Heard the Mary Mary joint, "Shackles", on the way to work this morning on the Tom Joyner morning show. It was certainly "kickin'". And it was the first I'd heard of Mary Mary (I guess I missed the whole Grammy-award-wining platinum debut album thing in the year 2000 -- wasn't buying a lot of records just then). I'll need to pick up one of their albums when I can.

Okay. Once more with feeling.

Oh, yeah. I know what you're thinking. Catholic 'Blog. That's original. But if The Shrine of the Holy Whapping is good enough for Fr. Bryce, it's good enough for me. And it's good enough for you, too.

Listening to the latest from Kurt Elling, "Man in the Air". Will have more on my impressions in a few days. My initial impression is that it is a very strong offering from Kurt, though not quite like anything he's put out before. Will need to go back and listen to "Flirting With Twilight" (2001), his album immediately prior, which I never became intimately familiar with, to adequately appreciate this new album.

Right now, though, I can say that if your favorite jazz vocalist is Norah Jones, pick up this new album "Man in the Air". If your favorite jazz vocalist is Frank Sinatra, pick up 1998's "This Time It's Love", and if your favorite jazz vocalist is Ella Fitzgerald or Jon Hendricks, pick up 1997's "The Messenger". Regardless, whoever you are, buy all three and you won't be disappointed.

I usually don't do this, but it's time for a SILLY PUBLICITY PHOTO OF GOVERNOR GRANHOLM CAPTION CONTEST!

Come up with a funny caption for this picture (already captioned "Governor and First Gentleman" -- but as I presume that that's husband Dan Mulhern in the picture I'm sure you can come up with a better caption than that) which is found on this Michigan.gov page.

Why that picture? Good question. There are a bunch of silly ones there, aren't there? See if you can find the photos on that page which I've captioned (to myself): "God no, she's going to sing!" and "Let's see those evil fetuses storm Fort Mackinac now!"

Sigh. We struggle each month to pay our mortgage while she and hers live on Mackinac Island during the summer. Of course I can't fit into no size four jeans, so there you go.

Fr. Bryce 'blogs the Octodog.

Mm, mm, scary.

Though I suppose you could buy yourself some shrimp or tiny crabs and have yourself an authentic seascape tableau for dinner. I should also mention here that I absolutely LOVED octopi as a kid. My mom made me a stuffed octopus (this is before such things could be purchased in stores) which had velcro "suckers" then my dad got me a wind-up crab with velcro on the back so "Seamour" (get it? SEA-mour? Because he's an OCTOPUS? I was so clever back then. I also recall watching a show, apparently called "Hot Fudge", around that time which featured a piano-playing puppet named "Seymour", who I liked, though this picture is just about the only picture of Seymour I could find... he's the one playing the piano) could catch the crab and eat it. I was four or five at the time and I came up with one of my first jokes:

Q: What goes "Blub, blub, blub" and smells like crabs?
A: Octopus farts.

I still have that octopus. Right here, even. I loved that thing. Still do. In Kindergarden we were supposed to draw pictures of our pets for a book and since I didn't have any other pets I drew a picture of Seamour. The teacher tried to tell me he wasn't a pet, but I lobbied successfully for his inclusion in the book.

Maybe this explains why I don't absolutely loathe Henry the Octopus today.

As a hobbiest musician who wants to make music for my own enjoyment in a very limited amount of time, I have very mixed feelings about tools like this one: essentially a phrase sequencer where you dial up a patch, hit go, and it does most of the work for you ("Create chord patterns, riffs, bass lines, effects, arpeggios, morphs, pads, leads, even 4-track songs in no time"). Here's a demo mp3; those are just the factory presets, what you get out of the box. Watch the demo movies, too, to get a feel for what XPhrase does.

