Christmas shopping

I always hate it when shops lie. You know - advertise something on offer to court you in, then trying to persuad you to get something else because there are none in stock! HMV has been doing it lately and yesterday I forced myself through Oxford Street (god I hate that part of Central London) visiting two of their larger stores - and none had the package I wanted (even though they have large ads for them and empty 'not for sale' boxes! Eventually I had to get it at GAME. The situation is similar to UK's XBox 360 preorder debacle, create a hype but unable to fulfill them.

Speaking of Oxford Street, the Christmas lights this year are much much better than last year's embarrassing and pathetic attempt. There are no longer any Harry Potter mumbo jumbos too thankfully, although Regent Street had character models of the Ice Age film on their lights. A good effort this year but sadly still ugly. Thankfuly I do not shop at the 'worst high street' much.

Oxford Street's eccentric resident religious preacher (or nutter, depending on your point-of-view), as always, was present. Last evening for the first time in years I did not hear his famous 'sinner or winner' catchphrases (eg. be a winner not a sinner)! The man with the megaphone was blurting something else instead. I stood by the side of Oxford Circus tube station waiting for the sinner/winner catchphrase because I kinda missed it - like the Tube map, and golf sales, sinner/winner is embedded in our psychi.

Since everyone is doing it I guess I might as well. I decided to draw up a list of what I really want this Christmas. Nothing clever or pretentious or anything, merely drawing attention to my dependency on consumerism and what I really want.

1. Six Feet Under season 2,3,4 DVD digibox boxset
2. Futurama season 4 DVD boxset
3. Peep Show season 2 DVD
4. Family Guy season 3 boxset
5. Age of Empire III limited edition boxset
6. 4Gb SD card (non generic)
7. Black Nintendo DS with Animal Crossing: Wild World US import
8. New pairs of good quality woolen socks

And for Christmas 2006:

1. Hellgate: London
2. Nintendo Revolution
3. Nip/Tuck season 3 DVD digibox boxset
4. Splinter Cell: Double Agent
5. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
6. New rig
7. American Dad! DVD
8. Bush. Impeached.