I’m clearly a little off my game. A famous Hollywood icon¹ passes, and it takes me a full nine days to realize that it’s a chance to run one of my favorite skits. Ah well, at least I did eventually think of it.

So, without further ado, let’s all gather ’round and let the boys on the Satellite of Love serenade us with a rendition of Let’s Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas, inspired by Crow’s favorite movie: Roadhouse. Call me crazy, but this may just be the Swayziest Christmas of them all.

P.S. Yes, I know it is a little early for Christmas music, but what the hey.

Granted, you’re not all Apple fanboys like me, but you might have noticed that they shipped their latest operating system (10.6, aka ‘Snow Leopard’) on Friday. Naturally, I’ve been running it on a non-essential system (my work laptop, ha) since then. I’ll post a little nutshell review below the link, but for those of you unafraid of a completely insane amount of detail that delves deep into the realm of nerdery, click away on what’s always the gold-standard review: Ars Technica’s.

The Ars Snow Leopard Review.

Now for the much less involved review – mine. Oddly enough it’s web browsing that’s buggy – had a few crashes so far, but I expect that will be cleared up with a point (or app) upgrade sooner than later, and everything else is as zippy as advertised. And of course the big win – Exchange support – so I can tie in Mail/Calendar with all my other mail and calendars. It’s very nice.

“Does anyone here have a laptop with wi-fi?” (It was then that I developed my drinking problem. *Throws drink over shoulder.*)

Interesting blog post making the rounds on Teh Interwebz recently. Apparently some pilots in Newark, having been all jammed up due to weather, put out a call to the cabin for anyone with internet access. A willing passenger obliged, and the pilots used his laptop (although they needed help) to look at weather and file a flight plan to get them off the ground more quickly.

I don’t suppose this thing is really all that out of the ordinary, and I like that the pilots were this proactive about getting things moving. Still, I’d like to think at least one of my pilots can operate a web browser without assistance.

While perusing deadspin.com the other day I came across the announcement that the Onion News Network (when did The Onion move into videos, I know they always had the AV Club, but a full out online channel?)… where was I… oh yes, the Onion News Network had launched a sports network appropriately titled Onion Sports Network.
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i discovered imeem.com last summer while desperately searching for a dashboard confessional cover of a weezer song (this one, if you’re interested) that i’d heard years before but wasn’t available through itunes. i expected it to be a hassle– only 30 second snippets, a cost for downloads, annoying pop-up ads, etc, but found nothing of the sort. true, you can only stream the songs (vs downloading), but that’s not unexpected. in addition, the site makes you register after a certain amount of free listens; however, to date i haven’t received one e-mail based off of that registration. (plus, when you register, you’re allowed to create custom playlists of your favorite songs.) from my experience, it’s just like real.com’s Rhapsody player, but without the pesky $14 charge.

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