Santa Baby
I'm really sick of hearing that Santa Baby song. And I didn't ask for diamonds or yachts or anything that extravagent anyway, but Santa was overly generous nonetheless.
My favorite gift was a one-year subscription to www.audible.com, along with a sexy little red Creative Zen MP3 player to listen to audiobooks. I was really tempted by the pink one, but after much angst, red won out in the end.
I also got an Escada Magnetism cologne gift set, a pretty white cardigan sweater, a new purse, and a secure digital storage card for backing up files. Oh, and some cute new pjs, Madonna's latest CD, a new necklace, and a photography book I've been pining after for years. I know I'm forgetting some things...
What did Santa bring you this year? Which gift was your favorite?
posted by Jamie Sobrato @ 11:41 AM
24 Comments:
Hey, Jamie,
I'm finally crawling out from under my rock. We had a great, if hectic, Christmas, considering the stressful event that preceded it and also all the renovating for the MASSIVE 62" widescreen TV Santa brought my hubby and boys (and me, if I ever get a chance to watch it). Other than that, I got a replacement set of gold earrings for the pair I lost in our Reno hotel room when I was packing (left it on my bed), a new bottle of Clinique's Simply cologne, with a scented candle of same. Lots of chocolate, which I've inhaled. Jammies from the outlaws, a new housecoat from the sislaw, CDs, a DVD, my eldest son bought me a big stuffed dog that I named Gregor for some inexplicable reason (I hate the names Greg and Gregory, but he suited Gregor...), and cash from my parents went towards the shelves/wall unit "Dickie" (short for Dickhead, which is my translation of dh) built to house the new TV. And we got the Canadian equivalent of a Tivo. Yes, we sound very idiot-box obsessed, but we've never had a new TV before, if you can believe it, so when we finally bought one, we went all out.
Cindy
What? Grown-ups get Christmas presents? I don't believe it. I have a second trunk load of toys sitting in my car, this is not counting what they got from us or what they will get at their birthday party in 2 weeks. I need a bigger house.
My favorite present, even though we agreed not to exchange this year, was the complete 6 seasons of Sex and the City in one cool book/box thing. Otherwise we are still redoing the bedroom for our christmas gift, new mattress on the way. I found a way too expensive bedding set and after the birthday party maybe we'll get it painted. So little time to get anything done.
Hi Cindy. It's good to see you on the blog again. I hope your life settles into some semblance of normal. Wow, 62" TV?! Size DOES matter, apparently.
Bethany, the husband and I normally don't exchange gifts, but for whatever reason this year we felt inspired to do so. So what colors did you decide on for the bedroom?
My parents are notoriously bad gift-givers, so I insist on getting something from my husband to make up for all the asinine gifts my parents have doled out over the years. Unfortunately, my brother's have picked up the bad gift-giving gene, so my husband has an uphill battle.
He's a smart man though. He knows I don't care too much about the amount of money spent, as long as he includes a book-store gift certificate, he's golden. He hasn't missed a holiday yet. :)
He also gave me a gorgeous watch with Ausralian crystal. Who needs diamonds when you can look as fancy without going broke? Oh, and an Old Navy gift certificate too-- I told you the man was smart.
But mostly we do focus on the kids. We redeem all of our credit card points for a Toys R Us gift card. That saves a lot of stress every year and my kids make out like bandits.
I got the 5th season of SITC as a stocking stuffing. The fifth season? Luckily, my birthday is in January, and I've informed kids/dh that I NEED seasons 1-4 at least before I can start watching 5 again.
Now I want to start collecting Seinfeld, too. Something to watch on the big screen!
Cindy
Jamie, the bedding that we've picked out is a really orangish red, very unusual color, I thought. I think we are going to paint the walls tan or a dark beige or some shade of brown.
I just bought Lee his b-day present, NIN tickets. For some reason ticketmaster sends me a notice whenever there is a rodeo or WWF or pig racing in my area, even though the only things I have ever bought from them are NIN tickets, Smashing pumpkins tickets and Kids in the Hall tickets. Somewhere their database is correlating my info and going, 'well, she might like to see pig racing, she already saw NIN two years ago, won't want to see that again'. Oh crap is this off topic?