In one respect it all sounds very cool and saves you a lot of time in that it automates almost everything about electronic music production that is time consuming (adjusting filter cutoff frequencies for those cool sweeps, programming your own arpeggios, programming all the sounds to layer, adjusting delay times, etc.) but is this really a good thing for music? Everyone using the same phrases so everything sounds the same? Some would argue most electronic music already sounds the same, so something like this isn't all that bad... maybe, thanks to tools like this, someday everyone will get sick of their music all sounding the same.

In the meantime, though, there's something very unfulfilling about the idea of someone being able to pirate a piece of software, push the button marked "Sting: Brand New Day" and having fully realized synth phrases coming out the other end. Kind of like pushing the "demo" button on the toy keyboards at KMart. It kind of cheapens the whole music-making experience....

Okay, I'll admit it. I want one.

Wasabi

That's the movie we saw tonight. Since I've left Ann Arbor about three years ago, I've been out of the loop when it comes to foreign and arthouse films so the first I heard of this movie is when I saw it on the rack at Blockbuster and picked it up because it had Jean Reno's face on the cover and Luc Besson's name on the back. It's not as groundbreaking as "The Fifth Element" and I haven't seen "The Transporter" (I had assumed that was just another James Doohan vehicle) so I can't compare it to that, but I have to say that we both enjoyed "Wasabi". The music is off the hook, the characterizations are nicely-done, and -- as is the case in nearly everything Besson does -- the movie itself looks great. And where else can you see Jean Reno play some "Dance, Dance, Revolution"? The English-dubbed version (we weren't up for subtitles tonight -- and I never thought I'd ever say something like that) is tolerable too: Reno does his own Enlish dub, so that's cool. One thing about the dubbed version, though.. the Japanese voice actors they got to do the dub are a little too authentic: at times it's a little hard to make out what they're saying.

Anyway, for what's essentially a buddy action flick, you should enjoy "Wasabi". It's not *too* violent (if it had been made in this country, it would only have warranted a PG-13, I'm pretty sure), the father/daughter relationship is done nicely, the comic relief is actually funny, and, like I said before, it looks and sounds great. 93 minutes could be worse spent. We both recommend it.

Oriland

They suggest that Origami is entertainment for the Soul, gymnastics for the Mind and training for the Hands!

Was playing around with reFX's free "Claw" VSTi this afternoon. If I had $60 I know what I'd do: probably buy their "PlastiCZ" synth. They have some nice sounding instruments. Anyway, here's what I came up with, just noodling around.

"Tribulation Saints" (Windows Media Format)

Being Eighteen Months

Some folks have asked me recently how 'Xander is doing. Rather than me telling you, I thought it'd be neat if he told you, himself. So he put together a little one-man show entitled "Being Eighteen Months", which he performed recently in our kitchen. Note the classic "wakka, wakka" vaudevillian entrance and then the artful way in which he deals with a heckler in the audience (they always seem to call for your old material), actually incorporating it into his new act. Finally, he ends with a kiss for his biggest fan (after giving the audience what they want) before making a thoroughly polished exit: a fitting end for such an unforgettable evening of entertainment.

"Being Eighteen Months" by 'Xander Lams, Windows Media format

AutoWeek is right about one thing: the Ford 150 is the best car in the world. The new one is even better than the one they reviewed. So go out and buy one. Right now. Please.

The Tuxedo

Any movie which has both Jackie Chan and Colin Mochrie in it has... well, those two things going for it at least. Shanghai Knights is far more crude (thank you, Owen Wilson, for introducing the phrase "ass soup" into our lexicon), but is a far more enjoyable movie (the umbrella scene alone is worth whatever you'd pay to rent it). Robocop 3, though, is still the best movie of the three I've just mentioned and I wish I could stay up until 11 to watch the rest of it (like the time, a couple of months back, when I stayed up until 2am on a weeknight to watch it). Alas, since I am working now I shall just have to settle for being able to pay the mortgage next month.

Wish I could get this for my dad for his birthday tomorrow. But I can't. Happy Birthday, Dad!

