Christmas 2010

Here’s what I wrote to friends about last year’s Christmas, with minor tweaking:

* Wandered down Victoria taking pictures, noting the lack of street cleaning apparently due to the holiday; more cars than I expected
* During this time I realized I had forgotten to buy groceries and had breakfast at McDonald's, noting the 6:30 closing time
* Also during this time I bought a couple of DVDs at the new 7-11 at Douglas and Humboldt
* Unwrapped presents and found I had gotten a record number of gift certificates
* Wandered around downtown some more to take more pics and see if certain places were open, including Wellburn's (no)
* Tried finding a couple store hours online and found I had a computer virus
* Walked to Quadra Village to see if Fairway or Rogers were open (no)
* From there walked to the shopping area across from Hillside to get to a quieter area of town and see if that area's McDonald's, Dairy Queen, or Blockbuster were open
* Only Blockbuster was open; they had a buy 2 get 1 free deal but only saw 2 that I wanted so left empty handed [note: they later closed down even before the Canada-wide closures]
* Got a small pizza from the downtown Domino's
* Chatted online with a friend while eating the pizza and watched Bad Santa with the Commentary on
* Found a bedbug on me
* Went back to the McDonald's at 6:03 and found it now closed at 6
* Went to Chinatown and found a place that was open (Don Mee I think) but there was a half hour plus wait to be seated. A few other places were closed
* Found a Korean place that was open and had seating but wasn't that familiar with Korean food and with the day I was having decided not to experiment [I later went there with a friend; it was okay but a bit pricey]
* Finally arrived at 7-11 by my place which was selling hot dogs for 99c each. Good enough; bought 3
* On my way home near the main entrance some guy kept repeating, "I f---ing hate Christmas!" Decided to play it safe and use the other entrance
* Ate dinner and did up plans for a Tuesday Vancouver trip
* Wrote another chapter of my novel
* Fell asleep trying to watch a horror movie