OK I had pretty much given up on the Zune, but the latest devices actually look nice (the small form factor ones), and now with the subscription service PLUS the keep 10 songs forever each month offer, I am compelled to try.

Trying to get it to work on my XP machine tho was an abject failure. The software download went fine, but there is some DRM problem, I can’t download any tracks. Did a clean install of Zune, deleted all my DRM directories, ran the resetDRM tool that Microsoft provides – dead dead dead. Filed a service request with Microsoft 36 hours ago, no response. The forums are no help. Stunningly painful experience. Tells me that the Zune team doesn’t really test on old crufty XP installs.

I don’t have another machine sitting around, so I decided to go for degree of difficulty points and installed VMWare Fusion on my Macbook Pro, installed Vista, and installed Zune. OK I can at least download tracks now (after massive futzing with file directory permissions on the Mac side, in the Fusion app, and in the Windows install). Plugging in the Zune, USB connectivity wasn’t flawless but good enough, if it doesn’t work for you, just keep attaching the device and eventually all will be well.

So now downloading the top 50 albums of 2008 per the Rolling Stone, as well as the albums listed in the WSJ this weekend. This is what I like about the Zune, the ability to try out music for basically free. That said, the install troubles on XP (and the many forum postings indicating that this is a common problem) is going to kill acceptance of the device.

“Slumdog Millionaire”:imdb, “Milk”:imdb, “Gran Torino”:imdb – all fabulous in their own ways. Slumdog for some scenes into a country and culture and lives that are unforgettable; Milk for a view into our history that is moving and inspiring, and for great acting; Gran Torino for great acting in a touching and surprisingly humorous story.

We always buy some board games for the Christmas period and play them in the evening. Started the practice years ago with Settlers of Catan which remains the gold standard.  This year we tried:

• [Hanging Gardens, The

  BoardGameGeek](http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/34707). OK it seems like this could be a fun game and we started to enjoy it, but the game exploded into a major argument about the rules. The rulebook is not the strongest.

• Tzaar – fun and quick, but only two player. It is part of some series of games called Project GIPF that interrelate in some fashion, need to learn more about
• Wasabi! – some liked, some did not. The winner liked, shockingly. I thought it was fun tho I pissed everyone off by playing the Wasabi! card late in the which really put the brakes on the action.  Late in the game, gameplay really slows down as the board gets cluttered which is a problem.

Settlers is still the best but these were all entertaining

Marginal Revolution: GM fact of the day. Wow. Market cap 1/3 of bed bath and beyond. Worth 10% of apple’s cash. 96K employees but paying benefits for 1M people. Some of the numbers are a little misleading but still.

You disappoint me, America: $10,000 worth of iPhone farting apps sold (so far). We are off investing in high concept, deep science startups that have to do all kinds of heavy lifting to close sales. Sometimes I think we try too hard.

Mostly because it is not available yet:

• MAKE: Blog: 4 floor advanced engineering demolition toy set. This appears to be sold out, site is hammered. Way cool
• Kindle 2. Love my existing Kindle, still.
• Addonics NAS adapter. World’s smallest NAS. Probably has perf and reliability to match, but still cool.
• Sony VAIO CP1 picture frame – feature packed but hardly available and expensive.

* “Ender in Exile”:amazon by Orson Scott Card. It has been probably 20 years since I read Ender’s Game, and this new book does not stand alone. And so at first I was frustrated. But the characters remain appealing and the story deals with meaty post-war issues that are relevant to our times. * “The Reluctant Communist”:amazon by Charles Robert Jenkins with Jim Frederick. True story of a deserter who spent 40 years in North Korea. The insane self-imposed rigors of everyday life in North Korea are stunning.

• Songbird: Killer Add-ons Make Songbird So Much Better. pretty nice, love the plugin feature, seems to leverage mozilla work here
• Textflow -- eh, failed totally on first doc import
• Google Sketchup – don’t have much current use for but maybe for halloween planning…
• Aerosnap -- eh, just seems to die immediately

nanoHUB - Simulation, Education, and Community for Nanotechnology. - hub for nano educational materials and software. interested in learning more about nano TCAD, pointed to by this article

EA to release games on Valve’s Steam completely free of DRM. - Steam is increasingly impressive. shocked msft hasn’t purchased.

OK it was all cute and everything the first day and we got some nice pictures. But now I’ve had enough. A frozen pipe. A tree that failed under the weight of all the snow. An epic driving trip to the airport last night. Time to move on.

Oh and huge thanks to all those who didn’t take snow days and kept on keeping the world running. Our paper arrived every day. The mailman was always here. Our lights, heat, water, phone, TV, internet service all worked like champs. The roads were plowed. UPS showed up. Grocery always open. Starbucks usually open. And many many more – hats off to everyone.

“What Was Lost”:amazon by Catherine O’Flynn. One part Harriet the Spy, one part ghost story, one part 30-something angst. Kept my attention. The child character is appealing.

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