Chipmunks roasting on an open fire, Meerkats bursting full of snow. Turkeys loading up with knives, guns and bombs, Merry Christmas ... tooooo ... you...

I can't help it. I love Christmas time. I love sitting in a nice warm pub or coffee shop and watching people have their hands chopped off by the weight of shopping bags. I love having my shopping done early online and being smug about it to friends and enemies alike.

I love hearing people whine about how Christmas is just an over-hyped marketing exercise set to empty our pockets in a shallow season of insincerity, before nipping back to the shops for one more item they forgot to buy for little cousin Joey. I love how other whine about how religion is an evil thing and Christmas is a hateful attempt at mind control so they choose to be miserable at people and then whine and wonder why people hate them so much.

I love the fact that the TV is stuffed with movies all day every day and loads of which I've never seen and great ones that I love. I love watching "The Great Escape". I'd happily take time off from work to watch CLUE.

I love giving and receiving gifts that range from the truly fantastic to the utter shite. A present with your name on it means that somebody, somewhere cared enough about you to buy, wrap and give a present. It might matter what is behind the paper, but the fact that somebody cares enough to do something like that for you is a phenomenal thing. Of which I love people for.

I love the quiet. I love watching the snowfall at midnight. I love the Boxing Day of lying on the sofa reading a new book in silence. I love meeting my friends in the pub on Christmas Eve and having drinks and shouting with them. I love the boredom on Christmas Day afternoon when people are trying to work out what there is to do after lunch and presents.

I love the fact that my works gives me a week off, paid. I love the fact that my friends all come back to town to see family, and then have to get away from their parents after only a few short hours and seek sanctuary at my house. I love trees and pretty sparkly lights and the season of goodwill and peace on earth and holiday specials and tinsel and lego and good carol singing and open fires and roast turkey and family and friends.

BUT I'M STILL ME AND I'M STILL WILLING TO MURDER YOU IF YOU GET OUT THAT FUCKING HORRIBLE EGGNOG OR CHRISTMAS POP.

Dear Santa

Here's my WISH LIST, I note that there's STILL some stuff on there that you didn't get me last year you lazy fat bastard.

Now listen up, I've got 32 of your trustly little elves held hostage in elvish peril. One phone call from me and they're toast. If I disappear, they're toast. If I put them into a toaster, they're toast.

Now I don't mind Christmas coming early, but if I DON'T get my stuff by New Years Eve, you'll be looking for some other pointy-eared midgets to do your building for 2006.

Capiche?

Yours with love and snuggles,

Big Ba.... Very Very Nice ... Jon

P.S. Yes, I have been a very good boy this year

P.P.S. I haven't killed any red-wearing-fat-beardies this year at all.

P.P.P.S. Yet.

This is what comes of pushing yourself too hard. A complete lack of motivation. If i'm not doing much I take on about 16 million projects and think of a million different things of how to make them all really cool. But while I'm doing those projects unless I have something pushing me on odd stretches and no distractions then it all goes to shit.

I'm still feeling rough from the party on Friday. Not hung over, just tired. Granted I did spend a lot of saturday in a coma on the sofa once I got home at 2pm, but the mystery of why my hip is killing me is another matter.

I don't remember wrestling a mountain gorilla. Nor do I remember doing 'The Bump' with a train. I'm sure I would have remembered being part of a human xylophone like I saw in Amsterdam that time. So why is it that another peice of my body aches after a night out? Perhaps I'm just getting old. I am getting near to 30 you know.

Anyway. Lack of motivation on the writing front, that's what I was talking about. I gots a headache. Actually what I'm lacking is somewhere perfect for it. I'd like a distraction free environment with a reclining seat and a keyboard that doesn't wobble. and somewhere handy to put my programming books and magazines of stuff. That would be nice. In fact, I need somebody who's good at this sort of thing to design something like that for me. Oh yes, with plenty of room for me to write things on paper and have other papers open to read for reference. yeaah.

Oooooh, I've just had an idea. I'll be right back.

P.S. No comic for a while. I need to get some more done but you might have to wait for a while as I do some.

Save the world. Recycle. Turn things off when you're done. Use less fossil fuels. Don't stare directly at the sun. Sponsor an animal. Chop down lamp posts, not trees. Renewable energy. Set up a nuclear reactor in your back garden. Go back in time and slap Henry Ford's parents. Boycott all oilfields. Eat grass. Make friends with worms and make shoes out of car tyres.

