Travel: LAZY DAYS ; Phil Derbyshire Heads for Barbados to Explore Every Corner of This Caribbean Gem ... But Soon Discovers Doing Nothing is Much More Fun
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THERE are plenty of educational holidays to choose from these days that teach you to cook, paint, play golf or even to fly. But to learn the art of relaxation, you really can't beat Barbados.   I'm not normally a fan of "relaxing" holidays.
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(InfoWorld) - Strange but true, some people -- certified techies among them -- prefer to turn it all off when theyâre on holiday. [See also: Great escapes for geeks | Top 10 vacations] Stanton W. Schmidt writes, âI really do want to leave it all behind when I go on vacation. With that in mind I would recommend the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. There, you cannot get a signal for your cell phone, no matter which provider you have. You don't drive in, you paddle in (no boat motors allowed either). And they don't even allow you to carry in cans or bottles. And no matter where you go, you are likely not to see another human being for most of your trip.â âI purposefully select vacation choices where it's extremely difficult to geek out every day,â replied Ed Kummel. âMy last vacation was in Durango, Colo. Sure, there are coffeehouses in town that have Internet access, but the bike ride down and back up the mountain is not worth it! I learned to make do with my BlackBerry for that week!â For those who would brave the mountain for some quality Internet time, hereâs your real cold turkey, from Gregg Cooke: âThe banks of West Virginia's Greenbrier River, most of which lies inside the National Radio Quiet Zone, so named because it is a 13,000-square-mile âholeâ in the eastern part of the state centered over the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Even the slightest radio transmissions are hunted down by a team of radio detectives and silenced â¦ they even find malfunctioning microwaves and mistuned automobiles. (Your tax dollars go toward this, you know.) The result is blissful radio silence for the gi-normous radio dishes the NRAO operates to scan the skies and look deep into celestial radio sources. You'll get no cell or wireless signal here, guaranteed!â
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A planned 2002 US tour by Jay-Z and R Kelly  is to be revived. Plus news in brief on Phil Spector and Rodney Dangerfield.
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Tycho:  We grabbed a couple demos yesterday afternoon to see if we were missing anything, specifically Tenchu Z and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and came away with the expected comic materials.  I think Tenchu Z may get explored in a more robust fashion in Monday's strip, but after the loading is complete the demo flashes up one of those screens that is completely grown over with control instructions.  It wasn't even an especially bad one, and there are very, very bad ones, like the one in the demo for StarFire Saga V: Laserion.  It was merely an assault on the mind, paralyzing in its way.
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By PETERBOROUGH  AT THIS time of year when all seems doom and gloom, I reminisce about happier times when, as a child growing up, one could find happiness on a beach in Cornwall.   There is a beach at Marazion where my father would take me crabbing as a boy.
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OK, shredders, dudes, dudettes, rugrats, whippersnappers, all of you out of the room. Go find something else to do today. Clean your room or something. This one's for your parents, or even grandparents.
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By NO BYLINE  Some of our favourite things on the world wide web at the moment...   WHEN KILLER PLANTS RULED BRITAINwww.youtube.com/watch?vPART two in an occasional "when they made proper scary telly" nostalgia series: Day of the Triffids.
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Inspiring drives. Cutthroat competition. Transatlantic tension. And it's O.K. to talk about a handicap with a one-armed golfer
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In today's installment, Coach Bill starts with a minimonologue. "OK, how's it going today?" he begins. "Good? Got the holidays over, ready for the new year. Got the game on every network. It will be like the State of the Union address - you can flip to every channel to see it."
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Travel: Our online guide, full of holiday ideas for every type of couple. First up, Rowan Pelling gets us in the mood with her tips on how to get it right
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Top News News, Hyderabad, Buy your favourite booze from any vendor or style your hair at any barber&#39;s, but don&#39;t forget to pick up the free condoms!
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Tycho: Some of you have probably already heard it, since I put it up yesterday - but we're trying new hosting for the podcast, and I wanted to make sure everything made sense before I dropped it on the front page. The podcast is for Wednesday's strip, "The Ungift, Part Two." You can download it here, or subscribe to the feed here. The levels are a little crazy in a couple spots, for which I apologize. I think we've got those ironed out, now. (CW)TB
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A day out at the beach for the shaggy scribes this week... swiftly followed by a visit to the emergency vet! Fawks' blog  We went to the beach on Sunday and had great fun - there is so much water, it's much better than the river.
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Travel: Is the weather raining on your holiday parade? Take your pick of these humorous, curious and downright ludicrous British tourist attractions.
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Stewart Cink and J.J. Henry have dined at some great restaurants on this trip to Barbados, gotten some relaxation time in with their wives, even have enjoyed a few stretches of balmy tropical weather. It's the golf that hasn't been to their liking.
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Still listening to this classic Dead song.  And writing about it on Twitter... It's an MP3 that I ripped from the Mars Hotel album. Which I bought on CD many years ago. I've listened to this track about 1000 times. When I play it it puts a smile on my face. Because Cucamonga is a place with no pride, imho.  It's a joke, kind of like Truckin makes fun of New Orleans, a town that done the Dead wrong, once, a long time ago. Now if it were on vinyl I would have wore it out a long time ago. I'm sure there was a copy of the song on the disk Apple stole from me. There you have it RIAA. You can go after Apple. I'll support you because they stole from both of us. They have no right to listen to PofC. I imagine Steve Jobs and Phil Shindler sitting around smokin a doobie listening to Phil Lesh sing, thinking "Dave has good taste in music." BTW, Cucamonga is a suburb in southern CA. Near Ontario. Probably very non-descript. Might have been interesting 70 years ago. And that's your bedtime story for Saturday, boys and girls. Have a nice day, don't hit your brother (or sister) and be nice to the sitter!
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Tycho:   One of the questions during a a panel at PAX had to do with the italicised line at the end of each day's post.  They're almost always song lyrics, and back before we were paying for bandwidth (and before RIAA rape gangs were prowling the web) these lines used to link directly to the MP3.  I maintained the practice afterward because it's sort of like a song of the day, and I like the idea that someone might be struck by a strange turn of phrase and seek out a piece of music.  It also serves as a gauge of my mental state at the moment.  Today's song, for example, is Stan Rodgers' incredible live version of the sea shanty "Rolling Down To Old Maui," which Pandora kicked out after about a week of tuning the station.  I've listened to it about thirty times today.    The person who asked the question at the con complimented my musical tastes, and I accepted the compliment, but I'm almost always late to the scene.  I just bought Interpol's "Turn On The Bright Lights," for chrissakes.  I'm mostly lucky to know people who do have unique library.  I told him I would mention a few of my favorite bands on the site, but then I forgot.  Essentially, it's music that cool people were listening to a decade ago (where applicable).  I am a musical carrion bird.    He wanted me to list off a few bands, and I said I would last week, but then I forgot.  These are the first ten albums I could think of.    "Starless" by Shiner