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Weird Presents Anyone?
g8way writes "Now that Christmas is about, it's time for presents. A joyous occasion with much drinking, fruitcake, and butt-ugly sweaters. What's the weirdest gift you've gotten so far? Personally, I got toothpaste, tic-tacs, deodorant, and a McDonalds coupon book in the same package. What's your story of Christmas present mayhem?"
a dildo for Christmas. From my elderly neighbor! I'm a male!
HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
Personally, i got a first post! :-P
My Stack Overflow user
My friends got me a blow-up doll, complete with inflatable breasts and two holes.
I've never felt so pathetic in my life.
Did anybody get a /. subscription as a gift? Anybody?
I got a 40 gig iPod for Xmas. But the weird part is that when I looked at the diagnostics menu, it said it was only 37.1 gigs! Apple played Grinch and stole 3 gigs of music from me. :(
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
I was given (by a christian relative) an autobiography of christian golfer Bernhard Langer. A pretty poor attempt to turn me onto 'the right path'! Next year I'm going to buy them something by Richard Dawkins.
We ARE the peat bog soldiers.
Along with the usual sweaters, socks and underwear I get every year, this year I got something special..
:D
My mother in law excitedly handed me my gift this year with a big grin on her face. I opened the box and what was there?
A seagate Barricuda 7200rpm 120gig hard drive!
"Now you can download more movies and burn them to dvd (vcd)" she says.
Large capacity hard drives, the gift that keeps on giving all year long
I got a combination wallet/calculator from Radio Shack. Who buys a wallet from RS? Old folks are so crazy. This is the same aunt who last year bought me a combination mouse pad/calculator. Next year I bet I get a calculator watch.
Oh well, maybe I'll get her back by giving some Metallica CDs.
Personally, I got toothpaste, tic-tacs, deodorant, and a McDonalds coupon book in the same package.
Toothpaste, breath-freshening mints, deoderant, and cheap out-of-the house food.
No pattern there.
Hmm. Unless.... Is your family trying to tell you you're spending too much time playing Everquest, and too little time playing "shower"?
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
My Xmas:
6 pairs of black socks
1 can of mixed nuts (i hate most nuts)
A bottle of leather conditioner (presumably for my car)
A pair of cheap $20 headphones (left side doesn't work)
15 losing $1-2 lottery tickets
$10 in gift certificates to Krispy Kreme (love them, but the closest one is an HOUR away. All Dunkin' Donuts around here.)
Speaker stands for the surround sound system I don't have.
-----
I gave...
My sister a nice Capresso CoffeeTEC coffee maker because her current coffee maker broke, and this does lattes and hot cocoa to boot, which she loves. Also got her an assortment of coffee from Gevalia.
My parents to share, got them 5 classic movie DVDs (Ben-Hur, Citizen Kane, On the Waterfront, Bridge on the River Kwai, Casablanca). My mom a backyard birdwatching and project book, a pair of nice binoculars. My father I got a 10GB iPod (bring his MP3s in his car without him constantly burning CDs), and a new copy of MS Trips and Streets (to replace his 1994 Rand McNally software which he still uses regularly).
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I know its not what you get, but the thought that counts, but I think I put in a lot more thought than they did.
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Not only did I get nothing but CLOTHES for christmas.. My parents bought me a hamper to put them in. *rolls eyes*
Personally, I got toothpaste, tic-tacs, deodorant, and a McDonalds coupon book in the same package.
It was a message. Your breath stinks, you have BO, and you're too skinny.
I got a full length coat from my mom. Now I can go out in public without wearing anything underneath it. I can;t wait till New Years!! Mwahaahaha!!!!
adventure-today.com
How about the sound of a bottle beeing opened?
My girlfriend got me razor-sharp shurikens that I can use to assassinate my enemies in the dark of night!
I wrote Santa and asked for a pussy. So I unwrap the box and see only a goddam alley cat.....male even.
Table-ized A.I.
Personally, I'm baffled by the McDonalds coupon.
Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey trousers.
I love my family. :D
it is christmas after all
...was wrapped gift wrap.
Worse part was, I didn't know when the hell to stop unwrapping.
Are you sure your friend wasn't a cheap bastard who bought the book used? I'll just tell him I highlighted the good sections for him.