Light 'blogging as I've been busy. Here are two sites I just "discovered" that I'm going to check out more in the near future: Catholicity.com and GameSpy.com. I know: it's hard to believe I haven't been to either of these sites before.... especially since GameSpy has many reviews by Zach Meston...

Another very fine new episode of The Dead Zone tonight (the third episode in this, it's third season). I'll talk more about the third season (so far) maybe a little later on this week. For now, though, the show continues to impress (it's becoming one of our favorite shows). There is most definitely a moral conscience behind it.

Victor finally "finishes" a new song!

Mosey on over to my AcidPlanet page for a new song, "Sing Me". I may go back and do some more work on the vocal effects and the mix, but otherwise this one is done. I return to my electro/synthpop roots for this one (really an excuse to try out Computer Music's new (free!) CM-505 drum synth (by LinPlug). I love the way that thing sounds -- it's perfect for electro and synthpop -- so maybe I'll stay in that vein for a while. This song also marks a return to my usual M.O.: do the music over the course of a couple of hours one day, and record the vocals and do the mix the next day. I was very fortunate to be able to do that this weekend.

Oh, and if you're too lazy to go all the way over to the AcidPlanet page (handy shortcut: System193.net), you can access the song in .mp3 format right here.

Hmmm... The Wanderer picked up this piece in their most recent issue and quoted most of it in their article on liturgical dance. It appears to be a work of satire, though, and not, in the strict sense, news.

Did you want to email Paul Likoudis or should I?

Now there's an easier way to find my AcidPlanet music page: System193.net. Gotta love that free domain-name forwarding (and really, if you have a blogspot.com 'blog there's really no reason why you wouldn't want to buy your own personal domain for $9/year and then have it forward to the .blogspot.com page for free -- check out GoDaddy.com for some good prices). Look for LAMtoonS.net to be up and active in a little while, too.

Now I just need to figure out what I'm going to do with LoveYourRobotDay.com (which is February 7th, in case you're wondering).

"Using metaphorical equations to design the worship arena my hope in any project is that the congregation will be transfigured by the very space it is helping to create or transform. "

Hmmm... It's my own personal belief that if any of the architects of the great cathedrals had ever used the phrases "metaphorical equations" (my love is a red, red eigenvector) or "worship arena" (Game on!) they would have been promptly hanged from the nearest flying buttress. This is already several years overdue for "Wreckin' Dick" Vosko, Ph.D.

I really hope that some day Relapsed Catholic is made to eat these words. The news article to which she links mentions neither whether the winner of the money has talent or not or is a boob or not. She does, however, have $112 million and there's probably some reason she has it and we don't.

WANTED: Five ninja for television talentshow performance of Matrix Ping Pong.

Link via Fr. Bryce.

So far, this has got to be the scariest page which contains a link to my music. I don't know what an "ASFR & MC Fetish" is, but I sure hope I don't have one.

Update: Great. "ASFR" stands for "alt.sex.fetish.robots". And no, I don't. But now I don't even want to know what "MC" could stand for.

Quo vadis Baby Michelle?

I suppose I should consider myself lucky that that photo is the scariest thing I've seen so far this week.

So far this week we've watched 150 minutes of "Life With Bonnie". We've never really watched it before and I kinda like it. I like the morning show bits which are the bulk of the show (though "spooning" activity seems to account for at least another five minutes of each episode... Bonnie and her on-screen husband spoon more than the Clintons did in the 1980s): seeing all the very talented B-list comedians from years gone by who show up as various weathermen (actually, that's David Duchovney) and stuff. Each episode has a sort of framework of a story, but it's never really developed which means that you can watch the show, enjoy the performances and be entertained, but you don't have to think about it afterwards.

Sorry: nothing new to 'blog today. But for heaven's sake why don't you check out my AcidPlanet and/or LAMtoonS pages? They should hold you over until I can finish this synthpop/gospel piece I'm working on.

I am 46.54832% Geek (rating: Super Geek). Thanks for asking!

