My favorite Christmas gifts:

LotR Extended Edition Set	The Complete Far Side	Dell 17″ Flat Panel LCD Monitor

Yes, it’s that time of year again where we get excited about stuff, a perfectly acceptable target of our excitement, if you ask me.

LotR Extended Edition Set
This was the gift I knew about for quite some time. The reason? This Foxtrot sums it up pretty nicely. Heather’s parents got me this set, and were the only reason I ever rented a copy of a Lord of the Rings movie (I just couldn’t wait to open the present; we watched it a week before down at my parents’ house.)

The Extended Edition of Return of the King is wonderful, by the way. I was happy to see so much new material, and I proptly watched all of the extra material as well. I guess all I have left to do is listen to the 4 commentaries on each movie. What is that, like 44 hours of film?

The Complete Far Side
Surpassing the standards of any luxury art book, this sumptuous, full-color, two-volume slipcased set will feature custom-milled paper and an elegant design, making it an automatic collector’s edition. Every single Far Sider cartoon (4,081 to be exact) will be included by year, including more than 1,100 that have never been published in a book.

Yeah, this thing is massive, and the great part is that I didn’t even have to mention it to my parents– they knew it would be right up my alley. OK, so technically it was a gift to me and Heather, but I haven’t quite given Heather the introduction to The Far Side that she deserves. My whole family laughed at these strips when I was a kid, and I’ve always eaten up any of the collections that Larson has put out, but this is a compendium I couldn’t have passed up if I tried. Rumor has it that this will be the only printing of the collection, as well, so I was obviously excited.

And I’m not disappointed in the least. As the description described, the collection is the richest thing on my bookshelf, and probably will be for a long time. It will take me a while to get through the whole thing, especially at my current rate (read: I keep it next to my Xbox and read a page or two while waiting for Halo 2 matches to start on Xbox Live.)

Dell 17″ Flat Panel LCD Monitor
Heather got me what I thought was going to be a cheap LCD monitor. My Dell 19″ CRT (that came with the computer my parents originally bought me when I went off to college) was on its very last legs and needed to be replaced. I’m truly one of the last people to adopt the flat screen and the DVD burner. In fact, I still don’t have a DVD burner. Maybe I’m just more frugal than I used to be.

Anyway, Heather surprised me and splurged on the Dell model, several steps up from what I was expecting. Now, my primary monitor is the LCD, and I only have one CRT remaining to eliminate. It’s really nice; with a .26′ dot pitch, I can run it at 1280×1024 and have absolutely no problems reading the text… In fact, I am right now!

Christmas in Florida was fun, and now I am back at work for a little while longer (more on that later). Heather and I spent New Year’s Eve celebrating with friends at a big party in Midtown.