Greetings. As the weekend winds down and the annual crapfest known as the Grammys prepares to unfurl itself, thought I'd check in. I just watched the NHL All-Star Game, making me one of the hundreds nationwide who did so, but dammit, it was a good game. The East beat the West 6-4, and they actually played some defense.

Yesterday, Deb and I went to see "Miracle," the retelling of the US Olympic hockey team's gold medal run in 1980 and damn if it wasn't a really good movie. It had the potential to be really hokey and patriotic, but Kurt Russell did a fine job as Herb Brooks and the actors who played the hockey team were actually hockey players, so they didn't have to do embarrassing cutaways all the time like so many other movies. The guy who played Jim Craig is an actor who's been on shows like Friends and I heard they used a double for his game scenes, which makes sense since Craig was such a huge reason for the team's success. But even though everybody knew how it ended, "Miracle" succeeded in showing how a determined loner of a coach turned a bunch of ragtag college players into giantkillers. We got our tickets a few hours ahead of time and came back 15 minutes before showtime, and there were so many people there we had to sit right in the front of the theater. It was worth it.

So I ended up successfully setting up my iPod on my work computer. I downloaded a software program called Ephpod and was able to start loading songs on the iPod; apparently the version of Windows 2000 I have at work doesn't have the proper software pack (whatever that is) to support iTunes. I might be able to get it from our IT doods, so I'll have to check with them. But for now, I've got close to 5 of the 10 gigs filled because I had previously backed up a lot of MP3s on CD. Now I'll pick and choose certain CDs to rip. I've been playing the iPod on shuffle and getting quite a good mix of stuff, including every so often the musical stylings of Bea Arthur's Revenge, featuring yours truly on lead "vocals."

Okey dokie, I'm outta here.