Post-Christmas Takeaway

Here it is, the Monday after Christmas. I'm back at work here in engineering central with one other poor schmuck who's out of vacation days. The upside is that I can listen to my iPod at full volume without the dude in the cube next to me donning gay apparel in protest (in this case, ear protectors designed for military use).

Grant has not recovered as successfully from Christmas as we had hoped. On Christmas day, Erin and I waited until he went to sleep, then we pulled the tree and all offending decorations down, stuffed them back in boxes, dragged them out to the garage and began pretending that Christmas never happened. We figured we had to let Grant know that this was a very special occasion, not soon to be repeated.

Our success was very limited. He immediately began asking to "do the ad caventer" (Grant-speak for "Advent Calendar.") He also informed us on a minute-by-minute basis that he wanted to "do more presents." Oy.

To make matters worse, our house now looks like a Fisher-Price outlet, and I can't walk down the stairs without embedding a small metal car or army man in the most tender portion of my foot. And don't get me started on the trains. I'm about to inform the Israeli air force that the Island of Sodor is housing a large number of Hamas militants.

I, on the other hand, received nothing from the sheds of Sir Topham Hatt for Christmas. I received a new wardrobe of shirts, a six pack of Goose Island ale, a very nice set of earphones for use on my frequent airplane rides, and a GPS to play with in the car.

As we enter 2009, Erin and I are starting a new commitment to trying to live more carefully within a budget. What this really means is Erin is no longer going to turn a blind eye to my unfettered spending. With this in mind, I decided to join eMusic for the coming year's music needs.

This is a sharp change of tone from my past stance on electronically dissiminated music. In the past, I've been a fan of having the whole package -- the CD, the artwork, the little plastic shell that's already cracked. But now, as we stare at the dual realities of being in our house for far longer than we originally intended and the need to not spend more than $10 per album purchased, I've decided that buying my music electronically is not such a bad option.

So I've signed up for a year subscription to eMusic. This will let me acquire the majority of the music I like for a couple of bucks per album, and I'll be able to fill in the albums they don't carry via iTunes or Amazon. I had a short-lived trial subscription to eMusic seven (!) years ago, but I cancelled it because they only had approximately six albums available, and three of them were by Little Richard. These days, they have the entire catalogs of Merge and Matador Records, so I can probably fill my monthly quota with those two labels alone.

Last night, I snagged the following albums for my first post-Christmas tunes (and to play catchup on some stuff I should have already purchased):

Vampire Weekend - s/t
Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns
TV on the Radio - Dear Science
She & Him - Volume One
Arcade Fire - Funeral

In an effort to keep Erin from dreading the next car trip, I've purposefully avoided purchasing (for the time being) any new albums whose reviews include the words "shrill," "feedback," "shards," or "searing." Those can wait until after Valentine's Day.