Wmcmanus

Nice, Justin.

Have a great one, Andy!

Congrats, Ric and Melissa! Such a beautiful baby girl. Vicki, be happy. Get some rest. The house will clean itself in no time.

Mike, I feel bad now about making "eye pad" jokes with the kids during Santa season. You would just never believe how many 7-10 year old kids were asking for iPads! I was really quite surprised this year. Then someone sent me a joke email that showed this old Larry David sort of looking guy wearing an eye pad, and it gave me an idea. So I went to the ER at the hospital in Cayman and asked 3 or 4 nurses for eye pads (explaining the joke) until one of them finally came back with a couple of them for me. After that, every time a kid asked for an iPad, I would offer him or her one of them. Then they would say, "No, I want and iPad2!!!!" at which time I would pull out the other eye pad and pretend to put one over each of my eyes, and ask, "If you used 2 eye pads, how would you see anything?" The parents seemed to think it was a lott funnier than the kids did...

Tyll, if you're going to have a date with Steve, you should watch this video to get prepared. Remember, he's the pitcher. You're the catcher.

^ This! Sorry I missed your birthday thread, but I was kind of busy yesterday!!! Happy birthday, Ken.

Vicki, I'm so saddened by the news of your father's passing. As so many of us have experienced in recent times (and some very recently), it's just an incredibly difficult time for everyone involved. You have your own emotions to deal with, those of your family members and close friends, and now with your mom being sick, and still having to face the day to day realities of work life, etc. Just keep hanging in there and staying strong, as this too shall pass.

As requested (may have posted some of these already, if so, sorry about that):

Got a $750 tip from a lady at the Ritz Carlton last night. Hope the check clears! It was a $250 agreed price for a 20 minute visit, and she wrote me a check for $1,000. She was the grandma, and I got her 9 year-old granddaughter to believe again. It was a late night visit (11:30pm) and I had my one and only time gap immediately afterwards, so I ended up spending more like 45 minutes there. She walked me out down the hall, and saw how flabbergasted I was when I looked at her check, and then gave me a creepy big wet kiss on the cheek (think she may have been trying for the lips, because grandpa was still back in their suite). I then told her that I would put the money to good use as I was planning to buy a new suit for next year, and promised to email a picture to her, which I've since done. Now she's promising to come back next year to see me in that suit and is going to spread the word to all of her friends. While I suspect that simply means that it will be a bragging right sort of thing, I'd certainly welcome more of her ilk! Here's the new suit, which is an exact replica of one of the suits that Tim Allen wore in the Santa Clause movies, with real silver fox fur, and down to every last detail including the (rather annoying to me) absence of a furry white ball at the end of the hat (which I may need to rectify for personal preferences). Best part about it is that it's melton wool and the robe is sleeveless, both of which are good things in terms of keeping Santa cool. Cost me over $2k and she took me half way there in less than an hour, so I don't feel so guilty now.

Ho Ho Ho!!! Merry Christmas!!! (I swear if I have to say that one more time after today's scheduled events, I'm going to fucking puke!)

Rudolph actually is a bastard! Dasher is his father, but the mother is never mentioned anywhere. She must have come from the wrong side of Santa's Village. That, and Dasher must have undergone a sex change at some point (Rudolph as well) because all male reindeer shed their antlers every year around October or November. (True story, as Google will confirm.) Thus, all of the reindeer on Santa's official sleigh team must be female, which goes a long way explain why they're so highly organized and efficient. Only problem is that with Rudolph at the lead, to the extent that he still does display some male characteristics, he's still too proud to ask for directions. Anyway, Merry Birthday, Ric.

Happy birthday!

Takes a deep breath... the 12-14 hour shift of jolly madness is about to begin. Got my route all mapped out and sure hope I can stay on schedule...17 visits is a lot! I've actually hired a driver/photographer/elf who will also serve as my cell phone operator to keep people informed throughout the night. He's my neighbor, and says he'll do practically anything (including dressing in the elf costume) for a 10% commission, which will be over $300, plus he gets to keep all of the booze that I might receive as a gifts. The last party is adults only, which starts at 1:30am. That's why it's hard to tell just how long I'll be out there tonight! I'll be wearing 3 different suits as the night progresses and refreshing my cooling vests in between wardrobe changes as well. Rented a cargo van to make that process easier.

