h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For Christmas I had an 'interesting' feng shui plastic plaque mounted on a bit of wood made to look burnt by rubbing it with black shoe polish. The givers undoubtedly spent quite a bit of money on this as it came with a nice little card from the artist who had made it.
If anyone wants this piece which may well be worth something in 200 years time they can have it.

They obviously thought you were an interesting feng shui sort of person, so its not all bad

I gave a friend an "Albert Camus" book I knew he didn'y have, as he's into that type of literature...but it's going to drive him mad as,

*wait for it*

Camus died before he could complete it - so it's a story with no end

Not as bad as the evil people working on oil rigs and the like who carefully remove the last couple of pages out of the library collection of paperbacks just before they come back on shore for the last time.

Sad bastards


Tigger

(I feel very strongly about people damaging books, sorry and all that)

I saw an ad in a mail catalog for a plastic "Frog Band" ... about a square foot stage with four or so frogs who are also rock musicians. When you play any music, band dances (plays?) in time, based on the ever-present rock beat. It looked like the stupidest thing I had ever seen, so I of course had to buy it.

Which I did. And then gave it to a couple - the wife loves frogs (T-shirts, pictures, sculptures), and they both play rock and roll with my wife and I and some other friends - just for fun. They actually left it out in the living room for a while ... or maybe just when we visited ...

I gave someone a leprechaun snow-dome where the "snow" was, in fact, shamrocks - you can't get more kitsch than that
I do have an outstanding request for a sphinx or pyramids snow shaker if anyone knows of such a thing, btw.

I am firmly of the opinion that everybody over the age of ten should receive _something_ useless as a reminder that "It is more blessed to give..." or "It's the thought that counts... or some other seasonal untruth. Now that nobody much knits, I go out of my way to find Christmas sweaters or T shirts with glitter on. A few years ago I gave everybody of my acquaintance a pair of lurid Argyle socks (from Poland!). At least one pair is still actually being worn. But I do also know of a pink silk tie that went straight from the wrapping paper to the Oxfam bag