Hey! Wil Wheaton stole my "Island of Misfit Toys" Christmas thing! Harumph.

Christmas was nice and low key, and as an added extra-special bonus, I didn't get robbed again! Huzzah! Of course, I'm knocking wood furiously as I type this (which, let me tell you, is even more difficult than you would imagine), in hopes that they didn't wait til today to come back. Bastards.

Oh well. We've got the alarm in now, which is good. And the cops are (theoretically) paying more attention to our place. And I've gotten follow-up phone calls from various and sundry police officiers. We shall see.

Oh, and I discovered one benefit to the burglaries: The fraternal order of police (which is not a registered chariety) keeps calling me and asking me for money. The same damn guy always starts off by asking "just for our records, how has everything been in the neighborhood for you?" And this last time, I got to answer "Crappy. I've been robbed four times in two weeks." That shut him up, and he didn't even get around to asking me for money. Just wished me a merry Christmas and hung up. Heh.

So, Christmas: I got bunches of books (joy!), a spindle of blank CDs (meaning I really am going to have to get that CD burner I've been talking about now), a mobile phone (which I've now got to figure out how to use) and, from Wendy, the complete Cheese Service experience: a cheese board with cracker wells and little pots for dips and such, cocktail forks and spreaders, a cheese planer, a cheese knife, and -- gasp! -- cheese. Kick ass. Before you start asking, cheese tends to be a staple at my parties, which, as I beleive I've mentioned, I am contractually bound to hold at least once a month.So, cheese plate and such. Cool.

My parents are coming into town today -- they're travelling to my office as we speak, most likely. I got a call from Dad this morning (when I was still in the thrall of the sleep button), saying "Your mom and I are both sick and possibly infectious -- still want us to come?" What is the correct response to that? I said yeah, if they were up to travelling, I was up to hosting them -- microbes be damned. So we'll see what happens.

Despite their host of diseases, they have apparently gone through with their threat to take the El to my office. Folks, it's cold out there, and there are lots of cabs at O'Hare. Take a damn taxi. Oh well.

Did the robbers do this? My microwave just caught on fire.

Oh my god! Zeke and Kelly are going to spawn!

Reason 437 I hate the folks who keep robbing me: Now I have to get a new back door. Bastards.

Reason 438: It's really hard to get fingerprint dust off surfaces.

Zeke read about my plight, and offered the following suggestions (and caveats):

The precautions you're making are good ones. I'm not really sure about the ladder booby-trap since I have a feeling that if the thieves did come back and hurt themselves they may slap you with a lawsuit (which they would win) concerning safety violations in & around your home. Seriously, the court would make you pay big time if someone was hurt on the ladder -- even if they were trying to rob you for a fifth time. And the fact that the court would side with thieves would hurt you a lot and make you hate the government and then you'd turn into one of those wacko militia people who twitches and has a lot of guns.

Apparently the cops agreed with you, as they took the ladder away. They did laugh, however.

It seems what you really need to do is change the neighborhood. Now, you could buy a horse and go about the neighborhood as an avenging knight bent on finding the evil-doers and bringing them to rough, middle-age justice.

Hey! Thirty one is NOT middle aged, thank you very much. I've got a good 10 years before I'm middle-aged.

But then you'd have to get someplace to put the horse. You could also start dating a cop who is a bit trigger happy and is more than a bit over-protective of his sweet little puddin'. Then you'd just need someplace to put the cop. Hmmmm....

I'm sure I could think of someplace. However, I've got to say that the specimins presented for my approval thus far have not been promising.

And look at the bright side, at least this problem has distracted you from the ankle-hugging you were forced to do when working with AT&T cable.

Ah, but Zeke, Zeke, here's the ultimate adding-insult-to-injury move on their part: The STOLE MY CABLE BOX. So I have to start the whole thing over again. That's reason number 439.

In happier news, I went to the 18th Annual Double Feature and Xmas Sing-a-long at The Music Box Theater -- It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas. It's A Wonderful Life is a classic, so seeing that on the big screen was highly cool. I'd never seen White Christmas before, and it's.... long. And silly. And I'll never get the Bing Crosby thing. And a few of the dance sequences were laugh-out-loud funny (one intentionally, one not.) So yeah, I had a great time. My only disappointment is that they do the same exact carols between shows, so if you come for both movies, you'll end up singing (or not singing, in Brian;s case) the same parody versions of Winter Wonderland (Chicago version) and Jingle Bells (Microsoft, Microsoft. Odd)

We went to Brian and Diane's after the shows, and I got some truely cool gifts from Angie and Lotti. Angie gave me a candle holder that will double nicely as a bludgeon if anyone breaks in again, and Lotti gave me a pair of, um, unique CDs that she and John burned: The Unofficial Wet Hot American Summer soundtrack (huzzah!) and Lotti's Ultimate Sci-Fi Geek Mix, which features everything from Queen's Flash Gordon Theme, the complete (I think) Weird Al Star Wars ouevre, far too much William Shatner/Leonard Nimoy, and something disturbingly called "Yoda Gettin' Some." I haven't gotten to that one yet. I'm very afraid.

I just heard it. Lotti, you are a sick woman.