I got a digital camera for Christmas and I have absolutely no idea what to do with it.

The obvious course of action would be “take pictures” but you’d be surprised how difficult this can be. For years I haven’t had a camera. I haven’t even had a camera on my phone, as my brick of a mobile dates from around the Cambrian Era when this newfangled “texting” craze was sweeping the world. For most of my life I’ve flitted through holidays and parties, picnics and orgies, content with comitting the goings-on to merely my own memory.

Now though, I have a camera. Nothing fancy, just a little 8 megapixel job, point and shoot. But I have no idea how to use it. Not the actualy physical process of taking a picture of course. That is almost laughably simple. It automatically decides which focus, exposure and flash mode is best for a given setting. The designers have made a camera that physically knows more than I do about taking pictures, and I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that, but that’s a seperate issue.

No, my problem is I’m clueless when it comes to the ettiquette of camera use. When is a good time to pull it out? Certainly not when first arriving at someone’s house. “Hello, nice to see you!” *click*. I’d have endless photos of people with their hand extended, looking at me puzzledly.

Even worse would be if I were hosting a party and simply took a picture of people as they came in the door. You would give the impression you were sizing them up for ransom, or worse. And you don’t want to let your victims know that ahead of time.

Then, you’re all milling about having a good time eating/drinking/fornicating when bam: out comes the camera. Suddenly smiles freeze, conversations falter, and one dickhead does that “peace” sign thing kids do nowadays. The mood is broken, people become uncomfortably aware of their appearance and discussions, and drift apart. You could kill a party stone dead with three of four well-timed pictures.

Some people seem to be naturally gifted photo takers, but I can’t take them for shit. I never really mastered “composition” or “not cutting people’s heads off” so my technique, such as it is, is to thrust the camera forward in the general direction of the thing being photographed, and press the button. This yields some… unique results, but none will be appearing in the Royal Gallery any time soon.

ABOVE: This is a picture of my dog.

I think it’s like learning a language. If you’ve been doing it since you were young you can speak it fluently. If you’ve just sort of picked up a language book at the age of 26 and are now trying to navigate across Europe with only your new-found linguistic skills to guide you, you’ll wind up raped and butchered in a B&B near Estonia.

What I think is mostly holding me back is that for some weird reason I think of taking lots of pictures as a girly thing. I have no idea why. The most prolific photo taker in my family was my grandfather, who used to take so many photos of family events that you didn’t need a video camera; you could just arrange all the photos he took and flip them like a flip-book.

Yet still I think of picture taking as a Thing Girls Do. And, being a fairly non-blokey man to start with, I tend to shy away from things which will draw attention to the fact that I have no interest in most sports and evaluate cars on their transportation value rather than their own merits.

So I’m left with a weird situation where I’ll take my camera along to things and then never take it out. I freeze. Ironically, not unlike a picture. Life can be cruel sometimes.

Christmas was strange this year. In some ways it was better than it’s been for years, but in other ways it was strange and a little off-putting.

To the good- I was a gift-giving FIEND this year. Every single thing I gave was a slam dunk. They say Christmas is all about giving, and I was HOT SHIT at giving this year, baby! I gave shit away like no one’s business. I strode into rooms like a gift-giving pimp, dispensing favour to all my bitches.

People liked my presents.

Most years there’s at least one present which elicits that “oh” of polite disappointment that lets you know you’ve just made Christmas that little bit less special for that person. It’s easy to do. A misjudgement of just how much someone really would appreciate a life-size, accurate replica of Prince’s privates can destroy the festive mood, for example.

But then there’s those gifts you get RIGHT; the presents that elicit an unforced squeal of glee from the recipient. Like Prince’s penis, repackaged and given to another, more open-minded person.

But it was also a weird and disjointed holiday this year. Mostly because it wasn’t really a holiday for me. I worked Christmas Day and Boxing day.  I honestly didn’t mind the work that much (and neither does my bank balance) but it made both days feel a little off. Both days were midday to 7pm, which suited our plans for Christmas day as we always have a breakfast and a dinner gathering, and sleep during the day. So I left Christmas breakfast with one side of the family, went to work, and came home to Christmas dinner with a completely different set of relatives with, in my mind at least, very little time having passed.

