Semi-random thoughts

• The first thing one should do after getting a new laptop nowadays is to take a piece of opaque tape and cover the webcam. (Just about all laptops seem to have them built in now.) If you accidentally turn on the camera at the wrong time, or a hacker gets in, your actions could be viewed and recorded anywhere in the world. Don't trust an indicator light to tell you when it is in operation. If a hacker can get in, I'm sure they can turn off the light almost as easily as they can turn on the camera.
• The cost of my health insurance is going up 15% for the coming year. :(
• Burlesquer Nasty Canasta gave me a CD of Bhangra music, which contains the music she used for her Christmas number. I liked one of the other songs even more, Big Drum Small World by the Dhol Foundation. I started up a Pandora station with it, and it's really great. It's basically just instrumental, kind of Indian New Age.
• Not that I've really done a study of it, but it's my impression that the "anti-incumbent wave" people keep talking about is much more prevalent among Republicans than Democrats--which stands to reason, as the Democrats control the federal government right now. Thus we've seen a number of Tea Party candidates eliminating Republican incumbents in the primaries. But I'm predicting that except in districts where there's a strong Republican majority, the Democrats will beat the Tea Partiers in November, keeping Congress in good hands.