My Christmas Letter to the Internet

Well it is already that time of year again where you say “where has all the time gone?!” At least that is according to this year’s family Christmas letter. But the information in there about me was sketchy and focussed far too much on the rest of my family than it did about me. So, Internet, it’s that time of the year again where I will send out a Christmas letter in the hope that, next year, everyone who received it will send me a copy of theirs and I will accumulate a giant pile of Christmas cards and letters that I can use to try and validate my popularity and rank myself against my neighbours. So screw my family; I’m going to recap the last twelve months with respect to the most important people in my life.

2005 was a good year for Sports Brad and he’s been keeping very active playing lots of basketball, running and working out. Sometimes he played up to four social games of basketball in a week as well as spending time down at the university sports hall with his friends teaching them the art of beating down Asians at sports. He obviously has been taking lessons from Academic Brad who knows a thing or two about that.
In his basketball competitions his teams failed to qualify for finals over summer and finished third, third and second on winter Thursday, Saturday and Sunday leagues respectively. Sports Brad himself has played quite well, although, like all Brads he does not like to spotlight too much on himself and thanks his team-mates constantly for giving him the opportunity to be so damn good without having to pay a forfeit fine at the same time. Brad’s quality was also recognised by people other than himself as he retained the B.R. Ninnis Trophy for Fairest and Most Brilliant Player the second time.
Currently his Summer Thursday night team is undefeated during the mid-season break, although month long plans for new uniforms have not been anywhere near as successful.

Academic Brad’s 2005 also bore good fruit. Starting the third and final year of his easy IT degree he cruised with a distinction minimum throughout the year, graduated with a GPA of 5.69 and was offered a guaranteed position in honours next year. This, of course, was not particularly special as everyone who does IT is guaranteed a position in honours because if they don’t net one or two for the program who will make up stuff to teach next year? To Education Brad’s credit, he also engaged in independent study throughout the year and thankfully taught himself some skills that he can use in the IT industry after his university life comes to his end. Using this expertise he produced his website, Bradism.com, which is painfully shit and not ever read by anyone.

The description of this year given to me by Sex Brad was ‘the best yet’. Technically, an awkward kiss with an assertive cousin notwithstanding, it might also be described as ‘the only yet’, or perhaps more fluently ‘the only one so far’. Sex Brad managed to date several women this year, none of which he met on the internet. ‘Sure’, he admits, ‘that is less than you can count on one hand. But at least your hand’s only being used for counting’. At some point during the year conservative, awkward barriers were broken down and for Sex Brad relations went from ‘frightful’ to ‘hilarious’, or for almost everyone else: ‘over-described’. Hilarious, of course, is the favourite form of entertainment for all Brads.

Employment Brad had a less balanced year than the rest of the family. After spending almost three years at Woolworths he decided to quit, seemingly on a whim possibly inspired by expanding his musical tastes and listening to more indie music. He then spent a month living off government handouts. For a short while, Employment Brad and Academic Brad hooked up and Employment Brad spent the second semester of 2005 demonstrating Computer Programming 1 twice a week which helped him maintain his lifestyle of driving around to places and going to the RSL to drink pints at the price of schooners and play one dollar pool.
After the semester ended, Brad curiously decided to abandon his plans of having ‘one last summer to do nothing’ and submitted an application for a web development contract that he is currently in the midst of and is finding the experience quite rewarding. ‘This is a situation where I’m learning things that will benefit me in the future,’ he confided in me whilst lacking a succinct synonym for “experience”, ‘sorta similar to that whole firing of people from my ITP groupwork team was experience for my project management course next year.’ Well, that wasn’t you, Employment Brad, it was Academic Brad who did that. You’ve ruined the whole gimmick.
Although Employment Brad and Academic Brad’s relationship has drifted apart since the beginning of summer, Employment Brad hopes to rekindle the flame by doing more demonstrating for the university next year. ‘I actually enjoy helping other people learn!’ he explained, ‘it’s truly satisfying. The “two hours of wheelie chairing” aspect is also appealing.’

Introspection Brad has become less narcissistic and reduced his proneness to sharing private thoughts with random strangers. He then later died towards the end of spring.

All the Brads have one thing in common, they’re tall. Today they also have another thing in common and (aside from cheap jokes) they all want to wish you a Merry Christmas and hope you’re safe and well over this holiday period. Merry Christmas, Internet!