Fun Fun Fun

This being Monday, that must mean that tonite is the weekly Jessel Jam thing. Host for the night is Gordon Lustig, fine guitar player and deadpan wiseguy, and he had a little rehearsal yesterday. I was to meet him at 4pm at Jessel's, to try to figure out what we're going to do in our little guitar-duo spot, since we seem to have a hard time getting time to work on things together. Prized vocalist Mary Jenson had a rehearsal of Quilts, the musical she's going to appear in soon, and after that she was heading over to join us. Well, we didn't get much worked out before she showed, and then she and Jessel worked on a vocal chart Gordon had made for them, and then I ran over some stuff with Jessel, and then he and Mary tried to work out the lineup for tonite, and stuff just kept creeping in that needed doing, like figuring out why Gordon's guitar was much quieter through the PA than it had been, and before we knew it it was after midnite.

This was just a rehearsal! After midnite! We finally gave up after 1 am! Insane, but fun. I've never put this much time into playing music in my life. I hope it's helping. My playing seems to be getting a bit better all the time. My voice is getting better, but then it was starting pretty much from nothing -- it took decades after my voice changed to get any of it back.

A booking agent that Gordon knows told Mary that we need a demo, and there's a possibility that we could start getting gigs. How cool is that?

Meanwhile, tomorrow night is a Zephyr rehearsal here in Petaluma, at Russ Gautier's house, in preparation for a few Zephyr gigs coming up. Then there's Wednesday's weekly Jessel rehearsal. The week is filling up fast.

Also meanwhile, I finally got around to putting up some stuff on Craigslist, some stuff from my folks' house. The refrigerator got two immediate bites, and though one didn't seem to pan out, there's still the other one. I need to start moving stuff out of that house. Lisa, my old friend and garage sale specialist, keeps finding more and more stuff, uncovering unseen stashes of relics and caches of crap. It's astounding and not a little daunting. As fast as we get rid of stuff, more stuff seems to appear to take its place.

A case in point -- There's a table in the patio. It's the old oak dining room table that my folks had for years and years, and I took it with me when I moved. Now that I've moved back it's been sitting in the patio. But the top has never been visible.

First it was covered with my dad's trains, which my folks' preacher wanted. After Lisa moved them to the church (along with my mom's Fostoria, which the preacher's wife wanted) the table became covered with bags of yarn. The yarn just kept coming. Boxes of it came from the shop. More bags of it came from one of my mom's closets. It overflowed the table and spilled onto the ground. Maria, one of the nurses that watched over my mom in her last month, came over with her daughter and grandson and managed to cram all the yarn into her car and her daughter's truck, pretty well filling them both.

But is the table empty yet? No, it seems to have immmediately filled up with more piles of stuff. I don't even know what's on it now. It's as though it's a magical table, the table of plenty (of crap).

I've put together one of two steel shelving units that were found in the move, still in their boxes, unused. One down, one still to build. I'm sure they will fill up just as fast. It's astounding. It's the move that never ends.

Oh, and yesterday I had the first of what I'm sure will be many, many scavenger hunts. I needed to find my chromatic harmonicas. I knew where I used to keep them -- in a bookcase under the kitchen window. But that was in my rental. Now they were in one of the zillion boxes in either the garage or the shop or in the yard or perhaps in the house. With Lisa's help they turned up after only about an hour of looking.

I can see life will continue to get interesting.

Music, Music, Music (and expensive gas)

As I'd hoped, last night I found myself in San Francisco, at the request of fine singer Johnny Smith, who asked me to accompany him on this edition of his regular Friday night gig at the Beach Chalet. Bonnie and I were already planning to head down there to visit her mom and brother, so the whole lot of us ended up having dinner at the gig, where Johnny and I played from 8pm until 11pm. Big fun for me. Long-time friend Kevin Madden stopped by for the last couple of sets, and everyone seemed to have a good time. At one point I looked up to see Bonnie and Kevin sitting at the table, their eyes glued to their respective laptops. Bonnie said later they were e-mailing each other over the local wireless network. We live in the future.

