Merry Coughmas!

It's that time of year again, time-wasters! The snow falls, the heating bill goes up, and the icicles form on the edge of the roof. It's time to seek out children happily sucking on said icicles and remind them of the countless birds that may have crapped on that roof during the summer. It's time to wink merrily and shuffle away through the snow like a dirty elf.

It's the time of year when the roads get covered with salt and the pansies drive 25MPH all the time. (These are the same people who slow way down for construction barrels that aren't even on the road, accidents on the other side of a concrete divider, mailboxes, etc... )

Yes! It's time for me to get my annual cold! I appear to be very susceptible to nasal infection. On one hand, this makes me feel bad, because...it makes me feel bad. Alternatively, I'm happy to provide a welcoming home for all those wayward germs. It makes me feel all warm inside. And gooey.

Also about this time, a major holiday occurs. Christmas! That means it's time for my friends and family to ask me for gift ideas. This always stumps me, because I can't think of anything in that delicate, narrow intersection of desirability and cost.

Affordable gifts tend to fall into a special sub-category of their own: practical gifts. I could use more ink for my printer, but that's no fun to shop for. That's like asking someone to run errands for you, and then asking them to put a bow on it. I could also use a small canister vacuum and some more cat litter. Asking someone (your girlfriend, for example) for cat litter for Christmas is weird. "Make sure it's the clumpy kind!"

Weird does not always equal fun.

On the other end of the spectrum, a geForce 8800GT would be dandy, but that's a $270 computer part. None of my friends are Donald Trump, so putting that on the list would be kind of presumptuous. No, "Donald Trump" sounds like a good euphemism for "bowel movement" and should be left out of the holiday spirit altogether.

Practical gifts are no fun to shop for, so they're out. Most of my hobbies require expensive equipment that I can't even afford myself and asking someone else to help support them would be a major bastard move...

So...

As long as I'm already committed to being a bastard, I may as well go ahead and ask for expensive stuff! Here's a helpful list of great ideas.

• A geForce 8800GT PCIe graphics card with all them shader units and megahertzes and shiny bits and such. *nerd noises*
• A weekend in a private zeppelin and permission to drop balloons full of maple syrup on the politicians of my choice
• Oh, and on the celebrities of my choice
• My very own red Maserati with faux kitten fur upholstery and built-in sody fountain
  
• An electric rifle that only stuns morons
• A permit from the John Ball Zoo that lets me get into the prairie dog pen any time I want
• Also to be allowed to feed them marshmallows
  

These are only ideas. Something to get you started. Feel free to come up with your own gifts loosely based on the above. Seriously. I won't complain. I love you all, and I will accept whatever contributions you can make to the FooDaddy Enrichment Fund with glee and flatulence.