The Trial

I'm rereading "The Trial" by Franz Kafka. It's been a couple years or more. This time I'm not trying to "figure it out" but just accept it as the conditions stated.

Also I'm reading it very much as a piece of humor, and there are some wonderfully funny things ... as I recall ... and as I have already well noted in reading the first few chapters today. (I don't want to accrue any guilt in saying that, so technically I read the first few chapters a little bit last night and the rest today.)

The part where K. is supposedly looking for a carpenter named Lanz, while actually looking for the place where his appointment with the inquiry is supposed to be, is hilarious. The people of the apartment building are so helpful, thinking they remember a carpenter named Lanz, etc.

I was watching the movie by Orson Welles. I think I've only made it through the entire thing once. The rest of the times I start watching it, get a certain distance, then something else comes up and I quit. The same thing is going to happen in a few minutes, because I got the new Three Stooges DVD set and want to watch some of it.

Plus, as good as the Welles' scenery and staging is, I hate having the imagery from it too fresh in my mind when reading the book. It's unavoidable at this point ... but I don't want to do anything more to encourage it happening.

Good night all. May you not wake up to officers in your room there to arrest you!

I saw a guy who looked like a high school friend, like he looked years ago.

I took a few charming photos. My camera failed at a couple very bad times.

At a very peaceful rural cemetery. The birds are very full of life. And the breeze.

Abhorring A Vacuum (Miscellaney)

The music business abhors a vacuum. The years I could've been a teenage idol (and wasn't), others came rushing into the vacuum to fill it. That was when we had a lesser bunch, Donny Osmond, Tony DeFranco, etc. It's just stunning that somehow the course of music history righted itself and found its natural course again.

By the time an idea makes it here, it has to qualify, endure several time trials. Maybe my standard is low, but it's still there.

In a hurry I accidentally put my underwear on backwards, but it's just for a few minutes while typing this. They are definitely sewn to go on only one way.

To bugs dew is a bucket of drinking water left at their door.

To bugs the lawnmower is a hurricane.

My Urban Imagination

The bus station I was in wasn't really an urban setting. It was a small city, but nothing like the bigger places, which I'm not at very often but have been there enough to know the difference.

Still it had some of the same characteristics, people passing quietly, looking around, sitting without looking at you, or sitting without speaking to you. I sat on the end of a bench on which there was another guy and he didn't note my existence and I didn't note his.

It gave me a taste of the whole urban thing, which is not that comfortable to me. But I'm walking along, going from the car across the street, then into the bus station. I can see my reflection and think I'm just melting in with the others. Check my wallet and checkbook to make sure pickpockets aren't at work.

I did my mobile texting to this blog -- which didn't work properly -- and turned at the end of the bench so that guy couldn't see what I was doing exactly.

Quiet In Crowds

I'm at a bus station. I'm very quiet in a crowd.

Garbage

I thought a bag of garbage might've been mine. I didn't see it in the street when I passed. But then there it was. I watched it get hit a few times and didn't recognize any of the guts that spilled out.

Old Building

I'm looking at an old building that's 10 stories tall, apparently vacant above the first floor. One window is just a board. I'd love to see what's in there. But that's not going to happen.

A Long Way From Home

Sometimes I feel like a fish out of water...a long, very long way from home. Catch the song allusion? You're standing there knowing you're on a completely different track.

The above paragraph was written on my phone. Via an email posting, testing it out. A couple things I don't like about it. One, there's no way to put a title on that I know of. Two, there's no quotation marks on my phone. Three, it put a couple extraneous @ signs in there and I had to manually edit them out. Four, it doesn't automatically flesh out my thought, which requires some extra writing.

Every once in a while, though, it's like that. Standing there with a group of people and knowing ... there's a vast difference here.

Every little whipstitch, phoning it in. Going to bed. Ate a big dinner and feel fat. Terrible way to go to bed! But at this point it can't be helped.

They Love Meat

I took my dog to a fancy restaurant.

She says to the waiter, "Could I see your meat menu, please?"

Chastity Bono

Chastity. Born a girl and now she's going to be a man.

It's weird that mistakes like this are made before we're born. But bureaucracy is the same the universe over. They lose your file or the proper orders are misplaced. We hope these things eventually are straightened out.

I Can Name That Mower

I can name that mower in three seconds.

I'm going for the direction of the sound first. East, south, west? Then the appearance of closeness, of pitch shifts.

Is it simply passing? Does it persist? Does it sound like it has a bagger or is exposed?

Billy Jack Meets Tarzan

I just had a good spree of thought/fantasy about the coming together of two great action heroes, Billy Jack and Tarzan.

At the time I really loved Billy Jack (the first movie) and of course Tarzan, swinging through the jungle doing a great Carol Burnett impression. We used to watch movies of Tarzan with these prolonged underwater fights, and it about destroyed my lungs watching him stay underwater for eight to 10 minutes at a time. But somehow he always survived.

Billy Jack was a survivor too. I'm sure if I saw that movie again it'd all come rushing back to me. Why exactly it appealed to me at the time I can't say. It was countercultural with a sense of still enforcing justice. The poor put upon kids had a hero who seemed to have mystical (Native American) powers and a mother figure to counsel them, the way I remember it.

Put Billy Jack and Tarzan in the jungle together, with Delores and Jane, and you've got all the action and justice you can handle. If Boy is kind of a hippie doing performance art downtown with a lot of his wayward teen friends, and there's a big Ape, like the Sheriff in Billy Jack, causing troubles, Billy could be out in a heat hutch somewhere meditating and Tarzan could be knitting stronger vines. Then they descend on the Ape and the ape people of the town and bring justice to the entire jungle. We wouldn't end it like Billy Jack, though, with him being led away. Instead it'd have a happy ending, like with him shipping out to some other locale, like to take on Fu Manchu and the yellow menace.

Hello to Tom Laughlin out there. During the '08 campaign I saw some things by him online, like he's a Renaissance man intellectual, which I would want to tamp down a bit instead of being so overt about it.

The first movie was a great one at the time!

Your Undercover Blogger

Be on the lookout for me around town, looking to report on the little incidences of life I see you engaged in.

You won't recognize me, really. My disguise is no disguise. Maybe I'm right in front of you in line, or behind you. You don't know.

I will tell what I hear, what I observe. And if you come across it online, perhaps at random, or perhaps directly by super cosmic guidance, you will wonder, Could this be about me? Then what will you wonder? Who was it? Could I ask to see the surveillance tape?

I don't have a notebook. I am not flashing a press pass. I'm just there, hidden in the best way, right in plain sight. But you won't grab me by the collar because you'll never know it's me.

Fat Cats And Cigars

Interesting ad theme and coincidence of placement on Daily Kos this morning!

The evil smiling fat cat corporate Man with his cigar and fancy suit. The guy on the right holding all the cash even had a bunch of money where his hankie should be. The guy on the left looks almost too young to be a seasoned enough fat cat to show up in ads. But they have to start somewhere.

Speaking of hankies in your suit, I haven't thought about that for years. When I was a kid we got our suits back from the cleaners and they had a piece of cardboard in the pocket with a tiny bit of hankie top stitched on it. So that's what we used for a hankie back then. For display purposes only!

Pregnant Man Gives Birth Again

This story has popped up again. I can't remember the details and don't feel like hitting the link. Whatever's going on he seems to be very fertile. See you in nine months!

An Old Defective Album

I ran across this album at a thrift store, still sealed. I was hoping it would have some "Party Song" lyrics like some of the other records I've had. Semi-racy stuff with lots of double entendres.

It didn't look overly promising in that regard, just going by the titles, such as "I Love You Waltz," "Old Grey Mare Polka," "Astronaut Polka," and "Turkey In The Straw," among others.

The only thing that suggested possibly some oo-la-la was the picture of the lady and the caption, "If I had my way, I would ? all day." With a question mark in there like that. But the caption relates to the first song, the "I Love You Waltz," in which they say "I love you" in various languages, English, Russian, and Polish.