I sure hope he/she loves someone else!

So sorry, Mike. Somehow I missed all of this as I was fretting about silly and inconsequential things like losing my Santa toy bag. Wish I could be there to give Gail a hug. Hang in there and be strong for her and everyone.

We've kind of tried this. Nobody took the toy bag. I just left it on top of my SUV and drove home, so somebody obviously found it and said, WTF?!?!? Had it been found by a sensible person, they probably would have brought it to the local police station (lost and found). That's what everyone does here in Cayman. But not too many people here are sensible.

It gets worse! Last night on my way back home from another Santa event, someone crossed the center line and sideswiped me. Just caught the mirror on the passenger side of my Ford Edge and ripped it off, but no other damage at all. Oddly enough, this is the 3rd time the same thing has happened to me with this vehicle since I bought it new in 2007 (but only the 2nd under my command). So that's another $500 loss. Guess I just can't win until I actually buy a sleigh! I'm going to finish the season off in my Pontiac G6 convertible because the Edge is starting to spook me! Plus, people really love seeing Santa driving around with the top down.

Yup, that's pretty much it. Just stuff I'll need to replace. The most expensive thing was the pewter flask with a celtic knot design and matching leather holster and leather pouch that I kept the "magic snow" in. I think I spent about $300 to have all of that made for me. Probably a $600 loss in total counting the "good book" and the bags and special bag tags that said, "Property of Santa Claus. If found, please return to the North Pole" but silly me, I didn't think to sew my name and address inside the bags. What sucks mostly are the thousands of signatures I had collected from kids in the Good Book. There were about 50 pages of standard 8.5" x 11" plain white 3-hole punch typing paper in there filled (on both sides) with signatures and wish lists, as well as letters to Santa that I had stapled and/or scotch taped in. Here's what it looked like:

Lost my Santa toy bag last night and didn't even realize it until today. Did an event and when I got back to my SUV, since it had been raining, I put it on top of the roof while I opened the back and threw in my royal robe and a few other items I was carrying. Then hopped in and drove home. Inside the toy bag was my candy bag and Santa's Good Book (custom made leather 3 ring binder) and an expensive pewter flask encased in a leather pouch that contains Santa's magic snow. Yes, I can make snow. Or at I used to be able to! Lost about $500-$600 worth of stuff that would be worthless to anyone else. Went to Radio Cayman tonight and recorded a couple of entertaining spots that they will be playing over the next couple of days. Hopefully, someone will turn it in. Otherwise, I'll just replace it all and be more careful. Even as I was putting the bag up there on the roof, I was saying to myself, "That's a dumb place to put it... you might forget it!" ...and then I did.

http://www.flixxy.com/best-christmas-lights-display.htm

I'll need to add this to the mindless consumerism thread as well. This Santa season has been especially busy (actually making some money), so I bought myself a 100mm macro lens. Been meaning to do so for some time, and there are instant rebates going on now with B&H: http://www.bhphotovi...2_8L_Macro.html

Don't know if this has been posted on the Top Gear thread or not, but it's something that everyone should see, even if they don't follow that thread: http://biertijd.com/mediaplayer/?itemid=21927

I'm sorry to learn of your loss, Chris. My thoughts and prayers will be with you and your family. Having been there myself, I know how rough it can be.

Sure he's not just being a drama queen?

That, plus they only see a small fraction of it all in those fleeting moments as they're passing by, whereas we see the entire video with all of it's brilliance, as well as the music. Might just look like a bunch of Asian goofballs to someone walking past them. But I honestly had the same thought that Steve did. Of course, I grew up in a farm town in Illinois with 4,000 people, so anything like this would be pretty incredible.