Me and my s.o. got a Shocking Roulette game from a friend who is studying in Scotland (it's supposed to be popular around there?). It's for 2-4 players. Each puts a finger inside this machine, the lights start blinking, and as they stop the lucky winner is rewarded with an electric shock. "The more you sweat the worse it gets!"
I received a wonderful gift in my e-mail box from the King of Nigeria this morning. He said that if I gave him my life savings, he would give me $400,000,000. What a kind fellow, fully of holiday cheer, to make such a generous offer!
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"mom got me a bag of coffee beans per month for the rest of the year, which should be cool"
...Just *one* bag then, huh? ;)
Well, in a manner of speaking...
Not to sound smug here but my Wife and I got out of debt.
Minimal presents to other people, no big dinner or tree and no huge tech presents for either of us. Instead we sneaked past the finish line in our "Debt Free in 2003" goal.
This Christmas is bare by many western standards, but now we can start saving for a deposit for a house. (Yeah, more debt there but what can one do about that?).
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
A good friend of mine came by and presented me with a wrapped item, about 1 meter long with bulges on each end. I tried to guess the contents, but to no avail. It turned out to be a beat-up air horn off of a large truck - which he had found in a junk yard. It didn't take long to find the fittings in the junk box to wake up the neighbothood with it.
Loud? Oh my! The 100 PSI shop air will make it sing. Now, where can I install it?
Soli Deo Gloria
I recently moved out on my own into an apartment in Portland with my fiancee, and this Christmas from my brother I got a $25 gift certificate from Home Depot... now, at first glance that might make sense, but if he'd checked he'd have realized that:
1) The nearest Home Depot is 50 miles away and I don't have a car.
2) You can't use them online.
3) There's hardly anything there you can buy for $25 that isn't sold by the pound anyway.
I'm selling it back to my dad for cash and thanking my brother politely for the thoughtful gift.
My 6 year old daughter presented me with my long lost black handled phillips head screwdriver. She gave my two sons my mechanical pencils.
I have a theory about this. Geeks in general are interested in things that look impenetrable to others. You want an external hard drive for christmas, or music production software? Besides the fact that those things are somewhat expensive, the details the non-geek would have to become familiar with the get the gift right (heck, to figure out where to purchase such things) are a daunting barrier. So they drop back and punt on the gifts they do understand, or things they see you as needing (for example, maybe they see you wear white socks all the time)....
:) It's just an observation. I'll probably never get great geek gifts, and I don't think most geeks will.
My own family works pretty much this way, especially my parents, who'd rather buy another set of underwear for me than subject themselves to the fear and confusion they associate with shopping online. But on the other hand, every once in a while they get things exactly right -- like, buying me the LOTR trilogy two years ago... I wouldn't have even asked for it because I hadn't read it since high school and wasn't too into it then, but once I picked it up again I was hooked. And then there's my siblings, who actually have a great sense of style and when they buy me clothes it's great. So this isn't a "poor me" rant.
Tweet, tweet.
My uncle, who worked for the Air Force in some sort of intelligence/communications aspect, gave us an unusually heavy small package last year. Inside was our very own gurkha knife, leather holster, display stand (which I promptly broke), and instructions. According to the care and use instructions, this knife and other fine ones like it could be found in Muhammed's Knife Emporium, blah blah street, Kathmandu. The instructions included such gems as "Be sure not leave fingers on blade from cleaning". This year's present was a carved pen-sized fish with two screws coming out the bottom of the head. We have no idea what it is, where it came from, or what it does. This seems to be a typical feature of my uncle's presents, come to think of it..
Thats what I got, no shens. But seriously what the hell am I going to use Whiskey flavored condoms for?!
Bill Gates took my pants, and I thank him for it.
Actualy, wasn't weird: it was a dress but it was the ugliest dress I could find. Of course was a joke but the funny part was to see my mother's face trying to smile (a very yellow smile!) and saying it was beautiful and thank you until I burst in laught. :-D
When my mother realized it was a joke her first words to me were "Thank Lord was a joke! I was already thinking a way to get rid o it without offend you!" Them I gave her the real present
Scientia est Potentia
I've got two younger (11 and 12) brother-in-laws. They're into collectable playing cards (such as Magic: The Gathering). One of them is quite the selfish type and quite conscious of other peoples' opinions of him; the other one is a bit more geeky and off in his own world.