By the time Bonnie and I got back to Petaluma it was 12:30am. I barely got enough sleep before the alarm went off at 7am. Had to catch the Zephyr carpool to San Jose, where we (Steve Ewert, Russ Gautier and I) met up with banjo wizard Sean Barry to do a little strolling Cowboy Zephyr music from 11:30am until 2:30pm. It was fun, it was grueling, it was fun, it was a long time for me to pump away on the old accordion while standing up. But it was fun.

And I got to take naps both coming and going, holding down the back seat in Russ's car. Ewert and I contributed $10 each to a gas fund, which we felt would be ample to fill up Russ's car in San Francisco on the way back. Lucky him. From the twenty bucks he got back 37 cents change. And this was in a mid-sized Lexus, not an SUV!

Russ treated me to a tour of his guitars and other musical toys when we got back to Petaluma. He just acquired a new Martin which I'm afraid to say seems to blow away both his old 1964 Martin and an old original jumbo Taylor. Rus has many fun toys. I must make the time to inflict myself upon him and coerce him into making some music with me.

A CIA Cover Blown, a White House Exposed - Los Angeles Times

Here's a very complete rundown of the whole Niger Uranium/Joseph Wilson/Bush Whitehouse bruhaha. By very complete I mean it runs to nine pages.

I was drawn to it by a very insightful post from the Iguana, who saw mention in Americablog of an Editor and Publisher story where it was noted that Time magazine neglected to report about Rove's conversation with their reporter, Matt Cooper, in early 2004, because "Times editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year."

So what did they do? They sat on the story -- a story which could have had a devastating effect on Bush's campaign.

Americablog, which I'd never heard of before this very day, very astutely inferred this from the LA Times article - their subhead is "TIME magazine tried to influence the 2004 election to Bush's favor."

Just for fun, here's the Chronology printed in the LA Times article, with a slight addition. You can keep it to refer to when Fitzgerald starts handing out subpoenas...

from LA Times 25 August 2005



Chronology



Events surrounding the White House's role in the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent:

2002

February: Vice President Dick Cheney asks whether Iraq sought uranium from Niger.

Feb. 12: The CIA sends Joseph Wilson to Niger.

March 9: Wilson says he finds little evidence for such claims, but notes a prior visit to Niger by Iraqi officials.

Aug. 26: Cheney says: "We now know that Saddam [Hussein] has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons."

Oct. 5-6: CIA Director George Tenet persuades the White House to remove the uranium claim from a Bush speech.



2003

Jan. 28: President Bush's State of the Union cites a British report that Iraq sought uranium.

March 7: A U.N. nuclear agency finds uranium documents are "not authentic."


March 20: The U.S. invades Iraq.

July 6: Wilson goes public on his Niger trip and findings.

July 7-8: Administration sources tell columnist Robert Novak about Wilson's CIA wife.

July 7: The White House admits to a mistake in citing the uranium claim.

July 11: Karl Rove tells Time's Matthew Cooper that Wilson's wife arranged the Niger trip.

July 14: A Novak column unmasks Valerie Plame.

July 30: The CIA asks the Justice Department to investigate the leak of the agent's identity.

Sept. 16: The White House says suggesting Rove leaked her identity is "ridiculous."

Sept. 29: A White House spokesman says the leaker will be fired.

Sept. 30: Wilson endorses John Kerry for president.

Dec. 30: Patrick Fitzgerald is named special prosecutor.

Now, here's a quote from the article which fits here chronologically. Odd that none of this is mentioned in the chronology itself...

Fitzgerald also asked for something unusual: a generic waiver of confidentiality agreements from all White House employees for the journalists with whom they spoke during the period in dispute.

When most reporters made it clear that the generic waiver was unacceptable because it was viewed as coercive, the prosecutor worked with individual sources, reporters and their lawyers to get their testimony.

