Google Zeitgeist, 2004: The good news is that the word zeitgeist has now entered the vernacular of Google users. The bad news is that, thanks to Google Zeitgeist, we now know that number one “intellectual, moral, and cultural” issue of concern to Google users is, well, as it was in 2003, “Britney Spears.” (via /.)

Speaking of winter wonderlands: I just shot the photo on the left (click for larger version) out my office window and then converted it to black & white in iPhoto. The tower at the left is on West End Junior High (Middle School?) and the view is westward so that the trees beyond the tower are in the Whitland neighborhood. Today’s snow is not the most beautiful kind we get here in Nashville (a little too cold today for that wet sticky kind), but the shaft of light through the gray ski, glistening on the icy trees, reminds me that I have some elf-related errands to run.

Roasting on an open fire: I know one shouldn’t have such thoughts on Christmas eve-eve (as it’s known at my house), but Gerry House,
an employee of Clear Channel who I am addicted to listening to at least
a few moments each morning, cracked a joke the other morning that set this image of “tiny tots with their eyes all aglow”
in my mind — and unfortunately I can’t shake it. I thought blogging it
could help me purge it, you know, by passing it on to others. It is
sort of like (again due to Gerry House) when I hear the song
“Winter Wonderland,” the lyric I think of is, “Walking ’round in
women’s underwear.” Oh well. Merry Christmas eve-eve.

Brrr: If you’ve been dreaming
of a White Christmas, you may also want to include in that dream some
snow plows for your hometown. While Nashville only received a dusting
of snow in the blizzard that’s going to give some elves fits the next
24 hours, the streets are sheets of ice and the sledders in my house
have declared conditions perfect. As for me, I’m old hat with this
stuff: When I was growing up in south Alabama, I would walk to school
(12 miles each way, both ways up hill) in the snow everyday. (Actually,
I did not see snow until I was 18 years old.)

My wife suggests I celebrate a snow day and roast my PowerBook on an open fire.