Dr. I. Hyman Weiland, 1921-2005

For years, I had no idea my boy Jonah had siblings. The only family member he talked about was his father. (OK, he mentioned his mother, but not in the way he did his father.) On December 8, Jonah lost his dad. His memories and tribute to his father are worth a read.

Wired picks the best Firefox hacks

Hopefully, by now, you’ve all seen the light and are using Firefox, the faster, more secure, more fully-featured, all-around better Internet browser.

And if you are (and I certainly hope that you are), you probably know that one of the great joys of Firefox is that you can, relatively painlessly, make it into the browser you want it to be, via easily added plug-ins. (For instance, mine will look up any word in the dictionary if I highlight it and right-click. Handy for maintaining the illusion that I’m a superlative spellur.)

Wired magazine has gone another step in promoting Firefox, and have compiled The Firefox Hacks You Must Have.

Definitely worth a look.

• Yet more Firefox plug-ins.

Pandora for the holidays

One of the most interesting (and useful) sites to come along in 2005 is Pandora. Using the power of the Music Genome Project, the program slices and dices songs into their essential components, and makes surprisingly accurate guesses about what else a user would like, based on what song or artist was entered. You may not think of Hanson‘s music when you’re a Todd Rundgren fan, like Peter is, but it turns out they have a song very similar to some of his work.

What’s especially interesting this time of year is that you can get any sort of holiday music out of Pandora that you’d like. I entered “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” by Harry Connick Jr., and discovered a Louis Armstrong holiday song (“Christmas Night in Harlem”) that I’d never heard of before, and currently have jazzy Christmas music streaming across my work computer.

And if the ads on Pandora didn’t give it away, you can buy any of the songs you hear through iTunes. In other words, Pandora is just a really, really smart (and portable, if you register with the site so you can pull up the stations you create from any Internet connection) record store listening station.

Neat.

The first birthday cake

Every month, the Daily Press sends over a birthday cake on behalf of all of the birthday boys and girls of the month. It’s a ritual that makes a lot more sense at the Daily Press than it does at the Hesperia Star, which is a three-person operation, and thus unlikely to have 12 months worth of birthdays.

This month, though, we’ve got one. Just three years and 18 days to get my first novel published.

The Holiday Music Top 40

As played on my iPod:

1. Joy to the World – The Butties
2. The Christmas Song – The Raveonettes
3. Father Christmas – The Kinks
4. Jingle Bell Rock – Brenda Lee
5. Frosty the Snowman – The Charms
6. Christmas Island – Jimmy Buffett
7. Joy to the World – Moses Kahumoku
8. Jingle Bell Rock – Ozzi Kotani
9. Fight Tonight – The Ramones
10. Christmas Wrapping – Save Ferris
11. Please Come Home for Christmas – Unwritten Law
12. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Mambo – Alvin Stoller
13. Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Dean Martin
14. Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley
15. White Christmas – Elvis Presley
16. I’ll Be Home for Christmas – Elvis Presley
17. Jingle Bells – Jimmy Buffett
18. A Sailor’s Christmas – Jimmy Buffett
19. I’ll Be Home for Christmas – Jimmy Buffett
20. All I Want for Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) – Nat King Cole Trio
21. Winter Wonderland – Peggy Lee
22. White Christmas – Tina Sugandh
23. Navidad – Austin Pendleton & Rene Lavan
24. Frosty the Snowman – The Beach Boys
25. I’ll Be Home for Christmas – The Beach Boys
26. Hey, Santa Claus – The Chesterfield Kings
27. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Chris Isaak
28. Feliz Navidad – Davie Allan
29. Let it Snow!/Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Eddie Dunstedter
30. Silent Night – Elvis Presley
31. Here Comes Santa Claus – Elvis Presley
32. I’ll Be Home for Christmas/Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Jackie Gleason and Jack Marshal
33. Merry Christmas to All of the World – Jean Beovoir
34. Up on the Housetop – Jimmy Buffett
35. Mele Kakalikimaka – Jimmy Buffett
36. Merry Christmas, Alabama – Jimmy Buffett
37. Silver Bells – Led Kaapana
38. We Wish You a Merry Christmas – Leonard Kwan
39. Exotic Night – Martin Denny
40. The Christmas Waltz – Nancy Wilson

I’m reasonably sure almost all of these can be found on iTunes. Merry Christmas, happy Hannukah, joyful Kwanza, happy Festivus!