Holiday Links: Just some stuff to read when you get tired of Aunt Ethel asking why you're not married yet.

• A world famous dirtbag. Almost within firing range of me. Just a little closer and you're spam in a can. SIC SEMPER SPAMMERS!


• The official web site of Joan Jett is just what you'd expect. But scroll down and read the open letter to Rolling Stone magazine, by Maya Price, (note to Joan, you need to provide links to specific posts).

  Jewel and Mandy friggin' Moore have full page features as Rock Icons...Meanwhile Joan Jett gets one line. ONE LINE. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, who have never stopped touring, recently did 10 days in the Middle East playing for the troops stationed in Afghanistan. In AFGHANISTAN, Joan would come onstage wearing a birkha, which she ripped off and stomped on before blazing through the purest and nastiest rock show ANYWHERE.

  Chortle. Whatever you may think of Joan Jett, it's a perfect dismantling of Rolling Stone magazine, which is one of the few things in the world more hurl-worthy than MTV. And that's saying something.


• Nasa has a fascinating site where they post relatively current information on any natural disasters going on in the world, including satellite images. Nifty.


• These young kids have it too easy today. What I would of given for this on-line library - tons of free books, journals and articles, with suggestions for term papers. Why, when I was in school, we had to write term papers with lumps of charcoal, and when you didn't have charcoal you used blood, and when your little brother started to turn white, you went out in the snow in bare feet hunting for possum droppings. And we were grateful.


• Tee-hee-hee. You know what TIVO is, right? The digital TV recorder that can pause live shows and store and untold amount of recordings. Well, it turns out that one feature of TIVO is that it tries to figure out what type of shows you like based on what you've recorded in the past, then it records things it thinks you will like. This guy's TIVO decided he was gay. He fought back by ordering trashy sex farces. Amazon does similar things. Of course, Amazon doesn't differentiate between what you buy for yourself and what you buy as gifts. Thanks to a couple of purchases I made for HRH Miss Anna a couple of years ago, Amazon thinks it's good salesmanship to offer me H.R. Puff'n'Stuff videos.