Isolation Thought

For some reason, I have an overwhelming rush of Christmas spirit today. I am compiling some holiday CDs and I must say if you are going to buy any Christmas music this year, it's probably gotta be Chris Isaak. His version of "Mele Kalikimaka" is a killer, as it really shows off his vocal range. And the Barenaked Ladies have a pretty good disc out, as well.

I started to compile my Christmas list and realized there are a lot of good books out there this year. I've pretty much given up on CDs, as I download most of my choices anyway. But I'm still working on it, as I have some DVDs and the usual stuff.

So I did some live holiday shopping (I can't believe it either) by visiting the friendly folks at Borders and dropping a bundle. And with the sale at Deep Discount DVD, I'm getting a head start on the online stuff.

Meal of Links

Judging appears to be getting tougher and tougher. Skating, gymnastics and now the National Book Awards all seem to suffer from increasingly strange decisions.

Everything you wanted to know about the samples on the Beastie Boys' "Paul's Boutique". They were successful defendants against a sample (for which they had paid) lawsuit recently. Although the Sugar Hill Gang is now filing one.

Once again, they found the Missing Link. Well, not really THE Missing Link, but kind of like his brother-in-law.

Exercise Yard

Things got pretty ugly at that Pistons-Pacers brawl last night. There appeared to be not enough security personnel at the Palace. Because these players and fans were really throwing down. The funniest part was when these two jamokes wander onto the court and Ron Artest, then Jermaine O'Neal, blast these guys with some big time blows. Apparently they forgot NBA players are big men. Looks like Artest may get some time off to promote that CD anyhow. And the Pacers probably become even more of a tight-knit team. Tough for the league, too, on a day when Dwyane Wade is fast becoming a superstar in the league by hitting a last-second game winner. The good thing is we can now stop talking about T.O.

Quick note: At least Michigan coach Lloyd Carr responded cordially to halftime questioning this year at the OSU game.

Visitor

58 Across: "All right, everybody line up alphabetically according to your height" speaker (7 letters) Answer: Stengel