Seeing Christmas stuff in a couple of stores last week got me thinking about the holidays early. Two tasks sprang to mind:

1. Finally reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol
2. Expanding the holiday music collection I've built up.

Plenty of time for both, since they can be put off for another month.

There are times when I just can't get enough of The Sundays. Wish they'd do something new.

Here's Where the Story Ends:

Goodbye:

Cry:

I'd embed more, but Universal doesn't allow embedding of official videos for some insane reason.

The band's been on hiatus since 1997—the singer and her husnand the guitarist are raising their two kids.

Been watching the new Monty Python doc over on IFC this week: Monty Python: Almost the Truth: The Lawyers Cut. Quite good so far, although spreading it out over six nights (an hour a night) is a little awkward. Found out that it'll be out on DVD soon, but since we're halfway through we'll just keep watching. Need to check and see if there's any bonus stuff on the DVD version. Glad I re-watched all the episodes this summer.

Heard about this event after the fact: A Night of Round Table With Monty Python - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com. The Spanish Inquisition story is killer.

Man, after three weeks of watching 2-3 hrs of television a day, I'm not sure what to do with my free time at night.

Not surprised by the outcome, although I'm pretty sure things would have been a little different with an uninjured Levi Leipheimer there for all the stages and Chris Horner on the tour squad, maybe three Astana riders on the podium.

Looking forward to see who Armstrong's new team ends up signing.

OK, it wasn't really fame, just a concert review from 1994 that Adam and I posted to Echoes, the Pink Floyd mailing list, back in 1994. Adam's reposted it on the Brain Damage site.

The other day I decided to become more of a Yes completist and pick up their first two albums: 1969's Yes and 1970's Time and Word. A little poking around online and I cam up with the following prices:

• Buy and download the mp3 versions: at Amazon each album was $9.99, same price at the iTunes store.
• By the CD used at ebay: each was going for around $5, plus $3 in shipping.
• Buy the darnned things new: Amazon had each of them for $6.97. I wasn't about to try to find both of these pretty obscure titles at Target or Best Buy or Borders.

Who knew buying the physical product and having it shipped would be the cheapest? OK, I did cheat a little and bought a book at Amazon (Michael Palin's Diaries 1969-1979 The Python Years) to qualify for free shipping, but still.

Tackling an important project in June and July: watching every episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. I'm up to episode 40 so far with just a handful left to go. 

What's scary is that I remember about 90% of it, some of which I know I haven't seen in 20 years. Good stuff and just so weird sometimes.