Despite my (mostly) best efforts, I wasn’t able to attend that downtown Manhattan pillow fight earlier this afternoon.

The Arctic winds that are blowing through was a definite disincentive. So was the full slate of Olympics men hockey on the tube. Mostly, though, I just wasn’t able to budget my time correctly.

Looks like I missed out, if random blogging accounts are any indication.

I hope the Newmindspace kids have another one soon. I actually did go out and buy the cheapest/ugliest throwpillow I could find at Wal-Mart, specifically for whacking some stranger in Union Square. This thing is damned ugly, too — some weird blending of burnt orange, red, and purple. Eminently disposable. It’ll keep until the next gathering.

That’s billion, with a “b”. Apple is promoting the upcoming sale of its one-billionth iTunes file with prize giveaways every hundred-thousand sales or so, with a big jackpot for the lucky ten-digit cha-chinger.

I think we can safely declare iTunes to have been a success.

As of this writing, Apple’s sales ticker is soon to hit 986 million. Since the AP story mentioned a 980-million checkpoint yesterday, I figure the billion marker will be reached on Monday.

I’ve just refilled my own iTunes account with a giftcard, so I think I’ll try my luck on one of the more modest prizes. I’ve been meaning to get that Faders song, “No Sleep Tonight”, anyway. And I’ll take my shots on Monday, too.

I’m not a James Bond fan. I don’t think I’ve seen even one of the 007 films or read any of the books.

I am, however, an Eva Green fan. Enough so to fight off sleep watching her, in all her naked glory, in The Dreamers (which should see a brisk uptick in rentals). Her starring role in Kingdom of Heaven persuaded me to catch that flick, too (which I found disappointing — not nearly as nuanced as movie reviewers seemed to think).

So now that Green, described by Bernardo Bertolucci as “so beautiful it’s indecent”, has been tapped to play the latest Bond girl, Vesper Lynd, will I be going to see the next Bond movie?

It’s far from a sure thing, but the odds have definitely increased.