Like I mentioned a little bit ago, I’ve been working on a serious revamp of my website. I finished the new main page image today, but I think I’m going to hold off a little bit on showing it, just so it’ll be more of a surprise.

Eleanor and I finally exchanged Christmas presents, so I got a whole host of nice little things, including a box of Turkish Delight, the candy that everybody reads about in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but that hardly anybody’s actually eaten. I was warned a number of times that it’s nowhere near as delicious as one might picture from the book, but I found it quite tasty – though I’m sure there’s more than one variety. so your results may vary. Mine had pistachios in it.

I also got a very nice sweater from Eleanor’s grandmother (I was impressed because it came from Macy’s, which always seemed like a super-ritzy New York sort of department store to me – but everyone else thought that was a pretty silly overestimation, and made fun of me,) and Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player on DVD from Eleanor’s folks, which I haven’t seen before but am assured that is satisfies the conditions of being both funny and “intellectual,” so I’m looking forward to it. Antar gave me Kurosawa’s Kagemusha, which I’m also fiending to watch. And of course both movies only go to feed my weird Criterion fetish. Jerry gave me a nice little hardback comic called Murder Mysteries by Neil Gaiman and P. Craig Russell (whose last teamup on the Sandman “Ramadan” short story was pretty amazing.)

And here’s something nice Eleanor made for me! It’s a tiny little art object to hang on the wall (Click the thumbs for bigger images.)



And when you open the doors:

Eleanor, me, and most of our Savannah friends went to Michele’s gallery opening the other night, where we drank pretty skanky (but free!) red wine and Bud Light and looked at Michele’s awesome paintings. Joey snapped some pictures.