jingle Bells at the end of the video. Not half bad!)
(As for the game... well, I'm at least glad to now have it on hand, but I mainly wanted it so that I could eventually download Manaphy's egg to my regular Pokemon games when I completed that game. I'm still immersed in Grandia III, so it will be a while before I actually play Ranger.)
Anyway, for breakfast, we all had pancakes with oranges, bacon, pineapple chunks, and Coca-Cola in Mexican glass bottles. Earlier that morning, I was about to pour myself a waffle, but then remembered that Christmas is when we eat special meals for the day, so I put the stuff back away. As for the soda, there were a lot of bottles placed haphazardly in the snow-covered planter outside the front door, and we had to use a bottle-opener to get the lids off.
Dad wanted us to shovel snow off the driveway and the apartment stairs. Marie tried talking him out of it because it was Christmas. Mom assigned me to the stairs for when I finished my blog entry, but by the time I was done, someone else already took care of them.
I didn't eat lunch, so the only chocolate I had were some of those coins and my Kinder Egg. Speaking of which, as far as the toys go, Brian got some kind of orange cat, Marie got some blue rubber thing, and I got the female mammoth from the Ice Age movie series. (It's really part of a set for the third movie, Dawn of the Dinosaurs. I never watched any of those movies myself, though.)
Marie had to go home at 2:00, but will come back in time to see our relatives.
Throughout the day, I played Grandia III. Me, Dad, and Marie also watched some stuff from several episodes of Mythbusters that had aired, and we also saw this Lego commercial where a father and son put together some elaborate house. That commercial had played twice, and Mom came to see it the second time before it was over. Brian, meanwhile, played this computer game called Starcraft, which he also used to play so many years ago. I asked him if this was an updated version of that game, but he said it's the same game. (I also remember at least once, watching Matthew play that game. Jake had once asked me if I ever played it, but I should say right now that that game never had interested me enough to play it myself.)
To top things off, Amy had stopped by briefly, and she and Brian went out somewhere for the night. Brian still hasn't come home, and for that reason, I was able to get some time in with my game right when I woke up.
no subject
Date: 2019-07-13 07:29 pm (UTC)Uhm, no about the last part. This is what I said :
I don't celebrate Christmas,, I never said it had anything to do with location. Christmas is celebrated here, however me and my mother think it's redundant. We lack any sort of social contacts to celebrate with, and the religious aspect of the holiday doesn't mean anything to us either.