I went to the Sigur Ros concert with Aaron and his wife Roswitha and Rachael. I haven't seen Aaron in years. He was one of my first good friends in Seattle, a fellow Amazonian, and now that he's back in Seattle it's as if things have come full circle. Aaron left the US a while ago, and now he has returned, married, no less. He spent six months with Roswitha traveling around Latin America and South America. It's the type of worldly adventure which makes working stiffs like myself cringe with a bit of shame, a lot of jealousy.
Maybe life has been reversed for me. Most people come to Amazon after having gotten the craziness out of their system. I feel like I've done nothing but bust my butt for most of my twenties, and now it's time to have some fun. Maybe I should do an international stint. It seems to have served Dan and Aaron well. I think I grew up too early, and thus I haven't grown up at all.
The Sigur Ros concert was interesting. An older (that's what I consider people my age now) alternative crowd attended, and the music was beautiful, moving, and entrancing. They played about an hour and a half, and that was the right length. Any longer and I would have started hallucinating.
Things that annoy me today, because isn't 90% of blogging useless ranting and raving?

Why do I still have to go to the postal office at all? I should be able to use my debit card and purchase printable stamps over the Internet with no penalty on price.

People who whisper in a movie theater, telling you that they've guessed who the killer is, or some other plot secret. First of all, thanks for ruining the movie. Secondly, there's a good chance I figured it out about 20 minutes before you did, so keep it to yourself and pass the popcorn.

Gossips. Can't anyone keep a secret these days? I'm tempted to tell a different crazy rumor to all those close to me, to trace the leak, like they do in the movies. Psst, please don't tell anyone, but I have a tattoo of Yoda on my left butt cheek.

My mouse buttons reset everytime I reboot Windows 2000. I have a Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer, and for some reason everytime I reboot I have to go into the control panel and set the buttons. I've tried downloading the latest drivers, everything. Can't Microsoft get their products to play nice with each other?

There's no pop-up killer for the Mac. Well, there is one, but it costs $20. I wonder if Mozilla has an option to turn off pop-ups. I'll have to try it.

Holiday gift giving part II

A few other ideas.
One, for your friend with carpal tunnel syndrome, a new keyboard from Kinesis. I've tried many cures, and this is the only one that really helped. The model I use is the Kinesis Professional Contoured Keyboard. Sure, they're pricy, but what's the cost of not being able to brush your teeth when you're forty? Carpal tunnel is to the modern white collar worker what scurvy was to sailors back in the 1800's.
The Google toolbar. Free of charge, and a huge service to your friends who work on a PC and use IE. It's the first thing I install everytime I get a new computer or a new installation of IE. Basically adds a Google searchbox to your browser window frame, since IE won't let you change its default search engine from the junky default search engine it uses.
A black and white print from a celebrity photographer. I suggest a William Klein.