You can see it's by Norm Dombrowski and the Happy Notes. Norm, the leader of the group, was also the drummer. They also had Ronald Gruna, trumpet and bass guitar; Irvin Kovalski, trumpet and guitar; John Hobson, bass guitar; Dave Wanta, concertina and guitar; and Bob Organiscak, sax and clarinet.

It's polka style music. I've only listened to the first couple of songs.

OK, I said this album was sealed, which is true. But when I opened it, it was defective. A little crumb of something stuck on the record and intrinsically part of the vinyl, either as it originally was or it's eaten in there after all these years. It might, might play through that section. I don't know.

It's something, though -- this album's been in someone's collection all these years, unopened, then ends up in a thrift store, and all these years it's had a secret flaw. Its imperfection -- its original sin -- has been exposed!

The record was put out by Gold Records, Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

Chasing Off Those Who Poop

I heard they wanted to allow dogs to run free at a lake somewhere, to chase off all the geese that otherwise wander the banks endlessly pooping and messing up the grass.

The big problem of course was that the dogs ended up pooping also. When meant a progression of ever bigger and badder animals, bobcats to chase away the dogs, wolves to chase away the bobcats, wild boars to chase away the wolves, tigers to chase away the wild boars, lions to chase away the tigers, etc. Because they're all pooping on the grass.

Just put up a fence or kill the geese.

I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday

I'm singing the Fats Domino song today, "I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday" -- I've got it stuck in my mind, which is weird because I haven't heard it for over two weeks.

I don't know all the words but it's theme, I think, is the fact that someday I'm gonna be a wheel and then I won't want you. That's the song. Boy meets girl. Girl loves boy. Boy becomes wheel. Boy dumps girl.

You can cry, cry, cry, cry, cry ... (and here's where I don't know the words, but I'm filling them in anyway, and maybe they're right) ... and sigh, sigh, sigh, sigh, sigh, but that's no way on earth to win my heart.

I was a garage sale two weeks ago yesterday and got a CD that has this song on it, "The Best of Fats Domino, Vol. 1 - My Blue Heaven" from the Legendary Masters series. And beyond that I was at a record store early to mid-May and got a 45 rpm record of the same song, Imperial 5606. On the record "someday" is two words. The flip side is "I Want To Walk You Home." (I want to walk you home, but if you wait till I'm a wheel, I'll give you a ride.)

Local Book Clubs

We need local book clubs like this, so many of them that there's one for any book you might be reading, or the well-preserved records of the last time there was an exhaustive group discussion on a particular book.

I'm thinking of lists and databases or big file cabinets and digital printouts speeding by with every conceivable date and day of the week. "We discussed 'Tarzan of the Apes' in 1915 and I remember it as a very good group."

Conan

I don't watch much late night TV since I go to bed at 9:30. I get up at 5:30, so if I get to sleep right away, which happens much of the time, that's close to eight hours a night. I found that I need about that much sleep to be semi well-adjusted during the day.

Now that I'm an early to bed guy, that means I don't get to see all the stuff I used to like to watch, like the Daily Show and Colbert. Fortunately I can see bits of those shows online. I barely ever watched Jay Leno or David Letterman, at least in the last 10 years, and certainly couldn't stay awake for Conan after that. I used to ages ago. (How come no one ever mentions The Gaseous Wiener, one of my favorite characters from Conan's show?)

Now that Conan is on the Tonight Show, this week being the first, I've watched the first three episodes on Hulu. They're pretty funny. I liked the "Tweets of the Week" stuff, with a very over the top gruff guy reading mundane Tweets from celebrities. I didn't like the "In the Year 3000" bit even though I used to like the "2000" routine from years ago. So I skipped through that.

As for Andy Richter, it'd be better if he was over on the couch. And Max Weinberg looks great. I remember in 1993 when Conan came on being amused that his bandleader was a drummer.

Picnic Weather

Out for a quickie picky tonight, a quick picnic, pickynicking with the best of them. My immediate family. And Colonel Sanders.

A little cool, no panic, no packnicking, picking our place and picking at some Colonel chicknick on my picnic.

We Grant Wishes

We grant wishes for terminally ill children.

Yeah, I don't care anything about that. Can you believe the junk calls we get? That moment of dead silence, then the operator calling you by name like she really wanted to talk to you.

Good grief, I'm not giving you money. But thanks for calling. Click.

My Plant

I've got a new plant that I'm caring for. Trying not to give it too much water or too little. And the same for sunshine and shade and being indoors. (Except yesterday I was too busy and forgot it, so it was inside all day.)

It's called Diamond Frost, which I'd never heard of. I read the tag in a little more detail after I had it home. And, I don't know much about plants, but it says something like it was developed by a particular company and that it's prohibited to propagate it. Does that mean what it sounds like to me? Is this thing natural or Frankenstein?

Prohibited to propagate it? I hope it doesn't take over and shoot spores everywhere that I can't control. I don't think I would've bought it if I knew it came with special rules. But I don't know anything about plants.

Now I have two things to care for, the dog and the plant. Well, the cats might constitute a third thing, speaking technically. Dog, meet your brother, Diamond Frost. Diamond Frost, meet your sister, Dog. Neither of you disturb the cats, please, so they won't need anything.

Amateur Sports

I was at the park and saw some kids playing that kind of ragtag basketball that kids play at parks. A lot of bad guarding, rough, uncontrolled dribbling, and reckless shots.

I was thinking, too bad a professional ref doesn't come swooping in, striped shirt and all, to call a few fouls and some traveling calls. That'd teach them to be such amateurs.

Then closer to home, some guys were playing amateur soccer, or some variation on the theme. And there goes a major kick, and the ball goes rolling down the street. So the game had to stop for a minute or so while one of the kids ran and got the ball.

There's some kids in this neighborhood who spend more time running in the street to get their ball than they actually do playing with it. I don't know why they don't switch directions and play parallel to the road instead of having it for a backdrop. But it must not have ever occurred to them. Nor must it have occurred to their parents that the more they run in the road to get the ball the more likely it'll be that we'll see a disaster.

Bugs

What is it with the millions of bugs that are all over the place? It's ridiculous, you can't walk in your yard without them coming up from the grass in such numbers that it's like a plague.

They make a beeline right for the face, too, and that's very bad. We get over winter with all the inconveniences of that, and then there has to be this. I think there was one or two days in the spring when everything was just right.

It's the Goldilocks way of doing things. It's either too hot, too cold, or just right. But there's always some inconvenience in the way before you get to it.

The Jews Are Too Far Ahead Of Us

...meaning they're too far ahead of the rest of us.

Figure, in their time it's the year 5769 (or maybe 5770, I don't know which.)

But for the rest of us it's 2009 (or maybe 2010, I don't know which). That means they're around 3760 years ahead of us.

Jews definitely have the advantage, being so far in the future.

I joke. But in all seriousness, how are we supposed to compete with that?

Queasiness

I've got it tonight. Morose, listless, energy dissipated, feeling of unease in the middle.

Yawning, eyes lazy, down in the mouth, perturbed, tired.

I took my dog to the park and felt this bad feeling, also scared of mosquitoes.

There was a police officer there, like a community rep guy who buzzes around keeping an eye on the activities. So naturally I kept my dog on the leash. Another guy didn't. The officer was talking to me, chit chat, and said he needed to go tell that guy he needed a leash for the dog.

There I stood, innocent.

Release Your Inner Piranha

The way to do anything that maybe takes a challenge is to go at it with instinct and intensity. Release your inner piranha. Making love, decimating an enemy (like in sports), train yourself to the end and chow down.

How to do anything involving a weapon, let's say, make it part of your hand. Like David and the rock he flung at Goliath. When it leaves your hand, it's still in your hand all the way to the giant's forehead. Inner Piranha, away!

Greenhouse

I went to a greenhouse today ... which might more accurately be called a greenhouseplex, since there were probably eight or 10 greenhouses in the complex.

Wow, that's a lot of potted plants. I felt like getting a job there. Less stress while digging in the pots. But I didn't figure I'd qualify, since I don't know anything about botany. I could've said people say I have a green thumb, except no one says that.

