Yesterday, Fotini talked me into going to Hobby Lobby. While we were there, a few messages were broadcast over the PA relaying information to different departments. It seems that they are using Christmas themed codes when delivering these messages, ie. 'Dept. H as in Holiday, you have a call on line two.'

What struck me was this message 'Dept. N as in Knoll, you have a pick up at the dock.' I'm assuming she meant 'N as in NOEL', but she said KNOLL. Like the grassy knoll, or maybe she meant a nickname for MLB superstar Nolan Ryan.

I'm always surprised as what words people pronounce funny, or just plain cannot read because they've never come across them. It happens a lot at work. I should start writing them down.

I'm a fairly good reader, but a horrible speller... which never made much sense to me, but is something I've often thought about. I can usually pronounce words correctly, using regional information and whatnot, knowing where to put the emphasis or whatever, but not always. I should keep track of what words I eff up constantly. I'm always keeping tabs on Fotini and her 'closent (closet)' and 'brefast (breakfast)' pronunciations...

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Last night was the christmas party, and it was pretty fun. I was BEAT by the time we even got there though. I ate and got my energy up, but only for a bit. sheeeeesh. I was also MAD PISSED, but was trying not to be. Some peoples children.

Ree/Rea gave me an iDog. It's a little robot dog that you plug your iPod into, and it has a speaker and lights up and moves to your music. Sounds pretty cool. I should do an unboxing video! I gave Kyle a 360 controller that I was able to find at a fantastic price several weeks ago. Thanks Amazon!

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I think I'm in another rut of crying myself to sleep because my brain is just too worthless and I'm too lazy and I'm uncreative. You just want to burst with ideas so badly that you cannot help but fail. Or rather I and I.

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we spent all day yesterday cleaning the house and you know what? You'd never ever know it. That's how gotdamned messy our house is. We shaved off many layers of garbage everywhere, and there's still crap all over the place. It's downright depressing.

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Robert and Ree/Rea ended up with both of our white elephant gifts last night. I don't think anyone swapped. They received, from us, a clock that runs on a battery, but the arms are too heavy to be turned for very long, so it always reads around 8:40 or so, an unopened copy of 'Stripes' on DVD, the Samurai Jack premiere movie DVD, a 'Reality Check' CD, some mixtape I made over two years ago (that actually has some good songs on it, including the song that Fotini and I got engaged to), several books I got in college like 'Women of the Middle Ages' and a very used copy of 'Understanding the Times' (complete with some old tests!), a rubber duck, a collapsing zebra, a 4D puzzle, a Bugs Bunny T-Shirt (brand new), some other crap that we were able to liberate from our home.

I ended up with a box of crap from the Kelley's, but it was all very used crap. ie. kitchen utensils, that had not been washed since they were last used, Andes mints, etc. I left it on the hood of their car when we left. Fotini got the other white elephant gift from them in the form of 5 (full) bottles of Samuel Adams.

Tamara had the real winner of the evening (as given by Robert) with a set of those Saint candles you can get at the grocery store. She got Saint Rodney and Saint Percival or something.

Matt had provided an 'Adventures in Odessey' CD set, which was pretty cool, but now that I think of it, Robyn stole it from Fotini.

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I miss doing the podcast. Today we have to do a bunch of junk, but I really feel like sitting on my ass and falling asleep to movies all day long. Frustrating. I hope us guys find something fun to do while the girls are making a mess. Maybe Matt, Jason, Robert and I can get some Catan going while everyone else plays Xbox or something.

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Come on, get gone.