Was greeted at work yesterday morning by the fastest animal on Earth -- a peregrine falcon. She brought along a pigeon for breakfast as she perched just outside the office where I was working, twenty-seven floors up in the center of town. She sat there for about forty-five minutes, reducing the pigeon to a pair of wings and a rib cage, which she courteously left for us on the ledge. Better than dropping it on some passerby's head, I guess.

I got a new phone with a camera on it from Santa, but it went kaput two days later. So the above photo was from someone else in the office. Seems everyone has a camera phone these days. We saw Modest Mouse last night, and the little LED displays were a constant distraction (not that I wouldn't have taken a photo if my phone had been working). Really good show, and as a bonus treat for Marjorie (an old Smiths fan), Johnny Marr is now a member.

The year in music. Not at all a banner year for me. I can only think of four new albums that I got at all familiar with:

Augie March, "Moo, You Bloody Choir". Strummy pop. Local boys done good.

Ron Sexsmith, whatever his new one was called. Forgettable.

Jet, "Shine On". More local boys, but you wouldn't know it because they never play here. A solid effort.

Phoenix, "It's Never Been Like That". (Marjorie scored a copy by flirting with the guy at her coffee place.) Probably would have topped my list no matter what else I listened to. Bright guitar pop from a bunch of French dudes (in English though). Rare in that it stands up to both the close listen required of serious song-based pop, and also as just background atmospherics. Mark says check it out.

Tomorrow we're off to see Modest Mouse. Woop!

Reasons why Christmas in Australia is a pale imitation:

Hardly anyone puts out Christmas lights. It's light until almost 9 pm this time of year anyway.

There's no Thanksgiving, so there's no day-after-Thanksgiving shopping madness day to set the tone.

No cold weather. Although Christmas started in the middle east, the northern hemisphere totally pwns it now. So much so that they spray fake snow on Christmas displays. (Today's forecast though: "Mostly cloudy with showers. Local hail and thunder. Fresh to strong and gusty southwest to southerly wind. High of 16C -- about 60F.")

A Christmas Story only shows on pay per view.

USA: A Charlie Brown Christmas. Melbourne: Illicit wombat/platypus love.

Christmas in the best of years has a melancholy feel to it, for me; particularly so this year. Missing family very much. The turkey's in the oven, though, and will be ready in an hour.

Update: I think we'll probably remember this as the Christmas that we went jogging and got hailed on! It seemed like hail at one point, at least.