:P
I got them each a Core Set deck. The one more fitting for the geeky b-in-l (Sky Slam/blue) I wrapped simply - just put it in a small box slightly larger than the deck - I also put a $5 bill in. The other one (Burn/red), I put in a large box with heavy objects (several rocks wrapped in paper). I didn't put any names on the packages.
I then let the older/less geeky b-in-l pick the present that he wanted. Being selfish, he picked the larger one. The result: a lesson hopefully learned - and if not, hopeful progress made on that lesson.
I love playing mind games with influential youngsters.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
My wife bought herself a car, I got the payments. /me scratches head..
If the worth of the house is more than the cost of the mortage, it's not really a debt. You could easily turn around and sell the house, pay off the mortgage, and have some money to boot.
Rent is debt, it's a continuing eternal debt. Owning a house is owning something that's worth something, even if you have to pay a very large amount of money for it.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Instead of seeing this as a negative experience, your mother knows that you are into computers and she is attempting to communicate with you that she relates to you - by acknowledging this. She likely knows nothing about computers, but she wants to try to connect to her son.
In return you should not be bitter, but give your mom a big hug, that's all she's really asking for...
|>>?
right here! :)
Although the end result seems ok
Veni, Vidi, Velcro!
Yo Freud, merry christmas!
Hate me!
But at least it wasn't a hot cocoa sampler.
One of my friends gave me Mandrake Linux for Christmas. Cheap bastard.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I got a puppy from my parents and a cat from my uncle... The description of any of my other gifts now includes the adjectives "urine-scented", "chewed", or "clawed to hell" ... primarily as a result of gift #1 trying to swallow gift #2.
Needless to say, I'd do anything to get a chance to play badminton with her now. For all of you with mothers, even if they drive you nuts, I envy you greatly. Now go do something that will make her happy and show her you still love her.
The nice people who are suggesting that you build your own house are probably not considering life in a major urban area as desirable.
I would count it as extraordinarily difficult to save enough money for a downpayment for a house in, say, Southern California (where I live) and similar areas. For the entry level house I just bought in Woodland Hills, the price was $428,000. Woodland Hills is an upscale suburb but doesn't have the cachet of, say, Beverly Hills or Malibu, where entry-level homes start at around twice that. If you consider that typical entry-level homes in the downscale suburb of Canoga Park start at close to $350,000, I think I got a real deal.
I'm presently renting a house for $1,400 a month, which is way under market. My landlord sold it out from under me, and I checked rental options and found them all horribly expensive. So I talked to a very nice realtor, and he, together with a great mortgage broker, showed me that a good house wasn't beyond my means, despite my lack of savings other than company 401(k).
In the end, I had to withdraw money from the 401(k) just to rarise the 3% deposit needed to prove that you're serious about the house, and to pay closing costs. My lender gave me 100% financing in a first and second mortgage, with a total payment of around $2,750 a month. Property taxes add another $500-odd a month. However, virtually all of this is tax-deductible, on both federal and state returns. The bottom line is that I get about $1,000 of that from the taxman, so my net cost is $2,250 a month.
I used some extra money from the 401(k) withdrawl to pay back all my debt. With my debt paid down to zero thanks to the 401(k) withdrawl, my net cost of housing + debt - tax deductions is actually going to be a bit lower than were I was before.
A nice bit of fiscal alchemy.
If - and only if - you believe your real estate market will continue to do well, 100% financing may make sense, even though it doesn't sound like a good idea when you first look at it. The tax deductions really help hugely, taking really scary numbers and bringing them down to reality.
Here in Southern California, there are huge population pressures, and the economy is diversified enough to continue to do well. So on balance, I think home ownership here is a reasonable gamble. The fact that my home, being a tiny but beautifully made place on a hillside, is in a unique area with extremely low housing turnover also helps.
I have lots of plans for my new home, and I think it's going to be a great experience. And to be honest, I don't think I could have ever saved the amount of money needed without 100% financing.
If you want to own a home, I think it's well worth considering.
