John Lennon, "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"

I'm about to piss off a roomful of college students studying for exams and trying to do so quietly, but I must be heard!

I was in the mall earlier today when I came across Yet Another Beatles Book That I'll Probably Read (YABBTIPR, for short). It was written by Mark Lewisohn, who is kinda "the guy" when it comes to in-depth, exhaustive "John had ham and eggs for breakfast on March 12, 1967" style of Beatles reportage. Fact is, I've read books like that before, even after reading the ones I consider "definitive" (i.e., Shout! or Bob Spitz's The Beatles:A History) and will continue to do so. I loves me some Beatles.

Christmas is around the corner, of course, and I couldn't be happier to not want a damn thing that is being touted as "the go-to tech gift" or some other such nonsense. Perhaps I'm still bitter about "the computer-killing incident" of 2012, but I honestly don't feel that same urge to get an Xbox or Playstation or PlayBox or XStation that a lot of my peers do. I'm wary of any Steve Jobs-related merchandise (and that includes the recent tell-all by the mother of his first child, which I saw in a bookstore and groaned aloud about the title: The Bite In the Apple. Little obvious, don't ya think?). My tech-savvy friends may brand me a Luddite for thus behaving as if games and toys of an electronic nature mean nothing to me, but it's the truth.

That being said, I suppose if you'd asked me a few years back if I wanted an Xbox or so, I'd have said yes. Truth is, I love technology for sure. I just think that, with a few exceptions, I could probably be good without it. Or at least the sort of super-smart-phones that I see everyone using at social gatherings to let people know that they are at said social gatherings, while ignoring other people who are also using their phones at social gatherings to let their friends know....I just went cross-eyed.

Happiness does not lie in a tablet, or an iPad Mini. They're nice things to have, I'm sure, but I just can't get my enthusiasm up for anything like that. I spent close to four hundred dollars on a new laptop, and I rarely use that (granted, I don't have Word installed on it yet, but anyway). Give me a good hard-copy book (none of your Kindle nonsense!) and some good tunes on a CD, and I'm set.

So if anyone is thinking of getting me anything for Christmas (I mean family, for sure), don't get me anything that requires an MIT degree to set up and program. Better yet, use the money that you were possibly gonna use for me and donate it to a worthy cause. Maybe help pay for iPads for kindergartners, for instance. Or world peace. You know, whatever works...