So Friday I went Christmas shopping with Dave and Julie at the Great Mall of America in Milpitas. It's one of the largest malls in the US and we spent six hours walking around and buying gifts. First though, Dave took me on a boat ride in his boat. Not bad I suppose but it's damn unstable. If you're not careful you can easily capsize that boat. It's a two man boat so it's not tiny.

We had a late lunch at the Macaroni Grill, which Julie loves and it was my first time there. It's very nice and the food was quite good, although I don't remember what I had. Some sort of seafood pasta. Then we went to the mall. My first time actually in the mall. I've gone to Dave and Busters many times but never to the mall it's part of.

There are four main entrances, each with a different theme. I remember ships and cars but not the other two. It's basically one big elliptical track with shops on the inside and outside edges. There is one crossover point that bisects the long edge, anchored on one end by the ubiquitous food court with the Hot Dog on a Stick stand, staffed by the ugliest-costumed workers in the food service industry.

My strategy was to look for interesting stores and browse them with the goal of buying one or two items at each store. You know, there are a whole lot of clothing stores in the Great Mall. But we didn't go into any of them, except Ross which we stopped at first. I got a chocolate basket for Shannon and some socks for me. There is a game store where I got Cranium for Steph and they had Harry Potter Legos which I bought for Donald. There's a store that stocks lots of items sold on infomercials and those tv ads that end in a blue screen detailing where to send money to. Actually there were two stores like that. Tacky, though I bought a Chia Pet for Eric.

At Radio Shack, towards the end there, I got tired and bought three Insectoid robotic toys for Shankar and his team. The Sharper Image is a pretty cool store. I got a little keychain light for Fulton and an ultra-light umbrella for Rosie. I saw a pill dispenser there. Lots of compartments where you can put the pills, then it dispenses them at the right time. Dave got another pair of Vans at the Vans Skate Park, where you can do your indoor X-Games style skating and buy shoes.

Here's the list:

• Mom - Beanie Baby of the month of September
• Dad - Ghirardhelli Chocolates
• Chris - Star Wars Starfighter for Playstation 2
• Steph - Cranium board game
• Kooma - Charlotte Church CD
• Kevin - Britney Spears DVD
• 
  
• Dave - Clerks Animated Series DVDs
• Pick - Darrell Russel Raiders shirt
• Shannon - Basket of chocolates
• Eric - Kitty Chia Poet
• Donald - Harry Potter Legos
• Woo - Dragon snow glow music box
• Fulton - Keychain mini-light
• 
  
• Julie - Alabama Christmas CD
• Kimberly - Penguin stuffed animal
• Steve - Hickory Farms ham set
• 
  
• Simon - Little storage box that can hold pictures on the outside
• Sushant - Windows XP Networking
• Aravind - Jelly Belly box
• Stanley - Sacramento Kings cap
• Sirisha - San Francisco snow glow music box
• 
  
• Prasad - Star Trek the Motion Picture DVD
• Jax - Cat calendar
• Edward - Hickory Farms jam set
• Sonali - Little pig battery-operated toy
• 
  
• Shankar - Insectoid robot
• Ravi - Insectoid robot
• Girish - Insectoid robot
• 
  
• Robert - Fake fish aquarium
• Rosie - Ultra-light umbrella
• Sara - Polar bear stuffed toy
• Irene - Purple bug stuffed toy

So on Sunday night I drove to work and delivered the gifts with little handwritten index cards, not giving my name of course. I even gave myself a gift and Pick got his Saturday, that way suspicion would fall on him. But on Monday Simon was very insistent on trying to find out who gave out the "secret Santa" gifts. Pick denied everything and by logical deduction he narrowed it down to me being the most likely suspect. Oh well, I was hoping the mystery would last a few days longer.