In which, if you make it to the end, you'll see something snide about debate, but mostly you'll realize that this is an off week forsensics-wise

I’ve been enjoying The Long Tail quite a bit. Listening to the audiobook, actually, although I don’t maintain there’s much of a difference between reading and listening in the long run. It’s like watching a movie with subtitles. You forget pretty quickly that you don’t speak Italian or whatever, and a week after you’ve seen the film, you can’t even remember that there were any subtitles at all. Prego! Anyhow, it’s a pretty good read/listen. I had thought I wouldn’t go far with it, that I got the idea and that all the book would be was various examples, and before long I’d try the next book in the queue (I acquire a bunch of this sort of thing at random from the DJ, as anyone who has ever received a crappy prize can attest), but in fact, it’s as much an up-to-date history of the web as anything else, and right up my alley. Rather thought provoking, and highly recommended.

Anyone wondering about #44, speaking of the web, is advised to listen to last Sunday’s year-end wrap-up edition of Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, in which, in a blast from the past, a newly seated senator answers questions that are not his job. We voted for the right guy!

Also speaking of the web, I seem to acquire half of the music I own through free downloads from Amazon. (There’s a weekly subscription letter regarding MP3s that I’ve signed up for.) I am probably the perfect target audience for such marketing, because I don’t spend much time trawling for music otherwise, but I do love finding and listening to new music, a not unusual trait in a Baby Boomer, but one that atrophies as senescence settles on the brain. Amazon sends me free tracks and lists of stuff, and before the night is over, I’ve bought some stuff just from clicking around, plus I’ve added a couple of albums of free stuff (I still think in terms of albums, again, a not unusual trait in a Baby Boomer). As for more adventurous trawling, I do live in fear and trembling of the ride back from Lexington next week, on which Matt R will unleash his top 40 of 2008 for me. Then again, he did remind me that last year on the same trip I was playing the soundtracks of Disneyland rides, so turnabout is fair play and all that. And while we’re on the subject of music, I picked myself up some of them thar’ Bose speakers and plugged them into an Airport in the kitchen so that, with the aid of the Remote app on the Touch, I can control my complete iTunes library on the computer in the family room. Ah, technology! And I love nothing better than running through my collection of the latest Gangsta stuff while cooking up the night’s gruel. (Actually, come to think of it, if there is one song even remotely hippity-hoppity-ish in my library it would come as quite a surprise, but you knew that.)

And, of course, last night’s Sailor meeting was cancelled, and today the Sailors have no school which means no meeting tonight, and I myself am dubious about my availability tomorrow… Oh, well. They do better without me. What do I know? Thank God they don’t send me their cases or anything! Then again, come to think of it, they’ve only had a month and a half or so to write them, including the long break, so what am I thinking? No doubt they’ll get started on them some time tonight, if they happen to be going to ALJ. If not, there’s always the bus ride up to Lexington on which to catch up, as long as they remember to bring the crayons and the construction paper, that is. Of such is greatness made, eh?