I was thinking, What a vast spread of plants. What's the chances of all of them ever selling? Then I had my eye on a particular plant, yet went on to wander around and browse. Later I came back thinking I would get that plant, and guess what, it was gone, and they guy said that was the last one. Hmm, of all the plants in this vast place, that one particular plant sold right out from under my nose.

Shredding Frustration

I've been shredding old papers, class papers, personal stuff from the last 25 years. It turned out that I had numerous boxes of stuff. So it was piling up as I was making my way through it.

But shredding, unless you have one of those semi truck shredders, is a tough business. The little bucket quickly fills up. And my particular shredder has something wrong with it, so it doesn't turn off between things being shredded. Also it works well for about 10 minutes then overheats and turns off.

I was down to the last box, a heaping box, on this last go-round, and it was slow going, with all the emptying and the overheating. It's enough to make me want to tear my hair out and shred it.

So when it came to the last half of the last box, I just started grabbing stuff that wasn't too personal -- and even some that was -- and was ripping it in half and fourths and putting it in a recycling bag. There's no Social Security numbers on any of it, I'm pretty sure, or other account numbers. Just old documents from my ever-lengthening past. If anyone feels the need to root through it and put them back together to read my business, I guess I'm willing to take that risk. There's nothing terribly interesting in there!

There was of course some old bank statements, car registrations, crap like that, which I set aside and shredded. The shredder appreciates a smaller load. I really need some humongous shredder, one that goes into a basket the size of a stand-up copier. And one that shreds with enough force to handle a stack an inch thick.

These dainty shredders you get at Walmart -- they're great for a few things, but they're terrible for the big job.

Taco John's Reverie

I was telling someone a story of my recent visit to Taco John's. I got there and noticed a dog with a saddle tied to the hitching post.

I was very happy and cried out, "The monkey's here!" I went in and bought him a taco.

My friend said, "That didn't happen, because Taco John's doesn't have hitching posts."

So that's the part of the story that made you not believe it?

Cruising Cruising

I can hear the subtle rumble of cars going by. Once in a while a noisier one goes by. Like I said, I can hear that.

Here's the weird thing about sound, hearing it. I read this somewhere. Sound comes at you in waves. OK, it's something like this. The source of the sound makes a noise, in this case the rumbling of an engine. That noise takes the form then of waves coming toward you. Another way to think of them is that they're vibrations.

Here's the scary part. If you can hear them hitting your ears, they're hitting your ears as those vibratory waves. That wasn't the scary part. Here it is: If you can hear them, the same waves are affecting your house. The door is hearing them, in a sense, that the vibration is hitting it and disturbing it, however subtly. The mirror. Your computer. Everything that is in the path of those waves.

It would get scarier if you lived close to a railroad track. The vibrations then could make things shift around on your shelf. Or worse, could, over time, loosen up the foundation of your house. Then some night a train is cruising by and the foundation, loosened up, gives way and the ceiling falls on you.

Then when your house collapses it makes a terrible crashing noise, which affects everyone around within earshot. It may make their house collapse too, then that one the next one, and on and on, till the whole world at last gives way.

Woof Woof Woof

A while ago I was hearing the persistent background noise coming from the windows of "Woof, woof, woof," a neighbor's dog. Then below that, or filtering around the edges of that noise, I could hear a deeper and more distant (at least 30 feet further) "Woof, woof, woof," as a second dog added his piece.

My own dog was sitting on the couch with me. And I glanced down and could tell she was hearing the same woofing noise, but it wasn't rousing her to reply in kind. It's one of those things that we get familiar with outside. She knows they're just woofing to be woofing and that her own joining in wouldn't accomplish anything.

But it was remarkable that she heard a closer noise, not animal, not human (probably was human), someone dragging something by, perhaps, and she woofed three times. I said shut up, she woofed again, I said shut up again, and after one more poorly phrased woof she shut up.

Clang Clang

There's a regular clanging outside, like someone might be pounding a post to play horseshoes at. But probably not.

Maybe it's just a kid who found a piece of metal and is hammering at it. It doesn't sound loud enough or authoritative enough to be workmen.

Although it does sound like what it would sound like if you were out there doing vandalism to a fire hydrant. But that never happens.

I'm always amazed at vandals. They pick on the stuff down here, normal stuff at our level. But even though a fire hydrant is at our level, no one ever does anything to those. It's because we've seen them so regularly in our lives that we don't even see them.

Fire hydrants are not subject to vandalism because of familiarity, flying below the radar.

Iron King

I've been watching the obscure Japanese series "Iron King" for the last however long it's been during my morning and evening exercises.

Gentaro has a weird way with women, hitting them, letting them be killed, putting them off, lying to them, etc. But he has one important mission, and that is protecting Japan against this endless procession of robots and terrorists. He can't be like Goro, his friend, a big softy ... except when he's the Iron King.

Yet for all of Gentaro's ambivalence in dealing with the opposite sex, they seemed drawn to him, much like they're drawn to Kramer, the lure of the wild, the kevorka.

Watching it tonight was nice, after the scam that American Idol is. It's good to have these shows where the good guy wins.

Music Is Getting Old

I got a couple Glenn Miller CDs the other day. I was looking at them, as well as listening just a little.

He did his main work between the years of 1939-1942. That's a pretty tight time frame, since that's a lot of hits -- I don't even know how many. I'm nothing like an expert on this stuff.

1939, though, that's 70 years ago. This stuff is getting old. But what I was listening to still sounds fresh -- the recordings. As far as the style, the great vocals, etc., it sounds like something from a different world. I love it.

I'm surprised there aren't more older people who talk about their love for music. I've noticed this just about forever, that they don't do a lot of comparing of tracks, albums, why they liked a particular thing. It doesn't seem like they feel like discussing such things.

Toothpaste Like Caulk

I've never heard of toothpaste going bad. Yes, maybe if it falls into a box, is taken to the attic, and sets there for 10 years, probably then it wouldn't be any good. But just setting on the counter in the bathroom for a couple months? I've never heard of that.

But it happened. We had some Colgate toothpaste, two tubes that we were using. We basically got one real low, then I don't know how it happened -- we were on a trip or something and took the fuller one, then we kept using it, to the neglect of the other. The other set there no more than a couple months, around that.

The fuller one, as these things happen, became the less full one in time and that left the less full one to now be the fuller one. I started to use the new fuller one and guess what, the toothpaste had hardened to the point that I had to squeeze it with all my might, then just to get a very firm chunk of toothpaste that fell off the toothbrush. It landed with a plop. I tried another one and got the same thing. I tried to use the second piece and it had difficulty in there. Meaning I had to take drastic measures and throw the whole thing away.

This stuff was like the caulk that you use to seal up your bathtub. Although I'm thinking it would not have sustained itself if used like actual caulk.

C'mon, Colgate. What are you putting in your toothpaste. Another couple months and I would have had "Chalk In A Tube"

From Walker To Walker

You know those things that people use who have a hard time getting around, a walker? The things with tennis balls?

I had to pick up one of those and move it today. Then with it still in hand, I opened a door to turn off a light and turned and bumped it with my legs. I crunched against it and was afraid I might trip, but I was OK.

I had a very bad thought that I could've gotten hurt by a walker and then I would need a walker.

Wow, A Free Calculator

I saw an AARP commercial for switching your car insurance. Call now and we'll give you a free calculator! [Cut to the shot of your basic 99 cent calculator.]

Is a calculator that huge of an inducement these days? What is this, 1974?

Agreed On Texts

I've been asked now twice in the last month and a half, "What are you reading?" The first time I said nothing. The second time, having been prepared for this from the first time, I said something about the poems of Sir Walter Scott, even though I've pretty much abdicated from reading them. I need to get back to them.

I was sitting in a chair today -- worried as usual -- and thinking I should read something. There was a book I was thinking of but I didn't know where it was. So I'm sitting there another 10 minutes and glancing around, the very book was four feet in front of me, almost hidden in a stack. So I read from it. It didn't help very much but a little. The thing is I know something about this, and the whole point of that particular text, if you went to the very heart of it, is that you don't really need texts. The real text is in here (tapping my empty head).

