I'm back, feeling marginally better from surgery, still can't wear glasses, and the doctor says I'd have less nose bleeds if I just keep my finger outta there.

I didn't know Salon.com was for sale, did you? Are we going to have any future here on OpenSalon? Hmmmm.....anyone want to invest?

Has WikiLeaks gone to far? As one official put it "I wouldn't want to complain about my mother in-law to my wife, only to have my wife tell her mom about it. I may not like her a whole lot, but it's not worth ruining a relationship over."

Are articles about "surviving your job x-mas party with career intact" really necessary? Maybe if Americans learned that they could have a glass of wine without having to binge drink we could actually save face every once in a while. Nobody wants to see your photocopied butt, sober or not.

Willie Nelson was arrested for pot possession. In equally surprising news humans need air and water in order to survive.

 I don't know about reading this on my own, but I really can't wait for Tom Waits to do readings from his new poetry book.

Electrician? Plumber? Tradesman? If you have a client who's a promising artisit, it may pay to allow him/her to pay you in works periodically: This electrician may be sitting on a gold mine of Picasso works.

 It's the holidays which means ELF YOURSELF IS BACK, PEOPLE!

My favorite is Jabba the Hut Mouse, but the Bobba Fett Mouse is pretty sweet, too. There's even a Punisher Mouse, if for some ungodly reason Star Wars isn't your thing.

I made it into PopCandy's Pop Five for the 6th time with Product Placement Songs the Products want Nothing to do with.

IN AUSTIN:

Texas is unabashedly hardcore pro-Christmas (no Happy "Holidays" here) and no that December is right around the corner, X-Mas events are in full swing.

 Locals will be remissed to hear that the Trail of Lights isn't happening this year. There will be the Zilker Tree Lighting Ceremony on Sunday December 5th, but the Trail of Lights proved to costly for the city to continue in such a tight budgeted year. Of course, they've never charged admission for the Trail, so maybe that was part of the problem.

The Alamo Drafthouse is doing a Holiday themed Cartoon Cereal Party. Wear your jammies and giggle along to such classics as Ren & Stimpy and She-Ra as well as many others for 2 and 1/2 funtastic hours!

 There's also the Alamo's usual Christmas Story Feast. Enjoy a multicourse dinner and a movie before TBS plays it for 24 hours staight. If you're not into that they'll also be showing Jingle All the Way in HeckleVision.

And while there's a million and one family oriented things happening in our sweet lil' city you can check the municipal sites for that info - The HighBall mean while is getting its geek on with Start Trekkin' on Dec. 5. personally I'm looking forward to the Kirk lookalike contest!