Broken Forum Secret Santa 2012 -- opening thread!

I finally have time to post this now that we're done with our day-earlier-than-expected mad dash to MA for Christmas.

I will do so entirely through pictures:









Monkey Shoulder is great stuff, and coincidentally I was just starting to think about where to get a bottle from somewhere that'll ship to PA.

Thanks for breaking the law for me, Santa Brett! Best smuggling ever!

Glad you like it. I was stalking you in the whisky thread and saw you mention that you had a bottle you were rationing since you were running out and wished that it was sold in PA. Tried to get it shipped directly first and they came back saying, no that would be illegal. So I just decided to break the law on my own.

There's a scene (and I may have the issue number wrong, but if you've read the series you'll remember the scene) where Spider goes to a religion fair and there's all these "church" signs in the background. Darick drew in a fan group I ran as one of the church names.

Ah. Issue 6. Now I just have to work out which one.

And that's why your gift was late. Who knew that putting a new audio track on a movie would be so hard? If you're interested, my trials and tribulations are documented over in the Video Editing thread.

And this is why my gift kind of made me laugh, because CSPariah gave me two of these. When you get just about the same gift you're giving you know you've entered nerd Christmas. So yes, CSPariah, I loved your gift so much I had already picked it out for someone else. :-)

Ho ho ho!!

That sure sounded like a lot of fun. My favorite part was the particular bit of Adobe software not defaulting to including any kind of audio. "Fuck me, Adobe" should really be emblazoned as a quote on most of the things they make these days.

A package has arrived! Dickens is instantly wary:



Let's find out what's in it!



It's a cookbook! Huzzah! Quick and Easy Indian Cooking. I've been wanting to try Indian cooking, so this is super exciting!



Check out that picture smile. Pretty sexy, huh?

Hard-Boiled Eggs Masala. Aww yiss, as the saying goes:



And it even came with a strip of packaging for Dickens.



He is also super excited.



Thank you so much Santa! Now... who are you?

I want to be Dickens' secret Santa next year.

Aawwwww, hiii Dickens! *pets*

Alright Santa Vesper! I finally got caught up and sat down to open the package!

Vesper put a lot of thought and research into this. There were a total of four gifts in the box, all focused on hobbies that (thankfully) take me away from the computer and into real life.

At work I fold paper to change gears mentally and come at a problem from a different angle. Originally this meant paper airplanes, but I got a bit more formal a few years ago and started to practice origami. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that Vesper had sent a book of plans and some paper with which to make them:


Now I have a bit of help next time I try to think outside of the box, as it were!

When I'm not at the office and need to decompress, I relocate to my soundproofed man cave in the basement and play guitar. I managed to snap a string a few months ago when absentmindedly overtightening during tuning rocking out harder than Toki Wartooth, which led to a crash course in guitar maintenance. Vesper thoughtfully sent me some things to make next time a lot less painful.

A set of strings:


He also gave me the neatest tuner I have ever seen:


It clamps on to the headstock! Much better than what I was using before. It's also a Snark, which is delicious irony given how much I like to indulge in that. No, the guitar is not that poorly tuned, I was strumming and taking the picture at the same time.

Vesper, thank you very much! You put a lot of thought into these and I appreciate it. I'll make good use of them.

Happy Holidays!

I had mentioned in the Secret Santa thread that a package arrived for me late Friday. What was different about this package was that I had to sign for it. During the Christmas Season the delivery services almost always league the packages at the door and run back to their trucks / vans. I thought it was strange but I didn't think anything of it.

I took the box into the dining room:



I wanted to check the packing slip because I didn't recognize the name listed as the sender. I just about freaked out when I unfolded the slip and read it. Why did I freak out? Check it out. Check out how awesome my Secret Santa is!




What?! Are you kidding me?!! I don't even ... wow

Secret Santa, thank you so much for such a great gift. I am blown away at your generosity. I spent the rest of the evening shaking my head and walking around wide-eyed trying to take it all in. Even today as I'm putting this post together I'm thinking about the event, how it went on my end and how it might have went on yours.



I do not know your identify Secret Santa, I hope you'll reveal yourself!

Thank you and Merry Christmas!



Whittapic (tm)

The annual Macbook Air tradition continues! Huzzah!

Also - HOLY CRAP YOU SHAVED WHAT THE HELL ROBB.

Hiredgoons Strikes Again?

I am not at liberty to say.

Also, GOOD HEAVENS MAN.

You're welcome. At first you were a bit difficult to stalk for but I'm glad I made some good choices.

