Another quick update:

I haven’t been online for two days. I spent the night at my mom’s Sunday, and we celebrated the first night of Hanukah. Drunken dreidel was played. I’ll let you in on a dirty little Jewish secret: no Jew actually knows how to play dreidel. Occasionally “dreidel rules” are put forward, but none of them actually make any sense, or work. When dreidel was invented, back in 200 BC, it went something like this:

Matathias: Judah, come quickly! Help me hide this money I’ve collected for the Resistance!
Judah: But dad, I’m whittling!
Matathias: Oh, right, let me delay the future freedom of the Jewish people for your stupid toys.
Judah: But dad, I made a dreidel!
Matathias: What in the hell is a dreidel, you putz?
Judah: Look, you can spin it! And it… spins.
Matathias: That’s amazing. I have a revolt to lead, Judea to free, Hellenizers everywhere I turn, and my useless son is making tsotchskes. What did I do to des–
[Loud banging outside]
Soldier: Open up, in the name of King Antiochus!
Matathias: Quick! Hide the money!
[Soldier barges in]
Soldier: Matathias, we have reason to belive- say, is there gambling going on in this house?
Matathias: No, no, uh, YES! Yes, you caught us. Please give us a break, I promise it’ll never happen again.
Soldier: Well… I suppose I can let you off with a warning this time. What do you call this game, anyway?
Matatthias: It’s called, uh, “dreidel”. It’s an old Jewish game.
Soldier: I see. How is this… “dreidel” played, anyway?

…and Matathias and Judah proceeded to pull the “rules” for dreidel directly out of their asses, a tradition which continues to this day.

Last night I stayed over at shadowandlight‘s place, watching Cartoon Planet and playing video games and getting very drunk. Now that I’m home I’m just trying to get some things done around the house. I found that the most recent version of Crossover Office will finally run Quicken 2005, so I think I’m going to spring for a license and get serious about tracking my finances again.

This vacation is flying by. I’m going to try to focus on getting various projects done in the time remaining, so I’m probably going to be a homebody for the rest of the week.

Anyone have any interesting New Years plans?