08:10 On the road to Disneyland for a holiday day with the family!

11:29 Remember the days when Disneyland used to be *dead* and totally empty the week before Christmas? Yeah. #fb

11:59 Today on BBC radio, @JohnBarnesUK and I chat LIVE from the happiest holiday place on earth, Disneyland! tinyurl.com/yjhhvf6 #fb

12:52 In my forty years of going to Disneyland, I've *never* done the canoes (I know, right?!?) Fixing that right now. #fb

14:12 Dopey & a princess: flic.kr/p/7pWvc2 #fb

14:15 Old skool ears are totes dope ferreals omg: flic.kr/p/7pWwN6 #fb

15:58 Today's star sighting at Disneyland: Dave Foley! #kidsinthehall #fb

17:49 Skipper Augie on our night Jungle Cruise! #Disneyland #fb

18:59 Aaah, the Adventureland trifecta: nighttime Jungle Cruise, Indy via FastPass, then Bengal Barbecue skewers, all in a row. Kungaloosh! #fb

23:39 Starting a new meme: #maturedisneyrides

23:40 Grand Theft Autopia #maturedisneyrides

23:40 ( More... )

(Cross-posted to RedEye Royalty blog.)

The Art Institute of Chicago is currently running a city-wide art project. Five hundred red cubes (about 4 inches high/wide/deep) have been hidden throughout the city. Anyone who finds a cube can visit 500-Ways.com and enter the password printed on the cube. The website will then give them an art project to complete, and upload their results to the website (or drop it off at the information desk at the Art Institute).

At last count, there were still 191 cubes waiting to be discovered.

Cool, right?

One of my fellow RedEye Royalty, Connie, was fortunate to find a cube. Actually, finding it was the easy part, compared to the trouble she went through to procure it. (An unfortunate but hilarious adventure.)

After all the trouble she went through, she visited the website and found her art project: "Take a photo of your cube in a different state than the one where you found it. (Try to include something recognizable in the background.) Upload your photo here, then leave the cube with someone in that state so the cube may continue its journey. Your contribution may appear in a special display at the Art Institute."

Poor, poor Connie has been assigned to give her precious cube away.

Seeing as I'll be doing a bit of traveling over the next couple of weeks, I told Her RedEye Majesty that I would gladly take the cube with me on my travels and assist her in completing her task.

Reluctantly, Connie agreed.

On Monday, we met at the Starbucks across from Tribune Tower. Seeing as this was my second Royalty-affiliated meeting there, I find that the coffee place should serve as the RR's (Not-So-)Secret Lair. After a warm coffee and a few laughs, Connie petted the cube lovingly and gently and passed it on to me, saying, "Take good care of it."

And so, my part of the Cube Project begins. I plan to take the cube to Michigan, Florida, and probably at least one other state. At some point though, I too will have to part with the Cube and leave it with someone who will continue its Cubic Course.

Today on my pal John Barnes' UK radio show, we chat LIVE from the happiest holiday place on earth, Disneyland!

The show runs every Wednesday at ten o'clock (22:00) in the UK, and my segment is about ninety minutes into the show -- meaning you can hear it in the U.S. at about half-past three, Pacific Standard Time.

You can listen on the internet at BBC Lancashire; look for John's show in the daily schedule, or just click the "Listen Live" link around three-thirty today, PST.

Every year I send out a holiday card featuring Boomer the Wonder Dog.  She's always dressed up in some sort of holiday season getup, a Santa hat one year, an elf hat another... she hates it.  She thinks she's being punished.  She usually looks miserable and just detests the whole process. See December 2007.

Boomer is tired of the dress up for Santa, and this year I changed the theme a little bit.  This was the holiday card that I sent out this year, although I suspect some of them are still stuck in the mail:

09:57 OMG the best gingerbread I've ever had in my *life*. Imagine a thick, chewy blondie but GINGERBREAD FLAVORED! #fb flic.kr/p/7pK5Po

11:46 It's not too late to bake your own holiday CHERPUMPLE, the dessert version of a Turducken! bit.ly/4Yj2yC (via @charlesphoenixs)

17:45 My Twitter account is worth $141! What's yours worth? WhatsMyTwitterAccountWorth.com

19:14 The ideal Cake for Men! flic.kr/p/7pLUUr

19:17 The Russian section of our local supermarket #fb flic.kr/p/7pLWXn

19:49 Off work 'til Jan 4! Shopping and running errands with @TheFidget. Windy! Scarves! Carols on the car radio! It's officially Christmas.

