I know Christmas is about love, family and giving. But sappy stories about sharing hot cocoa with my honey make for a bad copy. Here, in all its glory is all the cool crap my wife got me for Christmas.
DVD Burner. I think I’ll write a separate blog on this. I finally got a DVD burner and it has done nothing but drive me crazy. The procedures to be able to burn a DVD are mind-boggling.
Frasier: Complete First Season – I stopped watching this Cheers spinoff after about the third season. It wasn’t that it got bad, but I got busy with other things, mainly college. My brother continues to tell me how great it is, and my sister-in-law got it for me for Christmas. Five episodes in and it feels like a first season of a good show. So far there is a lot of character development and the growing pains of a show trying to get a feel for itself. But it’s funny, and Frasier is one of the great characters of TV.
Iomega 120 Gig external hard drive. Sweet, baby Sweet! I’ll never worry about deleting a thing again.
Digital Ash in a Digital Urn: Bright Eyes – My friend the Duke de Mondo has been raving about this band for ages. This is a more electronic outing than I understand the band generally does, but after one listen I really dig it. Lots of Radioheadesque blips and beeps, but some strong songwriting with intelligent lyrics.
Cold Roses: Ryan Adams and the Cardinals – I’ve slowly been becoming a Ryan Adams fan. I’ve really enjoyed some of his singles and other songs I’ve heard here and there. Lately, some friends have really been raving about him, and specifically this album. A killer live show I downloaded from archive.org sealed the deal. So far this album is brilliant.
The Final Solution by Michael Chabon – I’ve read a couple of Chabon’s books and found them to be very well-written and rather delightful reads. This is his modern take on the classic detective novel, using an unnamed character that acts suspiciously like Sherlock Holmes
The Losers’ Club by Richard Perez – I had never heard of the book or the author until I was looking for books I wanted to add to my Christmas list. Someone on Amazon recommended it and it looked interesting.
Looney Tunes: Golden Collection – The first in a series of DVD collections covering the best of Looney Tunes. This one has a disk devoted to Bugs Bunny and another for Daffy Duck, with two disks covering the best of all the other characters. Best movie? The classic send-up of the Barber of Seville with Buggs Bunny and Elmer Fudd.
Grateful Dead: The Illustrated Trip – A lovely coffee table book detailing the Grateful Dead’s 35-year career. Filled with loads of full-color pictures, song details, tour highlights, and a whole lot more.
There were lots of clothes as well.
More will be forthcoming as I have Christmas on New Years with my wife’s folks and Christmas in mid-January with mine in Oklahoma.
themidnightcafe.org 