Pincus testified after being assured that he would not have to name his source, even though Fitzgerald knew who it was. Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler and NBC's Tim Russert also testified after getting assurances from Libby.

After reading about their testimony, Cooper approached Libby about a waiver for himself.

Without a personal waiver, Cooper and his editors believed they could not reveal the source — which meant that the news organization would join the New York Times in a losing court battle.

Cooper did not ask Rove for a waiver, in part because his lawyer advised against it. In addition, Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year.

2004

Jan. 23: Weapons inspector David Kay says there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.


July 10: A Senate panel faults prewar intelligence and calls Wilson's report inconclusive.

(Just imagine if TIME had come out with a cover story right about here, detailing all they knew about how the Whitehouse was smearing Wilson. Just imagine how that might have affected this next entry...)

Nov. 2: Bush is reelected.


2005

Feb. 15: A court orders journalists Judith Miller and Cooper to cooperate with a grand jury.

July 6: Miller refuses to testify and is jailed; Cooper agrees to testify after getting express permission from his source, Rove.

July 18: Bush says the leaker will be fired if a crime was committed.

Sources: Times reporting, media reports, White House and Senate documents

Los Angeles Times

Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evil Doers

Honest, the Cosmic Iguana - Voice of the Evil Doers is one heck of a blog. I find invaluable stuff blogged there almost daily. One mentioned today is about the Iraq constitution thing. I read the other day about how insane the whole concept is. Namely, here we have an Occupied Country being forced by its Occupier to draft a constitution, in a country that's nearly at a civil war, by parties who have irreconcilable differences, on a timetable being dictated by the Occupier. Insane.

Imagine, if you will, if I may be indulged the apparently Forbidden Nazi Comparison, if the Nazis had forced the Occupied French to write a new constitution, while under occupation. I suppose the Allies would have said, oh, they've written a constitution? In that case, eveything's just fine.

And, by the way, under Saddam there was a constitution, which happened to be just dandy. Of course, he disregarded it whenever it suited him, but that's not too different from what's happening here, is it? Here where the Supreme Court makes a judgment, like the ruling where the Guantanamo inmates are required to have representation and a day in court, and the Executive branch simply ignores it? Where the Judicial branch says that the American Indian nations have been royally screwed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and they again ignore it? Where the Constitution has explicit language designating the Congress as having powers to make rules about holding prisoners in times of war, and the Executive ignores it?

Iraq had, I seem to recall, one of the fairest, most enlightened constitutions in the Middle East. That was then. This new one seems to give supreme power over laws to Islamic law. Women used to have jobs in government and business, and the whole culture was quite westernized. Oh well! Honor our troops!

Another post is about the price gouging going on in the Oil Industry. Just because the price of oil has skyrocketed, one would think this would cut into the profits of the industry. Oh, but quite the contrary! Profits are likewise skyrocketing. It's the American Way. Honor our troops!

Meanwhile, I seem to have entered warp speed with the music stuff. Just got a call from a friend who's a dynamite singer who wants me accompany him on this week's edition of his weekly gig in San Francisco at a place called the Beach Challet. Or something like that. Should be fun. And tomorrow morning it's off with the Zephyr boys to San Jose to become one of the Strolling Cowboy Singers at some event at Kelly Park, whereever that is. Paying gigs. LIfe is good.

Where are they now, pt. 2 (or, the point I was trying to get to...)

All that stuff about Miller and Bolton was a roundabout way of commenting on the way my brain, and possibly your brain, works.

I've read recently about a theory that each time a thing, a person, an event, whatever, changes in your brain from an anonymous collection of sensations you've experienced into something concrete you actually recall as a "thing" -- in short, whenever that amalgam of random inputs congeals into "something recognizeable out there, outside my head" -- well, that's when one of your brain's neurons gets dedicated to representing just that thing.

Think about that. Your brain has, at last count, some several zillion neurons. Each is connected by oodles of synapses to great gobs of other neurons. You possess a big pile of neurons when you're quite young, and then the brain starts pruning them away, perhaps to make more efficient use of the rest of them. Supposedly this continues all your life.

