All Ready for Christmas

Attention: I modified this post 5 hours later, inserting the 2nd-last paragraph of this post.

Today I bought the Christmas gift for the last person on my list, so I'm now all ready for Christmas. I also bought cards for the concierge/building staff and Maria, my cleaning lady. If Maria doesn't come next week, I'll hand-deliver her gift/card on the evening before Christmas Eve (she lives on Lansdowne Ave. north of Queen St. West). I also have to tip my newspaper carrier, which I can do online at the Globe web site. My brother and his partner and son might come over for dinner on Sunday, if not then sometime in January.

I was depressed from part of Sunday to yesterday (the depression lifted at sunset, when I was lying on the couch). Whenever the depression lifts it seems to do so suddenly: one minute I'm depressed and the next minute I'm not. I don't think my depressions are life-threatening, although thoughts of suicide often surface at those times.

This evening I might work on Clixmaker. I emailed Arvin, my boss, about my dreams of Clixmaker becoming the primary game platform of Facebook, and how I hoped it might make lots of money. He replied: "I hope you can do well with this." I recently ran out of work to do at work, which aggravated my depression. Hopefully Arvin will find things to keep me busy in the New Year.

My TV situation is not good. My TV provider is Bell, and they said my TV setup is old technology and unreliable, as opposed to satellite TV (my building supposedly has a satellite dish on the roof). Often when I'm watching the News the signal is dropped for a minute or two, and my TV displays an error message. Also my TV is old and has a somewhat snowy picture. I might buy a 2nd computer monitor and put it on the wooden filing cabinet at the end of my couch, and hook it up to my laptop (which would sit on my lap). Then I can watch the CBC News online, but I won't have 60 Minutes anymore (I'd drop Bell as my TV provider). I can sign up for Netflix, which costs $8/month and lets you download unlimited movies (that would solve my lack of entertainment situation, in which my only entertainment is the TV News). Before I buy the 2nd monitor, I can test it with my old computer monitor (watching the News online, on the couch, via my laptop), which is currently unused.

I am writing this paragraph over 5 hours after writing the rest of this post. I connected my laptop wirelessly to my modem/router and watched part of CBC news and The Nature of Things on my laptop while lying on the couch. On Saturday I'm going to sign up for my one month free trial with Netflix. If that works out I'll cancel my Bell TV service. I can watch 100 hours/month on Netflix and only use up 50 percent of the bandwidth supplied by my Internet Service Provider. I hope it will be a lot more fun using Netflix, as opposed to limiting myself to TV News. I might have to buy one of those laptop cushions to prevent my laptop (which is lying on my chest/stomach) from overheating.

I'm going to have a 3rd cup of coffee and watch the CBC News at 5 p.m. I bought groceries yesterday (I do that about once a week). If my brother comes over on Sunday I must buy Viva Puffs and stuff for a salad. Happy Holidays, everyone. Christmas got you stressed? Bring it on, I say! I'm determined to have a super-great Christmas this year. Over and out. See ya later, folks.