Hi all! Man, is it GREAT to be back home!
Ooh Cindy, I love Seinfeld. I hate TV most of the time, but that is the one thing I always watched.
As for what I got for Christmas, I don't even remember right now aside from the Alphasmart Dana my hubby got me. All I know is that I have a dining room table packed with gifts, and I have to find a place to put them, and my son won't need another toy as long as he lives. Not only did he get a stack from Santa and my parents, but we traveled to Missouri where he got a stash from my grandparents, and then back to Dallas where hubby's parents are divorced so he got a load from BOTH sides of that family. I don't know what we'll do with them all, even with another kid on the way.
Not that I'm complaining. I mean, it's great that we never have to spend money on toys, but it was kind of amusing to drive home in a car jammed full of toys with some strapped to the roof. Wonder what it will be like with more than one.. better get published soon so I can afford one of those big honkin' SUVs.
Melissa, you can actually survive having two kids without losing your car. I have only a mid-sized sedan and we just got a roof rack and cargo carrier for those times when we need extra trunk space. Works fine! It would not, however, work if you car is a Porsche, as my husband tried to convince me would be okay.
Bethany, you know you want to go to the pig races. Don't try to be all high-brow on us. LOL.
Actually, I had no idea there was any such thing as pig racing. There has to be a way I can work that into my next book.
Okay, the pig racing may just be an attraction at the KY state fair, but ticketmaster sends me advance notice of all kinds of weird events, and none of the events that I would buy tickets for. Weird, huh?
Yes, your next book should have pig racing in it. In fact they should have to race the pigs to get to the jaded shaft.
hmm, the book i'm writing next has a mythical lust potion in it, not a jaded shaft, but...what if the pigs got hold of the lust potion right before the big race? the possibilities boggle the mind.
Now, you should keep in mind that if this story has the same movie potential as the jaded shaft, that your A-list stars might be turned off by co-starring with pigs. Unless, you have digital pigs.
George Clooney owns a pig. We could get him, I bet. But you're right, if we want anyone bigger than George, we may have to add digitized pigs.
hmmm, who knew George Clooney and his pig would be such a conversation killer?
I know, weird, huh? but really, what else is there to say about pig racing or George Clooney. I stopped liking him when I saw him on some show like Letterman, dissing his former ER co-star, the nurse who was his romantic love interest. He made it sound like she was not worthy of him or something, total jerkass comment.
I'll start a new thread.
Before you start a new thread, I must chip in with a Clooney anecdote, now that I know it's ok to bash the guy. ;)
I worked at Real TV, and my boss was one of those guys who worked on all the tabloid shows of the time, Hard Copy, Current Affair and so on.
I guess George Clooney's dad, Nick, would sometimes do some stories on one of those show's, but I'm not sure which one. Anyway, I guess when George was still trying to get noticed in Hollywood, he'd come to the show begging to be featured in a story, or put in a clip. Anything for publicity.
So then, once he gets ER and becomes well known, he decides he'd going to go on some crusade against the tabloids and the paparazzi.(Right after Princess Di was killed) My boss got so burned up by this because he knew that Clooney didn't give a damn about the harm the paparazzi was doing, he was just trying to get more publicity.
Typical Hollywood type IMO.
I saw the other day that Clooney started his crusade against the tabloids because of his father's standards about journalism...whether that's true or not.
Jamie's story about the ER nurse bothered me when she first told me because when I had a perm people always told me I looked like Julianna WhateverHerNameIs--his co-star on ER. How dare he not find us attractive??
I must confess, I like (what we know of) George. I figure he must have a good sense of humour to deal with a name like George, which is about the worst name around unless it's Jorge (pronounced the Spanish way). Then you're too busy being sexy to worry about having a "phlegm stuck in my throat" name like George.
Strangely, I think the name Georgia is lovely.
