There have been all sorts of power issues since a windstorm that hit last Thursday, but on Saturday a transformer caught on fire and blacked out the entire city where I live. We had gone out to dinner Saturday night and all was well; coming home, it was like driving into an abyss. No street lights, no traffic signals, no lights in any home. The airport by us also had no power, which was pretty crazy because it always has lights going.

We drove around downtown Hillsboro to see how far the blackout went, but we never really found the end. It was sort of like a crazy science fiction movie where a giant EMP goes off. Power was restored for us at 5:53 the next morning.

I picked up some new CDs on Saturday because I was needing a little bit of new tune-age. I can’t see buying from iTunes anymore because I can’t un-DRM it (haven’t really mucked with myFairTunes, but Stu says he can’t get it to work) and I’m really not satisfied with 128kbps compression.

[**Placebo

• Sleeping With Ghosts*](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008AWOD/mhsvortex): I actually bought the import version of this, and not for the *Sleeping With Ghosts album, but for the bonus second disc the import version comes with containing cover songs Placebo has done. Specifically, I was after their cover of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” which is absolutely stellar. The rest of the bonus disc is good, as is the Sleeping With Ghosts album, but the killer tune for me is “Running Up That Hill.”

Nelly Furtado - Loose: The song “Promiscuous” just would not leave my brain so I had to get this. The rest of the album is pretty good, too, though I feel like the first half is stronger than the second half. The first half feels sort of hip-hoppish, while the second half feels like it takes of on this latin tangent that I’m just not as into. Still, it’s pretty good, and I think it’ll grow on me.

Real Life - Send Me An Angel (The Best of Real Life) - These guys were one-hit-wonders with the song “Send Me An Angel” and I’ve only ever had a worn-out tape with it, so it was time to step up to digital. The rest of the songs on here are pretty lame, but the two versions of “Send Me An Angel” make it worth it (for me).

Most of the rest of the weekend was spent in last-minute scrambling about in preparation for Christmas this coming weekend. The 24 marathon is at my house on Saturday, so the weekend is totally out of commission for anything last-minute. I got a little bit of gaming in on the ol’ Xbox 360, but not much. I think I’ll try to play a little more tonight because I miss my digital buddy.