Buying Crap

[talktooloose]

I hate the season of buying crap. For Chanukah, I managed to make, or at least process gifts for the family. One nephew got my old collection of Nausicäa manga volumes. The other got a CD full of wildly varied MP3s for his new iPod. My parents got a CD of Yiddish songs that I digitized from an old LP I picked up somewhere, etc.

Snake and I were discussing Christmas, and neither of us really wants anything. Or if we do want something, it seems lame to tell the other person, get it wrapped and put it under a tree. I dunno. We're looking forward to buying kitchen tools during Boxing Week sales. A new deep fryer!

But in general, I'm having a punk/humbug reaction to present buying.

Just to make this post totally hypocritical, I should mention that we have bought some cool stuff in the last couple of weeks:

• Three Silicon sex toys kitchen utensils, i.e., a spatula, a jar spatula and brush for basting or oiling crepe pans, etc. All are easily washable and can take heat.


• A pair of used YSM-1 flat-response monitor speakers for the living room at $198 for the pair, which was too irresistable to pass up. They are the same kind as I have used in my studio for the past 13 years and they are now no longer available. I love flat-response, studio style speakers because I want to hear the mix as it was intended, not as dubiously jazzed up for consumer tastes.


• Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! Does Judy! Judy! Judy! dvd because I'm that much of a fag.

Comments

[mofic.livejournal.com]

I love love love silicone spatulas! Or are they spatulae? I had never heard of them until a few years ago shopping with my sister and we saw them in a kitchen supply place. "We need silicone spatulas!" I told her authoritatively. "Choose your color."

I buy very little in the way of "holiday" gifts. I get small Hanukah gifts for my kids (2008 calendars for the girls on the first night, and on the fifth day when they were all there I gave Doran a sweater, Kendra a tote bag and Zara a nightgown). I send a gift to each of two sibs who generally send a gift to me (although neither did this year and had I known, I would have skipped it - I think Hanukah gifts for non-children are ridiculous) and I send a couple of presents to friends who also send to me. C'est tout.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

We went with red. Do you have a JAR SPATULA? It's a great invention... for those last bits of jam and honey!

The silicon brush is also a revelation.

Agreed... Chanukah gifts for adults are silly. In my parents' childhood, the kids got a few coins from the adults. The proximity to Christmas has warped the humble little holiday of lights.

[mofic.livejournal.com]

I don't have a jar spatula, although perhaps I need one. I do have two silicone brushes - not sure how that happened. And silicone muffin pans, which are *wonderful*. And a few other silicone things that are more fun to use in company than alone.

I love silicone!

Did you grow up with that whole present-every-night thing for Hanukah? I did not and in fact never even heard of it until I was an adult.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

I'm slightly creeped out by silicon muffin pans, though we do have such a beast. I should make friends with it.

No, no, my family was never that commercial. In fact, my mother always taught me that a toy without batteries could fly anywhere imagination took it, whereas something that marched along on batteries was pretty much stuck on the ground.

However, my nephews get a lot of presents; too damn many, IMHO.

[lux-apollo.livejournal.com]

So much silicon. Or is it silicone?

I talked to my parents and recieved explicit instructions not to buy anyone gifts this year. It was kind of saddening, but hey, if it means I don't have to budget as hard over the next six months I guess I'll listen.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

I think there's a distinction between silcon and silicone. Wait, I'll check...

The Collins Cobuild Dictionary tells us that "...silicon is an element that is found in sand and in minerals such as quartz and granite (used to make parts of computers and other electronic equipment). Silicone is a tough artificial substance made from silicon, which is used to make polishes, and also used in cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery."