Bits

Some random thoughts:

• The baby, who, in keeping true with my wife's desire for a Celtic name for our child, I've affectionately named "Gubnat," has proven to have excellent taste in music, as she began excitedly jumping around in the belly as soon as she heard both the Radiohead and U2 live concerts I watched on the telly.

• The house, for the first time, knows the smell of a real live Christmas tree. After refusing to abide the abomination of a fake tree for a second year in a row, the missus and I took a drive to the Valley (of all places!) and picked ourselves up a fine specimen of pine. The smell of a real time puts me in the season as surely as if there were frost on the window panes and snow mounting on the sill.

• I've noticed that, while there are a number of tomes for women on what to expect from pregnancy and parenthood, I've had to suffice with my friend Dave laughing maniacally and blasting Queen's "Waiting for the Hammer to Fall" when I ask him what I'm in for. (Well, the laughing maniacally is true, but if you know Dave, you know he wouldn't know Queen if Freddie Mercury bit him on the ass).

• Meanwhile, as the aforementioned Dave has pointed out, the MIAMI VICE trailer is live, complete with the obligatory Driving-at-Night-with-Cool-Music scene, and all is right with the world.