One of the many cool things Santa left under the tree for me this year was a set of small beer-barrel glasses. My dad has had a small set forever, and I’d always thought these were just antique, promotional shot glasses (these guys are only about three inches deep).

Turns out (or so I’m told — there’s not a lot of web-based information on this) this is throwback to more civilized era when the ice houses of Texas were  not air-conditioned. You’d order you beer and receive the bottle and one of these nifty glasses. To avoid heating up the bottle of beer in the already warm environment you’d handle it as little as possible, pouring small measures into these little glasses.  My little collection now features a Grand Prize, Lone Star and a Falstaff.

Pretty spiffy — If someone has any more information, please leave me a comment or two, I’d be all ears.

It’s all about vertical flight this week, apparently. Ok, when I saw the first Ironman trailer, I thought we were preparing for another Hulk movie or worse yet Fantastic Four. However, subsequent trailers have moved the bad-assed-ness meter from empty to eleven so to speak, and even prompted the Onion to get involved.

Never one to be so lame as to just, you know, show a movie, The Alamo Drafthouse has scheduled a free sneak-preview showing, complete with an apperance from Mr. Jet Pack International.

Before the screening, we’ll be treated to a display of technology that was only in the dreams of sci-fi filmmakers until now. Mr. Jet Pack International will take off from the Alamo South Lamar parking lot, fly above the crowd and return to earth to shake hands, hold babies and sign cleavage.

To make it even better, to get the ‘free’ ticket you have to send in a picture of yourself dressed as ironman or Tony Stark. This is going to be one scary event.

Or Smart (literally) vs stupid? Good vs evil? Responsible vs. Republican?

The real ironic part is that the guy who owns Smart car is a pretty big dude (my height plus a good 40 pounds), and the driver of the hummer is this itty-bitty blond lady.

The one on the right is safer though, right? Think again.

John Gruber of Daring Fireball supposes that having Apple natively support flash would be counter-intuitive to their overall strategy.

The mobile market is wide open in ways that the desktop market is not. E.g., in the mobile OS market, Microsoft isn’t even in first place, let alone a monopoly. And, in the mobile world, Flash is rare, not ubiquitous. Why would Apple help Adobe establish Flash as a de facto standard for the mobile web, too?

My only thought here is that the users who want flash mobile, will eventually get flash mobile, one way or the other, a lesson that Apple has yet to learn even after the jailbroken-then-bricked- iPhone-hoopla last year. Whether anyone cares enough to put in the time and effort will be the real question.