The Advent Calendar has been updated for December 16th, and I'm going to have to make this quick, because people are coming over to drink my liquor and steal things from my dresser drawers when I'm not looking. I hope you find tonight's Saturday Night Thread pleasing, because it's the last one before Christmas so it better be pleasing.
Found this great stocking stuffer yesterday. I'm not using it to stuff any stockings, but those who are in for treats! It's a "Mini Robopet," based on the much larger, much more intuitive and much more expensive giant Robopets (reptiles and robots, more correctly) littering the store aisles and always going on sale because, for whatever reason, nobody wants to buy the damn things. When miniaturized, they're just neat, "regular" action figures, save for a wind-up mechanism that lets the creatures noisily struggle to span four inches over a hard surface.
It's a nice "round out" gift to get a kid because, okay, let's say you got him a Wii for Christmas. The Wii's a pretty big gift, and it's probably the only really "big" gift you're gonna get the kid for one measly holiday. Throw in a $5 Mini Robopet, and he can go back to school bragging to everyone that he "got a Wii and a Robopet!" He needn't classify his Robopet as a toy miniature, and everyone will consider him a rich ass hero!
Yes, they do sell Mini Robopets even when it's not Christmas, but here's how they tied it in: When you browse the stocking stuffer aisle and see the shelf full of Mini Robopets, note how they only put the red and green ones out. I dig that. It's subtle and smart. Like a 1974 California blush.
Posted by Matt on 12/16/2006. E-mail me!
Chestnuts roasted by 
Advent is still awesome as hell. Only Mista Snowman would do a Christmas version of “We Built This City.”
I don’t remember if I posted this in the last blog, but last night was my Frat’s Xmas party. It was at the new frat house (well, I go to a commuter school, and there’s 6 guys living in one house that’s 15 minutes away from that…so it’s technically a frat house), and we did a Grab Bag thing. I gave 2 big boxes of Swedish Fish and gave out $1 scratch off lotto tickets for the first 30 guys. One guy won $20, but he was the one who actually had some money and didn’t need it, and he was such a nice guy, he gave it back to me. Yay, gas money!
I got a big bottle of a local barley wine from the local Blue Point brewery from one of the older guys. (good vintage stuff too, so I hear)