And on a related note, I've been hearing rumors about this thing for over a year now. I'm glad it finally came out. Can I borrow $25?

Blue Note: Free Kurt Elling!

As if that all wasn't enough, I find out today that Kurt Elling has a new CD coming out next week! (Man In The Air). The two tracks they played on WDET (just as I was hopping into the car around noon to drive to another building, as luck would have it) sound rather mellow -- like the tracks on his most recent album Flirting With Twilight. I still think his best album is 1997's The Messenger followed by This Time It's Love as those two (as well as his first CD Close Your Eyes) best capture the ebullient tone of his live shows. I have a feeling it's some sorry Blue Note execs, seeing the success Diana Krall has had since she went All Sappy All The Time with her CDs who is pushing Kurt in this direction (his last three CDs -- not counting the live CD which was a bit of a disappointment, to be perfectly honest, though only because I've seen Kurt live in person five or six times in the past and was expecting something a little more freaky -- have been mostly all ballads). I can't confirm that that's the reason, though. It's a shame, though, that in order to hear Kurt really swing we have to buy the albums on which he guest stars (like Liquid Soul's Make Some Noise) or try to catch the latest Intel commercial ("Moving Day") featuring his uncredited voice.

I swear: if I were a record producer I know exactly what I'd do with a Kurt Elling CD, should I be hired to produce it: Kurt sings "They Might Be Giants". His voice would be a perfect match with their sometimes bizarre lyrics and he could really bring a lot to the table, in terms of taking their melodies to the next level by virtue of his amazing virtuosity. It would sell dozens of copies, at least.

But I've only heard bits of six tracks off the new album. Maybe there are one or two cuts on there that swing that I haven't heard yet.

We accidentally watched Fox's new "game show" BANZAI! last night. The show is meant to be a broad parody of Japanese television (the show screams "British production", but it's so accurately rendered that it did cause me to wonder if it was, actually, a Japanese program at first) with different folks doing different weird and wacky things and then viewers are encouraged to "bet" on the outcome (ie. which of the two old ladies in their scooters will swerve first in a game of chicken, etc.). If I were Japanese I would probably be offended by the way Japanese folks are portrayed on the show were it not for two things: 1) some Japanese television is really like this and 2) every other nationality, religion, age, and ethnic group is also "represented" in the challenges (e.g. who can outpedal who for the "soul" of baby Danny? A priest, ar rabbit, or Lou "The Incredible Hulk" Ferigno? Answer: Lou Ferigno). My personal favorite was "Mr. Shake Hands Man" who, posing as a Japenese journalist, was able to shake hands with Kelsey Grammer for 40 seconds before Fraiser broke free (Lady One Question had Simon Cowell stammering for a good minute-and-a-half when she abruptly shut up and kept staring at him after asking her one question). All in all, I would say that "Banzai" is wacky and fun (which is unusual for British television programme-ing) and watching it is probably better than watching whatever else is on at 8:30 on Sunday nights.

In addition to knocking out a new cartoon today (see post immediately below) and playing with 'Xander (he started climbing out of his crib last week, so we had to quick get him a toddler bed which means that naptimes and bedtimes have become very interesting affairs -- kids seem more willing to go to bed when it's something from which they cannot escape) I started working on a new tune but decided that I'd much rather be listening to Earth Wind & Fire instead. Their new album is very good... definitely their best new studio album in the past 23 years. I will have a more thorough review in a day or so, but for now I'm really enjoying it (Phillip Bailey's falsetto just gets better and better with each new recording of his I hear).

Anyway, check out my college friend Daniel Beilefeld's webpage. He has some really jaw-dropping photographs there on his photo page.

Another New Cartoon!

As promised I have another new, short (30-second) cartoon for you all today. This is another short chapter from The Handbook of Epictetus. You got stoicism in my animation! You got animation in my stoicism! Enjoy!

