Oh Wicked Zoot!

Got to sleep at an indecent hour this morning for undisclosed reasons. Sometime around five AM I was jerked awake by the unmistakeable sound of a cat coughing up a bellyful of something nasty. This not infrequent occurence usually provokes a groan, a turn, and a new dream. However, on this morning, I vaulted from unconsciousness to full blown terror as I perceived that the vomiting noises were eminating from a spot approximately six inches to my right, on the bed. My brain decided that opening my eyes was a lower priority than getting the offender as far away from me as possible. My franctic kicking and pushing dislodged the perpetrator from her perch near my right armpit; she terminated her desecration of the hallway floor shortly thereafter. H reassured me that she had only puked a little on her side so I did my best to put the nightmare out of my head and go back to sleep. Two minutes later I hear Sue-dog, cunning burgler that she is, tiptoeing out of her cage and onto the trail of the puker. Tick tick tick: her claws; Slurp slurp slurp: her tongue; Shuddering and smothering his head with a pillow: me. The final, most dusgusting twist didn't raise it's head until later that morning. I will forgoe the details as, starting now, I plan to pretend it never happened. ----- Listening to: pgroove 2005-11-18 Astro Monkey through Bobblehead

I Evoke Brow VIII: The Sequel's Sequel

Chris Moriarty's Spin State. One advantage of working at the library: snagging interesting books that you run into. Of course, this makes it even harder to make any progress on the reading list. In this case it was a mixed blessing. I was warned by the patron returning it that the book had a lot of unfamiliar terms without a lot of explanation. While I really enjoyed this book, the patron was right; it's not-quite-fatal flaw was in how explanations for the distant future technologies were doled out: either too confusingly, too late, or not at all. If you are quantum physicist, this could be the best book of the year; for a layperson, there's a good bit of stumbling around in the dark. Unlike Morgan's Altered Carbon, in which the lack of explanations are intriguing, in Spin State they are just plain confusing, critically so at times. Perhaps I should have said everything I liked about this book first--the above makes it sound pretty bad when really it's very good. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars over at Amazon: very good, but not perfect. In fact, it's probably because everything else about the book is so excellent that I'm bothered by its flaw. Here are some for the plus column: it feels very real, not an easy trick for distant future Science Fiction; the crackling tension between ex-lovers is well done and a nice change from the standard love story; each portion of the story is entertaining in it's own right, the pace starts off fast and Moriarty keeps throwing twists at you. 8/10 ----- Listening to: pgroove 2005-11-19 Three Weeks. Band just keeps getting better and better, it's hard to believe how much sometimes. The setlists from the Northeast tour are amazing as well: someone made a phish fall-95 comparison on TIP. It really does feel like following phish in the early 90s must have been like: hearing a band that plays like 4 fingers on a hand, continually pushing their limits, and growing a larger and larger fanbase. What a luxury to be able to listen to faraway shows a few days after they occur these days.

When I got my camera phone home for the first time, I tested itout with some snaps aorund the house. This was the first shot I took with it: it came out surprisingly well. That bone is the only toy she had for this long without killing it. 

Heather 

The Amazing Bone

Co-worker Alice dropped off a children's book on my desk today as a joke: The Amazing Bone by William Steig. As you can see, Alice and I agree that penis jokes are funny. I just leafed through it and came upon a nice passage:

Pearl stared at a small bone. "You talk?" she murmured. "In any language," said the bone. :Habla espanol? Rezumiesh popolsku? Sprechen sie Deutsch? And I can imitate any sound there is."... Then it snored, then sneezed. Pearl couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You're a bone," she said. "How come you can sneeze?" "I don't know," the bone replied. "I didn't make the world."

I don't know why I find the bone's retort so pleasing, but I do. It just seems appropriate to any situation. "Why are the Knicks so bad?" ""I don't know, I didn't make the world." "Why is our country governed by jackasses?" "I don't know, I didn't make the world." ----- Listening to:

The Gallery

Testing out this new software "Hello from Picasa"-- it could lead to some more photos on this site. Heather hates this picture, but I think it's a perfect allegory to her relationship with her Dad--he can't help but poke her all the time. Took this one with my phone on top of the Taibee Island lighthouse.

There's funny, there's outrageous, and then there's The Onion:

Your Horoscope:

Scorpio October 24 - November 21

Your death will be so protracted and violent that investigators will let your mother down easy by telling her you were sodomized in half by a horse.

----- Listening to: Brock 2004-08-07 Under African Skies

MikeTunes (TM)

I had a nice long post, but the server lost it as it's wont to do more and more frequently. Here's the short version: Check out this podcast, especially the Shakedown->BAM! Jimi Hendrix - Blues is good overall but the last three songs are GREAT.

Slowly but surely, I'm getting back into the Grateful Dead. Today, I've been searching for a nice jam with Bruce Hornsby and ending up streaming parts of 1990-09-16. Morning Dew is a tune I can't get enough of recently and this one doesn't dissapoint with a climax that just builds and build to furious strumming and strained vocals from Jerry. Now it's on to 1993-06-26, which I found while hunting for a "Lazy River Road." Apparently it has a great Terrapin; I hope so. In the past I haven't been much of one for the Dead's later years -- the cheesy tone of the keys and the constant drums/space turn me off. I'm really interested in finding a good Hornsby jam after I recalled an interview with Phil Lesh on The Grateful Dead Hour (I occasionally listen to the podcast from themusicneverstopped.net. The segment included a snippet from the bonus disc that came with Phil's new book. It was a gorgeous jam with just Jerry, Bruce, and Phil; slow-tempoed, even mournful at times, and just stunningly harmonic. I'm seriously craving some more just like it. Update: I got smart and actually check the GDH logs and found out the "Trio" jam is form 9/19/90. Deciding between that show and 9/20, which gets great reviews online. One poster listed the all-time shows as: 2/28/69, 9/21/72, 10/30/73, 6/18/74. I'll have to check all those out. ----- Listening to: Trio jam. Clearly my memory aint so good. This jam is great but FAR from "mournful"; rollicking would be a better description. The end is a bit goofy, but the rest really is top notch.

I Evoke Brow VII: Browzzzzz...

My Father the Spy, John H. Richardson I picked this book up because I saw the author interviewed on the Daily Show. Oops. I'm going to have to lower my trust in Jon Stewart a notch. One useful piece of advice I've received from the veteran librarians here is not to be afraid to cut bait on a book that you don't really like. So after about 150 pages, I calling it quits with this one. This book is supposed to recount the author's experience of growing up with a father in the CIA but it reads like a history lecture--and a dull one at that. I'm not sure why Richardson writes as though he's trying to distance himself from the narrative as much as possible. I'm not sure why anyone outside of his immediate family or friends would be interested in this book: the personal narrative lacks warmth and emotion and the anecdotes only hint at the gripping spy stories a lifetime of Tom Clancy has prepared me for. Call it a 3 out of 10. ----- Listening to: Grateful Dead 1990-09-16 (Searching for a good jam with Hornsby)