Christmas was great. I got to see my family and friends and I made out with some neat gifts!

From my brother, Scott, I received The Poems of Emily Dickinson. I couldn't find my copy of Emily Dickinson's poems, so I suggested that Scott wanted to get me something for Christmas, and that something should be a book of Dickinson poems. So we went to Border's, he bought me the book, and then wrapped it and put it under the tree. Imagine my surprise on Christmas morning!

From my mom, I received The Batman Handbook: The Ultimate Training Manual. It's a book that tells you how you would go about being Batman if you wanted to be Batman. Topics include "How to Make a Batsuit," "How to Drive the Batmobile on Two Wheels," "How to Win a Sword Fight," "How to Plant a Homing Device," and "How to Withstand Hypnosis." My mom also got me a bunch of metal puzzles from Target which carry the following disclaimer: "WARNING: This product contains lead, an element known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects and other reproductive harm." In the end, I suppose she valued me being entertained more than me having all my brain cells. Once I become stupid from handling the lead puzzles, they will be the only things that can entertain me. She also got me a Simpsons beer stein, which is great, because I don't own a beer stein (unless you count the one my dad got me from Lausanne, Switzerland, which I don't, because it's purely a decorative stein).

From my dad, I got a pair of black Converse Chuck Taylors. Awesome!

Matt found me some stroopwafels at Jungle Jim's. They will be gone in about eighteen seconds.

Elizabeth was originally going to buy the novel Everything Is Illuminated for herself, but decided she could have her cake and eat it, too if she passed it off as a gift to me and then "borrowed" it to read once I was done. She's so diabolical!

In other news

Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing posts a link to a hilarious parody courtesy of Groklaw, the technology law website. It's a parody of DRM-crippled CD license agreements that postulates, "What would a similar license agreement for a pizza look like?" The parody is called "ColdPizza" after the band ColdPlay, whose new CD includes such ridiculous license agreements as not being able to copy any tracks to your computer, not being able to play the CD on Macintosh computers, and not being able to play the CD in CD players that support CD burning, all in the name of anti-piracy, so that you can "enjoy high quality music."

Do you see why I want to be an intellectual property lawyer? Someone has to stop this crap.

Also, Doctorow has recently left his job as European Affairs Coordinator at the Electronic Frontier Foundation to take up writing full-time. In the post in which he gives this information, he also talks about why the EFF is important and why it is difficult to make people care about esoteric technology issues that may not immediately impact their lives.

In First Amendment news, Microsoft continues to help the Chinese censor Internet content. Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo all voluntarily censor content for their Chinese websites. Last September, Yahoo even helped the Chinese government track down dissident journalist Shi Tao by linking his Yahoo email account to a message sent by him which contained the text of an internal Communist Party memorandum. Shi Tao was sentenced to ten years in prison as a result of the evidence provided by Yahoo. Remember when we said that the Internet would be the force that eroded Chinese censorship? Well, the profits of business are a much greater force, and Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google would be more than happy to help the Chinese oppress their people in exchange for the opportunity to continue to do business in what is probably the most repressive industrialized country in the world.

In Supreme Court news, Judge Samuel Alito's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings begin Monday. In case you've been living in a cave in Pakistan for the last several months (Osama, this means you!), Alito is President Bush's pick to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. While O'Connor was a moderate, Alito is a staunch conservative. MoveOn.org, the America-hating, baby-killing organization funded by the Communist Nazi terrorist George Soros (who is also the person really behind Cindy Sheehan's summer hippie pro-terrorist love-in at the Crawford ranch), began airing anti-Alito ads yesterday.