“Sin? Sure!”

HOLIDAY PARTY POSTSCRIPT: The roomie and I had our annual Holiday Wing-Ding last Sunday. The usual drill: come lift a glass and fill a plate with us, but bring a toy or two for a kid in East St. Louis. We have such generous friends and neighbors; gathered close to 300 presents to brighten the Christmas of some very cute kids. Thanks to one and all!

Meanwhile, Jon Carroll makes some astute observations about the perils of holiday parties, ours included. [San Francisco Chronicle]

WEBSITE AWOL: Does anyone have any clues on where to find a website for First Night St. Louis? I know they have one, but danged if a good hour's worth of searching can turn it up. If you know where to find it, let me know. Thanks!

ASK ME ABOUT MY DAY: In a nutshell, yesterday was all about networking. Not the cheesy, 90s, "let's get a bunch of dubiously interesting yuppies together at a cocktail party and chat and call it networking" networking. I'm talking about real, honest-to-goodness, homemade Ethernet like grandma used to make.

It began at work when our systems consultant showed up unexpectedly (these things happen from time to time) and I resolved on the spur of the moment that this very day would be the one: the shining moment when My Macs, come hell or high water, were connected to The Network.

Until yesterday, my pitiable Macintosh network had been shunned, segregated from the Great and Powerful Office LAN because the consulting company we hired didn't do Macs. (My two Macs vs. 20-some PCs was not a compelling case for finding another company.)

But by God, we did it! Matt, the boyish consultant who doesn't do Macs and I, who does scarcely anything else, just started plugging RJ-45 cable into any port that was handy, fired up some Macintosh services on the hulking Windows NT server box, telnetted and ping'ed a bit, prayed to the oracle at www.MacWindows.com, and when the dust cleared, voila! I'm surfing the 'net and sharing files in the blaring fast lanes of 10BaseT.

Thus inspired and having accomplished no "real" work on the day, I headed home and resolved on the spur of the moment that this very night would be the one: the shining moment when I finally ripped open all those boxes of cabling and equipment and installed the Ethernet LAN at home.

And by God, I did that too. Admittedly, it was much simpler...the hardest part being finding the Phillips head screwdriver to secure the PCI card in Gromit, the desktop Mac, but I feel a real sense of accomplishment. By the end of the week, with a little more industry and the help of the friendly folks at Small Dog Electronics, I will be able to write an update for The BradLands on my PowerBook before retiring for the night, jack into the convenient Ethernet port at bedside and squirt the pages over to Gromit for tweaking come daylight. After the holidays, the Mac Yet to Come will become my primary Internet computer and it too will join The Great Link, along with my Newton MessagePad. Think of the ease of use. Think of the harmony.

Think to yourself, "Geez, Brad's a geek of the highest order."

THAT'S IT. I'M OFFICIALLY NO LONGER INTERESTED: As a news junkie, ordinarily the drama that the Clinton presidency has become — particularly over the last 24 hours — would have me riveted. But you know how much of the impeachment brouhaha or Iraq-bombing bits I've taken in? Hardly a whit, save for Noah Adams and Linda Wertheimer essentially announcing they knew nothing for sure about Iraq and everyone thinks Clinton is pulling a Wag the Dog. It was maybe the least informative 30 minutes of NPR I've ever heard, and as I pulled up in front of the house after the drive from work, I was glad to switch it off.

Clinton lied. Fine. Kick him out. Or don't. Just stop all the bellyaching, do something and break for Christmas.

Face it: all politicians lie and, the last time I checked, they all take an oath of office of one sort or another. Ergo, every sad, sorry SOB sitting in judgment of or defending our fair president has lied under oath. (And there are probably more adulterers in the Congress than in the entire NFL.)

So, I repeat: Impeach him. Or don't. Censure him. (Note to many, many local broadcasters: It's not "censor." If it helps, think, "Sin? Sure!") Or don't. Until everyone's done hurling bombs, sanctimoniously holding forth on moral order and fucking with the prime time TV schedule, I have had quite enough.

THE BATTLE FOR PARADISE, take two: I wish Lileks could archive his Daily Bleats sooner rather than later, since his thoughts in toto on Star Trek: Insurrection a day or so back were essentially mine as well. In lieu of that, however, I shall point out that The Self-Made Critic has really nailed the best way to rate a Trek flick. [Brunching Shuttlecocks]

AND ON THE SUBJECT OF MOVIES: Cameron (and friends) have a few gripes about the way computers, the Internet and other conveniences of the modern world are portrayed in motion pictures. [CamWorld]

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