Going Back In Time
I do have things to blog about that are slipping into the past a bit now that I'm home and getting onto other things. My trip had several wonderful things about it that deserve sharing (preëmptively: shut up Ed!). First, Lycurgus flew up from Florida to come in to Washington Dulles Airport. He departed from Tampa which airport, he discovered, offers free Wi-Fi. Logon was quick and painless so he e-mailed me that his departure was on schedule. I love it. Cheaper than using the cell phone if roaming is involved. Yet we decided that when he arrived, he'd call my cell from his cell to let me know what was up. I was then delighted by something I found at Dulles: a "cell phone waiting lot."
Not a place to put your cell phone while waiting but a parking lot for people who are to be notified by a call when meeting arrivals. Perfect! I wasn't sure how much time it would take me to get from the waiting lot to the arrivals portals so when I got the call I proceeded directly only to find that it took me less time to get there than it took brother to get out of the terminal. So I circled a couple of times, we met up and headed out. I think the cell phone lot is a feature at a lot of airports now. I recall Lycurgus saying that he saw one at the Tampa airport. Really, every airport should have one.
After a too-brief visit in my domain, we hopped in the Outback and scooted south. And not a minute too soon. The morning we left, the snow (predicted at 12 inches) began to fall. We drove through a dusting of snow for about an hour and then through rain down into North Carolina and then clear skies for the trip into Georgia. A car trip goes exceedingly easily when good conversation flows. I so oftern travel alone that having Lycurgus in the car was a treat. We'd solved most of the world's problems and very few of out own by the time we made our exit from I-95. And we went directly to the Randy Wood shop to pick up the tickets before even finding a hotel. We ended up at the Comfort Inn in Pooler. The room was fine (more free Wi-Fi) but the gratis breakfast was awful. As close to inedible as any meal I've ever been faced with. Unfortunately the new Holiday Inn Express which was cheek-by-jowl with the Comfort Inn was full to the point that all the non-smoking rooms were taken. Oh well.
It is startlingly ungracious of me to complain of something given away but it's also the truth which I think needs be told. I would gladly pay for a better brekkies than was presented. But it was no impediment to getting back out on the road. And so we rolled out in the dewy morn for the remainder of the trip.
We did stop a couple of times on the way down. Once at the Orange Shop in Citra, FLA where I acquired another gobbet of orange blossom honey and I couldn't resist buying a jar of "Key Lime Marmalade" because of its violent green coloration. Mistake. I tried it and it could not have tasted more like lime Jell-O if they tried. Bummer. I left that behind for someone else to deal with. The honey is good.
We also stopped in a town whose name I don't remember because there were tiger cubs beside the road. Some people who were invloved in animal rescue were selling Polaroid snaps of "you with the tiger" for $10 to support their cause (or just make money, whatever). So we stopped, Lycurgus got snapped with the kitty and we gassed up. If you've never seen a tiger at close range, it's a treat. They are singularly beautiful. I want the genetic engineers to snip out the tiger's skin and fur coloration genes and put them in other animals (like, say, goats) so we can start having "tiger-skin" fur coats again. Without, of course killing tigers. I'm all in favor of charismatic megafauna.
And thereby hangs a trip. I'll ask Lycurgus to scan in the photo of the tiger so I can post it. I'll probably give him the benefit of visual anonymity so his mug isn't palstered on the blog but it would be fun to have the pic for y'all's perusal.

Mental Cavitation
You're familiar with cavitation aren't you? Any submarine movie worth its saltwater will have some reference to it. In brief, if you set something in a fluid spinning sufficiently fast, the fluid can't keep up. Empty or vaporous voids are then formed which collapse with a sharp noise. Not a good thing when a metal tube full of ... no, I won't use that joke ... sailors is "running silent."
Well, my brain has been suffering from a sort of cavitation for the last few weeks. I've had so much on my mind that when it came to such things as blog posting, they became vaporous voids that imploded before escaping the wake I was plowing through the sea of cerebro-spinal fluid. Ouch. Plus, my bad joints have been giving more grief in the last few days than in any comparable period I can recall. Perhaps a 15-hour drive takes more out of me than it used to. In any event, I haven't kept up the flow of posting and I aim to change that in the upcoming week. I will be reporting on the trip, making up for music posts I've neglected (I've had a post in draft on Jake's house concert in January for at least a month now). I extend my thanks for those who keep stopping by to visit and my apologies for having made it less worth your time of late. There should be more substance, more gristly goodness, for you later today and in the days to follow.