"The Handbook of Epictetus, Chapter 20" Windows Media format (1MB)
"The Handbook of Epictetus, Chapter 20" RealMedia format (1MB)
"The Handbook of Epictetus, Chapter 20" QuickTime format (9MB)

In the next couple of days I'll be posting short reviews of both the new Earth Wind & Fire and "Weird Al" albums. I've listened to most of "Poodle Hat" and found it to be far better than I expected. So far I've only listened to one track off "The Promise" ("Dirty") and I'm unable to sit still while listening to it (in fact, I defy anyone to try and do so). So look for those and another new cartoon in the next day or so.

New Cartoon!

Classical Stoicism and Computer Animation: two great tastes that taste great together! But you don't have to take my word for it. Check out this short excerpt from The Handbook of Epictetus.

"The Handbook of Epictetus, Chapter 17" Windows Media format (1MB)
"The Handbook of Epictetus, Chapter 17" RealMedia format (1MB)
"The Handbook of Epictetus, Chapter 17" QuickTime format (7MB)

For more information about Epictetus and his school of stoicism, visit his entry at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. And look for another chapter from the Handbook right here in the next day or so.

Just got back from "Art in the Park", Plymouth's own Art Fair. Very nice this year. The weather today was great and while crowded, the streets were not unnavigable. We saw this guy doing a living statue performance, and bought a clock (entitled "Sand") from this guy (as seen on HGTV, though we didn't know that until after we bought the clock). A very nice time.

Has it really almost been three days since I last posted? Where does the time go? Anyway, a new cartoon should premiere here sometime this weekend, possibly Sunday. Nothing too big or fancy, but hopefully something cute and stoic.

Now, all of my cartoons (to date) can be found on the temporary LAMtoonS webpage I just threw together! Now you can direct your friends to all of the cartoons with one easy link!

News24.com: World mourns N!xau

N!xau sold the house built for him in Tsumkwe for several heads of cattle and returned to his beloved veld with his entire family. He used to disappear for two months at a time, without knowing that he had adoring fans all over the world, watching his actions on the big screen.

I remember as a kid going with the entire family to see "The Gods Must Be Crazy", which my dad had read about in the newspaper. Our family never went to movies and, as we had no TV or VCR either, going out to see any movie was a really big treat. As I recall, after we got out of the movie (which we saw at the arthouse Ann Arbor Theater on Fifth Ave -- don't bother looking for it, it's not there anymore -- which wound up running the movie for a good few months) my dad asked us what we wanted to do and what we all wanted to do was turn right around and go back into the theater and watch it again -- and that's exactly what we did.

So that movie and the heroic character played by N!xau will always have a special place in my heart. The second movie was good, too.

Via Mark Shea comes this cartoon of The 'Blogger's Cycle. Nice 'tooning.

BABLOO: Website for kids & adults with a kid in them

Soooo... that's kids and pregnant women, then? Or maybe kids and that mutant guy from "Total Recall" with the talking baby where his tummy oughter be ("Quaid! Quaid!")?

"Here, we have fun, and only fun."

Hmmm... seems to me it's more like "here we have splash screen and only a splash screen." If anyone can figure out how to get into Babloo (because maybe you want to get that kid out of him) please let me know.

RIP, Buddy Ebsen.

I'm kind of afraid to wonder who might be next: based on this summer's logic it'll either be Isaac Hayes or Bob Hope. Or Cloris Leachman.

Cast your vote for the sexiest vegetarians alive (PETA demands it!).

Okay. Question: why are there so many more men on that list than ladies? Is it because the sort of gaunt and starved look most vegetarians acquire is nowadays more sexy for guys than it is for ladies? Or is it because PETA figures that 90% of the intended audience of that poll is more likely to be more interested in voting for guys than ladies anyway? All I know is that I cast my votes for "Weird" Al as the sexiest "celebrity vegetarian beefcake" and Christina Applegate ("Just Visiting" is still one of Jackie's favorite movies) as the sexiest "flesh-free femme fatale" (alive).

