I bought the brand-spanking-new iLife ‘04 today, including, most importantly, the new and improved iPhoto 4.

The big advantage of iPhoto 4 is supposed to be that it’s much faster than the old version. So far, that definitely appears true. As much as I loved its functionality, iPhoto 2 had a habit of stalling on even the simplest tasks in even a mildly large photo library. But iPhoto 4, after taking a little longer to import and start up, moves at pretty much lightning speed as you’re scrolling, browsing, moving photos around, etc.

That’s just a preliminary assessment, however. Now I’m really going to put it to the test. I had previously split my photo collection into four libraries (using an application called iPhoto Buddy), but now I’m combining them all into one mega-library (which is how iPhoto is actually supposed to be used). Apple’s website says: “Got 250 images in your iPhoto library? 2,500 images? 25,000? Regardless of the number of digital photos you’ve collected, iPhoto blazes.” Well, I’ll have nearly 34,000 images by the time my PowerBook finishes importing everything into the library, which will happen overnight. So in the morning we’ll see how fast the new iPhoto really is. :)

All four of Friday’s CCC South girls basketball games — including the big showdown between Newington and Bristol Eastern — have been postponed to Saturday after the extreme cold weather cancelled school, and thus afterschool sports as well, on Friday.

A look at the current standings in the CCC South will help explain why I’m calling this mid-season game a “big showdown”:

Newington 4-1
Bristol Eastern 4-1
Bulkeley 4-1
Southington 3-2
New Britain 3-2
Bristol Central 2-3
Platt 0-5
Maloney 0-5

I personally think Bulkeley will fall back as the season goes on. So this game really could be critical. (On a side note, watch for New Britain to creep up, too.)

I realize most of my readers probably don’t care about this crap, except maybe my mom and dad… but dammit, this is the first good NHS girls basketball season since I graduated, and as a former manager of the team, I’m excited, even if nobody else is (and even if the entire team, including all the coaches, bears no resemblance whatsoever to the late-90s teams :).

Lunch break’s almost over, but first, one last post…

The Iowa Caucuses are getting very interesting. It seems to be a tight, unpredictable four-way race among Dean, Kerry, Gephardt and Edwards. The vote is on Monday.

Anyway, knowing full well that these will probably be utterly wrong, I hereby offer my predictions on when the various Democratic candidates will drop out of the race. Major dates to keep in mind: Jan. 19, Iowa; Jan. 27, New Hampshire; Feb. 3, Arizona, South Carolina, and six other states; March 2, Super Tuesday (including Connecticut, New York and California).

Jan. 28: Kucinich
Jan. 30: Gephardt
Feb. 4: Lieberman
Feb. 5: Kerry
Mar. 3: Either Edwards or Clark (endorsing the other and making some sort of back-room deal…VP, anyone?), or both (if Dean’s lead is too commanding at this point and it’s time to “unite the party”)

Sharpton doesn’t drop out… he takes his delegates (all three of them or whatever) to the convention, Jerry Brown-style.

If any members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences happen to be reading my blog :), y’all should get off your damn computers and run to your nearest FedEx location and mail in your Oscar ballots now!! (You should vote for Return of the King in every category, of course.) The ballots are due tomorrow at 5:00 PM!

The Oscar nominations will be announced a week from Tuesday at 6:30 AM Mountain time. (That’s Jan. 27, the same day as the New Hampshire primary, if you’re keeping score at home. Perhaps Wesley Clark will be nominated as best actor for his “anti-war” stance?)

The Academy Awards themselves are being held rather early this year — on Leap Day, Feb. 29, at 6:00 PM MST.

Go, Frodo, go!!!

UPDATE: In an odd coincidence, the Wesley Clark post from Roger Simon’s blog, which I linked to in a tangent above, is immediately preceded by a post about the fact that Simon himself just mailed in his Oscar ballot. I had not seen this previously. My decision to link to Simon’s Clark excerpt in a post about the Oscars was made without my having any clue that Simon was an Academy member, let alone that he had just posted about it!

He won’t tell us who he voted for, but it doesn’t sound like it was ROTK: “It doesn’t matter anyway, because I rarely vote for the winners.”

I’m heading down to Duck and Decanter (which is a restaurant, not a law firm :) to pick up my lunch… which I ordered online a half-hour ago!!! How cool is that?

By the way, the title of this post refers to a song from an episode of the old Disney show “Adventures in Wonderland.” Talk about obscure references. (Hi Dad. :)