Happy New Year to all of you. May 2007 be a year filled with blessings and success, and may you be free from illness and disease. And from Iraqi dictators. And liberals.

The Christmas rush, yes, it was scary;
Crowds at the stores made it quite hairy;
Now because of the lot
Who’ll return what they got,
Avoid Wal-Mart until February.

Christmas evening in my parent’s house finds me seated at a dining room table.  Dad is putting in a season of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and the women are getting ready for bed.

Our day started with gifts and excited children.  We had a good time together here, and then we went to my grandparents’ house for a Davis BBQ Christmas.  Fun times were had there as well, and we returned home with an abundant supply of new stuff and way too much food in our stomachs.

Once the kids were sufficiently exhausted, Dad and I played pool for a while.  I usually lose pretty pathetically, but I wasn’t too terribly pathetic tonight.  I was proud to be winning a whopping 1 out of every 3 games.

Tomorrow our women are going shopping (they’re crazy, I know), and the kids will be with us.  That should be pretty exhausting.  We’ll be munching fried chicken for supper (best fried chicken on God’s earth), and hanging out with my grandparents some more.

I hope your Christmas was as exciting, busy, bountiful, stuffing, and filled with loved ones like ours was.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

They ordered me a new laptop (Dell Latitude D620) at work, and it arrived just in time for the Christmas break.  I mentioned earlier about how I was working with the Mac OS a little bit.  I found out that there is, in fact, a pirated copy of the Mac OS that will run semi-reliably on Intel hardware - It’s called Microsoft Windows Vista.  The spotlight, finder, 3D effects on the windows, alt+tab switching, minimizing windows, and maximizing windows…it’s all eerily similar to the Mac OS.

I’m still getting used to finding the stuff that Microsoft thought they needed to move or hide.  I had a program crash last night, and the operating system held up pretty well through the crash.  Vista is a pretty major overhaul of the back end of the Windows OS, so maybe there’s some stability build in.  I still have my doubts, but we’ll see how it goes.  I’ll post more as I use the OS more.

Sufjan Stevens is…

• Pronounced “soof-yon”
• Weird
• Great with song titles (like “Come on! Let’s Boogey to the Elf Dance!”)
• Amazingly gifted
• Strangely addictive
• Free here

Seriously, I’m new to Sufjan and his music. Geof and Gaines absolutely won’t shut up about his awesomeness, so I’ve started listening to see what all the fuss is about. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but I don’t get it - yet. I’ve been listening to his “Illinois” album, and more recently his 5 CD box set of Christmas music called “Songs for Christmas” (thanks, Tim).

I like “Illinois” a little more with each listen. The Christmas stuff is still weird, but I liked most of it on the first time through. Maybe that’s because it’s good. Maybe that’s because I’m getting used to his weirdness.

You can download a song of his (”That was the Worst Christmas Ever”) at the iTunes music store because he’s the single of the week. Check it out. Maybe you’ll find some more music you like. Or maybe you’ll think I’m crazy. At least I’m no more crazy than Gaines or Geof.

I got a Mac* today. You’ll notice I said “Mac*” and not “Mac”…the asterisk is very important here. I took a Dell Optiplex GX280 and got the Mac OS running on it. I had to turn on “compatibility mode” for the SATA controller, and I had to use an old 3Com NIC instead of the integrated adapter. I also had to setup the disk partition before I could install the OS. That (disk partition) was the most difficult part, and the frustration there was with my lack of know-how with the Mac OS.

So far, it’s all working like it should. And it was pretty easy.

So, all of you Mac fans out there, what software do I need to make this experience complete? I’d like to get to know the OS for a little while so I’ll be able to more easily make the move over to a laptop when the time comes.

“Hey, what’s the default password for a [manufacturer] [model] [product]?”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked that question.  Now, thanks to a coworker, I’ll never have to ask it again.  He found a default password list that has just about every default password for any product you could imagine.

This is odd…a guy I work with and I were discussing this movie “Deliverance” today at lunch, and then he sent me a note saying it’s on AMC tonight.  This may very well be the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen.

What’s the weirdest movie you’ve ever seen?

After swearing he’d never return, The Guru was peer-pressured into a visit to Chilitos today.  He enjoyed the meal, and he says the chips have changed since “the incident.”

Whatever.  I still say he’s crazy.  I’m just glad he finally gave that great burrito place a 2nd chance.

Remember when you were a kid, and your mom would try to get you out of bed? When that happened, I would always mutter “five more minutes” and bury my head under the pillow. I enjoyed the sleep so much, I didn’t want it to end.

That’s how I feel when I see “Behold the Lamb of God.” The evening starts where I’m glad to see friends, then I get excited about seeing some of my favorite songwriters. Then I see the awesomeness in the fact that the Christmas story is true. Then it ends, and I want to see it again.

This week has been much like those rare mornings when Mom would actually let me sleep another five minutes. I got to see BTLOG on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night. Each time I left the venue thinking that I wish I could see it again. Last night, the final night of the tour for me, I left a little sad, knowing it would be 11 months before seeing that show again. At least I’ve got the DVD.

I’m not usually very good with words, especially those pesky adjectives. Trying to review the show 3 different times has been difficult for me. Some nights the band plays better than other nights. Some nights the sound is better than other nights. Some nights the “in the round” portion goes better than other nights.

I’m reminded of what Randall Goodgame told Andrew Peterson when Andrew was putting the songs together. Andrew, concerned that he wouldn’t do the story justice, was told that he can’t mess it up. There’s a lot of truth in that statement. When you tell God’s story, the way it actually happened, you just can’t ruin it. So the little echo in an auditorium, and the vocalist fighting a cold, and the guitar pick that breaks in the middle of a song just fade into insignificance because the story being told is a true story.

The BTLOG tour is still out on the road. They’re in Florida tonight and tomorrow, then they’ll have a show in Ohio, North Carolina, and then South Carolina before the month is through. If they’re anywhere near you, I’d encourage you to go out and see it. If they’re not near you, go listen to the songs on Andrew’s web site. Or, if you’re near me and you want to see the DVD, I’d be glad to loan my copy to you.