Whew! Christmas has come and gone, and I'm pleased by the reaction to the gifts I gave and happy with the loot I received. The "biggest" gift I was given was a Sirius satellite radio. Named after the dog star (the brightest star in the sky), this system is pretty cool. There are tons of stations and few interruptions. And as you probably have heard, it will become the home of Howard Stern soon, where his already vulgar show can reach greater heights of depravity once outside the dominion of the FCC. You can't really blame him too much though, as Sirius is paying him roughly the GDP of a small nation over five years for him to leave traditional radio. But besides checking out the trainwreck that show is sure to be, I will have a much needed source of new music. I've never liked FM pop radio - the same five songs are played over and over (and that's if you count tracks by 50 cent as "songs") and commercials take up half the air time. Add to that a DJ who is trying waaaayyyy too hard to be cool and it's a sure way to give me a headache. But Sirius will hopefully open my ears to new music, allowing me to then purchase it on iTunes for my beloved, but sick iPod (but that story will wait until next time)...