Franka Potente is not on either list which probably means that she is not a vegetarian which, in my book, is just one more reason to like her.

New Music!

Well, kinda... it's not done yet, but I figured I'd offer y'all a sneak preview of the demo instrumental track of the new song I'm working on. I haven't decided what the lyric is going to be about yet (never a good stage at which to be when the music is already 99% done, but I digress...). I'm not even sure if there's any room left for vocals or not. Or what they could possibly be about. Anyway, the music's pretty cool I think. Check it out.

July Untitled .mp3 (3 minutes, 30 seconds; approx. 3.5 MB)

For about five years now I've been anxiously awaiting Earth Wind and Fire's new album, "The Promise". I wasn't sure that it would ever be released, but apparently as of this past May 20th, it has already been (I really have not been on top of things lately). I guess that would explain their tour this year (which I missed due to weather, consarnit).

Listen to the first single off the album absolutely free on mp3.com. It's definitely a return to the classic sound ca. 1980's "Faces" album (which, although it didn't go double-platinum at the time, is probably my favorite of their albums -- well, after "I Am" of course). Their other most recent album, 1997's "In The Name of Love" was also quite good. But if you're new to the group you'll want to start with "I Am" and then "That's The Way of the World", of course.

Some choice mbira plucking courtesy of Maurice White, The Emotions on backup vocals, and some nice horn charts, are just a few of the 100 or so nice touches on this piece. Read the various reviews of "The Promise" at Amazon.com (all very good). EWF is one of the main reasons I began to write music in the first place and it's wonderful to hear that their new album is a keeper.

It was movie night tonight and we watched "Stuart Little 2" which we checked-out on DVD from the library (if we were able to check out maybe 1,000 movies a year from the library, we might start to come out even on our city taxes... but anyway). It was a fun movie to watch. But of course Hugh Laurie is a hoot to watch in anything. I especially liked him in the old (well, 10-year-old) Jeeves and Wooster adaptations of the Wodehouse novels which ran on BBC (Stephen Fry played Jeeves). Since that is apparently out on DVD now, judging from the picture there, I'll have to look that up -- whenever it is I find $120 just laying around. Maybe I can justify the expense as going towards 'Xander's education. Somehow. It'd probably be easier to spend the $70 on "Brideshead Revisted" but still the fact reamains that Laurie was an awesome Wooster and he makes a great Dad Little.

Then "Jurassic Park III" was on TV and that has got to be by far the best of the series. Actually, I think it's one of the best adventure/survival horror/disaster movies of the last ten years, if not the best (and if anyone can think of a better one, let me know -- but I doubt you can come up with one). Jackie of course recognized right away that the "bookie" for the mercenaries is Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle from the Elmo's World spots on "Sesame Street". So that was a trip. Come to find out on IMDB, though, that Michael Jeter just died this past March, so maybe that's way Sesame Street has brought in Mr. Noodle's sister, Ms. Noodle -- I don't think any big Mr. Hooper-style sendoff is planned for Mr. Noodle's Brother, Mr. Noodle, though.

The Maestro is gone.

We heard about this first on the way home thanks to the car radio. Then RC passed along the story linked above. It's a little weird, for some reason, to think that Barry White is dead -- weirder than, say, if we found out that Smokey Robinson had passed away. I don't know why. Maybe it's because of those Arby's commercials, or his appearance on The Simpsons. Who can say.

It's kind of silly, but click here to listen to my own tribute to The Maestro, Barry White (ca. 1998).

A really neat story about how the Vatican's website came to be. I recall, in college, believing that if the Vatican wanted a website it could just wave its hand and have the best darn website on the Internet. As I matured I realized, of course, that this was not so and this story chronicles the remarkable steps taken to bring the site online.

Some days I feel like I've awakened in Bizarro World.

TVGO: Why were you always reading the Bible, even while riding in that limo in Paris?
Robin: (Sighs) Once again, it's called creative editing. It looks better to see Robin read the Bible for four hours... Really, the conversation with the Frenchmen in the limousine got really raunchy. They were talking about sex shops and stuff like that. I just whipped out my Bible and started reading.

