Well, I’m back from my whirlwind tour of my hometown, spending three days and nights trying to shoehorn in seeing most everyone near and dear to me while still retaining a semblance of my sanity. I think I did all right. Well, I fit in two turkey dinners and survived a storm-tossed ferry ride and a near stranding in Tsawassen (THANK YOU AGAIN for the timely rescue, Lisa and Chris).

Still, I could blahblahblah about boat mishap minutiae all day. What you want to know is what my Top Three Christmas Presents for 2006 are, and who am I to deny that to you?

Counting down!

3) Ubuntu Linux for Non-Geeks:

Just FYI, there is no way on God’s green earth I’m installing Vista on my box. I’m okay with XP; XP is fine, but Vista is a deal-breaker. In anticipation of the proliferation of The Unusable OS I’m transitioning now. Besides, there’s next to nothing you can do on Windows that you can’t do on Linux (and less that I need to do), and I am all about the freeware.

(BTW, I am very aware of the ironic title of the book, but I’m not the computer g33k I used to be. I did indeed used to program text adventures in BASIC, but that was a few years ago. My UNIX haxxoring skills are a little deficient. I am heading back into the dojo to start from scratch.)

2) Twitch City:

This is probably the best show to ever have aired on TV. Ever. It was generated from pure Raditude isotopes, and the fact that it stars Don McKellar (The Red Violin, eXistenZ), Molly Parker (Deadwood, Kissed) and Callum Keith Rennie (Battlestar Galactica, Hard Core Logo), and was directed by Bruce McDonald (Hard Core Logo, Highway 61) only adds to its amazing awesomeness. I’d been waiting for this to get a wide release since it first appeared… and nine years later it appears my wish has finally come true. I don’t know how it happened or why it took this long, but thank you Santa for this Christmas miracle.

1) Furry Ramone:

When you get married, it’s important, on a very basic level, that your spouse should understand you and get what you’re about. Look at the picture below and realize that my wife gets me.

 
Finally, as an aside, Billy the Kid left me a nice note while I was gone. I used to see her play all the time when she lived on the West Side of the country, and her shows were an awesome excuse to rock out, but since she headed out East to find her (inevitable) fame and fortune I don’t rock as hard anymore. Which is all a way of saying that Billy is rad and you should visit her on the ‘net. Hi, Billy.