So I'm sitting here now tapping out another empty text. These paragraphs and the others I've written today, like at Grandma Slump. I like the entry over there because it picks up on this feeling of worrying and being down. But once you've written it and read it you think, OK, that's done. That helped for that minute but now it's just a thought that came from my own head. It's hard to be entertained by thoughts that come from your own head. One thing about it is that what the text is is a very selective part of the thoughts that come from your head, like .0001% of the thoughts you have all the time.

Who really can be entertained by themselves? It's like Frank Sinatra who said he never listened to his own records. And why should he? The voice was in his throat somewhere, lurking with him all the time. He didn't need a needle to remind him.

But there are these texts that get to us collectively. The Bible is the biggest, most obvious one. I think the Bible is fantastic, but it's a dangerous book because of what people have done with it. It's like it's intentionally dangerous and wouldn't pass OSHA standards if someone wrote it now. It has enough stories with jagged edges that it keeps us perpetually fascinated. That's probably one of the keys to writing an agreed on text. Don't round the edges. Leave it rough. So it appeals to everyone, from the Sunday School child with a white hankie to the biggest flaming, psycho, apocalyptic kook in the world.

Dog's Bathroom Habits

I am scientifically astir tonight over a very interesting subject that is fraught with mystery. Dogs taking their potty breaks.

Sometimes I take my dog outside in the yard .... and sometimes I take her to the park. If I take her in the yard her output -- 1 and 2 -- is at one level. But if I take her to the park it is generally twice that or more.

This leads to the obvious question. Are dogs just storing it up and still feeling comfortable while walking around inside? Doesn't it stand to reason that when you go out -- whether in the yard or at the park -- the output would have to be pretty much the same?

I need a good website to research this stuff at.

American Idol

Here's hoping that Adam Lambert pulls through OK tonight on the results show. I'm assuming he will. I'll be very upset if he doesn't.

But that means that one of these guys -- who both did pretty well -- Danny Gokey or Kris Allen -- has to be kicked out. I'm hoping it's Danny. Even though he's talented I've never warmed up to him.

Flip a coin, though, either one. Again, if it's Adam, the fur will fly. It better not be.

Possible Explanation

I was in a motel the other night, and morning was coming on. It was rainy and thunder was rumbling through the area. All at once there was one of the loudest cracks of thunder I've ever heard, like the lightning must have been within 100 feet.

I looked outside and was astonished to see an empty parking space next to my car. When I went to bed there was a truck there. But with that sudden lightning and enormous thunder, it was gone! That is powerful. My own car was undamaged, which is also remarkable.

Iron King

I saw an interesting looking series on DVD the other day and got it. Now I'm in the process of watching it. It's called "Iron King" and it's a Japanese series from 1972.

It's in the Godzilla family, then the Space Giants genre. Big robots tromping buildings and frantic Japanese running for their lives. It's got 26 episodes and four discs. My copy happens to have the DVD case nubs broken, so I don't know what caused that. Maybe the robots inside were agitating it too much.

I'm up to episode 4. So far the episodes are following a distinct pattern. There's a clan in Japan that's been scheming for 2000 years to get their revenge on the rest of society and to go into the ascendancy. They have ready many different kinds of robot monsters, mostly for the apparently impossible task of killing this one guy, one of the stars of the show, Gentaro. He's not Iron King, by the way. He seems to be simply a mortal, but one with all kinds of fighting ability.

Iron King is the giant/robot alter ego of Goro, a comic kind of guy who travels with Gentaro. Gentaro doesn't realize that Goro is Iron King. He appears when he's needed for the fight, by saying the words "Shock, Shock, Iron Shock" in English. His one downfall, very much a bummer, is that his body fluid -- water -- goes down like a dropped brick. So he can't fight very long till he's wiped out. Then when he becomes Goro again, a normal human being, he's parched and is going after water in an insane way. Gentaro hasn't figured this out yet but he knows all about Iron King's trouble with losing water.

The pattern is that they're traveling. The clan seeks to kill Gentaro. They send forth a robot. The robot fights, then recedes. They regather and attack again. I won't say what happens to the robot in each episode, but by the end of the episode the clan is preparing the next robot to try. Every stranger they meet is a member of this clan.

I like it so far.

The Purpose Of Flowers

I used to be a big romantic when it came to nature. I think I still am, to a certain extent, but this is one of those areas where any amount of learning you do decreases your romanticism by the same amount.

When you think things are just there for some innocent reason it's one thing. When you take a class or someone tells you the actual truth, you go, "Oh, really?" It changes your mindset. So if you want to be truly happy, stay as stupid as possible. But now that I think of it, maybe you can just forget what you've learned and insist on the innocent reasons.

One example. Why not believe that flowers are just there to make God smile? Or to keep bees from being depressed? Those are good things. Then you're out in nature and you see a bunch of flowers, you think, Oh, how nice, God is smiling. Or the bees in this area must be very well adjusted.

I had it pointed out to me that the purpose of flowers is simply to make more flowers. It's like the sex life of flowers -- doing whatever, however they do it. The pistil is hot for the bulb or something. They have a three way with a bee. I don't know. I think I might've had a botany class but I don't remember precisely. Had to dissect a tulip one time. The teacher stuck a pin in its stem to put it to sleep. Standing there one second, the pin goes in, it conked out. I could barely look.

Now whenever I see flowers I'm thinking they're just there to make more flowers. It's a depressing thought, because you want them to be prideful along the way, not so extremely goal-oriented.

Nostalgia

Maybe I'm in the mood for thinking of old times. I'm getting old enough to remember the past.

Once upon a time we had a nostalgia craze. We need a resurgence of nostalgia. Maybe we have it, we just don't call it that anymore. We have retro, throwback, and vintage.

Nostalgia fever hit the nation, I'm thinking around the year 1972. It was noted for Deco typefaces, something like the Broadway typeface that is on lots of computers. And a few others. It was a time -- maybe going along in some way with the "That's Entertainment" movies.

But I definitely remember seeing the word "nostalgia" back then all the time, a lot more than you see it now. Magazines covered it. Old movies were shown more often.

And, not coincidentally, that was when the whole "collectibles" and "collector's item" boom took off. Which led me to speak those immortal words, "If it's really a collector's item you don't need to put the phrase 'collector's item' on it. Collectors will know."

You may remember when Stevie Wonder's "Songs In The Key Of Life" album came out it had printed on the front "Collector's Album." I was at a flea market and this idiot dealer had records for sale. Let's say they were $1 each, just to make a point. This guy had the Stevie album like five or 10 times the price. I asked him why. He said because it was a "Collector's Album," since it said right on the front! I asked him why it was a collector's album and he said, "I don't know. Maybe he died or something."

Whatever Happened To Generic Stuff?

In the '70s there was a big boom in generic stuff, usually adorned with plain white packaging and plain black lettering. Cereal, pancake mix, I don't know about orange juice.

When it came to design, they definitely skimped on the cost. Maybe art and design expenses are where all the big expense is when it comes to products. I know I could use more of a stripped down approach when it comes to packaging electronics items, like battery rechargers. It's hard to get them opened.

But it seemed like as fast as generic-everything was on the market, within a couple years anyway, it was all gone. Then the closest thing to generic was the store brands. But even they don't just say "Raisin Bran" but come up with a name like "Always Save Raisin Bran."

I believe there was even a few records that did at least a take-off of the black/white generic craze. What they were, I don't know. Just plain old "Music," probably. Maybe someone out there has a large collection of generic packaging. It would've been a good idea. But I didn't think of it at the time. One thing, you don't expect it to go away.

Emergency TP

We've been having trouble keeping the bathrooms stocked with enough toilet paper. If you're downstairs, there's not any. Then if you're upstairs, there's not any. We buy a big thing of 24 rolls -- or you can get 12 double rolls. But then somehow they're not evenly distributed.

My big solution is to put a couple behind glass with a little hammer. Break glass in case of emergency. But then of course I need a little whisk broom and dustpan behind another glass case, to break in case there's broken glass in the area.