TVGO: Um, so you just happened to have the good book handy?
Robin: Yeah, I have a little pocket bible and I don't see anything wrong with it. Whenever I have a free moment, honey, I just whip out the Word and see how that can help get me through the day. That's the reason I pulled it out in the limo with those guys. They turned me off.

That's the end of the article, but I imagine the rest of the "interview" (aka. high-tech lynching) went something like this:

TVGO: Um, but you're aware that it's illegal to show that book, or anyone reading it who is not a murderous, sexually-repressed Stephen King character, on television, right? Especially on a show that's supposed to depict "reality". What were you thinking?
Robin: I guess I wasn't thinking about that.

TVGO: Well, you broke the law. And it was on TV and everyone saw you and I'm going to tell. But more important than doing something illegal is that you could possibly have hurt someone's feelings by reading a book which many believe contains passages which homosexuals might consider hateful.
Robin: Again: I don't judge people. And neither does the Bible. It's a book -- it doesn't do anything.

TVGO: Yes it does! It sits there in buried deep in your pocket, silently judging me. Mocking me! I can hear it now... "Daaaaaan-iel.... DAAAAAAAN-iel...."
Robin: Uhhh....

TVGO (clawing at Robin's chest): Out! Out! Damned book! To the last clumsy John Ritter vehicle I grapple with thee!!! From Rosie O'Donnel's bosoms I stab at thee!!! FOR ERIC MCCORMACK'S SAKE I SPIT MY LAST BREATH AT THEE!
Robin: Security!!!!

And so it goes.

AWESOME

P.J. O'Rourke was my hero when I was in High School. I read everyone of his books (which were published at that time). In my Junior year of High School I visited Hillsdale College (later to become my alma mater) and got to attend a CCA conference which featured Brent Bozell, Tony Snow, Jeff Daniels, Brit Hume, and P.J. O'Rourke, who I interviewed for our high-school paper (the actual interview itself was an embarassing experience and I've completely erased it from my memory -- the secret to a happy life is truly a short memory).

Anyway, it's good to see he's still got it:

"Living History" arrived from the publisher with a seven-page executive summary (itself ferociously tedious) that indicates no one is intended to read this book. Of course, a couple of people had to. There is the junior associate--doubtless a strong, intelligent woman--at the law firm of Bland and Blander who slogged through every word to make sure nothing was actionable. And then there's me. Poor me. But, except for us, "Living History" suffers the fate of modern poetry, with an authorship of many and an audience of none.

Not that the book isn't supposed to sell. And I understand it's selling nicely. I do not begrudge Hillary and her publisher their profits. The money will allow them, per Dante, to visit the fifth cornice of purgatory, where avarice is atoned, whenever they can get family leave from the ninth circle of hell where they'll be eternally tortured for spreading false doctrine. The free market is a good thing.

Okay, I fixed the YACCS comments things. While I was on their site I noticed that I've had over 1,500 comments (total) on this 'blog since I added those comments a couple of years ago. That's an average of over 2 comments a day! Thanks for being such an active readership... and I can hear the crickets out there now because I told everyone I was going to take a break a couple of weeks back. Anyway, I haven't had to ban any commenters in that time, so I must be doing something wrong.... ;)

Oh! I made my first DVD (DVD-R to be precise) today. It's pretty much just Farmer Joe at this point but it was a thrill to see him on the television. So crisp. Technology is a grand thing (at least in terms of how much it tends to cost you at a time).

Thanks to Zorak, I am now aware of the problem with my comments boxes (they show "0" even if there are comments) and will be fixing that tonight after work. As far as details about the new job: it's in Network Operations, which is where virtually all of my professional experience has been, and is with a company I really admire and I work with people who I really respect so as far as I can tell, it's a good match!

I forgot how much getting up early and working really hard makes one tired, though ;)