That means your brain has an ever-decreasing number of neurons, straining to represent the ever-increasing torrent of experiences of things in your daily life.

Is it any wonder you can't remember where you left your keys?

Which brings me back to Miller and Bolton. For years there was no neuron in my brain dedicated to Bolton, and the Miller neuron was very small and poorly connected -- although I recognized her byline, I certainly spent no time thinking about her and her work and her influence on the state of the world.

No more! Their names now set off chain reactions of thoughts and memories. Both of them are now represented in my head by large, healthy, well-synapsed neurons -- neurons that otherwise might have been available to represent those changes to "When Sunny Gets Blue" that I forgot last night, or the name of that lady I met again for the fourth time, the name that still comes up blank when I see her face.

I somehow doubt such famous and important actors in our political life appreciate the sacrifices my brain has made in response to their dubious celebrity.

Rigorous Intuition: The Coincidence Theorist's Guide to 9/11

Sometimes I wonder. I wonder how people do and say the things they do and say, and the only reason I can come up with is the horribly condescending idea that they are just ignorant of the facts. This brings up the unpleasant idea of "how do I know what I know?" Or "how do you know what you think you know?" On what do we base our beliefs of what's going on in the world? How do we determine if our perceptions of reality are correct?

There are so many stories of studies of eye-witnesses telling as many different stories of an event as there are eye-witnesses, all of them believing they are correct. (Just Google "psychology study unreliable eye witnesses" for quite a list, including studies from Yale and the Navy.) There is the wonder of hindsight, in which things a great many folk took for granted as true are obviously wrong, like medical care from centuries gone by (think blood letting and lead in medicine and arsenic in cosmetics) or slavery, or the idea of a master race, or a world that's flat, or a universe that orbits around the earth. Hmm -- I suppose I should say those are obviously wrong to me.

The internet has complicated the issue. Piles of information, removed from our personal experience, and largely out of context, is now available to everyone. Anything imaginable can be found online. Contradictions abound. I can spend hours pouring information into my head, information others have put online. I tend to believe and trust things until I discover otherwise, because the alternative is to distrust everything and everyone, and there's just not enough time in life to do that. But common sense is vital, discrimination necessary, or else you are a sucker just waiting to fall victim to every scam.

Ah. Common Sense. Much of it comes down to subjective hunches. We trust sets of ideas that seem correct, and have to assume that our choices are right more often than they're wrong. One would think that facts are facts, beyone question. But what seems a fact may, on further study, turn out to be a misunderstanding of the facts. So much depends on which subset of the information world we live in, which universe of possible truths we are in a position to accept, and which ideas we discount out of hand as preposterous.

Sometimes, in passing, I've mentioned something to someone, something I felt was blantantly obvious to any thinking person, only to get the most amazed expression back from them, as though I were from a different planet. And, for all practical purposes, I suppose I am. Sometimes the worlds of what different people think of as "common knowledge" overlap very little.

When it comes to some things, like for instance the attacks in New York City on 9/11/2001, the dangers and risks to our way of life, the wars our country fights, most folk have facts they believe to be true, official narratives that explain the situation thoroughly and completely. And even the tiniest suggestion that there's perhaps a bit more than can be explained by the "official story" can provoke a reaction similar to what you'd get if you start talking about your abduction by alien UFOs.

In that vein, here's some curious coincidences about that terrorist attack thing. Just coincidences. That's it. Coincidences.

Where are they now?

A few days ago, having stumbled across some mention of anthrax, I decided to remind myself what the big deal was. Remember anthrax? Remember how, on the heels of the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax thing scared the bejesus out of everyone? Particularly congressmen, who rushed to pass the Patriot Act without even bothering to read it? Even some who had been opposed to it at first?

And then, when it became evident that the source of that Anthrax was our very own government labs, well, all of a sudden it just disappeared from the news.