A Prescription

Our local pharmacy sells a lot of things besides just drugs, including now refilling printer cartridges, which seems like it'd be a great service. But as far as I'm concerned they have it overly complicated.

You expect it when you go in to refill your pills, they need to see the prescription. But does their policy on refilling printer cartridges really make any sense, that they need to see a prescription from a computer repairman?

They need to rethink this. There's something wrong there.

A Restaurant Museum

We were talking about a restaurant that was recently gutted, like either they went out of business or are remodeling, or they've given up their lease and the owner of the building is making it fresh for a new tenant.

One solution would be just to make a museum out of it. Like if it's a sandwich and chips kind of place, just leave all the furniture and food and packages and menus. Put up some velvet ropes and charge people to come in and look at it.

At first no one much would want to see it, but as times changed, and as restaurants evolved, they'd get that nostalgic feeling and want to see what it was like in the old days. If you have patience you can just wait it out ... and eventually make money.

The Last Of...

We've all heard of the Last of the Mohicans. But what if it was the Mesquakie tribe? The Last of the Mesqueakins?

Exercise And Tension

I'm thinking of going and exercising vigorously. I've been neglectful of my exercising duties, and that means that money I'm paying for the health club is being wasted.

But I have some tension, and was thinking I ought to go and do an hour -- an entire hour (unheard of) -- on the treadmill. That sounds like a very long time. But I just might do it. Don't push me. I might.

I have the time. I could do it. There's nothing standing in my way. Except the block in my mind saying, "Ugh!"

OK ... I'm going to hit the button to "Publish" this, then I'm going!

May Day!

Darn, yesterday I forgot my favorite-most joke in the whole wide world! Now I have to wait a whole 'nother year to play it again.

It was May 1st, right? OK, that's the set up. Heh heh. And here's the joke:

You call 911 and, all excited, you say, "May Day! May Day!"

Of course the emergency worker is all upset. "Please calm down, sir. What is wrong?"

And then you go all loose, "Nothing, just wanted to wish you a pleasant May Day."

[Don't really try this, because 911 calls are for emergencies only. Plus, the police will show up and you'll be spending the day after May Day in jail. This blog post is for entertainment purposes only ... blah blah blah ... insert sufficiently worded disclaimer here.]]

Handwriting Of The Dead

In my cleaning and digging into my old papers -- stuff from the basement -- I came across some old Christmas cards today in a box.

I was looking through them and noticed that several of them were from people who are no longer alive. I think of these cards differently than I did when they were alive. I wonder why.

It's like there's something of them left ... in just their signature. I'm not going to keep them, since I'm thinning things out. But since I'm digitizing this stuff, at least with a camera aimed at it, I'll have it on my hard drive until it quits working.

A little too sentimental, I know.

Ephemera

In my quest to digitize my life, to photo or scan the various personal documents I have around the house -- including old class notes and all kinds of stuff -- I went through several boxes in the basement this evening.

There's some real ephemeral stuff in there, including Post-It notes with phone numbers of people we don't even see anymore, from other towns we've lived, cassette tapes of stuff, a few video tapes, and a lot of old bills. We of course keep our bills around in case we're going to need them. But not as long these days as we used to, since we pay everything online.

Some of the old bills, bank statements, etc., were from 1992-1993, in there. They're down by a place where the pipe had leaked one time, till the plumbers fixed it, so they're a little musty and a few things were stuck together. Those I'm not digitizing! Those are being shredded.

It's a blast from the past to see some of this old stuff. But not such a blast that I'd wish it were endless.

Mean Mr. Mustard

This person I'm with really uses the condiments.

She wastes mustard, as far as I'm concerned, with big blobs going on the bun.

Now I know why our mustard bill is so high.

Michelle Bachmann: Total Moron

Really, how do you get this stupid? Is there no way for voters to judge these people before they're inflicted on the country? Good grief.

Michelle Bachmann, that ridiculous twerp from Minnesota in Congress, suggested that President Obama was to blame for the swine flu crisis.

How dumb, how very dumb can the Republicans get? Since flu and illness isn't a partisan matter. Really, you may as well blame him that winter is cold and summer hot. Good thing this idiot isn't a Democrat or she would have blamed George W. Bush that the Katrina hurricane even happened. We can't have that kind of nonsense. Is she supposed to be a normal member of Congress or is this some crazy performance art?

Then the idiot when on to imply that swine flu epidemics have something to do with Democratic administrations, saying the last one dated back to President Carter. Well, hey, idiot, I happen to be old enough to distinctly remember getting a swine flu shot while President Ford was president.

Do I blame President Ford or the Republicans for the swine flu in the mid '70s? Of course not. That's ridiculous. Bachmann just marginalizes herself with this idiocy. What's her game anyway?

A Terrible Admission

I hurry by public bathrooms when I hear the toilet flushing. I don't want anyone stepping out and it looks like I'm standing outside listening for whatever. I'm definitely not. I don't want to hear it, see it, smell it, anything.

I'm funny that way. Plus, I'd prefer not even to be in a bathroom out in public. It's a terrible feeling to have to walk in one. It's like admitting you have body parts and it just feeds people's imagination.

Very Depressed

I've been very depressed most of the day. I mention it because I'm suddenly reminded of an old thought I had -- I think it read it somewhere -- that you should enjoy your depression.

Instead of just wanting to crawl into a hole somewhere, actually enjoy it. I wish I'd have thought of it like six hours ago. Now it's getting later in the day and I'm very sleepy. But I still have time to enjoy it.

Let me see if I can!

Loincloths In Japan

Loincloths are making a comeback -- I guess -- in Japan. As a substitute for whatever women's underwear they've been used to. That, according to a video I saw, has wires and is uncomfortable.

In the video they showed you bring it up through your legs and push it under a belt thing.

I'll see if I can find the link. At the video they say they've sold over 5,000 of them since December. Which doesn't sound like many for an entire country.

Pills With Meat

When our dog takes her pills we put them in meat. Maybe wrap them in ham, but sometimes they fall out in that case and she gets twice the meat. The best way is to stick them in the center of a piece of hotdog, and down they go.

It's such a great idea that I tried it myself. Not exactly the sticking it in a hotdog. But fixing hotdogs and just before eating them taking my pills.

Now they're down there dissolving and all mixed in with chewed up hotdogs. Nice picture.

No More GeoCities

It is with sadness that I see Yahoo is closing GeoCities, which was a very cool site in its day.

In its ongoing effort to jettison unpopular products, Yahoo said today that it will shutter GeoCities, a free personal home page service that it acquired in 1999 for $4.6 billion.

I had an early website at GeoCities. I was in the Soho/Lofts district. If you remember that, they had neighborhoods, including a little map, as I recall.

Sorry to see it go. It was fun at one time!

Old Comic Strips

There's something about old comic strips, interesting, how ephemeral they are. You read one and immediately forget it.

I ran across an old article from a newspaper today, and on the back was part of the comics page. So I flipped it over and read the two that were complete. Only one I still remember. These were from 1991. So they're out there on microfilm, probably at the newspaper archive website. But for the most part, no one cares -- and no one will ever care -- about them.

In this particular episode of "The Born Loser," the born loser is in an elevator with two other guys. One says something like, "Would you give $100 for a $20,000 watch?" And the born loser says he'd like to see it. And the guy says it's on this other guy's wrist. So he's a thief. I thought that was funny. But I've tossed it out ... so it's once again exiled to obscurity.

Tapping Out A Tune

There's an interesting thing you can do with your feet and a tune in mind. That is to tap it out with your feet, using the heels and the toe area.

Your mind definitely goes along with it, with the heel being especially a bass note and the toe treble, melody notes.

I'm doing the famous old song "Baby Elephant Walk" right now. You know how it goes. I'll do the first part, slowly: Left heel, right heel, left heel, right toe, left toe, right heel, left heel, left heel, left toe, right toe. I don't think that's right. It's easier to do by instinct than it is to try and chart it out. Plus I have very little musical talent.