D
A co-worker of mine gave the best gift that I had heard of to date. His girlfriend is a Titanic buff and he found out that RMS Titanic, Inc., which holds the salvage rights funds some of its activities by selling the only item that they are authorized to...coal.
So guess what she got in her stocking.
2 believe || ! 2 believe
Wait 30 minutes to see what posts get moderated up and which post is first.
Look at the content of a highly moderated post farther down on the page and regurgitate it as a reply to a first post.
It looks like it's an original thought and it's at the top of the page!
If a post has nothing to do with the parent post, don't moderate it up. Chances are it's redundant from something posted earlier but farther down.
You should have posted to the real first post (and changed the title so it's not "re:") which is most likely moderated at a -1. Then it looks like you post is the parent post to those who don't browse at that level. Badabing! First Post. Without even trying.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
And did he invite you down to his basement, where he had a freezer full of popsicles for you? Or ask you to reach in his pocket to collect your tip? I'm sorry, but that creepy old male neighbor (Family Guy, 'To Live and Die in Dixie") sp00ked me but good. His voice did it, I think...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
My best friend gave me these two extremely odd presents. The wind up sushi is a set of little plastic pieces of sushi which wind up and zoom across the floor. The set includes shrimp, three pieces of tuna, and salmon eggs.
Jesus Christ: Serial Rapist is a DVD, the front of which has pictures of crucified naked women and says, "First he nails you... then he NAILS you!" The back summarizes the movie as, "A schizophrenic thinks he is Jesus, and he wants payback! He crucifies and rapes the wives of his enemies. He films his deeds because he wants to make a new gospel - the Gospel of Blood!!!"
Should be... interesting.
Your post made me get up from the computer and go talk to the TV with my mom, dad, and sister - that's a powerful post, and an eerily appropriate one for Christmas.
/.'er.
I just wanted to say thanks. As a college student especially, it's easy to overlook things that really matter - I'm sure I'm not the only person you had an impact on.
My religion says that everything happens for a reason - if you believe anything like that, I hope maybe you just saw a way that your mother's unfortunate death was able to help this lowly
Thanks again, sincerly.
Why would that be weird? Darwin was a professing Christian till the day he died. Shocked? Then you might be interested in reading his books, like "Origin of the Species".
If you research his life and theory you may discovers some interesting facts.
But don't let that stop you from poking fun at Christians. It helps keep us on our toes.
I know how you feel. This has been the third Christmas I've had without my mom, and my second without my dad, and I'm only 20 years old.
For all you geeks out there taking your parents for granted, quit it. Its one thing to have processes without parents on your *nix box but completely different without real parents.
My mother left me with one thing in this life, the knowledge of ballroom dancing (she's a pro dance instructor, and no matter how queer it may sound, dude it gets chicks, no lie. The ability to put on some old music she used to play around the house and dance around the apartment is a depressing blessing all in one. I feel weave's pain, I've been there. I would do anything for one last dance with my mom but instead I'm left with an empty apartment i can just afford, a cat, and a girlfriend I can teach all the dance steps I want.
some days i feel like there isnt a light at the end of the tunnel, some days i try to emmerse myself with techie shit to keep from reality, but this christmas I've been able to face facts and though the family I once had is gone I'm happy knowing that shes in those steps.
ps; my dad kicked ass too.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
I was 20 when my mother died. I'm now 44. There's the old cliche about she's never really gone if you keep her alive in your memories. While on some level that's a bunch of bullshit, on others it's not. Our minds are like DRAM. Each memory needs to be refreshed regularly or it fades and is eventually lost or at least unreachable. It sucks that I dream about her less now too.
Anyway, I'm really touched by the replies here. It's inevitable that if you care about people in your life, you're going to face these kinds of losses. It's part of life unfortunately.
But, like the great philosopher Butters said in Southpark episode 714, "I love life. Yeah, I'm sad, but at the same time I'm happy that something can make me feel that sad. It's like, it makes me feel alive, it makes me feel human. The only way I can feel this sad now is if I felt something really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good. So it's a beautiful sadness."
Damn that was a great episode! Merry Christmas all. You know, I learned something very important today. Even among the trolls on slashdot, there's goodness in each and every one and you all touched my heart today. Best wishes to all this holiday season. Thanks!