Well. Do you remember who received those anthrax letters? Let's see. Daschele, the Democratic Leader of the Senate, I seem to recall. Tom Brokaw's office. The National Enquirer. Hmmm. I wonder if there were others more familiar to us now?

Here are a couple of sites that show some of the letters and explaing some possible explanations for them.

But I seem to remember more. Let's look again. Here's a rundown of exactly what kinds of spores were used, as well as their probable source.

Ok. Here's what I thought. Four years ago she was just a reporter -- I remember seeing her byline in many places -- but now she's our own first amemdment prison lady, Judith Miller:



Here's a nice bio. It's remarkable how connected Miller has been to the power centers in both the media and government.

Here's a pithy distillation of her most misleading Iraqi reporting.

Miller got an envelope of harmless powder. Could have been anthrax. Wasn't.

Meanwhile, did you know this guy had anything to do with the story?



At the very same time it had become pretty obvious that the source of the anthrax wasn't, as was first assumed, Middle Eastern Islamic Terrorists, but US bioweaponry labs, we get this:

John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said on 19 Nov. (2001) that “We don’t know…at the moment, in a way that we could make public, where the anthrax attacks came from.”

http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm

Yes, that John Bolton. And this John Bolton, reporting in from Florida election, 2000.:

''I'm with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count,'' he was quoted as saying in news reports at the time.

The Long War

Amazingly, only hours after posting this morning's post, which mentions the 2+ trillion dollars missing from the Pentagon and wondering if anyone remembers it, I received an e-mail linking to the above "Long War" article, detailing where some of those trillions seem to be going. The article is rather long and rambling and a bit repetitive, but following the links within it could surprise and educate most anyone willing to take the time.


The duality of life continues, as I spent much of the day rehearsing music with friends, having the time of my life, while simultaneously my tax dollars (few though they are) are at work, fueling divisive, coercive warfare at home and abroad against people so much like me that it's scary. I drove from Napa to Petaluma as the gorgeous August full moon rose over Napa's vineyard-covered hills, knowing that only hours before the same moon rose over scenes of devastation and death in Iraq, Sudan, Haiti, and who knows where else...much of it the product of those same dollars.

the Personal and the Global

Busy. So much to do. All my worldly goods scattered between Bonnie's and my folk's house, filling my folk's garage and back yard and shop and driveway, as well as throughout Bonnie's house. Today I get up to find fog so thick it's almost raining. I hope the stuff outside is ok. It will probably dry out when the sun arrives.

Yesterday several boxes of needlework magazines were taken by a friend's sister, and all the boxes of Discover and Popular Sciences and Omnis were claimed by a neighbor. Redbooks and Good Housekeeping went into the empty garbage bin. A host of furniture and clothing still remains to be disposed of. All my dad's suits are still in his closet, but my mom's clothes and shoes fill the patio. A longtime friend who I've asked to help organize this is in San Diego this weekend. I've been checking out Craigslist in preparation for trying to get rid of the sofabeds and dresser and such.

More and more I find myself doing music, practicing with a host of talented folk. I spent three hours yesterday going through someone's book of songs, in preparation for a gig tomorrow. On the schedule today is an afternoon full of rehearsals with folk for a benefit Sunday in Napa and the Jessel thing Monday night. It's exciting. It's stimulating. I'm learning tunes at a rate that matches or exceeds that of any other time in my life, and feel like I'm actually figuring out how this music stuff works.

At the same time, I haven't had a chance to create much original. A couple of little tunes have appeared, scribbled down before the melodies disappear into the neuronal void. No image has appeared since the silly little metal fish I painted earlier this year for a charity auction. I take zillions of photos, with an eye towards using them as inspiration for paintings, but I haven't picked up a brush in months.