No one else can tell what song you're doing. Just you.

Gum Brands

Are you chewing Neptune's trident?

The Point Of No Return

Somewhere I've written about an article I saw in Omni magazine one time about "how to have a mystical experience." Part of it had to do with depriving yourself of sleep, which probably works, if by mystical experience you just mean an altered consciousness.

I don't have any raging techniques to mention, anything surefire. But it seems like normal seeking, persistent, normal, relational prayer and devotion -- over the long term -- making it as personal and up close as possible, would be your best bet.

Putting aside mystical experiences, I wanted to say something about "The Point Of No Return," which is a title I'm putting on an experience I've had over the years, going back maybe 12-14 years, that doesn't happen very often. This experience is tricky to describe, like describing a dream. But it has always occurred when working with putting things in a series, or working with the things in a series that is going out of order in some way.

Like, say, you have 12 cards and you need to put them in order. Like alphabetical order, numerical order, in order by the personalities on them, something like that. At some point you may get these two sensations: 1) Doing it is vain or there could've been an easier way; 2) You're at the point of no return; you may as well keep going no matter how vain it is. I guess the sensation comes -- and I haven't had it for years -- quite at random. I tried to invoke it a few times intentionally but couldn't.

It really could be that whatever the spark for deja vu is might be in operation during this series work, and something about the point of no return just flips it for a second. It's brain work, after all, and brains like the harmony of a series, but sometime feel stymied by whatever.

Not A Big Reader

I have lots of books. I was commenting yesterday, somewhere, that I went to a book sale and only bought one book. A rarity for me. But just because I have lots of books doesn't mean I do a commensurate amount of reading. Because I'm busy for one. Then half the time I'm depressed and/or worried, so I can't always concentrate. And I try to get eight hours sleep everyday, so that means there's not enough time in the day.

But anyway...

A guy asked me the other day, "What are you reading?" And I'm thinking I'm going to sound dumb, but I had to say, "I'm not reading anything." Because I read five to 10 pages of about everything and hardly ever get much farther.

But today I had the book I got yesterday, and I cracked it open and looked at it. The Complete Poems of Sir Walter Scott, I think it's called. It's one of those old editions of poems, the Cambridge edition of a poet's complete works, from around 1900. I have several of these, various poets, and couldn't remember if I had this one. I started reading "The Lady of the Lake" today, and am up in the second canto. Very interesting so far!

So if anyone asks what I'm reading -- and they hardly ever do -- that's what it is, Sir Walter Scott. Gotta get that "Sir" in there, I guess.

As for my new found discipline in not buying books to excess, I picked one up at Goodwill today -- something -- and then hesitated and put it back. So that was good.

Peanuts

It bothered me for years about the Peanuts comic strip that there wasn't a character named Peanuts or that peanuts weren't mentioned in any way.

Truth in advertising, something like that was what I wanted. To me a title ought to say something about what the content is, like this particular blog post.

Paying Bills Online

I wish they would come up with a more or less standardized system for paying bills.

Every single one is a completely different website, with funky crap for signing on (some of them). One has a captcha that is supposed to be helpful, but since none of the others have it it doesn't seem entirely necessary.

One of them has a floating "comments" widget, going down the page with you. It seems to gum up the works and make my computer work slowly. Of course you have to agree that you read the terms each time, when you haven't, and since the page is so stretched out it's lost in the shuffle, this box, and it gives you an error when you don't check it.

It's better than writing out checks. And it's better than paying the post office for a stamp for every one of them. But it's still drudgery.

Heavy Metal Thunder

Ooo, I've been listening to the song "Born To Be Wild," as sung on American Idol last night by Adam Lambert. Caught it several times at You Tube and on my original tape. Pretty good, high energy, lots of action. 50 times better than the other snorers on the show!

Of course we all recall this song from a long time ago, and I believe it's been on plenty of commercials, including ones with children riding tricycles. There's someone out there who has plenty of albums for kids, like Beatles songs, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, for children! I used to see them when I had a Napster subscription. So there's probably a very cute version of "Born To Be Wild" that kids like, or that is in a music box in a mobile over some newborn's bed even as we speak.

Personally, I'm old enough to remember the song when it originally came out. But, believe it or not, I've never seen the movie "Easy Rider." Bits of it like on movie shows, shows about movies, but never the film. I'm not a big movie guy. I just saw the movie "Midnight Cowboy" within the last six months. That's how far behind I am.

I definitely remember hearing it on the radio, by Steppenwolf. I liked a few of their songs, the ones I was familiar with. I hated "The Pusher," and still do. Yuck.

Pizzas Don't Come With Serial Numbers

There are millions of pizzas made everyday, and it's a haphazard system. No one's keeping track. There's no oversight.

They don't come with serial numbers. By the time they'd issue the recall notice it's already eaten.

None of this applies strictly to the frozen pizza industry. If you want to call those pizzas.

Bo Obama

The Obamas got their dog and his name is Bo!

Bo, easy to spell, easy to remember.

Reminds me of the old commercial that had a song that went like this [clearing my throat]:

I got a dog, his name is Bo!
And he's got the High Pro glow.
Healthy, High Pro glow,
Energy, the High Pro glow.

I would guess it was for a dog food called "High Pro." Whether they still make it or not, I don't know. But it's really something that I could remember it, huh?

There's Nothing To See

Every time my dog sees me looking out the window like I'm looking at something, she wants to be held up to see. She's smart, because sometimes there are squirrels, which she goes wild over. But even when there's nothing in sight -- I might just be looking and lost in thought -- she still things there is.

It just happened. She lets me know by jumping against my leg. Let me up! I can say "There's nothing," but there's no way to convince her except by convincing her with her own two eyes.

"See, there aren't even any ants, unless they're ones so small you can't see them from here." They all are, of course, but she doesn't have to know.

What Is A Good Easter?

I was in the store yesterday and caught one of those snippets of conversation you hear in passing.

Two women pushing their shopping carts, and one says to the other, "Have a good Easter." And of course the response was, "You too."

It made me think as I was pushing my own cart, What is a good Easter? When do you know you've achieved a good one? If the ham is good? If the kids are happy with their treats? If church is inspiring? If it's sunny and bright?

For me, to have a good Easter will be if everything goes smoothly as it should, I live, and the day is happy. Only that's the definition of every good day, all those not-so-special days.

They Can Decipher It In The Future

In my quest to digitize my life -- to put all my class notes, term papers, and incidental projects on my computer and get rid of the paper -- I came across this word. It was in the middle of a regular size notebook page. At first I just tossed it aside, but then I thought it might be significant someday. Maybe I would wonder what it said.

I couldn't read it at first because I thought it started with a V. I was just thinking maybe science someday would come up with a way of deciphering it. But then as soon as I thought that I was able to make it out. It's an R, and it says "ratrace."

So at one time, with that paper right before me, I wrote the word "ratrace." Which according to the spell checker here must be supposed to be two words, "rat race."

It's a good word for today, just as it was back then, which would have been sometime between 1990-1992. What a treasure.

A Golf Tee

Somewhere I was walking in the last few days I saw a white golf tee on the ground. I didn't pick it up.

I know there was a time in my life when I definitely would've picked it up. I don't know why I didn't. I should've picked it up just to be picking it up, so someone wouldn't come along and step on it. Or because it's litter. Or because maybe I could do something with it.

My memory is so bad at this moment that I can't even remember where it was. But there it was and I considered picking it up but not seriously enough to give it a second thought. Till now.

I'm usually pretty good about picking things up. But not pennies either. I didn't pick one of those up the other day.

I don't play golf so I don't really need a golf tee. But they might be fun to have around.

My Dog's Legs

My dog got her leg fur trimmed today. Not quite shaved because there's still fur there, but they're about half the size they were. It's weird looking, like a sheep.

Anyway, I'm thinking, she can barely support her weight now with those skinny legs. She needs the extra fur to hold herself up. There's hardly room in there anymore for her bones.

Wouldn't a true dog bury the bones in her legs so she'd have them for later?