Back From Eff El Ay
This is just a short one to say howdy to the PoW folks. Sorry to be so quiet for the recent days but I was enjoying sunny Florida just way too much. I return to the posting wold simply by noting my acquisition, on the trip, of three EarthBoxes which I posted about some time ago. I haven't decided what I'm going to grow but I'm definitely having cucumbers, bell peppers and possibly a tomato plant if I can get some seeds from ther heirloom tomato I ate while at my cousin's place in New Jersey last summer. Fresh veg. It's a good thing.

Regular Blogging Will Resume Shortly
I am in the bosom of sunny Florida, being gracefully accommodated by Lycurgus and enjoying fresh citrus. Oh yes. Key limes, blood oranges, tangelos and others will be consumed by me.
But that's not the big thing. If you read Acidman, you'll see he went to see Mike Cross at the Randy Wood Guitars concert space. He mentions (and links Gawblessim) talking with a fellow blogger which would be me. I met the Lord of Gutrumbles and he is as fine a human being to spend time with as I could imagine. He may show crust and vitriol on the blog but we, for Lycurgus was there as well, enjoyed the hell out of meeting him. Since I promised not to ruin his reputation, I have to say that there were moments of assholism but I just can't recall what they were.
Plus, Mike put on another great show. I was publicly cheeky during the show and got a laugh out of Mike and the crowd. It doesn't translate to the written word but I'll post my joke later.
Via candy ass con Dios friends.

Why Was I Not Informed?
Google Earth is now available for the MAc. It's been available for a month.
Jeez Edit', talk about bein' outta da loop!

Fun Stuff
One of my favorite things that the Interweb has made possible is the creation of custom stuff at CafePress. Yesterday I spent about three hours with a friend designing a custom image and having a few T shirts and a mug made. No details because the recipients get their stuff on the 14th (hint, hint). Still, my friend had an image in mind so we Googled up a base image, snatched a copy of it, opened it in Photshop, manipulated the bejabbers out of it and finally liked what we'd done. Uploaded it to CafePress and click, click, click (to quote Boomhauer), his stuff is on its way. I'll put up one of the images after the day.
I think I have to get on the ball and have that "Pugs of War" merchandise made up for the adoring public.

Rain Today
It's been warm here in the Doesn't Go section of the GCoV but today the rain is grizzling down and it's sleeping weather. But there's much to do even on a rainy Saturday. So what is it that crawls into my eye and sticks a toothpick in it? The early Sunday "B.C." comic strip. In the first panel a newly-emerged flower says to a rock, "Hi! How many light-years old are you?"
Oh ARG! I left a note for Johnny Hart at the Creator's Syndicate website (which opened a pop-under window so they can go directly to hell) to register my annoyance. A light-year is a measure of distance, not time. It is the measure of how far light travels in a regular old calendar year. Joan Baez made the same stupid mistake in an otherwise good title song on "Diamonds and Rust." In fact, if you go to the Amazon page for that disc, the sample prominently features the mistake. Serendipity do.

A Moment of Coffeeblogging
I grabbed a cup o' Joe at McDeath Burger this morning. Dang. It was good. Not just an-absence-of-bad good, actively good. Not the best ever but easily the equal of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. I was surprised. And I wouldn't have tried it had they not sent me some good brekky coupons in the mail.
Also, the coffee of choice for everyday consumption in the BD household is absolutely 8 O'Clock. Brilliant flavor and a very good buy. Safeway has a two pound bag for less than $12. Ahhhh!
And why did Dunkin Donuts do away with the "dunkin' donut?" It was a regular glazed doughnut with a sort of little dougnut handle on it. You held the doughy tab and then you could dunk the doughnut. