Russell Baker. “Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.” [Quotes of the Day]

So here’s the usual ‘what I got’ post. This years christmas ended up being quite fun. I got fun gifts for people that were well liked (the best being the big cardboard blocks for my nephew). Anyways, here’s the hilites of what I received:

• Foot Duvets from Restoration Hardware – These things rule. They’re down filled slippers and they rock. Just warm enough without being too warm.
• A number of CDs, including The best of Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong on Verve and Bach Goldberg Variations by Gould.
• A book called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield from my sister.
• A book called Seussisms from my nephew. He loved it when I read him There’s a Wocket in my Pocket.
• If Chins Could Kill from my parents.
• A cool combo gift. They’d gotten me John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme on CD and then when out shopping saw A Love Supreme — The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album by Ashley Kahn. The book looks really cool. I plan to sit down and put on the CD while starting to read it this weekend.
• Last but not least my friend Erin gave me this cool cookie mix in a jar. It’s all the dry ingredients to make cookies. You just add the wet ingredients and bake. I can’t wait to try them out!

So those are the hilites. I’m sure I must be forgetting something, but if it is important I’ll post about it.

Makoto Shinkai, the person behind Hoshi no Koe has something new coming out in 2003. If your browser can support the Japanese language, take a look at The place promised in our early days.

Check out the links near the bottom for the trailer.

Looks like Makoto Shinkai’s style all right. The character designs look like they are by Tazawa Ushio of God Dog Productions who did the 14th annual DoGA CG Anime Contest (Japan) winner Life no Color. Tenmon is doing the music. Just the three of them made this thing.

The trailer is so good, it is scary. I think Makoto Shinkai is a master. His work gives me hope that I can make something similar and also fills me with despair that I could never achieve such greatness.

One of these days I’ll get around to setting up my blog so that I can post from my parents place. Merry Christmas to everyone. It was actually pretty nice after all my thoughts on it. I’ll write more after I’ve had a chance to settle in from the ride home to Cambridge.

Only down part of the whole trip was coming home to find a window had blown open and the apartment was FREEZING.

This seems to happen to me a bit. New shows start. I find a few that I like, I find a few that I skip because they just don’t sound like something I’d like. Then, two months later someone recommends one of the ones I skipped and I love it.

That just happened with Naruto. I just got done watching the second episode and it was SO much fun. So far it’s pretty much an action/comedy show, though I hear some of the later episodes get more serious. I can’t wait to see what happens.

Anyone else been checking this out?

I don’t think I’ve run into another show quite like this one. I just finished watching the last episode and I just didn’t want it to end. It was cute, funny, touching, silly, and just too much fun. This is one of those must watch shows in my opinion.

I just had to get my own Yamamaya.

(btw, merry christmas everyone!)

I feel like I’m losing touch with the world. I just have not been in much of a holiday season until like, well, this afternoon some. Even then I haven’t been feeling that holiday buzz at all and after waking up from a nap I realized why. I’m not working. I’m not around lots of different people all talking about what they are doing, being asked what I’m doing. I haven’t been out and about much to see holiday decorations all over the place.

This not working stuff sucks. (I don’t want to whine about that much here, but i do reserve the right to when I feel like it.)

I IM’d a friend of mine today to end up hearing that Joe Strummer died of a heart attack.

LONDON, England — Joe Strummer, lead singer for seminal British punk band the Clash, has died at the age of 50.

Strummer, who was the band’s guitarist, vocalist and songwriter alongside Mick Jones, died on Sunday at his farmhouse in Somerset, southwestern England.

Bleh. I just grabbed London Calling, Combat Rock, and No. 10 Upping St off the shelf to play this morning. All of which had impact at certain times in my life.

CNN also has a nice profile of him.

Thanks to Lyn for pointing me at this last night. I just had to share this gem (warning, not for the faint of heart). Like other things, the only way to save myself from it is to share it with someone else.

Someone posted about their recent experiences with airport security. Here’s a bit of it:

After some more grumbling on my part they eventually finished with me and I went to retrieve our luggage from the x-ray machine. Upon returning I found my wife sitting in a chair, crying. Mary rarely cries, and certainly not in public. When I asked her what was the matter, she tried to quell her tears and sobbed, “I’m sorry… it’s… they touched my breasts… and…” That’s all I heard. I marched up to the woman who’d been examining her and shouted, “What did you do to her?” Later I found out that in addition to touching her swollen breasts — to protect the American citizenry — the employee had asked that she lift up her shirt. Not behind a screen, not off to the side — no, right there, directly in front of the hundred or so passengers standing in line. And for you women who’ve been pregnant and worn maternity pants, you know how ridiculous those things look. “I felt like a clown,” my wife told me later. “On display for all these people, with the cotton panel on my pants and my stomach sticking out. When I sat down I just lost my composure and began to cry. That’s when you walked up.”

Of course when I say she “told me later,” it’s because she wasnât able to tell me at the time, because as soon as I demanded to know what the federal employee had done to make her cry, I was swarmed by Portland police officers. Instantly. Three of them, cinching my arms, locking me in handcuffs, and telling me I was under arrest. Now my wife really began to cry. As they led me away and she ran alongside, I implored her to calm down, to think of the baby, promising her that everything would turn out all right. She faded into the distance and I was shoved into an elevator, a cop holding each arm. After making me face the corner, the head honcho told that I was under arrest and that I wouldn’t be flying that day — that I was in fact a “menace.”

This is the second story in less than a week that I’ve heard like this. Earlier in the week Kevin Meany was on Stern talking about his experiences with airport security and his story was very much the same. These stories just freak me out. I can see having a minor hassles with going through security, but both the stories I heard this week go way beyond minor hassles.