Then, during dessert, one of my Aunties bet one of my cousins that he couldn’t toss a marshmallow into her mouth three times in a row. He accepted the bet and missed his first ten attempts. Then, just for fun, he threw a handful. These hit those surrounding my auntie, who then threw them back at the cousin, hitting those around him, and all of a sudden we’ve got an all-in full-scale marshmallow fight on our hands. People ducking under tables, around corners, everyone dotted with that white marshmallow sugar. I saw my grandmother lean back and lob a marshmallow and score a direct hit off my little brother’s forehead. My grandmother is 79. Surreal.

Afterwards we all went home and recovered from our diabetic rushes and put away presents and generally got on with business and it kept on not really feeling like Christmas. And yet, this year was one of the nicest Christmases I can remember. Ah well. I’ll just put my contrariness down to all the sugar.

I’ve just finished wrapping my presents and put them under the tree. It’s five o’clock in the afternoon, and I put it off about as long as I could without my family coming home for their various workplaces and seeing me caught in the act of wrapping gifts like some kind of reverse-thief or something.

I’m not at work today because I’m actually working a three-punch combo of Christmas Day, Boxing Day AND New Year’s Day. Being the new guy at work sucks. However the sting is blunted a little by the fact that I’ve got every other weekday for the next two weeks off. This means I’ve finally got time to write, read and watch a few movies I’ve been putting off for a while. What will probably happen is I’ll sit around surfing the net all day and wonder where the time went. At least I’m predictable.

Anyway, I just wanted to say a quick Merry Christmas to everyone. 2007 was a weird year, but it’s basically over now, and we have 2008 to look forward to. Regardless, as a special present for reading this year, I’ve given you guys The Longest Joke in the World. It’s reeeealy long, I’m warning you, but it’s just as worth it. Trust me. Happy reading, and Merry Christmas, everyone!

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A very merry Christmas to all of you from all the olilolo team. May all you days be merry and multicultural.

It’s funny, I’m normally pretty apathetic towards Christmas. When I was a child I used to love Christmas, the whole idea of the thing appealed to me on a very basic level. “So, this is a day when we GET shit, right? I mean, PRESENTS, yeah? For no good reason? What? Christ? Oh right, sure, but presents, yes?

Excellent.”

In recent years my greed-filled consumerism has started to fade, leaving a jaded husk in it’s wake. I still, well, like Christmas, it’s just not such a big deal. It’s not especially significant to me as a religious holiday, and the notion of spending time with family has tarnished over the years.

I think the thing that really hit home this year was that we definitely aren’t keeping up the pretence of Santa. We had in previous years. It sounds corny, but up until a few years ago we kind of didn’t really talk about getting presents in my family. We just got our presents under the tree. We let the myth sit.

Not this year. My littelest sister Dani walked right up to me a week ago and said, in an exasperated voice “sigh. What do you want for christmas? You’re impossible to buy for.” I mean, that’s a base accusation and I’ll have you take it back this instance, wench!

Anyway, my point is that the magic is gone. There absolutely zero pretence in this house. My youngest sister is sixteen and that’s far too old to believe in Santa, right? So he doesn’t come any more.

And sometimes, I miss him.

But cheer up everyone! Today is the day to get drunk, get lame presents and have screaming rows with family in the forty degree heat! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

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… Oh, um…yes, ah…heh.. uh, this is awkward…I didn’t actually get you guys anything…oh, right, there’s this thing I got a while ago. I’m terrible at giving gifts, and I finished my own shopping on christmas eve, so you can imagine the quality of gifts I give. I did actually have a massive post planned for today, in character, sort of like the “100 posts” episode, but you know what? I’m very, very lazy. So instead, here’s a short story by a favourite writer of mine- Neil Gaiman. He writes a lot of comics books, or used to, and has lots of artists as friends. He always got these awesome pieces of art they would do for him for christmas, and he always regretted not having anything to give them in return. So he wrote this little piece for all his friends. I think it’s neat. It’s called “Nicholas Was” and is exactly one hundred words long, not including the title. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

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NICHOLAS WAS…

…older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves’ invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho.

Ho.

Ho.