For most of you, there's also a good chance that some of the people on your Christmas list don't know the segment/offset address of the far pointer to access to make the screen flip upside down on alternate Thursdays in any month that ends with "Y". Which means that you'll have to come up with something more creative than a mousepad to give them as a Christmas present. Having already gome through this yearly ritual, somehow surviving, I may have some useful suggestions as to what you may be able to come up with for Christmas presents.
First of all, concealment is an important aspect of the fine art of gift-giving. It is because of this that oftentimes, very large presents tend not to work out all that well. The tendency of Human Beings in thi case is to wrap the presents in colorful paper, and it is because of this that for irregularly shaped objects, the use of a box is suggested. Now some boxes have a tendency to hide the true identity of the contained gift better than others. In this regard, I have found plastic enclosures to be especially effective. For my younger brother and sister, I have employed this technique, with great effectiveness. So far, my sister has decided that she now utterly despises all forms of plastic, and my brother has attempted to beat me up twice over this. Judging from the fact that neither of them has the slightest clue what they have received for their presents, I would recommend the use pf plastic boxes to someone who not only wants to conceal the present, but drive it's reciever bonkers stark raving bonkers in the process.
Of course, Christmas shopping is not the easiest thing that one can think of... especially when just about everyone else out there has pretty much the same idea. This tends to lead to crowds. At the least, this becomes an inconvenience, but at the worst, you could find yourself fighting Guido the Bruiser for the last Tickle-Me Elmo doll, Tamagotchi or Beanie Baby (or Sing and Snore Ernie, as the case may be) in the store. There's always the option of searching the Internet to see the most ridiculous sum on money to pay for a single toy and fork up the dough, but usually the best way to deal with this situation is to just wait a year or so, then give said present to the intended recipient, as these tend to be in greater supply this way. Of course, there are other things that one may have to endure in the act of Christmas shopping. For example, certain people tend to prefer gifts that have a pungent aroma of flowers to them, and chances are, you know one of these individuals. Because of this, in order to get a Christmas present for them, you may find yourself having to endure an endless barrage of perfumes, lotions, and other scents you would prefer to avoid entirely in order to find that one perfect Christmas gift for that one special someone.
Sure, christmas shopping can be hazardous to your health, but so can getting the wrong gift for the wrong person. For example, it would probably be a very bad idea to give a Barbie doll to a hyperactive teenage boy, and by the same token, G.I. Joe figures tend not to be the best choice for a teenage girl who explodes on the first sign of a persecution complex. Choose your Christmas gifts wisely. The males of the species tend to have a certain aversion to anything that is predominantly pink, smells like flowers, or remotely resembles a unicorn. In most cases, olive drab is a poor choice for females, as is fishing tackle, pro sports paraphanelia or other things like that (there are, of course, the exceptions to this rule, so it's always a good idea to check first where there are grey areas.
Even to a computer geek who has trouble adjusting to the light of the refrigerator, there are ways that the holiday season can be survived. It amy take some effort, and at times it may even seem like a trial by ordeal in doing so, but all it really takes is ridiculous amounts of money, the ability to push your way through large crowds and plenty of good karma.
BTW, if you're here, you may have noticed the redesign of the website by now. It is currently by no means complete, but all of the major pages are done (and I'll finish the job as I have time to do so. It's amazing what you can do with just a little free software and some things that you can download from the Internet. For example, the new title graphic on the main page was done in POV-Ray 3.0, arguably the best freeware raytracer Available on the Internet. All of the headers were done in a font called Neuropol, available free, along with a multitude of others, from Larabie Fonts, one of several free font sites out on the Internet. If you're looking to boost the font collection on your system, this is a great place to look. Just don't get too many of them, because Win95 flips out if you have more than 1,000 fonts installed.
Also, I am planning to move the EMU Rumor page to a different site sometime within this week. Hopefully, this will allow me to have more opportunity to work on this site (and actually put out columns every once in a while at that) to keep the two sites separate. Not only did I feel that EMURUMOR was crowding the Sledgehammer out, but I needed more webspace in order to do some of what I planned to do with that site. Let me know what you think about the new look of this site, and if you have weird ideas of any sort that are even vaguely computer-related, don't hesitate to share those too.