We've had our necessary holiday reprieve and are feeling quite rested and well fed. Except for the last 48 hours or so, in which there's been little sleep thanks to a delayed red-eye back to JFK, getting in around 9:30am this morning. Not to mention the husky, huffy, hurried German couple sitting in my row that practically stood on my shoulders as we waited to get off the plane. But let's back up a little...

Got in early Christmas morning, cleaned up some leftovers, hit the sack.

Christmas on a Sunday sucks. You've got church in the morning then the meal in the afternoon then rushing to get presents opened then off to church again to see little bro play the offertory, then over to some friends-of-the-family's place that you've never been to, and there's no one your age around and after one rum and coke you're ready to go home and throw a movie in (Road to Perdition). But the food was pretty good.

Then its Monday. We slept in, hung out with the grandparents for a bit before they went back home, then all took off to check out the lighthouse at Point Reyes (pictured, from the crapcam) - a little north of San Fran. I took my camera all the way home and didn't take it out once. Typical. Ended the day with a long hunt for a good seafood dinner that was finally found, where I first suggested we look, coincidentally.

Tuesday we kicked around for a bit then went to see Munich. Despite some seemingly gratuitous content, you have to respect Spielberg's theatrical talent. Especially considering that the story is basically one person's interpretation of events that we know happened, but have precious little detail on. There's a fascinating Time Magazine article the original event, and if you're up for the long read, there's the more authoritative Israeli Response to the 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre and the Development of Independent Covert Action Teams (thanks much to MeFi). As some have pointed out, the film did seem a bit sympathetic to the Palestinian side of things, but...que sera.

Wednesday the fam went to see Narnia and I ended up sneaking out to catch King Kong. Or King Long. Nice CG effects and whatnot, but there was about an hour of movie in there that could have been left on the editing room floor and it still would have been a great (better?) movie. And Jack Black trying to play a serious character is pretty hard to take. Then we hit Mac Grill for another great night out - lots of wine and food and good times.

I was originally supposed to fly back Weds night / Thurs morn, but being the dolt that I am I decided to go ahead and extend my stay a few days since I completely forgot that Danielle and her cousin were going to be up in the city to see her new nephew and hang out with the Daves. So, yeah, totally missed her. Did some shopping on Thurs and ended up flying back all this morning - flight was delayed til about a 1:20am departure. I watched ESPN as long as I could manage before pounding a couple of the mini Jacks and tried to close my eyes for an hour or so, then spent the last hour or so of the flight desperately wishing it would be over.

Home by midday, and shortly after that Anna and her friend showed up, I dropped them at the PATH, and haven't heard from them since - but they're staying here tonight so I'm waiting around for them to get back, as I forgot to give them keys. Tomorrow they take off then Margy and one of her boys and maybe another friend or something are showing up - crashing here after whatever New Years' event they end up at. Me - I may end up with them, maybe at a party on the UWS, who knows. I'm avoiding the whole $150 club scene this year.

I'm still on CA time tonight and kind of wished I had gone out, but its a little late to get started at this point. Suffice to say, next year, I am getting home in plenty of time to make it to the authoritative New Year's Eve Eve event (as the Hulk). Bummed I missed that.

So there's your big long boring update. Here's some more links to make up for it:

Self-proclaimed top 25 most interesting webcams of 2005. None of these cams have crap on the Otter cam.

Good guide for ripping your CD's to mp3s.

Not sure how completely un-biased and accurate Gwynne Dyer's 2005 Year-Ender is, but its an interesting read.

A belated but still heartfelt Christmas carol from Napoleon and friends.

Find which movie you should sneak into after the one you actually paid for ends.

Missed my chance (again) on getting something submitted for the Paraclete Fiction Award (technically its not deadline yet, but I have nothing even close to that length that could be edited in time). I don't really do fiction but I need to make some attempts to at least round out my rudimentary skills.

I didn't really check this out, the title just struck me as funny - what better state to abandon?

Let's invade Canada. No, seriously.

There's more, but we'll have to save it for later - I need to get back to unpacking and hammering out my thoughts on my latest attempt at something resembling a well- thought-out article.