Obama's Poll Numbers

Somewhere today I saw that President Obama's poll numbers remain high and the Republicans' remain low. I'm glad.

Let the Republicans continue to shoot themselves in the foot, whatever. They're aligning themselves with all kinds of radicals, like the Fox News crew, etc. I saw a video of David Schuster, MSNBC, where he was talking with a guy from the NY Times and a guy from some gun lobbying organization.

The gun guy was talking for the wacko side of life, that Obama is trying to take away everyone's guns, etc. Which aligns them exactly with this cop killer from a few days ago who supposedly did it because he believed the idiocy that Obama is trying to take away everyone's guns. But everyone, you see, needs their guns because ... I don't know ... they might need to make a vain last stand against the repressive government. Good luck with that. As long as you don't have tanks and bombers, who do you think will win?

Plus, anyway, it's not even going to happen. There's such a thing as paranoia going too far, and that's all this is. Oh, and the Republicans trying to score points with radical fringe groups because ... they think that's the road back to political dominance? Someone throw them an anvil in case they drop this one!

I actually own guns and believe in the right to own guns. But I'm not stupid enough to think my guns are enough to take on an oppressive government. Which we don't have. Duh. It's all such vain nonsense.

The Smells Of Life

Someone I know today said he thought there was "a hot smell" in the men's bathroom of a place.

This is going to be unpleasant, I would expect, because it means I need to go into the men's bathroom and start sniffing. There's hardly anything in the men's bathroom that could be on fire, but if there is, I'm fully prepared to put it out anyway I can. Fully prepared.

So I went in, and I'm sniffing. I've recently had some nose problems, smelling things that other people can't smell, etc., so I'm already dubious going in that I'm going to be able to identify it. But I can smell something right away, but it doesn't smell hot or burning.

It smelled like one of those cakes of deodorizer that they put in a urinal. But it seemed like it must be emanating from a room deodorizer that was up on a shelf. Why we've never noticed it before, I don't know. He reached and got it and held it to my nose. It definitely didn't smell great, but I think it was doing the job it was meant to do.

The smell could've been something out of the urinal as well. Who knows how well it gets flushed? Or even if every person who goes in there bothers to flush it.

Taking A Nap

I layed down at around 1 and got up about 3. It seemed like a longer time than that. But the daylight outside let me know it wasn't 3 in the morning.

My trusty dog was right at my side. She was downstairs when I layed down. (By the way, I don't know my 'lays,' laid, layed, laying, lain, whatever. So I'll just type it the way it seems best. My little spell thing keeps telling me 'layed' is wrong. So be it!) Anyway, I layed down and gave a high pitched call to the dog, her name. She came bounding up and was in my bed. And by golly she was still there when I woke up.

That's faithfulness. Dogs have to be the laziest animals. Like cats but faithful. Whether I should have taken the nap is up for debate. It's refreshing but also a waste of time. But once it's done you need to move on from there.

I really could use some candy right about now. But there isn't any.

Obama Fried Chicken

There's some controversy about a place called Obama Fried Chicken. I think the controversy has to do with the name, which, coincidentally, is also the name of our current president.

But President Obama doesn't own or have a copyright on the name Obama, does he? It seems like there'd have to be other people with the same name, meaning it could be used like any other word. I mean, we have Bush's Baked Beans. Which even though I couldn't stand George Bush I still ate.

The article said the O and A had been filled in, leaving it Bam Fried Chicken. But I say let it remain Obama Fried Chicken. There was a lot of cashing in on Obama after the election and especially around the Inauguration. If this place wants their restaurant to be called that, it seems like it'd be their business.

Michelle's Fashions

It must be terrible to be the First Lady for various reasons.

One of the biggest has to be the whole fashion issue. She must have an enormous budget for fashion, and it must not be big enough for some people.

There was an article today that Oscar de la Renta was criticizing something about Michelle's fashions that she wore in Europe. Please. Go back to Renta Center, where you came from.

She should be allowed to do more in life than change clothes and parade around for the critics. Go pick on Palin.

Obama Abroad

I'm not paying close attention to the news. But I see Obama is abroad, in Europe somewhere. Well, he met with the Queen, of course. As for anywhere else he may be, I don't know.

I don't really like watching the news that much. I don't like a lot of gratuitous criticism of him. And that's what we get every time they parade in all these Republican traitors. The guys and gals from the R side are such crooks, liars, and phonies that you can't believe anything out of their mouth. They're such hypocrites too, which, however true it is seems to be an insult that doesn't stick. They have the advantage of people's short memories. Also they have the advantage of politics normally stinking, so they stay somewhat below the radar because of that. But I'm remembering. They put us through the paces with that crook George Bush, but now they can't cut Obama any slack no matter what he does.

I saw a few of the pictures of Obama with the other world leaders. They must be glad to have him instead of that crook Bush. The German leader was threatening to walk out -- as I understand it. Maybe Obama wasn't fast enough with the neck rub. The other leaders. Whatever they're up to? Who knows? Sarkozy hasn't been the same since his phone conversation with Palin. So he's probably still mad being punked like that. (Real Sarkozy, fake Palin; I think it was the other way 'round.)

Speaking of Palin, how is it this dim bulb is still emitting a flicker of light in the public eye? And speaking of dim bulbs still emitting a flicker of light, Joe the Plumber is still out there. It seems he's ticked off real plumbers by parroting the conservative line of crap. Then when confronted about it he didn't even know what he was talking about. So maybe all is forgiven. It's weird relating to him, isn't it? He was an illustration during a debate. That's it. McCain exploited him for those moments. Now he's made a career out of it.

Bobby Jindal is praying no more volcanoes blow up. That's the news as I can remember.

One Take Away One

I saw some kids working out some arithmetic problems on the chalkboard the other day. They were formulating them and then putting the answers. I can remember a couple of them. One was 9 x 1 = 9. Another was 2 x 2 = 4. And they had some bigger numbers too, including perhaps some hundreds. It's great practice for when they're at school and they whip out these problems on you.

I've been digitizing some of my old papers -- class notes, term papers, priceless stuff like that. I brought some files of this stuff up from the basement, and I've done around 1,500 pages. My desire to do it comes and goes. But when it's here, I try to get something done, because I know it will disappear again. It's the spring cleaning bug.

So I look at the files -- ugh -- and photograph each page and think I'm taking away one page each one that's done. 40 minus 1, etc., all the way down to none. If I ever live to see "none," who knows? The bug can't last that long.

I Just Stopped In To See What Condition My Condition Was In

I got two Kenny Rogers CDs at Goodwill today. I don't think I had any Kenny Rogers CDs already, although a few of these songs I have somewhere, vinyl perhaps.

Both are greatest hits packages. One is "The Best of Kenny Rogers," a 10 track Capitol CD. Not much there, 10 tracks! This doesn't include any of his rock tracks. The other has 12 tracks and it's one of the 20th Century Masters series, with the exact same title as the Capitol one. It has some of the same tracks, too, plus the biggies by the First Edition, tracks 8 thru 12, including "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town," "Ruben James," and "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In)". I like those songs, except when I was a kid we made fun of "Ruby."

So I'll probably listen to those songs a few times and some of the others. Put them on and enjoy!

The other CD I got was by Gin Blossoms, "Congratulations I'm Sorry." I don't think I have this one. I have the other one I know about, the one with "Hey Jealousy."

Photographing Documents

Recently I thought it'd be a good idea to start digitizing my documents, things I have around the house, business papers, scraps of trivia, whatever.

But I've picked through it somewhat, because some of the trivia on scraps of paper is the sort of thing I'll never need forever. But some of it, hey, I don't know if I'll ever need someone's phone number again. So what the hey. Except to do it, then to give it all file names, then to categorize it, blah blah, it gets complicated and time consuming.

I haven't got a great way to photograph these things. Scanning takes too long with my old scanner. So I got it set up with the camera on top of some books, aimed the best I can do it in a consistent way, at the papers before me. Then click it and move on to the next one. I literally did over 1400 pages over the weekend, term papers, college notes, all kinds of crap.