I'm all for ecology and conservation. We, as a species, have done so much harm to the planet that it's easy to describe human-kind itself as a Global Threatening Event. However that's not what's on my mind on this fine december morning, or at least not directly. It's christmas cards.

Where have all the christmas cards gone? They're not exactly an endangered species, you can find them in every supermarket and most shops in one variety or another, but they no longer seem to be going around. You see, only a couple of short years ago somebody decided to be really lazy and send out an E-Card out to all their friends at once with a vague pretense of saving the planet one step at a time.

What they really did was save themselves a couple of quid and an hour or two by writing "Merry Christmas... ho-ho-ho" in a bloody e-mail and not even personalising it by sending it out to their address book. Lazy Motherfucker is what I call him. And the real evil is the insidious way that it creeps into your mind as a good idea. BUT MY FRIENDS, IT IS A LIE! And yes, I was fooled too. Until now. And I shall tell you why.

Do you remember at school when people, possibly you included, would come in with a big bundle of cards under your arm and hand them out to everyone in the class with no intention of being labelled as selfish by leaving someone out? Do you remember as a child seeing a red envelope in the letters and spotting that it was for you? If you weren't excited you're no child I recognize. Did you ever have to run up and down your street posting envelopes through doors with such inscriptions as 'To The Bartons at #5' on the envelope?

There is a certain warmth that is lent to a living room, cheesy or not, with the addition of christmas cards. An big e-mail to everyone you know is just not going to cut it.

So here's a little idea for you. Make a list of five people. You don't have to go any further and make a 15 volume epic list no matter how many people you know, just start with 5. And write them a card. Wish them a merry christmas and a happy new year. Include your name and theirs. If you're feeling really generous then ask about the family and the life and tell them something about your life you hadn't told them yet. Although "Merry Christmas Dad, I'm Gay" might be the wrong way to put it.

Don't be fooled into taking the easy option. take the personal touch and it will mean a lot more. I promise you.

I'll never get another card from my grandfather. I wish I could.

NOTICE - CAROL SINGERS!

If you're going to call round at my house, there's some rules for you.

1. Don't come on your own.
2. Don't come wearing your chav hoodie up.
3. Try learning a carol or two.
4. Don't even think about starting a carol you're not going to finish.
5. I want at least 3 carols for my time and patience.
6. My money's not going anywhere until I feel some christmassy spirit.
7. I don't really care about the tune. Just the feeling.
8. I dare you to sing the 12 days of Christmas cos I'm not letting you finish until the very end. Try me.

Heh. Yes, I am a bastard. And you're at MY door asking for money.

Ho-Ho-Ho. Now I have a machine gun. Well my friend, the time has come once again for me to leave you for my christmas break. I'm off to do some sitting, thinking, reading, gaming, travelling and sleeping in a land of tranquility and calm. Or as close as you can get without trekking up some wind-blasted moorland and freezing your nads off next to a half-frozen loch. I should be back before the new year to say hello, so you can look forward to that then.

I've been pondering a lot of things and traditionally I would say that now would be a good time for another big overhaul in the look and functions of the site. But the problem comes in just precisely what to do. It occurred to me the other day that one site i found was complaining of the colour scheme that I was using a while back. This annoyed me until this weekend, when I realised I had no idea who they were and they were talking about me. How cool is that? Yes, I still have no concept of how to cope with fame. You should know if you've ever complimented me on something.

Some stuff's gonna go bye-bye. some stuff's gonna get a face lift. and a lot of it is just going to stay exactly as it is right now. cos although it's not the most perfect in the world ever, I like it. and it likes me.

I know the comic has been missing since #100. wait until the new year, it shall be back, I promise. Other than that, who knows? or dares to dream.

I love it when a plan never happens. I pulled off a party a week and a half back for a hundred and thirty people. I'm currently planning a weekend away for two dozen people at easter. I'm also going out for drinks with a few guys, one of which doesn't know what he'll be doing tomorrow night. I'm having lunch on thursday with guys that, if i didn't turn up for some reason, wouldn't be able to figure out what they were upto, through stupidity or lazyness.

I found it absolutely hilarious when a guy I knew arranged a big annual meeting for everyone in a pub only to find out that the pub was shut on the day. He also was late and nobody had his mobile phone number. So everyone called me. I was muchly amused. Verily. A piss up in a pub down the potty. Heh. Of course, my being smug and superior is going to come back and bite me on the arse the minute i forget one detail, but then again, I'm bigger than most people and can shout them down anytime I like.

I've no idea where I was going when I started this ramble. Nor do I care.

Merry Christmas.