Oh, and when I heard (whether it's true or not...) that they needed to revamp the Bat suit to fit George's larger "codpiece" area (over Michael Keaton or Val Kilmer), I liked George even more, pervert that I am. But if we're going for performances, it's Keaton all the way. I loved his Batman.
Cindy
Re- the tabloid thing. I think some "stars" just reach a point where it pisses them off and they do something about it. I don't think it has anything to do (well, all to do...) with "any publicity is good publicity." My grandfather recently died, and because he has a bit of a reputation in our area (Theresa, he was on Real TV or a U.S. show with a very similar title when he jumped out of a plane after his 100th birthday), you wouldn't believe the press my family weathered upon his death (he was 106 when he died and the last WW I vet in our province). I was in mourning, and I kept getting interview requests. Every time I opened the paper, there was something else - and this was just the local paper, just the provincial and Cdn national news. Just my provincial internet homepage. I can't imagine what it must be like to have non-truthful things slathered about oneself for the sake of newspaper sales. After my very brief experience with *positive* press and how even that can interfere with one's personal life, I say, if someone in the movie industry wants to use the press to get exposure when they need it, but when the press crosses over the line they change their views, well, I know I would, too.
Cindy
I was in mourning, and I kept getting interview requests.
Oh Cindy, I absolutely know what you're talking about. I used to get in trouble when I worked at Real TV for trying to protect some of the people we did stories on.
One guy did a base jump off of the Effel Tower and we were going to do an interview with him. When I called he was literally sitting by his mother's death bed waiting for her to die. Naturally I said we'd wait to do the interview until he had had time to deal with his situation. Silly me. My producer got pissed at me for not trying to get the guy to agree to allow us to send a camera crew to his mother's house! I was appalled, but she proceeded to tell me that I wasn't ambitious enough and called them herself and tried to bully her way in. Needless to say the guy told her where to stick it, and to my knowledge the interview never was done.
I can't tell you how many times I ran interference for people with pushy producers, and I was not a common type in the business. Most media types could give a damn about anything but ratings.
Need I mention I am no longer in the industry?
But because of my experience I am also suspicious and jaded of hollywood types that claim any higher ground with the media. I have seen them use the media to their advantage when needed, and then bash it the next day. I'm sure George Clooney's basically a decent guy, but I don't doubt his "war" against the paparazzi wasn't also designed to gain him positive publicity.
Very interesting insider perspective, Theresa.
I understood that the people calling me were only doing their jobs, and like I said, it was all positive press. But it was still a weird feeling, to get someone chipper calling you about an interview about someone who just died. But then I grew up next door to my grandfather, and because he lived an extraordinarily long time I think the kids in my family who grew up beside him were closer to him than kids normally are to their grandparents, so it really hit home.
Small world, though, huh? Here you worked for Real TV, and I have a videotape somewhere of my grandfather's tandem skydive ON Real TV. The skydive center sent it to the show.
Cindy
Small world, though, huh? Here you worked for Real TV, and I have a videotape somewhere of my grandfather's tandem skydive ON Real TV. The skydive center sent it to the show.
Definitely a small world. I only worked for the show for one year. That's all it took for me to realize I wasn't cut out for the office politics. TV is like no other industry, and working in Hollywood is a trip. There were times the job was a ton of fun, but you literally came into work everyday hoping you still had a job. I couldn't handle that.
I can't recall your grandfather's video, but it may have come in when I wasn't working there. Sometimes I even wrote the copy for segments like that, Emmy winning stuff for sure!
I think that's why I'd like to follow in Jamie's and your footsteps. If I write my own stuff, I'm my own boss. (Ok, there's the publisher, and the editor, and the agent, but a girl needs her illusions, right?)
Theresa, you are right about being your own boss as a writer. There are other people who collaborate in the process, but you really do get to make your own rules, your own schedule. There's a great sense of control in at least the creative and day-to-day part of the work. The lack of control comes in the publishing side, but it's that way with everything. You create the product, and it's up to everyone else what to do with it.
Newspaper and TV writing was the same way. You'd write the story, and hope the editor didn't butcher too much of it. But the better job you did, the less likely it was to be changed. I also figure the more success you have, the more leeway you have.
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