Crackmonkey: Holiday Shopping

It's slow at the office today and I am revelling in that slowness, since the next few days are going to be Utterly Batshit Insane. One of the things I'm working on is a gift list for this year's Season of Winter Avarice. I know, it's not Halloween yet, but since I'm doing Winter Bazaar, I'm essentially giving up a few weeks of "official" shopping time, so it seemed reasonable to make it up on the front end. Increases the chances that people will actually get the prezzies from me on or before the winter holiday that they actually celebrate.

So, I'm digging through Amazon, looking for wishlists for the people on my gift list. Every once in a while, I turn up someone with a common enough name that there are several possibilities as to which list is actually their list, but it's easy enough to pick the right one, or determine that my person actually doesn't have a wishlist. Best example so far: putting in biscuitgod's name returned one list full of books for the Mormon family, one list full of books about the military, and one list full of diet and bodybuilding books. I'm guessing none of those are him. :)

Also, sometime next month, I was thinking of starting the Second Annual Wild-Ass Gift Exchange again (it needs a clever name!). It worked out pretty well last year, with only one person failing to send a gift like they were supposed to. That person knows who he is and will suffer eternal shame and finger-pointing, and is Banned from future gift exchanges, unless his lady will vouch for him and pick up his slack. So there. :-P

Crackmonkey: Holiday Shopping

It's slow at the office today and I am revelling in that slowness, since the next few days are going to be Utterly Batshit Insane. One of the things I'm working on is a gift list for this year's Season of Winter Avarice. I know, it's not Halloween yet, but since I'm doing Winter Bazaar, I'm essentially giving up a few weeks of "official" shopping time, so it seemed reasonable to make it up on the front end. Increases the chances that people will actually get the prezzies from me on or before the winter holiday that they actually celebrate.

So, I'm digging through Amazon, looking for wishlists for the people on my gift list. Every once in a while, I turn up someone with a common enough name that there are several possibilities as to which list is actually their list, but it's easy enough to pick the right one, or determine that my person actually doesn't have a wishlist. Best example so far: putting in biscuitgod's name returned one list full of books for the Mormon family, one list full of books about the military, and one list full of diet and bodybuilding books. I'm guessing none of those are him. :)

Also, sometime next month, I was thinking of starting the Second Annual Wild-Ass Gift Exchange again (it needs a clever name!). It worked out pretty well last year, with only one person failing to send a gift like they were supposed to. That person knows who he is and will suffer eternal shame and finger-pointing, and is Banned from future gift exchanges, unless his lady will vouch for him and pick up his slack. So there. :-P

We're on a mission from God.

Saturday night, I was out waiting for a movie with kittenpants and triadruid, and in the Culver's Custard, where we were joyously partaking of some sundaes, it came to pass that someone said something about the Blues Brothers movie. And kittenpants says, "We should go on a mission from God. Road trip, mission from God. It's a great idea."

Okay, but how does one get a mission from God? Where would we go? What would we do? According to kittenpants, in order to qualify as a Mission From God Road Trip, you have to have a ridiculous yet worthwhile charitable goal. There might be other qualifications, but I'm not sure. I've never been on a mission from God, you know.

But apparently now is the time: This is my horoscope from Free Will Astrology for the week:
"LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I was sitting in San Francisco's Cafe Gratitude, meditating on your horoscope. In my notebook I'd doodled a giant hand reaching down to earth from the clouds. It was holding a silver platter that bore a book whose title was "Fresh Instructions." This gift was being offered to a half-lion, half-human creature that represented you. Shortly after I finished this drawing, a woman came through the front door of the restaurant and sat at a nearby table. Her t-shirt had a message that was the perfect caption for the image I'd made: "Maybe God has bigger plans for you than you have for yourself."

So, Internet, got any suggestions/divinations/requirements?

EDIT: fionnabhar reminds me of the other aspect of this question, which we did address at the time, but which I neglected to document: Which god? We've got an absolute load of gods for the household, and that's not even counting gods we might agree to hire out to. I'm keeping my brain open.

We're on a mission from God.

Saturday night, I was out waiting for a movie with kittenpants and triadruid, and in the Culver's Custard, where we were joyously partaking of some sundaes, it came to pass that someone said something about the Blues Brothers movie. And kittenpants says, "We should go on a mission from God. Road trip, mission from God. It's a great idea."

Okay, but how does one get a mission from God? Where would we go? What would we do? According to kittenpants, in order to qualify as a Mission From God Road Trip, you have to have a ridiculous yet worthwhile charitable goal. There might be other qualifications, but I'm not sure. I've never been on a mission from God, you know.

But apparently now is the time: This is my horoscope from Free Will Astrology for the week:
"LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I was sitting in San Francisco's Cafe Gratitude, meditating on your horoscope. In my notebook I'd doodled a giant hand reaching down to earth from the clouds. It was holding a silver platter that bore a book whose title was "Fresh Instructions." This gift was being offered to a half-lion, half-human creature that represented you. Shortly after I finished this drawing, a woman came through the front door of the restaurant and sat at a nearby table. Her t-shirt had a message that was the perfect caption for the image I'd made: "Maybe God has bigger plans for you than you have for yourself."

So, Internet, got any suggestions/divinations/requirements?

EDIT: fionnabhar reminds me of the other aspect of this question, which we did address at the time, but which I neglected to document: Which god? We've got an absolute load of gods for the household, and that's not even counting gods we might agree to hire out to. I'm keeping my brain open.