The Dude has been busy preparing for the annual ritual of examination so that he can show the powers that be that he’s qualified to hunt highwaymen on Ye Olde Informatik Oxtrail. Continuing education indeed. The upshot of this is that there hasn’t been a lot of joy in Mudville the last few weeks, as normal work related business has dominated the daytime hours, and then the nighttime is split between attempting to be a good father to some wonderful children (of course preparing them for their rightful places as rulers of all in the process) and studying the bits and bytes that make our collective hallucination work. In the next few days, assuming that T-Mobile doesn’t drop the ball, The Dude should have a brand spankin’ new MyTouch phone in his hands, which might bring a smile to his face. Not as much of a smile as if Congress outlawed cell phone exclusivity and he could get a T-Mobile branded iPhone, but a smile nevertheless, as new toys are always fun. 100 Quatloos to the first person to correctly identify the origin (title and artist) of the song lyrics quoted on the title line without looking it up (ie. cheating).