20:15 Wait... they *remade* Gidget? When?? flic.kr/p/7pMvit

21:31 To my inquiring peeps/tweeps/facebookers/LiveJournalers: no Crappy Gift Exchange this year. But it will make a *triumphant* 2010 return! #fb

(auto-shipped by LoudTwitter)

Last Christmas my....I guess you'd call her my step grandmother...did something unspeakable and utterly callous to me in front of the entire family.  It was so unexpected and calculated that six months later I was still a big gobsmacked and unbelieving. It's hard even now to speak of it but perhaps with this public confession I can lance the boil of poison that grew upon the hole in my chest where my soul used to be.  You see, suddenly and without any warning whatsoever, for the the first time in 20 years...

...she bought me a Christmas present.

I know right?  How creepy and diabolical is that?

Of course, taken unawares, I had not recipricated and purchased a present for her hence doubling...nay..quadrupling my shame.  I was tempted to try to palm one of my mother's picture frames from off of the coffee table and quickly wrap it in the paper scraps littering the floor but dammit I just couldnt get the 967th picture of my mother's dogs out from under the frame. 

The gift was nothing large.  She didnt give me a cut in the will or anything; just a box of candy but still she willfully and maliciously broke the 20 year NO-GIFT detente between her side of the family and my own.  There I was the peaceful and oblivious Kuwait sitting there minding my own business dusting cookie crumbs off my sweater and BAM! she goes all Iraq on my ass and hands me a present to unwrap. 

"Next year" I swore under my breath, "I'll be ready for you, Old woman..."

That was one year ago this week...and I'm not ready.

My step grand mother...or SGM for short...is the absolute clone of the grandmother from the Dennis Leary Christmas classic, The Ref.  She runs that side of the family with an iron trustfund.  More impervious to health concerns than Wolverine, nothing slows her down.  NOTHING.   I'm not sure exactly how old she is now but I dont think age is really a factor in this equation.  Until Sarah Connor can lure her onto an iron hook over a vat of molten metal, she'll keep going and going and going.  And of course, she has absolutely everything. 

My mother suggested I get her a box of candy this year but to me that just sounds cheap.  There's also the matter of ESCALATION to consider this time around the yule log.  See if she got me a box of candy last year then she'll be expecting me to get her one this year. Armed with that assumption, she might choose to up the anty and get me something slightly bigger...like a personal grooming set or something.  Perhaps a lovely flashlight or some other Big Lots contrivance.  Therefore, I must be cunning like the wolf, quick like the panther, and wise like the slow tortise and preemptively out gift her at the exactly correct price point.  Too over in price and I look pathetic and toady but too under in price and we'll come to a draw this year still leaving her ahead in the arms race by virtue of last year's victory. 

This  year I need a win.

Tomorrow is my last day to shop and I still have no gift for SGM.  With a pricepoint of $30 max I've tried to find an appropriate gift basket or box.  A Hickory Farms type present would go uneaten and unloved with comments about how she's watching her cholesterol and cant tolerate spicy foods.  A huge assortment of chocolates might be met with comments about how she can only eat one or two pieces a day.  (Plus she took that off the board with her gift o'chocolate last year to me.  FSM forbid I appear to be unoriginal.)  She has 20 million hat/scarf combinations already and the Starbucks basket I looked at today would be a really BAD idea.  Giving SGM caffiene = unmitigated badness.

Tomorrow the search will contine.  She'll win obviously but I at least have to try.  I'm good enough, I'm gay enough, and gosh darn it salespeople like me.

I do keep having one thought over and over again though.  Slipper Socks!  Medium!  Damn you Dennis Leary. Damn you to hell.

I'm gonna be up in Minneapolis again this year for Christmas and New Years!

Now, my Christmas plans are pretty well taken care of, but from the 27th to the 1st I'll be staying with the ever gracious host perkk!  I hope to see as many of you up there as I can, and my schedule is pretty open right now so let me know if anyone wants to do anything!

Went to Target with mom and Copper. Mom was taking forever, so Copper
and I went for a walk and waited outside. Burr it's cold!