And so the end of the pre-Xmas weekend is here and I still haven’t done all of my shopping. Even though it’s a short week, it’s gonna be a busy one. 3 more days to rush out to the stores and buy, buy, buy. Gotta work in a hair cut somewhere in there too because I’m about a half inch away from a full on mullet at this point.

Is anyone else in the Christmas mood? I started to feel it at the beginning of December but it’s trickled off since then. There’s only one cure for it and it’s called Mickey’s Christmas Carol. That short can’t help but make me happy. Oh, and when Mickey raises his head over Tiny Tim’s grave and you can see his eyes water up… damn, it gets me every time. This is the only time of the year I’ll blow the dust off the VHS player and pop in a tape. God knows if it will ever come out to DVD.

Anyone doing anything good? It’s gonna be the family thing again just like it is every year for me. Head on over to Grandma’s and eat up a storm and then nap. Hmm. Much like Thanksgiving really. Should be ok. Looking forward to the 4 day weekend that can’t come soon enough.

Alright, time to pop in some Christmas flick and go to sleep.

Just got back from seeing Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and it blew just as much as the first one did. The Two Towers was a much better film that the other two. Even so, Legolas is still one of the coolest characters ever and there’s a scene in it with him kickin’ some major ass. Sweet, but not sweet enough. Save your money.

Dave Winer: “If you could decide his fate, would you put him in jail for life like Noriega, or put him to death, or create a special punishment for him, one that fits his crimes?”

I’ll probably sit on this for a day and come back to it, but you can check out what others have suggested already in the comments of Dave’s post. My initial reaction would be to put him in a cage alive, memorialized with the rest of the buildings and status in Iraqi so he can see the Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Gateway stores installed over the next 20 years. Anyone have other suggestions?

radiofree: “He was a murderous despot and the least we could do in this whole mess is deliver him alive to be tried by his people. I think it’s far too early to be claiming this is the end, or even the beginning of the end, for this war however – we’re stuck in a guerilla conflict in a large, unstable nation, and while we managed to score a very positive win, it doesn’t justify or nullify everything that has happened or will still happen there. We’re in a quagmire, and hopefully this will help calm the Iraqi people so we can begin to see some stability restored and the light at the end of the tunnel growing.”

Looks like it’s true. Scripting News has already started a page for info on the capture of Saddam Hussein.

I must have been tired. I went to sleep around 2am Saturday morning and woke up at 1pm only to go back to sleep 2 hours later. Now I’m back up and my sleeping schedule is all screwed up…

Whoa… It looks like US troops “may have” have caught Saddam Hussein. Ok, I guess I’m staying up to watch some conference at 4am now. Be back later…

It was a nice rainy day in SoCal, so I went out and took this quick pano of the courtyard in my apartment complex. There are some stitch errors I still need to get rid of, but the larger problem is I don’t know why they’re there. Something to troubleshoot I guess. It’s good enough for now, though.

You can see other panos in my panoramic VR gallery.

Here’s a festive AIM conversation I was having with a friend that we can all learn from this holiday season…

table width=”320″ border=”0″ cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″ align=”center”>tr>

font color=”red”>roguegeek: We went over this before. Chaunaka and Chanukah are both right, right? Which one do you see more?
font color=”blue”>jew-friend: heheheh
font color=”blue”>jew-friend: I see Hannukah more often… but it doesn’t matter
font color=”red”>roguegeek: k
font color=”blue”>jew-friend: Channuka is probably the closest…
font color=”red”>roguegeek: wait wait wait. There are 4?
font color=”red”>roguegeek: You bastards just pick one and stick with it!
font color=”red”>roguegeek: It’s not Kristmas
font color=”red”>roguegeek: Or Christmus
font color=”blue”>jew-friend: right… well hannukah isnt an english word there’s only one spelling in hebrew but you dont know hebrew, do you, asshole?
font color=”blue”>jew-friend: anti-semite
font color=”red”>roguegeek: lol
font color=”blue”>jew-friend: nazi skinhead fuck
font color=”red”>roguegeek: DON’T BELITTLE MY PEOPLE ASSHOLE!!!
font color=”blue”>jew-friend: heheeh
font color=”red”>roguegeek: I’m posting this conversation.
font color=”blue”>jew-friend: hahaha ok
font color=”blue”>jew-friend: btw, you forgot xmas you white bastard
font color=”red”>roguegeek: nice
font color=”blue”>jew-friend: well i gotta crash, so i can sleep well and plot the final solution for your christ-loving sheeple/td>

/table>

About a year and 8 months later, the 500th post is created on this site. Wouldn’t ya know it. Just when you think it couldn’t get less interesting, it does. Good luck to us all…

DP Review: “Nikon today announced that it is ‘working on’ a new budget priced digital SLR, the D70 and a new complementary DX lens… Considering it’s ‘budget price’ and considering the current competition I will make a wild guess that the D70 will be based around the D100 engine with the same six megapixel sensor. Styling hints however do appear to be taken from the D2H. Body only price of the D70 is expected to be $999…”

I will buy this camera when it comes out. I’ve been so tempted lately with the release of Canon’s EOS 300D and the D70 looks to be its direct competitor. If they are using the D100 engine (as the editor believes), I’m gonna keep my fingers crossed and hope they’re doing some sort of tinkering to improve that system because Canon’s 6MP CMOS is definitely superior to Nikon’s 6MP CCD. You know what this means now? It means I can continue to be a Nikon whore. Gimme gimme gimme.