Uh-oh! The latest update from NORAD’s Santa Tracking System had Jolly Old St. Nick positioned over Colorado.

His stop in Phoenix can’t be far off! I’d better get to bed! :)

Be sure to step outside this evening at sunset and check out the lovely Christmas conjunction of Venus and the crescent Moon. (Google cache here if the link isn’t working.) Dr. Tony Phillips of SpaceWeather.com writes:

Look closely. Can you see a ghostly glow across the whole moon? Leonardo DaVinci first understood this phenomenon some 500 years ago. It is sunlight reflected from Earth onto the moon. Astronomers call it “Earthshine.”

Merry Christmas!

And hey, check out these rare auroras:

Hehe.

“Did you hear the news? An F-16 just shot down Santa’s sleigh.” –Becky’s dad, first words after I picked up the phone.

Heh. He had me there for a second. My thoughts were something along the lines of: “An F-16 shot down… what? Oh.” :)

Meanwhile my Dad and Chris are trading Santa’s-sleigh jokes over on the parental blog. Hehe.

It’s almost midnight on the East Coast. (Still two hours to go here.) Merry Christmas!!!

There is plenty to say about today’s possible foiled terrorist attack — those three cancelled flights from Paris to L.A. — but let me start with the detail that’s most disturbing to me:

U.S. officials and terrorism experts also have identified some potential targets, including at least one small town that would appear an unlikely objective.

The officials said al-Qaida seems particularly interested in Tappahannock, Va., a town of 2,016 people with no military base or major infrastructure. Such an attack would be intended to generate widespread fear that no one was safe, even in small rural towns, they said.

I’ve been fearing this sort of thing ever since Sept. 11. I’ve actually said several times that if Al Qaeda terrorists were smart, they’d fly planes into small towns. Looks like they might finally be getting smart. Uh-oh.

Then there’s the question of whether the cancellation of the flights indicates that we are getting smart. On the surface, it does seem reassuring that our intelligence community apparently foiled ‘em before they could strike. But the public revelation of the flights may have been a mistake:

One U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. government had been trying to keep the negotiations with France confidential, “hoping that we would be able to lure some of these people in.”

The official said there was some frustration within the Department of Homeland Security that the flights were canceled, thus allowing the word to get out about the security concerns.

Interesting. Verrry interesting.

For the latest news, visit The Command Post.

UPDATE: Regarding that whole secrecy issue…

Terrorism expert Walter Purdy, of the Terrorism Research Center in the US, told BBC News the intelligence could have been better used to arrest the suspects at the airport.

He said: “The idea is here we had some credible information about a threat, but unfortunately now these individuals can still carry out this type of attack, though not on Air France or out of Paris.”

Meanwhile, here are articles by the Virginian Pilot and the Free Lance-Star about the Tappahannock (or Rappahannock?) story.

In a matchup between two of the nation’s six remaining one-loss teams (only the Sugar Bowl can match that!), Boise State beat TCU in the Fort Worth Bowl yesterday, 34-31.

The game was a thriller, but it’s a shame the bowl system didn’t allow either of these mid-major powerhouses the opportunity to prove themselves against big-name competition. Same goes for Miami (OH), which crushed Louisville, 49-28 in the GMAC Bowl last week.

If these teams played a second- or third-place team from a major conference, then we could come a little closer to settling the debate over whether they “belong.” But since all the big conferences have bowl “tie-ins” against each other, the mid-majors are left to beat up on each other, the fans are forced to endure games like N.C. State vs. Kansas, and nothing gets settled in the neverending debate.

Just another reason we need some form of playoff. (But heaven forbid we disturb the sacrosanct bowl tradition that gives us such thrilling matchups as tonight’s Oregon State vs. New Mexico Las Vegas Bowl!)

You thought that festive, joyful feeling you’ve been experiencing all day is a result of it being Christmas Eve, didn’t you? Didn’t you?!

Well, you were wrong!! Subliminally, subconsciously, deep down inside, some part of your psyche knew that Kristy LaPlante turns 21 today — and that’s why you’ve been feeling so happy. :)

Me and Kristy in front of the Christmas tree in USC’s Heritage Hall. Kristy is a Christmas Eve baby.

Happy Birthday, Kristy! Now get out there and drink some spiked egg nog… legally!

For months now, I have been seriously considering buying a Mac laptop as my new computer for law school. There are four main reasons for my prospective switch: Macs are great for digital photo and video editing; iBooks and PowerBooks are slim and lightweight and pretty; I love Mac OS X; and I like the idea of having one PC and one Mac — as long as my old Dell is still (barely) functional — so that, at home, I can use whichever operating system suits me best for the task at hand.

