Games and Green Things

Mike bought our Christmas tree and stand a few days ago. It's a small tree, which is fine since we really don't have any decorations for it. Mike scrounged around and found a box with some of our trimmings, but they are really meant to decorate things other than a tree. The first year we were together, Mike purchased a gold star which we put at the top of his roommate's large houseplant. He found it and decorated the top of our new tree. It's been with us for 6 years.

The tree smells wonderful and it's nice to walk in and smell pine. It's worth it, despite all the needles I know we'll have to clean up when we're done with it. I'm going to see if I can get decorations tomorrow, along with all the other shopping I've got to do.

I haven't started my Christmas shopping yet. Atleast, not really. This is definitely Not Good(tm), especially since this is the last shopping weekend before Christmas and I still don't know what I'm getting everyone on my list. Thankfully, it's a short one so I don't have to do too much thinking. I wanted to get some gifts today, but I got distracted by a purchase I made yesterday.

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In the tunnel

Kristin of Sperare mentioned on a listserv a game called The Stone. I have heard about it before, but never really looked into it. However she did say something to the effect that she's got her entire family of puzzle-enthusiasts into it. With an endorsement like that, I check out their website and found the nearest location where I could purchase one. I dropped into the Museum Store last night near Port Authority and purchased one.

I met Mike at home and we walked over to the local diner to have dinner. Our plans for this evening were "dinner and a movie", since both of us were eager to watch Toy Story II. We brought along the box for The Stone to dinner with us and it was the focus for part of the dinner conversation.

We were amused at the pretentious-sounding the little booklet the stone came with.

We laughed at it as we ate dinner, but we were both eager to check out the puzzles. That was our plan for today. Last night, we were to watch Toy Story II.

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I was expecting floods of teenagers and kids at the theater. It was surprisingly empty and the people who were there were all adults. Perhaps the 9;45 showing was too late for them.

The movie itself was wonderful. Better than the first one because they developed the characters they established in the first film and added some interesting new ones. I'm looking forward to seeing them in Toy Story III. There's lots and lots of "in jokes" in this film. Lots of allusions to other films. It's packed. I want to see it again to try and "catch" all of those jokes.

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I spent all day playing The Stone.

I guess I'll do my shopping tomorrow.