The Terrible Gifts
Have you ever been at a family function that warranted the giving of gifts (read: Pagan Christmas) and received a gift that was truly inappropriate? Or at least, inappropriate from the person from whom you'd just received it?
As I was reading this article on Cracked.com yesterday evening (one of my new favorite websites, I swear), I read the blurb about Matt Damon's cameo in Finding Forrester. This reminded me of a particular family member who shall remain nameless, who usually seems to strike out when it comes to gift-giving. In her defense, she does better than her mother did (now those were some bizarre gifts), but [nameless relative] still seemed to miss the mark on a number of occasions. One of the trends that stands out is her consistent use of videos as a gift. Now, I'm not saying that from the perspective that VHS is a bad format - in fact, I continue to use the word "video," as opposed to "DVD," because I still believe that DVD is a video format. And, for the record, the forced conversions to DVD, and now Blu-Ray (whatever the hell that is) are, in my opinion, completely and totally deplorable. I hate it when industry holds people over a barrel. (Other despicable examples of this phenomenon come from the frequent ills of the video game industry (ahem, *cough*).
Anyway, that tangent aside, the point that I'm making is that the videos that said family member would give as gifts were either A) inappropriate for the individual, or B) inappropriate coming from the giver. I have two big examples of this: Finding Forrester (as mentioned previously), and Under Siege. These are two examples that, between them, demonstrate both of my points. In the case of the first film, it was given to the youngest member of that side of the family, who just graduated from high school recently. At the time he received this flick, he was probably late in his middle school years, maybe thirteen or fourteen. Not only was he too young to appreciate the nuance and sentiment of a snooze-fest like Finding Forrester (I didn't even watch Finding Forrester, it looked less interesting than an episode of Seinfeld), his interests pretty much extended to sports and food - still do, actually. This was a ridiculous gift to give to a kid his age who has never expressed any interest whatsoever in high drama.
When I was in high school, I received a copy of Under Siege from the unnamed relative. Now, I can understand the thought process: he's joining the Navy, it's a movie about the Navy, you can tell that from the cover. Easy choice, right? Unfortunately, Under Siege is not only extremely violent and expletive-laden (I'm not even allowed to say the word "crap" around this relative, for fear of being sharply upbraided), it also features two items that would both require an R rating of their own merit: Erika Eleniak popping out of a cake, topless; and Gary Busey. Decent movie? Sure, especially if you can tolerate Steven Seagal for an hour and a half (I can, but I truly loathe that man, in very small part for reasons discussed here). The point is that unless this expletive-laden, violent film featuring a topless Erika Eleniak and a Gary Busey in a speaking role had been on some sort of wish list, it was completely unreasonable for me to receive it from this particular individual.
Completely unrelated to this topic, there's a great narrated slideshow of aerial photography from World War II. The two guys who are explaining it are a retired RAF officer and a military historian who specializes in Normandy, and it's actually really interesting. That's your respite from satellite imagery.
So, the question for today is this: have you ever received a completely inappropriate gift, or just a really, really bad gift? If so, what was it, who did you get it from, and what was your reaction? And no, I don't mean the inappropriate gift that you might receive in the back of your Jeep after dinner and a movie - those aren't the kind of gifts you complain about!
As I was reading this article on Cracked.com yesterday evening (one of my new favorite websites, I swear), I read the blurb about Matt Damon's cameo in Finding Forrester. This reminded me of a particular family member who shall remain nameless, who usually seems to strike out when it comes to gift-giving. In her defense, she does better than her mother did (now those were some bizarre gifts), but [nameless relative] still seemed to miss the mark on a number of occasions. One of the trends that stands out is her consistent use of videos as a gift. Now, I'm not saying that from the perspective that VHS is a bad format - in fact, I continue to use the word "video," as opposed to "DVD," because I still believe that DVD is a video format. And, for the record, the forced conversions to DVD, and now Blu-Ray (whatever the hell that is) are, in my opinion, completely and totally deplorable. I hate it when industry holds people over a barrel. (Other despicable examples of this phenomenon come from the frequent ills of the video game industry (ahem, *cough*).
Anyway, that tangent aside, the point that I'm making is that the videos that said family member would give as gifts were either A) inappropriate for the individual, or B) inappropriate coming from the giver. I have two big examples of this: Finding Forrester (as mentioned previously), and Under Siege. These are two examples that, between them, demonstrate both of my points. In the case of the first film, it was given to the youngest member of that side of the family, who just graduated from high school recently. At the time he received this flick, he was probably late in his middle school years, maybe thirteen or fourteen. Not only was he too young to appreciate the nuance and sentiment of a snooze-fest like Finding Forrester (I didn't even watch Finding Forrester, it looked less interesting than an episode of Seinfeld), his interests pretty much extended to sports and food - still do, actually. This was a ridiculous gift to give to a kid his age who has never expressed any interest whatsoever in high drama.
When I was in high school, I received a copy of Under Siege from the unnamed relative. Now, I can understand the thought process: he's joining the Navy, it's a movie about the Navy, you can tell that from the cover. Easy choice, right? Unfortunately, Under Siege is not only extremely violent and expletive-laden (I'm not even allowed to say the word "crap" around this relative, for fear of being sharply upbraided), it also features two items that would both require an R rating of their own merit: Erika Eleniak popping out of a cake, topless; and Gary Busey. Decent movie? Sure, especially if you can tolerate Steven Seagal for an hour and a half (I can, but I truly loathe that man, in very small part for reasons discussed here). The point is that unless this expletive-laden, violent film featuring a topless Erika Eleniak and a Gary Busey in a speaking role had been on some sort of wish list, it was completely unreasonable for me to receive it from this particular individual.
Completely unrelated to this topic, there's a great narrated slideshow of aerial photography from World War II. The two guys who are explaining it are a retired RAF officer and a military historian who specializes in Normandy, and it's actually really interesting. That's your respite from satellite imagery.
So, the question for today is this: have you ever received a completely inappropriate gift, or just a really, really bad gift? If so, what was it, who did you get it from, and what was your reaction? And no, I don't mean the inappropriate gift that you might receive in the back of your Jeep after dinner and a movie - those aren't the kind of gifts you complain about!
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