IT'S A CHRISTMAS (ALE) MIRACLE!

So some people I know from college had a party on Saturday and on the way over my friend Jeff and I stopped off to pick up some beer. I'm poking around the microbrew section and noticed something odd. Something I hadn't seen in, oh, about eight months. Anchor Christmas Ale. On sale in Indiana. In August. But then I looked closer. No this was not 2004 Christmas Ale. This was 2003 Christmas Ale! (The recipe changes every year.) Needless to say, I was excited. I dusted off the two six-packs on the shelf and Jeff and I each went home with a little bit of holiday cheer. Er... beer.

The funny thing is, there are places in San Francisco that keep stashes of the Christmas beer so patrons can order up the vintage of their choice -- for a fee. I would have never thought that, if you wanted to save a few bucks, you should just head down to Payless Liquors on the South side.

CHI-TOWN!

HIGHLAND PARK, IL -- I'm up in Chicagoland for the weekend visiting my parents. On the way up there were two major traffic jams caused by stalled out cars in the middle of the interstate. I was willing to let the first one go... it was one guy by himself... maybe he couldn't push his car onto the shoulder. But the second car had FOUR RATHER LARGE MEN IT. But rather than push the car to the shoulder, they stopped traffic for miles as they tried to start the engine again. C'MON!

WALT WHO? My friend Jon Fortt back at The Merc has launched a Podcast of the paper's tech coverage. The week-old broadcast has vaulted to the iTunes Top 25 most subscribed Podcasts - beating out the Wall Street Journal's Tech News Briefing. Oh, SNAP!

(P.S. ... How do you link to a Podcast on iTunes? The iTMS Link Maker doesn't do the trick...)

WORLDS COLLIDE

T-Ball and I took a field trip to Greencastle the other day to get a GCB before he heads back to California. It's weird because I never found it odd if DePauw people were in California... but this just seemed surreal.

CHECKMATE: So I got my first wedding invitation for 2006 yesterday. Over the past few years I've come back to Indiana almost every summer to attend weddings, so this time I have the upper-hand as I'm already living here. It makes sense then that ... the wedding is in San Francisco. *sigh*

NOT. SO. SMART.: So public schools in Richmond, Virginia bought a bunch of iBooks for their students. That was four years ago. This week they tried to unload them. Now, if you were going to sell a 4-year-old laptop, how much would you charge? $200? $300? Because the school district went with $50. Chaos ensued. People were hospitalized. I'm not making this up.

In an unrelated note, $350 iBooks are suddenly available on eBay.

MEANWHILE: Businesses in the Detroit area now have another advertising opportunity in the Free Press.

DUDE! I WAS TOTALLY HERE THE WHOLE TIME. WHERE WERE YOU?

Well, it just seemed wrong to let this go on for more than a month. Anyway, let's dive right back in, shall we?

BIG WEEK FOR APTOW FANS: So you should be planning to go see the 40 Year-Old Virgin next weekend. Not only because it stars Steve Carell, but because it was written and directed by Judd Apatow, of the Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared Apatows. The movie also co-stars Seth Rogan - who got a co-producer credit - as one of Carell's co-workers. You may remember Rogan as Ken on Freaks & Geeks or as Ron on Undeclared. You most likely do not remember him as Bob on that one episode of Dawson's Creek. But regardless, the dude is funny.

But more importantly, the complete Undeclared DVD box set comes out tomorrow. If you liked Freaks & Geeks, then I think you'll like Undeclared - it's full of cameos by Freaks & Geeks alums. If you never saw the show, which is likely, then you can actually watch one episode online. Oh, c'mon... like you're doing something better.

Okay then! No more complaining about the lack of updates. Serious criminals indeed...