Holly Jolly

I spend my days in a whirr of "last week of classes" mania, soon to be replaced by the "finals week" variety. In my spare time, though, I think about Christmas. I have this weird masochistic side that unabashedly loves Christmas shopping. More than that, though, I adore the music, the still-white snow, the smells...all that good sentimental stuff.

Hmm...in a materialistic vein, this is where I would do all my shopping if I were not A) broke and B) lazy. I don't know what it says about me that I find weaving in and out of mall pedestraffic in a desperate bid to score a deal at Target easier than sitting in my easy chair, stealing the Internet, and clicking buttons. Somehow the latter seems like more work to me. It probably has something to do with my intense fear of credit cards.

Anyway, Rare Bird Finds is absolutely amazing, and someday it will replace Barnes and Noble as my go-to source for gifts.

And this is what I want for Christmas. It occurs to me that I have never plugged the good people at Spiderweb Software before, so here goes. If you have any nerdly inclinations at all, Spiderweb makes the stellar Avernum and Geneforge games. (I've never played Exile, but if you're familiar, it's the guy behind those, too.) They're fantasy RPGs, which aren't generally my thing, but they're so well-written and original that I've remained sharewarely devoted for years. The demos are massive, and each game costs $25, which I could never afford, but now they've got discounted trilogy packs of the first 3 games in each series. I can't wait to get the Avernum trilogy, either as a much-hinted-at gift from my parents, or on my own terms when my scholarship money comes through in January. It will make me happy forever--thank you, video games.

This effing semester cannot be over soon enough.