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.

Life Sucks: You know, if all history were taught as awesomely as Ren running down the Children’s Crusade for Stimpy, then high school would be a lot cooler and more interesting place. This isn’t so much the fault of the teachers as it is the fact that our institutional learning facilities don’t celebrate kids dying at the hands of Saracens. (via BoingBoing)
Unsuggester: Much like Neil Gaiman, I find LibraryThing’s Unsuggester to be totally mesmerising. It’s good to know that since I own Lovecraft’s Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre I shouldn’t buy The Notebook or How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth. Also, if you own Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, you probably won’t enjoy Confessions of a Shopaholic.
Replica Alliance Currency: You can’t spend it, but you’ll look more stylish (or perhaps terminally g33ky) if you carry around a wad of replica Alliance currency from Serenity. It’s what Captain Tightpants would do.
Gez Fry: He does nice art. Go look.

Yugh. I’ve been sick for the past week and a half with the flu/head cold that’s been going around. It’s knocked me on my ass, made me stupid and generally rendered me unable to do much of anything but watch a season and a half of How I Met Your Mother.

Well, that and play Nintendo DS, since we bought one a week or two back. Yes, now I can lie on the couch and play Tetris and Brain Age and Big Brain Academy and New Super Mario Brothers for hours. Because, er, I’m exercising my brain by playing them. Okay, a couple of them. Well, the two I don’t really use since we picked up Tetris and Mario. Still, the potential mental exercise I’m getting from them is staggering. It’s like Brainiac 5 is riding my sofa.

Anyway, since I don’t have anything of much interest to say, I’m just going to throw a few links at you. Enjoy.

Minus: This is the most amazing webcomic I’ve seen in ages. Fully painted and scanned in, Minus manages to be hauntingly beautiful, funny and sublime all at once. I don’t want to talk about it too much because that might chip away at its potency, but I will offer the link to my favourite strip. That last panel contains more amazing resonance than three quarters of the internet rolled up into a big ugly ball.
Jeff Millner’s Backmasking Site: If you ever wondered how Zep managed to write such powerful, evocative and enduring tunes, it’s because they made a pact with Satan… and he took them out to his little toolshed. It’s all right there in the songs, man, if you’d ever bothered to really listen to them. Sad Satan.
Preacher TV Series: The news is a couple of weeks old, but I presume there’s still a few people out there that aren’t aware that Garth Ennis’s comic Preacher is getting adapted for TV. HBO is producing it, which is great, but it’s being scripted by the writer of Daredevil and Ghost Rider and directed by the man responsible for Grumpier Old Men and The Whole Ten Yards, which is terrifying. Maybe it will all even out in the end. Maybe.
Rachell Sumpter: Art is good. And happy Sami people are awesome.

And finally, if you’re addicted like I am to the love-lorn antics of those wacky kids in How I Met Your Mother, you might want to get this shirt (only available until the end of December!) or check out this Myspace page. Is it wrong that I want to rock Robin Sparkle’s body ’til Canada Day?

1) 300
2) Get Lamp
3) Spider-Man 3
4) Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix
5) Nerdcore

1) Dr. Girlfriend
2) Dr. Henry Killinger
3) Girl Hitler
4) Colonel Gentleman
5) Triana Orpheus
6) Baron Ünderbheit
7) Jefferson Twilight
8) Groovy
9) Molotov Cocktease
10) H.E.L.P.eR. (all done up in the low-rider paint job)

1) Battlestar Galactica, Season 3
2) Kingdom of Loathing
3) Heroes, Season 1
4) Death Note
5) The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana
6) Helium - “The Dirt of Luck” (again)
7) Milky coconut bubble tea
8) Veronica Mars, Season 3
9) Sarah Vowell
10) A forked tongue and a dirty house (R.I.P. S-K)