I seem stuck in a whirlwind of activity. Daily drives from Petaluma to Napa and back drain ever-more expensive gasoline, even in my thrifty little Echo. As I drive I listen to news of insanity multiplied upon itself. Reality-based thinking is officially passé, but reality seems to be intruding. Logic is scorned as partisan and prejudiced, but even people in the ruling party are beginning to question the questionable policies that have been blindly followed for too long. Millions of folk seem to think that Iraqis are better off now that they've been conquered and occupied, a rationalization that's been used by imperialists for thousands of years, but even they probably don't know that, thanks to the sewerage and water supply systems destroyed by US bombs,%72 of the three million people in Sadr City have hepatitis. Things that would have provoked universal outrage just a few short years ago, like widespread graft and corruption and war profiteering, are now officially totally unremarkable.

Have you heard anyone lately talk about how Rumsfeld, on 9/10/01, mentioned that, by some reckonings, 2.1 trillion dollars are missing from the Pentagon? TRILLION??? A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money...

(I seem to recall that, legally, the Secretary of Defense used to have to get up before Congress and tell how much money was missing from the Pentagon. This was stopped after Rumsfeld had the embarrassing experience of having to stand up and tel them that trillions were missing. So I seem to remember.)

Foolishly, I feel like I need to stay somewhat informed about what's going on in the world. What's the point? Why should I bother? What good does it do? How does it help things?

The answer, of course, is that just finding out and feeling outrage does nothing to help. Only action can.

Action? Heck, I have to drive over to Napa! Rehearsing to do! Shelves to build! Stuff to get out of the weather!

And so it goes. Reminds me of an old song...

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Joni Mitchell the Circle Game

Murder by Numbers

So I finally got around to finding a copy of the Sting and the Police tune, Murder by Numbers, which I knew I'd seen floating around on one of the Mac desktops. Found it on the G3. Traveldrove it to the iMac, where I dragged it into iTunes for a listen. Ah. Now it comes back to me.

Rhythm in strong 6/8 overlying a hard 4/4. Guitar chords like nothing I'd ever heard when I encountered it, oh, 20 or so years ago. A friend wanted me to teach it to him. That meant I had to learn it. It took me a few listens just now to figure it out again.

It has a chord progression unique as far as I know. Verse is E-7 to A-7(#5) to F#-7 to Fmaj7. Then the chorus is a fairly standard E-, F#-, G, F#-, repeating a few times.

Mabe we'll try it tonite at the practice at Jessel's. Mary Jenson has the words. And fine words they are, indeed.

Other ways to blow off an entire day, long into the night

First, decide to set up that slide scanner you got at that garage sale a month or so ago.

Sounds simple, right?

That SCSI card you installed in that G3 you got a couple of months ago should be fine to run it through. Hook it up. Install the software. Install Photoshop Elements so there's a program to host the the scanner plug-in.

Whoops! The G3 doesn't see the scanner. On second thought, the G3 doesn't see the SCSI card. It sees it, only it doesn't see anything connected to it. Try other SCSI cable. Same deal.

Spend unspecified time fiddling with SCSI ID numbers. Reboot after each failure.

Finally give up and decide to try the whole process in the G4 you also got a couple of months ago. Install the SCSI card in it. This time Photoshop doesn't even seem to be able to find the plug-in. At least the G3 did that.

Perhaps it's that the whole process needs to word under OS 9, and the G3 was upgraded to OS 9.2.2. Proceed to upgrade the OS 9 part of the G4 from OS 9.1 to OS 9.2.1 to OS 9.2.2.

Still doesn't see the plug-in.

Hit the net. Search up specs on G3, G4, Dimage DuaL Scanner, SCSI. Hmmm.

Looks like the scanner uses SCSI 2. Looks like the cards (you tried two, remember?) are SCSI 1. Could this be the problem?

Try installing Photoshop Elements, since that found the plug-in on the G3. You're asked for the password. Password! Must be an OS X thing. Hmmm. You remember that little scrap of paper that was stuck on the G4 when you got it. The guy you bought it from had put down "administrator" as the login name, and some four digit number as the password. 1,2,3,4. That was it. Right? Right.

Try it. "Incorrect password." Try 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4. "Incorrect password." Try every known permutation of those numbers. "Incorrect password."

