My parents and sister are visiting and this morning we opened presents. Here’s a picture of the l00t:

I got the new Stephen King novel, the second season DVD set of Buffy, and the new Shins CD. My big gift, a pair of high-end Shure earphones for my iPod, hasn’t arrived yet. And everyone seemed to enjoy the gifts I got for them. My nurses managed to surprise me by getting me a lovely teak table for the television in my bedroom. Thanks, guys!
Return of the King was crazy good. By the end, I was physically exhausted. With only a couple exceptions (what, no Mouth of Sauron?), it was remarkably faithful to the book. Some people have complained about the length of the ending, but with a story so epic in scale it’s difficult to wrap everything up in a single denouement. I’ll probably see it again next week and that will be enough until the extended DVD is released.
And here’s hoping that the Beagle 2 decides to give its makers a Merry Christmas by sending a signal home.

I was just reading this article on people reminiscing about their first computers. My first computer was a Texas Instruments 99-4A, complete with cassette tape drive that made these god-awful screeching sounds whenever you transferred data to or from it. It was hooked up to an old color television and I probably had it from 1981-82. That was followed by the Apple IIe with the green monochrome monitor and dual floppy drive. It was really bitchin’ because it had the graphics adapter that could display 80 columns of text. I wasted hours on that thing playing Infocom games (Planetfall rules!) and Donkey Kong. Then came the promising but ill-fated Apple IIGS, circa 1987. That was followed by a Macintosh Plus (the first computer I operated with a HeadMaster) and then I entered the world of PCs. I remember my dad bringing home this XT from work that had a whopping 10 mb hard drive. When that one started to smoke, we replaced it with a 386. Then a 486. And so on… Looking at my current system, it’s light-years ahead of those clunky boxes, but I still have fond memories of sitting in the basement, in that muted green glow of the monitor, exploring a maze of twisty passages, all alike.

A plane full of anthrax might crash into a nuclear reactor near a major American metropolis, but for God’s sake, keep shopping! Don’t let the terrorists win. But seriously, I understand the need to keep the American public informed, but do people act any differently under Condition Orange as opposed to Condition Yellow? Do the screeners at the airport suddenly become more vigilant? States of alert make sense within a military context, but I’m not sure they serve civilian populations that well. So how do we keep people informed without creating an atmosphere of anxiety and fear? Perhaps more to the point, does information such as this enhance our level of preparedness?
I keep reading about bloggers who get book deals. I don’t do this for the glory, but I certainly wouldn’t mind getting a writing gig if someone offered me one. When I was younger, I thought about growing up to be a professional writer. And as with most childhood dreams, this one eventually was tempered by an adult’s sense of cautious realism. It’s rewarding enough that twenty or thirty of you make the time to read me each day. That’s more of an audience than 90% of the human race has. So I’ll keep writing these daily missives and maybe karma will be on my side.

So you’re the tyrannical leader of a Mideast nation. A vastly superior foreign military is preparing to invade and force you from power. What do you do? Why, write a novel, of course! Is there some kind of rule requiring bloodthirsty dictators to have a somewhat tenuous grip on reality? How do people like this rise to power and then stay there for decades? I’m not trying to sound naive, but couldn’t some muckety-mucks in the Iraqi Army have gotten together and said, “Okay, the old man has clearly lost it. Time to retire him.” Are people in general really such sheep? Under the right circumstances, would Americans allow themselves to be ruled by a psychotic?
My apologies to those who came to this site earlier only to see an error message. My hosting company made another billing error that had to be rectified. Everything should be back to normal now.

I was this close to skipping out of work today to see Return of the King, but my better angels prevailed. I’ll most likely wait until next week and see it when my family is in town, as that has been the tradition for the last two films. Just…seven…more…days. I can do this. I have tremendous willpower when it comes to delaying gratification.
I firmly believe in evolution. Why? Because if human beings had any sort of sacred spark within them, it wouldn’t be necessary to run an ad campaign reminding people that it’s NOT OKAY to fling your urine and feces out the car window while cruising down the interstate. It’s been, what, nearly a century since indoor plumbing became a staple of modern civilization?
The closing of a year brings with it the predictable “Best of 2003” lists. I usually like to check out the book lists and I have to confess that I haven’t read many of them this year. I’m usually a year or two behind. But I am currently reading The Fortress of Solitude and it could very well be the best thing I’ve read this year. Anyone have their own favorites in books or music. And do not say “The Da Vinci Code” or I’ll ban your ass.