Spent the weekend doing the Christmas shopping with V ... oddly enough, one week before the holiday is "early" for the two of us. I also got in some work, domestic and professional, on Saturday while V headed up to the city for some professional work of her own. I raked leaves from the seemingly endless stream being dumped on our yard by our foliage, got my car's oil changed, and reviewed some overdue papers for a few journals. I also made some progress on Rainbow Six: Vegas. It hasn't wowed me yet ... the fact that it begins in a Mexican town that suspiciously resembles the Mexico City setting of another Clancy effort, Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, didn't help. Perhaps now that i've made it to Vegas things will pick up. I'm still in love with Guitar Hero II, especially after rocking out with Hilary and Jeff last week. I'm about 75% through the game on hard difficulty, but am currently stuck on the fiendishly hard "Stop" by Jane's Addiction. And i only got there because i managed to fumble through Heart's "Crazy On You". I passed a few songs on expert difficulty, and was coasting through Danzig's "Mother" before the guitar solo reared its ugly head and ground me into dust. What a great game. Rock on.

Wal-Mart at Christmas-time ... one word: Thunderdome. Two men enter. One man leaves. With or without a slightly dinged Panasonic TV. During a marathon holiday shopping spree on Saturday night, which spanned Best Buy, Target, Toys R' Us, Bloomingdales, Macy's, and Nordstrom, V and i decided to make a late-night (~midnight) trip across the bay to Sam Walton's consumer mecca. Basically to see if they'd had any surprise Wii shipments and to pick up some odds and ends. Arriving at the parking lot of the Union City shopping sprawl, i pulled into a spot a bit away from the store and was dismayed at all the broken glass surrounding the space. Hrm. Let's try somewhere else. We found a spot about fifty yards closer to the store entrance, but exiting the car were perplexed by the pile of shopping carts massed next to our spot. The vacuum cleaner crowning the mountain was especially odd. Once inside Wal-Mart, i got the distinct impression that at any moment two or more people could throw down in a battle to the death. Some even seemed prepared for such an occasion, wandering around the store in shin-pads and bandanas, sporting weapons like staple guns. Employees perhaps, but i didn't see any name tags on them. V was privy to a conversation amongst a family inspecting safes, in which the mother advised her son that it didn't have to just protect money and valuables ... "you can put other stuff in there too". Way to go, mom. We decided to high-tail it out of there after just ten minutes.

Thunderdome's simple. Get to the weapons, use them any way you can. I know you won't break the rules ... there aren't any.

I took it upon myself to secure a Wii for Veronica on Sunday morning, and set my alarm for 6am so i could secure a good spot in line at Toys R' Us or Best Buy. I managed to crawl out of bed at 6:20am, but V convinced me to return until 7am. I left her slumbering with Tara at 7:20am, and headed off to Best Buy. Joining the 20 or so other Wii hunters, i learned the store had distributed vouchers at 7am and if you didn't get one, chances are you weren't getting a system. So i drove over to the Redwood City Toys R' Us to try my luck there. The same situation was in effect at that location, but i decided to stick around until the store opened at 8am, rather than cruising the peninsula with my fellow hunters. If i thought Wii-queuers were annoying while driving by them, that was nothing compared to actually waiting in line with them. At one point a kid in front of me, a fat sack who wouldn't stop fidgeting and discussing what he was going to do with his new toy, looked down the line at me and the others who'd arrived after vouchers were handed out and said "i hope all these people aren't waiting for Wiis". To which i, were i a more vocal evil genius, would have replied "i hope you don't think you're getting to the car with yours, tubby". When the doors finally opened i cruised into the electronics area, confirmed that there were only the 22 boxes for which slips had been distributed, and departed. Trips by Target and GameStop showed that similar crowds had amassed there as well. Doh ... no Wii this time. The guy immediately in front of me at Toys R' Us, one of the less annoying of the lot, told someone he'd done this three weeks in a row without success. Luckily for him, he got the last voucher this time.

This experience got me thinking about today's children. I recall a passage from the first Encyclopedia Brown book, in which some character development for the boy detective was established. Someone asked him for a crossword puzzle answer, a three-letter river in Switzerland starting with A. "The Aar", he replied after a few second pause. He always paused before providing information because he didn't want people to think he was smarmy or thought he was superior to them because of his inteliigence. That's a lesson i took to heart ... i generally try to allow the possibility that i'm wrong when having an argument with someone. Because it's been known to happen. And i know there's nothing more infuriating than having someone tell you something that's clearly incorrect, but they will not acknowledge the possibility that they could be erroneous. However today, especially in a place like the bay area where you've got lots of educated people who've instilled in their children the value of intellect, this point seems to have been lost. There seems to be a lot of kids that revel in telling people they're wrong. Or exerting superiority through this mechanism. Part of it may also relate to the current political climate, whose legacy may be the concept that you don't need facts to prove a point, you just need an opinion and zealousness.

My Wii failure Sunday morning colored my afternoon, as V and i continued shopping at Target, Staples, Bed Bath & Beyond, GameStop, and Toys R' Us (yet again). I generally enjoy the holiday atmosphere. However on Sunday i wanted all these annoying people dead. We completed most of our purchases by 4pm, and headed home to relax for an hour before heading over to the Doubletree for the MIPS holiday party. It was a fun evening hanging out with good Stanford friends including Frank and Jennifer, Fred, Amanda, and Ethan, Sandip, and everyone else. Capped off by some self-conscious dancing by myself to a variety of disco and pop tracks. Eek.

I can't tell you what hotel i'm staying at, but there are two trees involved. They said, let's call this hotel something tree, so they had a meeting. It was quite short. How about Tree? No. Doubletree? Hell yeah! Meeting adjourned! I had my heart set on Quadrupletree.

Just watched the highlights of Chelsea's come-from-behind 3-2 win over Everton on Sunday. Wow. I already knew the result, but just the highlights had me pumping my fist. Three fabulous Chelsea goals ... Lampard's bullet was amazing, you could see the Everton keeper was f@$#ed from the moment Lamps struck the ball. And then Drogba one-upped him with the winner at the death, another unbelievable something-from-nothing strike from the in-form forward. With United suffering a shock defeat to struggling West Ham, the Blues are now just two points off the lead. Could this be the inspirational win the Londoners need to rally to their third consecutive title? I wouldn't doubt it.