Christmas

In the midst of all the festivities, and the TV specials, and the tinsel and the turkey, it's easy to overlook the true meaning of Christmas. Presents, of course. I got some pretty good ones this year. A couple of good books. Not the Good Book, you understand. A presentation set of Lagers Of The World - which begs the question, 'as opposed to Lagers Of... where else, exactly?'. Well, it does to me, anyway. Oh yeah. And some socks. Always with the socks.

The kids* fared better though. iPods, robot dogs, battery-powered monkeys (and by the way, you don't want to know where they had to insert the batteries). And what the hell has happened to Lego? I know they have a lot to compete with, but Jeeeeeeezzzzzz. Wasn't like that in my day. I was impressed when I managed to build a wall out of Lego.

*My cousins' kids, that is. There are no Little Big Al's**
**As far as I'm aware.

Bruce and Melissa

For no particular reason, except that it's great...

Hair

Christmas shopping all but done. I blitzed it in just under an hour, which is pretty good going really. I also took the opportunity to get a haircut - which, somewhat disappointingly, took a very short amount of time. I'm sure it used to take the best part of hour for a haircut. Now it's done and dusted in about six minutes. It takes more time now to tidy up the hair growing out of my ears than to trim the hair on my head.

I wish my body would expend as much effort in growing hair in my bald spot as it does in growing hair down my nose and out of my ears. Hell, I'd happily lose all my pubic hair if it could replace some of the hair on my head. Provided, of course, that it didn't grow in quite so curly. Or so ginger.

Yule Be Sorry*

Hurrah. I'm now officially on holiday - right up until the 9th of January, in fact. Not bad going, I reckon. Today was also the end of my three-month probationary period at work, and just for good measure, my three-month appraisal. Which went OK. Other than the fact that it cut into time when I was supposed to working, thereby somewhat buggering up my planned half-day.

Anyway, I'm not too bothered. Just looking forward to the next three weeks or so. I don't have any major plans for Christmas or New Year yet, but I'm pretty damn sure it has to be better than last year and the year before that. It wouldn't be difficult though. Christmas 2004: In prison. Christmas 2005: In prison. Christmas 2006: Not in prison. It would have to be a real stinker to be worse than the last two.

First things first. Tomorrow I'm considering making a start on the Christmas shopping. And if I get around to starting to tomorrow, with any luck I'll finish it tomorrow too. I hate when these things drag on too long**. My original plan had been to buy a lot of stuff online, but in true Big Al style, I put it off until it was way too late - as a consequence, I find myself in the dreaded position of actually having to go into a shop. Or perhaps even more than one shop. Good grief.

* I know I am.
** Generally speaking, any longer than an hour is 'too long'.

Peter Boyle

There goes another one. Peter Boyle died a couple of days ago. I guess he was best known as the cranky father in 'Everybody Loves Raymond'.

He appeared in two of my all-time favourite movies. In Taxi Driver, he played the character 'Wizard'. He also appeared, to glorious effect, as the monster in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein.

Most recently he was the gleefully obnoxious Frank Barone on ELR. A show that I have a particular fondness for. It got me through some rough times, while I was in chokey. 'Raymond' was, and still is, on Channel 4 most mornings. There wasn't much incentive to stay awake after the insanely early wake-up, but a half-hour in the company of Ray, Debra, Robert, Marie and Frank made it a little easier.

Anti-Social Club

Friday night was the company's official Christmas night out. There was also an unofficial night out, attended by a group of eight of us who fancied doing our own thing.

First port of call for the Anti-Social Club was the Republic Bier Halle, for some tasty lagers and equally tasty (not to mention jaw-droppingly overpriced) pizza. Fortunately we had reserved a table in advance - turned out this was a wise move, as a group the size of ours would have been hard-pressed to get in otherwise. After that it was round the corner to Buzzy Wares in Princes Square, until chucking-out time.

From there, the remaining four of us headed over to the casino where the official night out was taking place. We got there around 1am, just in time to see most of them leaving while we were standing in line to get in. I think they were a little surprised - and in some cases, possibly a tad miffed - to see us there. Anyhow, we had a few drinks at the bar before heading downstairs to where to the action is. 'Action' being the usual casino stuff. Blackjack, roulette, slot machines, hookers. You know the kind of thing.

I didn't take much to do with the gambling - after all, I'm not the kind of guy to let gambling stand in the way of some serious drinking. Somehow we managed to pass the time until about 5am before going our separate ways. If I'd known I was going to be out until that time, I might not have bothered booking a hotel room for the night. I'd checked into the hotel at Central Station. By the time I got back there it was almost 5:30am - another half hour or so and I could have taken the first train home. But I figured that since the room was already paid for, I may as well use it, even if it was only for a few hours. Three and a half hours, as it turned out. Still, at least I managed to sleep for most of that time.

Big Al

A propos of nothing, but us Big Al's have to stick together.