Christmas is over

Well, Christmas is over. I’m tired out and so is Michele. We are still in our PJs and it’s almost noon! The kids are playing with their new toys on the living room floor, recovering from late nights, sugar highs, and excessive excitement. I’m listening to some of the songs I bought with a gift certificate to iTunes. I’ve never bought so many songs before in my life. I’m thrilled with the ability to buy just the songs I like, many of whom have special meaning or move me with their sentiments. Among my purchases are Johnny Cash singing “I Walk the Line” and “Ring of Fire” as well as LeAnn Rimes singing “Unchained Melody” with a voice that gives me goosebumps. Oh yeah, and I’m downloading the rest of the episodes of the tv show “Lost” that I don’t have already.

Keegan is staying at his grandparents’ house for the next few days and will go hunting with his grandpa today for the first time. He is very, very excited about this. Tonight he and his Uncle Bryan and his grandparents are going to see “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”

Tomorrow I go back to work and back to the daily grind.

New iTunes includes video download

I was excited by the news today that a new video iPod is now available from Apple. I can dream of some day being able to own one of them. I still like the one I’ve got (a 4 Gb iPod Mini), but I’d like to have the battery life and storage capacity in the latest version.

Another part of today’s big news from Apple was the release of iTunes 6.0. This is a major update to the software. The main new feature is the ability to download video. In particular, you can download all of this season’s episodes of ABC’s hit drama, Lost, or some other Disney-owned shows, as well as some short movies from Pixar.

I’ve never seen a whole episode of Lost and it is one of the only shows on TV that I think might be worth watching, so I was intrigued by the possibility of downloading the season premier episode for $1.99, with no commercials. (I think that is a great price, btw, for 40+ minutes of video — remember, with no commercials to disrupt it). So I gave it a whirl. I just finished watching it on my PowerBook G4 using the new iTunes and thoroughly enjoyed it even though the resolution wasn’t that great. I hope this whole concept put forth by Apple today succeeds and that there will be more interesting content made available for download for a reasonable price in the near future. So far, I like what I see. Now, I wonder if I can get away with putting that 60 Gb video iPod on my Christmas list…