I don’t work for central IT anymore, but they still invite me to their holiday party. And no office holiday party would be complete without a yankee swap. I brought a sort of crappy battery operated screwdriver that seemed to be popular (but keep in mind that we have really low standards for these things), but I was pretty happy to unwrap a martini set with four glasses and pitcher for myself.

Jo Ann drew next and unwrapped a book, which she promptly put in my hands while she walked off with the martini set. That didn’t last for long though, because Al wanted that set a lot more than whatever trinket he unwrapped.

alan baker, jo ann, martini, martini set, holidays, holiday party, office party, office holiday party, trade, steal, cutthroat, gift, office, co-workers, thieves

Ross Rubin at Engadget just alerted me to Peerflix

…which can be described on a basic level as eBay meets Netflix. Peerflix resembles many online DVD stores, but it neither rents nor sells DVDs. Rather, it depends on a community of users willing to trade DVDs they have for DVDs they want. There are no subscription fees. Peerflix charges a 99-cent transaction fee and senders are responsible for the postage charge of 37 cents for the mailers that the company distributes. Behold the $1.36 DVD.

tags: dvd, dvd rental, ebay, engadget, flix, netflix, peerflix, rental, trade, trading