[Rant] Bar Humbug

I’m not a fan of Christmas or birthdays this is possibly not a surprise to most people.

I watch people go into meltdown try to make things perfect and host the perfect Christmas dinner.  There is far too much food and enforced merriment.  There is a arms race of buying more things and doing more elaborate things and that just makes me despair.
I also disliked the saturation and commercialism..

Oddly I also don’t really like receiving presents, most things that I want I already have.. or are far too complicated or expensive to be sensibly bought as presents.. I have previously published a handy present buying guide, to help people who feel compelled to get me something..

What I most dislike is the disappointment*.   I want to be grateful that someone has clearly spent money and time getting me something that they think that I would like.. but I don’t need another scarf, or a t-shirt, or a bottle of shower gell, or some other executive toy.. but while I am unwrapping things, the voice inside my head is shouting “what is this landfill what on earth were you thinking.”**
I was because of this that I wrote a buying guide in the first place.

This Christmas I had one of these moments that I am trying not to be disappointed about..
I picked up one present, and it had the reassuringly satisfying sound of Lego,*** however when I unwrapped it, it was a non Lego building block system..   
I know that I should be happy, but I just feel overwhelmed with disappointment.
Part of me just can’t comprehend why someone would buy non Lego as a present, and not expect it to be disappointing..

At the moment I can’t even bring myself to open the box to investigate.

* Gosh I sound like an ungrateful brat.  Or just a grumpy thing, I know that I have been a bit down recently so that isn’t helping..
**   Even writing this is making me feel bad, that I should be more polite, more thankful, and less cynical and depressed about it all..
*** Something that is listed on the Darkpoint care guide..

[TV] Crime and punishment

So occasionally when I am home alone I have the TV on as company while I work on my laptop..
This quite often is shows like “Police Interceptors”, they are mostly ignorable, and don’t require me to actually pay any attention.

Now I am a law respecting member of the public, and these shows should reinforce that, basically it is people getting caught for their wrong doing, and at the end they tell you the resulting punishment..

Which is where things go a bit odd for me, they catch someone who has been doing double the speed limit, carrying drugs, get involved in a chase situation, and the voice over man tells you how they were fined 100 quid or something and got three points on their driving licence.
This inevitably just makes me think, is that it?