I was delighted to receive some iTMS gift certificates around the holidays, some as gifts and another as a thank-you for some web tinkering. Here’s what I’ve bought so far:

• Beck: E-Pro, Girl
• Carbon Leaf: Life Less Ordinary (For Tabitha)
• Ceasars: Jerk It Out
• Coldplay: Speed of Sound
• Elliott Smith: Angeles, Twilight
• Franz Ferdinand: Take Me Out
• Gorillaz: Feel Good Inc (Single Edit)
• The Guess Who: American Woman
• Johnny Cash: Folsom Prison Blues (Live)
• The Killers: Hot Fuss (Whole Album)
• Moby: Beautiful, Where You End
• Paul Oakenfold: Ready, Steady, Go
• Pixies: Doolittle (Whole Album)
• Sarah Vowell: The Partly Cloudy Patriot
• Weezer: Beverly Hills
• The White Stripes: Blue Orchid

Has anyone else come across anything good recently?

We celebrated Tabitha’s birthday last Sunday by jumping on a ferry and zipping over to Alcatraz. She had never been and it was my fourth visit. We listened to the intro presentation and then zipped up the steep(ish) road to the cell-house for the self-guided audio tour. We got chilly during the tour so the next stop was the sunny inmate yard, and the short path that winds around the southern side of the island. Then there was a bit of snacking and fending off of some not-so-friendly looking seagulls, then the video that gives you the 15-minute historical summary, and finally a bit more wandering before jumping back on the ferry.

Hooray! Man, I was getting antsy. I was getting the OS-release-date deprivation twitches. I was coasting along just fine until all the April rumors started, implying that the release date could be more than two months earlier than generally expected. But since then every day has been like: Today? Nah. (24 hrs pass.) Today? Nah. Sick, I know. =-) Anyway, check it out. I’ll see you at the Apple Store on the 29th.