That time of year?

[templeboy]

Its that time of year...every time I come here, the most recent comments are on threads started by christians, mainly ctrl+v trolls...I guess that they are caught up in the religous fervor of xmas and are inspired to come and evangelize....

anyway, I want to counter this trend, so lets discuss the most banal and/or secular aspects of xmas...what did santa get you, what family and friends did you see, what good or bad fortunes have befallen you this festive season? Is there anyone who didn't observe Christmas in some way?

[Renegnicat]

I played double-decker monopoly with a couple of buddies of mine. The way it works is, you get two monopoly boards, and align them so that the Pass Go spaces are next to each other. The way it works is, everytime you pass go, you switch to the other board's go space. The result is a figure eight monopoly game, with twice as much monopoly money, twice as many properties, along with everything else. What makes it even more interesting is that you only  need three of one color to start building properties, but you don't need all of one color. what's more, is someone lands on a property, and two people own that property, the rent is split between them. but, if one person owns, say, two marvin gardens, then they get double the rent!

With the utilities, if you own all four, then rent is 20 times amount shown on dice. If you own three, then rent is 14 times the amount shown on dice. It's really fun.

[OldGit]

I spent the festive thingy with my children and grandson.  I had good food and good drink, plus I got a load of excellent books.  My idea of perfection.

[AlP]

Santa brought me a better understanding of the US tax code. I've been reading IRS Publication 550. You see I want to deliberately lose money in a taxable account by opening a spread of call option contracts that is hopefully a very bad investment, while opening exactly the reverse spread in a tax deferred account, so as to realize a short-term capital loss without losing any actual money overall. Make sense? Whether the IRS takes kindly to this sort of financial engineering I'm still investigating. Why can't the tax code be written in such a way as to be comprehensible by human beings?

It was a pretty secular xmas overall I guess.

[hismikeness]

I played double-decker monopoly with a couple of buddies of mine.

Hmm... that sounds like fun. Here's the problem. My wife and I were just on a little getaway to the coast. We both have Monopoly on our Ipods touch. However, to play without passing the ipod back and forth requires a wifi network, which our bed and breakfast did not have. So... we went to the local Fred Meyer in hopes of buying a Monopoly set. We couldn't find just plain old Monopoly.

There was Monopoly Here and Now- Modern day pricing and such
Monopoly City- which had like skyscrapers and stuff you could build on it. Looks sweet.
Simpsons Monopoly, Family Guy Monopoly, Star Wars, Pirates of the Carribbean, Twilight Monopoly    
Beaveropoly (for the Oregon State Beavers, which I already own... FTd!!),
Duckopoly (again, FTd, but good luck in the Rose Bowl),
Monopoly electronic banking (debit cards instead of paper money. Actually looked kinda cool)
Monopoly Junior
and a collection of Monopoly based card and dice games.

I even asked a clerk if they had a regular green house red hotel paper money top hat and battleship and dog and wheelbarrow and thimble Monopoly set, and he said, and I quote: "We don't sell those anymore."

Ugh.

So we passed the ipods back and forth.

Hismikeness

[theTwiz]

Monopoly electronic banking (debit cards instead of paper money. Actually looked kinda cool)

I should troll some of those anti-fed/rothschilds control the world conspiracy theorist forums with this little tidbit.

[Tom62]

My wife and I spent X-Mas together in a 5 star, all inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic. It was like paradise, wonderful beaches, great food, etc., I think that  you get my drift. "Santa" gave me a 2nd hand Bose SoundDock Musical System for my iPod Touch and a brand new Amazon Kindle (international version) in return.

[MommaSquid]

My wife and I spent X-Mas together in a 5 star, all inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic. It was like paradise, wonderful beaches, great food, etc., I think that  you get my drift. "Santa" gave me a 2nd hand Bose SoundDock Musical System for my iPod Touch and a brand new Amazon Kindle (international version) in return.

I'm glad you had a wonderful time.  

Why is it that European's have the time and money to travel but most American's don't?

[Tom62]

Why is it that European's have the time and money to travel but most American's don't?

The number of vacation days is normally not a problem for most Europeans. I get for example 30 paid vacation days per year in my company. That makes up for a measly   6 week's vacation. Luckily I can add a maximum of two extra days per month to my vacation, if I work overtime. Since work hours are shorter in Europe than in the States, it is easy for me to make some extra hours. And then we have here our fair share of public holidays of course.

[MommaSquid]

Wow, that's a lot of paid time off.  When my husband changed jobs he went from 4 weeks vacation back down to 1 week.  It will take years to build up to a decent amount of time off.  Then there's just the little problem of not being able to afford a fabulous trip.  

I'll have to live vicariously through other people's trips.  Pictures anyone?