Also, where's the picture of my AWESOME letter that I spent about 10 minutes on? It had cool GFX. :)

Wow!

Note to any future Santas: Do not get me a Macbook. I hate Macs. Wouldn't mind a new Windows-based laptop though... :D

Chromebook it is!

Ah yes, the N-Gage of the new millennium.

Secret Santa 2013 will have a minimum gift requirement of one N-Gage, with no maximum.

VegasRobb --

I was your Secret Santa. Thank you SO much for posting those opening pictures. Truly made my week. I'm glad you like Macs. Merry Christmas :)

To my Secret Santa --

Sorry if I created any alarm about delayed opening pictures. I've been out of town up until about five hours ago. I have at least one box whose sending address I do not recognize, so I presume it has arrived. I don't work tomorrow so I'll have time to do a proper opening post.

Next year we'll need a membership/posting-requirement or people will join the BF secret santa just in the hope of landing Hiredgoons...

Good thing is that I've seen lots of lovely gifts (although I'm disappointed not a single one of us tried sending a Superman ornament ahead of the rest of the gifts) and there isn't a single one of you I wouldn't want as my SS come next year.

And here I thought last year's Macbook was just a fluke. Or maybe hiredgoons is just setting us all up for a bag of coal next year.

Or they're the ghost of Steve Jobs.

Followup to Secret Santa: Tyjenks, I showed off my watch at the party today, and everyone loved it. My MIL loved it seriously, but then she has weird taste. My sister said it's "the Christmas sweater of watches", and we all dissolved into giggles. I'm getting a lot of mileage out of this sucker already!

So awesome. Today I bought my daughter a Mythbusters game I almost got you instead of the watch. She is 11 and loves that show. She is fascinated by how things work. Looks like I made good choices all around this year. Well, where gifts are concerned I should say. ;). Still waiting to see if I get coal.

My kids already requested to learn how to play poker so the two of them, my mom and I have been playing with the chips balut got me. They love it.

Watch is way better than game. :)

Nice to know you're corrupting your children early with the poker. As soon as they turn 18 you should take them to Vegas. ;)

Then you can use them to bet VegasRobb for his Macbook Air, and they'll win it for you!

Here we go:

First, a huge box with an intimidating amount of packaging.




The box was marked fragile, so after lots of careful sifting...



Beer! Very promising indeed!







And there's more!

Two great glasses for drinking:



Plus, a huge amount of effort went into describing the history of each of these brews.

Witnesseth:







And at the end a very helpful chart regarding evaluation:





My Secret Santa didn't identify himself or herself, but this is beyond cool. The amount of time and attention to detail to describe each of these is just pure awesome. I very much enjoy a tasty adult beverage but I'm certain I'm not alone in that I'm a little bit overwhelmed at times by the variety out there as well as by the folks who are very much experts in this area. So, it is just so wonderful that I've got a bunch of Expert Certified beers to share and the whole local backstory that goes along with them.

What is not pictured is the thorough letter (sorry just wouldn't photograph legibly, I'm an idiot with cameras) that explains that the beers are PRECISELY ordered in the box pictured above into particular themes. Yes, I removed the beers for photographing, but I made detailed notes prior to their removal.

Laminated to boot! Really floored here.

Thank you very much, Secret Santa! I hope you'll say Hi in this thread and take a well deserved bow. Merry Christmas and thank you very much for the awesome presents!

Based on where they are all from and the subject matter of the gift I have a good clue as to who your secret Santa is. Great gift indeed!!!

Yeah. That plus the choice of glassware.

Yeah, it's not the most secret of Santas, really.

I can only imagine he's in a Christmas beer coma and will take credit in the morning.

I am very happy to spread the Christmas Beer Cheer, Hiredgoons! I hope you find some nice surprises in there once you start drinking them. :)

HINT: One of them contains iocane powder.

It's OK, I'm sure that Hiredgoons has never been involved in a land war in Asia.

I thought it might be you, but wasn't sure. I really appreciate all of the attention to detail. I was so tempted to drink one today, but I have to work tomorrow and stay away from alcohol for twenty-four hours prior to working. This weekend however, I look forward to watching some football and trying a few. Thank you soo much!

That brings a smile to my face man. :) More than anything, I look forward to hearing your feedback on the beers in the Beer Thread! Love 'em or hate em, I just wanna know what ya think. :)

Aw man, I just realized that I missed the perfect opportunity to say that my Happy Helium pillow was soft "like silk, or something".

Better late than never.