Moving right along.

First, more music via popelizbet... click here for a kick-awesome rendition of Silent Night. And by an astounding coincidence, you can buy the CD it's from on the same page. It's Ginger and Bekah, the two ladies who aren't s00j from the Eleanor Rigby video I linked to last time.

Second, FedEx tells me that my replacement-replacement computer is on the move. It touched down in the land of the delta blues in the middle of the pouring rain yesterday and it's scheduled for delivery tomorrow. Whee!

Some of my sites are down right now. I'm looking into that. Oh, looks like they're back up. Just needed a server reboot.

I'm going to be spending the first half of the month of January anywhere but Nebraska in the vicinity of Hagerstown, Maryland. It's a personal visit, but I'll be there for a couple weeks so there will probably be time to do a little meet-and-greet if any readers in the area want to get together. Lest anybody worry that there'll be a half-month wasteland of no updates, you can thank the person I'm visiting for whipping me into shape these last few days. One of the reasons that I'm spending so much time there is because it's January and I live in Nebraska that he'll be working normally while I'm there, and so will I.

And finally, as a little treat, this page is streaming my own thematic interpretation of Silent Night. Make sure your speakers are on and your volume is turned up.

Also...

My friend Google tells my that it's E.C. Segar's birthday. To observe this joyous occasion, here's a clip from the little known and less regarded Popeye musical, filmed by Robert Altman in the year of my own nativity:

(Yes, that is Robin Williams.)

Random thoughts.

Does anybody else wonder what the people who are buying up gold in case civilization collapses and paper money is worthless think they're going to be able to do with gold in that eventuality? Trade it? How exactly does that work? Why would somebody who has something useful or necessary give up any of it in exchange for a piece of malleable yellow metal?

Clarifying edit: Um, when I say "people who are buying up gold in case civilization collapses and paper money is worthless", I mean... shockingly... "people who are buying up gold in case civilization collapses and paper money is worthless". I'm not talking about the power elite here. I'm talking people. Some folks are making a ton of money convincing folks that civilization is one good, hard shove away from falling in a very homogeneous way and that when this happens money will be worthless and gold will be money.

There are so many things wrong with that scenario that I don't really feel the need to pick it apart here.

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"Benevolence" is an intention. "Benefit" is an outcome. Somebody can want nothing but the best for you and still be the worst for you.