Commence search of surrounding area, despite everything having been moved several times in the last month. Futile.

It's late. You're tired. You give up.

Oh, look! It's 1am! An entire day has been shot!

Ah, computers....labor and time saving devices.

How to Use Up Every Available Moment and Have Very Little to Show for It

It's fun! It's easy!

1. First, get a broadband connection.
2. Then go online.

That's all there is to it!

Remember when you had dial up? When you spent so much time waiting, waiting, waiting for the "World Wide Wait" to refresh those pages? When downloads took so much time that you occasionally had to stop and look around at the real world, where time actually passes, and notice that you were getting a bit achy from sitting in that same chair, hour after hour?

Well, that's a thing of the past! Now you can immerse yourself in the cyberworld of the internet for hours and hours, days and days, with no discernable break!

Yes, that's right! With DSL, I now have information coming at me SO FAST that it's impossible to even TRY to stop it! Food? Sleep? Exercise? Fresh air? Sunlight? WHO NEEDS IT?

It's a brave new world.

I'm tired of sitting here.

Jammin' at Jessel's

Tonite was Monday night. Every Monday night I do this Jessel Gallery music thing. I had a whole lot of fun.

A raft of talented musicians showed, some without warning, and I got to play music with all of them. I arrived early and practiced with some, and stayed late and practiced more.

Did I say it was fun?

I'm a very lucky guy.

Of couse it's not a coin-spy-racy! That would be foolish! Who would think such a thing? I'm ashamed you even brought it up!

ok, here's a couple of items culled from the past month or so that need to be remembered.

Remember a month or so ago there was a little bombing incident in London? You remember. It was in all the papers. TV. Everywhere.

Did you know there were Mock Terrorist Bombing drills going on in London that very morning?

Soon thereafter someone figured out the odds of such attacks occuring at the exact same places and time as the drills.

I quote:

PROBABILITY OF DRILL AND TERROR ATTACK COINCIDING BY CHANCE (10yr mean):
One chance in 3,715,592,613,265,750,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Pretty amazing, eh?

Bob the cat

Inasmuch as I desire to continue the present internet blog trend of posting cat photos, here is Bob, the long-haired monarch of the Jessel Gallery in Napa, California. Bob sits serenely, regal, proud king of all he surveys, almost invisible next to a series of some kind of pom-pom-like cat-sized things.

I must try to use more hyphens.

OK! Now I get it!

So.

Now I can start posting links to all the crap I've been reading all day! Cool! And then maybe someone else can spend all their waking hours reading the same stuff, and then linking to it, and letting others do the same, ad infinitem, etc, etc.

For instance, here are the sites I check every time I sit down at the dreaded second-hand iMac:

http://tinyrevolution.com/mt/

and his other site:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/

his compatriots:

http://www.bobharris.com/

http://thepoorman.net/

and the place I originally found all of them:

http://www.thismodernworld.com/

Here's one I just stumbled upon recently, which has piles of up-to-date stuff:

http://www.cosmiciguana.com/

that's enough for now. I've been sitting here all day, reading stuff, and it must stop! It must!

Sizzlin' Gizzards is here!

No animals with or without gizzards were harmed in the making of this blog.

• no waterfowl
• no equine beasts
• no paramecia
• no archea

The steps that have gone into making this blog are numerous:

1. My girlfriend made her own blog
2. I sent her a link
3. She posted said link on her blog
4. I attempted to write a comment
5. I was sent to this "Blogzone from Hell" as punishment

There was nothing left to do but -- create a blog.

I immediately saw the possible good that could come of doing such a thing:

• All those links I'm always sending everyone could now find a home
• All those things that seem so important but that everyone else seems to ignore can now be mentioned in a place where they take on such significance, simply by being in a neat layout, in such an official-looking typeface. Such Meaning they shall acquire!
• All those useless photos I'm always collecting can now be seen by, well, probably no one, but they'll all be in one place.

Now I have to figure out how to post a photo without getting a warning from my browser that "unsaved changes may be lost."