Weeeeeeeell, my name is Sunday and I’m here to say, I love Fruity Pebbles in a major way.

For the second Christmas in a row, Lifehacker has posted my impromptu gift-wrap idea.

Thanks to Jake for pointing it out, and for making my free association with gift wrap the Flinstones cereal rap.

It’s time for a new one. This year, I found myself needing impromptu gift wrap, but the office keeps track of copier use. Instead, I used Project Gutenberg to decorate my gifts. (PG is a collection of free e-texts, sometimes stuff so old it can’t be copyrighted, or publications people want to be freely available.) I found person-appropriate stories, and printed out the text on copier paper, and wrapped the gifts in that. One person got the first portion of Alice in Wonderland (in German) and another person got the Gift of the Magi. I cut and pasted the text into a text editor, then decreased the margins so the text would run almost to the edge of the page. I changed the font and size so I could fit as much as I could – Gift of the Magi fit all on one page with 8 pt. Times font. (I used Times because a serif font works well when text is tiny, a trick I learned in the one graphic design class I took.) The receiver of this gift has something to read on the bus on the way home from work. I kind of hate gift wrap – it’s so shiny and pretty, and then you immediately throw it away – so giving it another reason to exist makes me happy.

Plus, personalizing a personal gift kicks altruism up a notch.

I’m kicking it up a further notch by adding to my list of New Years resolutions the pledge to volunteer with Project Gutenberg. They need people to proofread the texts they add to the database. I’ll be able to do it when I want, and from home.