As for all my college and other term papers, I've had the stack of them setting in the basement for years and really didn't want to throw them away. Not that they're any good, really, or likely to be something I'll want to read again. But it just seems bad to lose them forever. Yet I don't want the stack around forever. So I photographed them, put them on the computer, and shredded the whole thing. Over 1000 pages of stuff shredded!

Now I need to go through and label them, or maybe not. Maybe I'll just put them in a big folder that is called term papers -- for this school and this school -- and if I ever want to see them, it wouldn't take endless browsing to find them.

I worked on this project some today, trying to rotate files, brighten them, etc. I did a bunch manually till I figured out a way to batch process them, and obviously that saved a lot of time.

The Language Animals Know

I'm constantly on the lookout for what my animals know, the cats and dog.

They start out knowing nothing about us, our mannerisms, what we say, all that. But then in the course of time they learn all sorts of things, whether to trust us or not.

Somehow they come to associate their name with themselves. I'm still not exactly sure how that happens, except obviously by repetition. But whether they know the names of the others, that's not always clear. I do think our dog knows the words we use for the cats individually.

Then there's all the other things we communicate, especially with the dog. The dog comes in for a lot more interaction because of the bathroom duties. And she, being a dog, cares to be with us more in an intimate and ongoing way than the cats. So she responds to things that are kind, sweet, complimentary, and comes to know things like "Stay" and "No." We think of "sit" as a kind of trick, which is just more of the same.

One thing the cats get trained to respond to, by getting a treat or by having something that will be to their liking, is "Kitty, kitty, kitty" in a high pitched call. You figure they're a blank slate till they get the associations.

Look At All These Hangers

A picture of a thousand hangers is worth a thousand words about them.

My Cat's Jealous Of My Paws

... I mean, hands.

He's anxious to get his food in the morning. The way he judges time is by my movements. So if I go downstairs an hour early, he thinks it's time to eat. But sometimes I need to go downstairs to get something. I hate to do it because I know he'll appear, ready for food. "Not time yet, sorry."

Then when it is time, downstairs I go. He reappears, and of course this time it is time to eat. I open the pantry, get the bag of dry food and get a can of wet. I pour the dry. I open the can and scoop it into a dish. Then it's all set in place.

How much better it'd be from his point of view if he could only open the pantry, get the dry, pour it, get the wet, open it, scoop it, and set it in place! But he can't do any of that. He'd starve, not a happy thought.

It makes me feel very able, though. There I am ... lord of thought and deeds ... able to open cat food and serve it. I not only can think through the process, what it'd take to accomplish it, I'm also able perfectly to follow through on my intentions and get the job done. It's strictly 1-2-3, but I treasure my great ability to do things 1-2-3. As smart as the cat is, he can't do this.

Of course there's things the cat can do that I can't. But in this particular blog post I just want to mention the things I can do that he can't.

My Dog Always Contradicts Me

I'm talking about my dog. She always contradicts me.
It's like a routine.

"You always contradict me."
"No, I don't."

This deserves a threat. "I'll put your fur on the other side of your collar."
"It already is."

American (Adam Lambert) Idol

OK, I do like Allison Iraheta, always have. She's awesome, and only 16? Wow. But other than her, for me it's all Adam Lambert. I'm a huge fan. And probably if they had him in Tiger Beat, I'd be buying it again. Ha ha.

I love his normal look, the brushed down hair, the whole modern, cool look. And I liked the look tonight, like an Elvis look. The weird thing for me, though, with him and Elvis, is I think he looks more like Elvis with his hair as normal than he did tonight. But it was a very dreamy look nonetheless. But skip all that Elvis stuff, I like Adam Lambert for who he is all by himself. Time for a fan letter!

He did "Tracks of My Tears," since it was Motown night. He did it unplugged, a guy with guitar, a guy with bass, and a guy with a drum thing. I was thinking it might be too sparse for the judges but they turned out to love it. I'm looking very forward to getting the download from I Tunes, to hear it in greater clarity. Although they said tonight that the I Tunes songs would be the contestants accompanied by the original Motown instrumental tracks, so it seems like it'd have to be quite a bit different.

Except for Allison and Adam, I'm not enthused or interested in any of the other contestants. They each have talent in their own way -- more or less -- but they're simply like kindling wood before the real fire.

One comes in for the Boheme's severest criticism tonight, and that's Michael Sarver. He did "Ain't Too Proud To Beg," and he failed to get it at all. He said he was going to "church it up," which he didn't. The words to that song are profound and need to be said with conviction, like you are feeling it in the "pit of my heart." You don't sing "pit of my heart" stuff with a breezy indifference to the lyrics. In that case "churching" it up means having a sincere preacher's conviction. If you ain't got it in the vocal sincerity on that song, you ain't got it. And he didn't have it.

Arlen Specter

Arlen Specter is one sickening guy. He seriously needs to be defeated in 2010.

It'd be an interesting project to come up with trivia on this guy, how many times it sounds like he's on the verge of doing something good, only to veer off and do something sickening. It's definitely a habit.

The Republicans are sickening in general (and specifically). To defeat all of them would be a worthy goal, or to hope they wither on the vine.

My Exercise Place

The place where I go to exercise seems like they're overrun with members now. It seems like it might be time to expand.

There's a few treadmills and they were all being used tonight. There's a few ellipticals and a couple were free, one of which I took. The other stuff was being used too, but I didn't look around that much to make a survey.

There's a guy there -- I believe he's called a boot camp guy -- and he was putting his clients through their paces. For quite a while they were all women but now I see there's a few men doing his bidding as well. He's got them running around, out the door, out in the parking lot, then back in. They'll be holding hand weights and running on their hands and feet a while. It all looks quite taxing.

I'm starting to see a few people out there about every time I'm there. Which makes me think maybe they're there a lot more often than that, since I'm not there at the same time everyday. Could it be that someone would be there four or five hours a day? There's one woman I'm seeing all the time. She's probably between 50-60, with pretty blond hair, and she's there virtually every time I go. I noticed she wasn't spending much time on each thing. She was at the bicycle next to me for about five minutes, then over on the treadmill for less than five minutes, then wandering around from thing to thing.

We made eye contact a couple times, which I generally try not to do. Unless someone speaks to me or I see someone I know. I thought maybe she was talking to me once, but maybe she was talking to herself. I'd rather not talk or make eye contact, because then it becomes a social outing. And I'd hate her to think I'm "interested," because I'm definitely not.

Anyway, I was bouncing right along on the elliptical. Sometimes I'm very tired, wanting to give up. Tonight I was working it. I was listening to Kelly Clarkson's new CD (on my Ipod) and it's a good one for exercise. So I ended up in 15 minutes (plus 3 minutes cool down) with 2.03 miles.

My Fourth Grade Girlfriend

I met someone today who had the same first name as a girl who I was "sweet on" in fourth grade. She moved shortly after that and I never heard of her again.

It made me think, what if that was her? Although of course it probably wouldn't be. I might say, I seem to remember you. We went to the same school for a while. But not say you were someone I liked at the time. Because it'd be a massive drag to hear the inevitable, What was your name again? These childhood romances are best left forgotten. I can't say I forgot, but it doesn't enter my mind very often. Every few years at best.

Well, now it's on my mind. So guess what? After all these years, I googled her name and it came up. She graduated from high school the same year as I, and actually in a town within 25 miles of our old school. I never knew where she moved to.

It wasn't meant to be, unless we meet in a nursing home someday.

Pets To Adopt

I went to Pet Smart yesterday and made the serious mistake of looking at the cats that have been left behind. How sad. Each one said something about how their owner had to give them up.

Oh, I can't see that, but I can't adopt any cats. I have two cats and there's no way we want any others disturbing their routine. But it makes me sad to see, and to contemplate what these owners (and cats) had to go through when they needed to give them up. It must have been terrible.

I don't want to look at them. I don't want to get their hopes up. I feel sorry for them, because I know a cat likes to have a home and not to be in a glass cage in a pet store. They want to be sleeping on a bed, stretched on a couch, curled in a chair.