Anyway, this project has been on the back burner for a while — specifically, ever since I blew much of my savings over the summer when I was an unemployed college grad. :) However, now that I am employed yet technologically frustrated, I am now on the verge of deciding to take the plunge and buy an iBook, financed by an Apple Instant Loan, as a Christmas present to myself.

The first necessary step that would allow this to happen, has happened. I was just approved for a nine-month “forbearance” on my student loan repayments, which clears up the financial picture such that I should be able to pay off a large majority of the Apple loan before starting law school, if I am disciplined about it. (I would have been paying $179 per month to Sallie Mae. Basically, I just need to pay that same amount to Apple instead.) I still have some more financial calculating to do, but I believe this is feasible.

The reason to buy now, rather than later, is simple. I’m getting to the point with my Dell where I can’t really continue to use it as my primary computer without significantly investing in it. It desperately needs a new hard drive, a new battery (or two), a new keyboard, a new operating system … the list goes on. But if I were to fix all those things, I’d be spending upwards of $500 on a computer that I mean to replace in nine months anyway, once I have student-loan money to pay for its replacement. That’s obviously a waste of money, yet my computer is approaching the point of non-functionality, so further delay doesn’t seem viable. Which raises the obvious question: if there’s a way to replace it now, why not just bite the bullet and do it?

I haven’t reached a final decision about this yet. But I want to decide by Dec. 27 (Saturday), because that’s the expiration date of Apple’s various Christmas offers, including a savings of $200 off an awesome video-editing program that normally costs $300… that’s 67% off!!! Also, I actually already applied for — and was approved for — the Apple Instant Loan, but I am under no obligation unless and until Sunday arrives and I haven’t cancelled it. So, bottom line, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it by Saturday.

Which brings me to the point of this post: I know there are some computer-savvy people on this site, and I want your advice. Is this a good idea? My tentative plan is to buy the bottom-of-the-line, 12-inch iBook (still a rather impressive machine — a G4 with 800 MHz), upgrading to a 60 GB hard drive (from the standard 30 GB), plus Bluetooth and AirPort Extreme (a.k.a. 802.11g wireless). It would have 256 MB of memory. (Believe it or not, my current computer only has 64 MB! I just discovered this today — no wonder it’s so freakin’ annoying sometimes! Add that to the list of things it desperately needs if I’m going to keep using it as my primary computer.)

The total cost of the iBook, including the Final Cut Express deal mentioned above, and also the $249 advanced warranty (which, by the way, I am seriously debating back and forth — more on that later), comes to $1,690.

Of course, I would love to get a pretty, 14-inch iBook with a 1-gigahertz processor, or better yet, a kick-ass PowerBook with a weird-ass monitor size like Dane’s :). But with those machines, you go over $2,000 (well over $2,000 in the latter case) and I’m just not willing to take on that much debt during my “year off” before law school… well, unless someone can convince me that it’s really necessary to do so! But I really don’t think I need that much processing speed. Becky’s 500 MHz iMac is only a hair short of the speed that I consider “fast enough” for just about everything, and my 650 MHz computer’s speed is perfectly acceptable to me (when it’s working!). So I think 800 MHz is more than enough; I don’t see myself needing 933 MHz or 1 GHz. It’s not like I play high-graphics video games or something.

Anyway, this is my debate. Naturally, I have investigated PC laptops as well, and found that, oh yes, I could get a relatively light, slim eMachines computer for $1,100 or so. But Macs are just so much nicer, for all the reasons mentioned above. And if I’m going to spend that much money anyway, I’m inclined to spend a few hundred more and get something of quality that has so many advantages.

So if anyone has any input on any of this, please feel free to chime in.

Also, if anyone with knowledge of the AppleCare Protection Plan wants to give me advice on whether it’s worth the $249, that would be much appreciated, too. Normally, extended warranties on electronics are “automatic” for me — I always buy ‘em because I always need ‘em. But here, we’re talking about $250 for three years. If I don’t get the plan, I believe each tech-support call costs $30 after the first 90 days. So in order to break even, I would need to call tech support eight times the the course of 2 years and 9 months. Nine or more calls (an average of one every 3.67 months), and the plan would be worth it. But given OS X’s reputation as an extremely reliable operating system (combined with my ability to solve most simple, and even halfway-complicated, computer problems on my own, with the help of Google), I have to wonder how likely that is.

Thoughts, anyone?