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Kevin’s posted an excellent review of REM’s new album. He makes it sound pretty downbeat. Crud. My fandom has really never recovered from shelling out for the “deluxe” CD edition of Up only to discover that I couldn’t tell when one depressing song ended and another depressing song began. (Not to mention the fact that it was advertised as coming with a “poster” which actually consisted of the pages of the lyrics booklet, which you were supposed to disassemble and tape together or something.) I didn’t even bother getting the Greatest Hits CD, though I suppose I will if I decide to get the new album. My obsessive-compulsiveness wouldn’t be able to stand having a hole in the chronology of my REM catalog…

Richard Stallman’s over here bitching about Linux again. How can a guy that claims not to have had a job in decades afford to fly to Australia?

Crap. As expected, Apple just e-mailed me to say my G5 iMac will arrive “7-10 business days” later than expected. Does anybody know if they’re shipping in the US or UK yet?

So, Amy’s a citizen of Australia now! Actually she’s a dual American-Australian, which is what I hope to be in about eighteen months. The ceremony was held in Mosman and I went along to celebrate with her. She basically just had to pledge allegiance and then she got a certificate and a native plant. Pretty sweet! There was a sour edge to the evening for me, though, in the form of a famous visitor in the midst: Tony Abbott! (He’s the Leader of the House and the Federal Minister for Health and Aging. He’s also a raging conservative asshole.) Didn’t he just get out of the hospital for kidney stones yesterday? And here he was, four days before a national election, spending the evening in front of a group of people who weren’t even eligible to vote for him! His speech afterwards was polished but uninspiring, I have to say. (When he started talking about Australia’s “freedom” I half-expected him to congratulate the new citizens on becoming part of the Coalition of the Willing.) You’ll be proud to note that after a short internal battle, I managed to resist the urge to question him about the Pauline Hanson slush fund and kick him in the nuts. Man, I’ll never have another chance like that again…

And I just realized that I spelled his name wrong on the photo, but I don’t really care.

Congratulations to Amy for becoming an official Australian citizen tonight. I’m counting on her for lots of helpful tips about this whole dual-citizenship thingy.

Real Embarrassing Photos: The Man Who Stole Jimi Hendrix’s Hair
I was going through some old pictures the other day when I came across this absolute gem. Yes, folks, that is the Snook. In college he had big hair, a dodgy goatee, and – what’s more amazing to me – he actually wore blue jeans! Who is this person? It blows my mind. I’m putting this out there for anybody wondering if I know what I’m getting into with this whole marriage-thing. Oh yes, you betcher ass I do. I figure a guy who can laugh at his former self – and give permission for the world to laugh along with him – is a real keeper. Click here for some better views of the ‘fro in all its glory.

And yeah, I turned up some doozies of me. Stay tuned…

AskMetaFilter tackles the questions enquiring minds want to know: Why, evolution-wise, do the testes hang outside a human body? Come on, you wondered that too…

Come-come-commala.
It’s been over ten years… but I’ve finally come to the clearing at the end of the path. I have finished Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. In fact, I read over six hundred pages today; I couldn’t put it down. You remember how I thought the sixth book kinda sucked? Well, this one didn’t. It tied up loose ends and hurtled from action sequence to action sequence with a speed that left me shaking my head. (“Snookums, he spent all of that last book setting up cliffhangers that were resolved in the first forty pages!”) When the ka-tet was finally broken about halfway through the book, I sobbed like a baby for half an hour. I’m still tearing up just thinking about it. (“F**king ka!”) I found King’s inclusion of himself as a character much less irritating this time around, mostly because he wasn’t in it much. I liked finding out what happened to Randall Flag, Ted Brautigan, and Patrick Danville. And as for the ending, which probably pissed a lot of people off? I think what happens to Roland makes a weird sort of sense. It’s not exactly satisfying but it’s not the cop-out I feared. I’m left with hope. As for the rest of the ka-tet… I think that was a bit of a cop-out, but I’m still a sucker for a happy(-ish) ending.

Man, I hope the Harry Potter series ends as well.