Paul McCartney != Roger Daltrey

I have odd things that I do with music, like my previous "listen to all of my music in alphabetical order." Yes, I listen to my favs, I have several cool play lists on my iPod, etc. We were driving up to my aunt's Tuesday night and I was playing a new list that I made a couple of weeks ago of songs on my iPod that hadn't been played in 2008. They actually probably had been, but I had to reinitialize and reformat my iPod when it glitched on me earlier this year. So the iPod starts playing "Too Many People" and my wife starts looking a little perplexed. Finally she asks "Is that Roger Daltrey?" I almost laughed. Instead I said "Nope. But it's from the same era, and like The Who, the band has also had two members die." Which isn't technically accurate, as I was thinking of The Beatles vs The Who. She wasn't in a trivia game mood, so finally I picked up the iPod and showed her: Paul & Linda McCartney, Ram.

I think she is still a little perplexed.

So how are gas prices treating you?

We have a lot of places that are still charging as much as $1.45 a gallon, but we have several that are as low as $1.17.

The last time that I consistently paid less than that was October '99. Then prices started creeping up and a year later I was paying $1.50ish. Interestingly, prices were stable for the following year, I sold that car, my '91 Mazda 626LX with 165,000 miles on it December 2000. That was a nice car, the first car that I bought brand-new.

Happy Boxing Day!

So go out and punch someone in the face, but make sure that you're both wearing regulation protective gear.

But seriously, I hope you're all enjoying the holiday and time with friends and family, if that's how you choose to do things. My parents came over from Phoenix, and another of my dad's sisters and her husband came from California, so we had 11 for dinner yesterday. It was also my dad's birthday, so we all sang HBD to him and screw the performance fee that we didn't pay! Well, it wasn't done at a commercial location, so maybe we're safe from the RIAA or AMSCAP or whoever.

Monday saw Russet getting her first present. We went to a neurologist to get myself tested for Carpal Tunnel. My wife, against all odds, did not bring her laptop or a book and was quietly whining in the waiting room while I was doing paperwork. So I asked her if she'd like one of her presents a little bit early, and her eyes lit up. Well, in my computer backpack was a copy of Tales of Beedle the Bard (JK Rowling's new Potterverse backstory book) waiting for her, along with one of her other presents, so I got it for her. She was very happy and reports that it's a pretty cool book in which Rowling tries to patch up some questionable continuity/logic errors in the Potter books. It's “translated by Hermione Granger with commentary by Albus Dumbledore.” I hope to read it soon.

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Free Macintosh software!

There's a site, MacHeist, which collects and gives away (as in free) software every year. Some of it is *meh*, some of it is pretty cool. It's a way for smaller software companies/developers to get some visibility, it's all legal software, no warez.

Just thought my fellow Mac-heads might want to check it out as their latest heist has just been posted.