The first test case of the MPAA’s desire to keep you from watching content that you have legally purchased has ended, and the MPAA lost. Who knows if the precedent will be meaningful here in the Secure Homeland, where that sort of activity is tantamount to terrorism, but it’s pleasing to know there’s some justice somewhere.

Do you like surplus sales? Sure, we all do! I don’t really like ones that are scheduled only when I’m working, though.

As suspected, the Friendly Persuasion radio show is gone. Take a look at host Otis F. Odder’s web page for his new projects, including a song-a-day project with songs you may have heard on his show.

One-minute audio vacations you can take from your desk. Man, that sounds good right now.

This guy seems to have the kind of job I would have if I had gone a different direction in life. He also likes foreign groceries, though he may like the packaging exclusively, while I enjoy the contents, too.

In more best-of news, Yahoo UK has issued its Web picks of 2002. I haven’t gone over the entire list, but it looks really good. The inclusion of Rather Good (home of those those kittens and other bizarre stuff. Requires Flash, but (and keep in mind who’s telling you this) it’s well worth it. Also requires significant bandwidth and/or patience) bodes great good for the list as a whole.

“Scientists” (which actually seems to mean “a life coach”) have figured out a simple equation to answer that ages-old question: How happy am I? I got a 61. I kind of thought I was happier than that.

From today’s book of the day, Frightening the Horses: Gay Icons of the Cinema by Eric Braun:

“Oscar Wilde’s association with mainstream cinema dates back to 1923, when the most flamboyant of all Hollywood’s silent female stars, Alla Nazimova, directed, under the name of her husband, Charles Bryant, an all gay/lesbian verson of Salome. It seems that not only were all the cast homosexual, but also the crew. It was the first production after Nazimova left Metro, the studio at which all her films since 1916 had been made.”

The costumes were designed by Nazimova’s lover, Natasha Rambova- Rudolph Valentino’s wife!

Check it out: Rhino Handmade sells boutique CDs- short runs of that stuff you’ve been looking for forever, including Dan Hicks’ It Happened One Bite!

Scroll about 2/3rds of the way down this story on American values, and click to enlarge the map of colored blobs- it’s a map of where different countries fall on axes of traditional versus secular-rational values and survival versus self-expression values. It’s a fascinating way to group ways of thinking, based on a particular way of looking at the development of nations.