Ah Christmas. It’s that time of year when offices have parties that unfortunately reflect just how much (or little) your company cares about you. My brother-in-law is being flown to Vegas in a few weeks. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t have even known it was Christmas last year if that one guy down the hall hadn’t brought in the peppermint coffee creamer. And yes, we have to supply our own coffee.

The Wife™ mentioned last night that the AP department at her company had one of those white elephant exchange. The highlight, however, was the loud chatty lady who’s contribution to the party was a sweet package consisting of 1 can of beans, a pair of socks, a sticker and a Tumbleweed gift card with $0.49 on it. BEST. GIFT. EVER.

1. Charlie Brown’s Christmas, as performed by the cast of Scrubs - This hit the ‘sphere way earlier in the week but it was such a shiny gem I had to save it for FTILFF. Irreverent and nostalgic. It’s kinda neat to know that the cast would do something off the radar like that.
2. New flavors of whey protein - Huzzah! I’ve been incorporating whey protein as a supplement to my diet for four years now, and the folks at All The Whey are great. Their business has really taken off. Recently they added peanut butter as a flavor, as well as cinnamon bun. Both of which are unreal. I look forward to breakfast every morning!
3. Latte art - I always assumed that this type of effect was done in Photoshop for magazines, or with a toothpick after the fact. After seeing a video over at Dethroner on how it’s achieved, I was blown away at the beauty of this Flickr gallery. That’s crazy milk pour ability right there.
4. Tiny Drum Machine - Stupidly simple yet infinitely amusing music game. I spent the better portion of my lunch break yesterday playing. You need no music skills. Just a child-like sense of fascination.
5. Unbelievable finger-work guitar playing - I’m spoiled having lived with an virtuoso guitarist for 7 years (hi Raymond!). This hit Digg this morning and while the style of composition leans a bit too much towards new-agey for me, there’s no denying Andy McKee’s talent. Wow.

The only thing that tops that last portion of the story is the fact that the poor soul who received the bag’o’crap was also the second-to-last person to pick. And the last person just happened to be the woman who brought in the odd assortment to begin with. I’ll leave it up to your very intelligent minds to figure out how that gift exchange ended. No Encyclopedia Brown needed here!