I appreciate the way she appreciates Narnia and find it interesting to consider Christmas as a conglomeration of various traditions from over the years. Given C.S. Lewis’s appreciation for the ways in which the literature he studied did similiar things, that does make some sense, and seems apparent given the various literary and mythical traditions he pulls into his Narnia novels.

Of course, as a Christian, I necessarily see Christmas as primarily a time to remember how God came to the earth like even the least of us, to show us how much he loves us. When I read the Chronicles of Narnia, I similarly cannot help but find the often beautiful ideas of a creator who would give his life for even the worst of us children. I look forward to giving my children Narnia one day, soon!

• 2005 – Paul McCartney
• 2006 – Rolling Stones
• 2007 – Prince
• 2008 – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

I suppose the assumption is that more mature male artists lessen the possibility of the unplanned showing of body parts, which leads to big FCC fines. I was a bit worried last year with Prince maybe showing some cleavage, but I also assume that nobody will be inviting Michael Jackson to visit the Super Bowl anytime soon.

Of course, this leads to the question, “Should you tell your kids about Santa?” My beautiful wife and I have been talking about this sometimes controversial topic and do want to tell our kids about Santa, in the sense that there is a Santa. We also want to frame that with the story of how Santa was Saint Nicholas.

My cousin and her husband told their eldest son that Santa “wasn’t real” when he was around Kindergarden and he went to school and told all the other kids. We’d like to avoid that. We’d also like to avoid feeling like we’re “lying” to our kid! After all, the reason we have Christmas is not Santa Claus, but is Christ, and certainly want that to be the main focus of Christmas-time in our house. We also don’t want our kid feeling left out because we didn’t tell her the myth of Santa.

I’d love to hear some of what others do with their kids or think is a good idea regarding Santa .

So we had three trick-or-treaters tonight – that’s it – so we’ll be eating lots of dark chocolate M&M’s ourselves. I bought them with the thought that I’d have to eat many of them myself, actually. Is it better to buy candy you like or candy you think the neighborhood kids will like?

Since our kid is too little to eat candy, we didn’t leave the house. My hope is that she’ll prefer the dark chocolate too, since it’s certainly better! Not that there will be any leftovers .

You’ll need Apple’s QuickTime software to view the video:
indyarrives.mov

I, personally, don’t think Harrison Ford is too old. After all, I saw him in Firewall and thoroughly enjoyed it (or, at least, I didn’t want my money back)! And after watching Bruce Willis in the latest Die Hard movie, I’m sure Harrison Ford can be Indy one more time.

[Disclaimer: a click on most of the links in this post will cause your browser to try to open the iTunes program on your computer in order to access the requested page.]

All of the music is older, in other words from pre-2007, going back to 2004 (and occasionally, 1973, when Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was released). The selection is also not unlimited: I count ninety-two albums for sale — each at a cost of $7.99.

So if you were waiting for something cheaper than Justin Timberlake to come along, now you don’t have to wait – you can get the real thing!

Here’s what the iTunes store has to say about their sale:

As the iTunes catalog expands daily, we’re faced with a massive amount of music that might feel a bit daunting to some. We’ve decided to shuffle some things around and have a sale — and you’re all invited. We handpicked some of the biggest-selling iTunes albums of all time, and dropped the price to $7.99. Enjoy.

I’m not quite sure how discounting their “biggest-selling” albums is going to do anything to make the volume of music in their catalog less daunting, but I certainly ain’t going to complain about the discounts!

[Disclaimer Numero Dos: I in no way want you to support the music of Justin Timberlake. Please do NOT buy his music. Get something like this instead.]

Why am I so happy about this? Well, according to CNET, my TV consumes less power than my neighbors LCD or Plasma television. So while their cable may look better than the two or three channels I get across the broadcast airwaves, I’m saving money, even if you don’t factor in that their TV cost far more than mine did.

If you want to read more about TV power consumption, check out the article,
The basics of TV power at CNET.com.

I’m also curious as to how many people out there also don’t have cable TV. My wife and I don’t have it because of three reasons:
1. Cost (don’t wanna pay for it)
2. Time (have other things to do besides watch the picture tube)
3. We’d rather wait until the DVD comes out so we can skip the commercials

Obviously, number three would be “solved” if we bought a TiVo, but that would then make number one more objectionable.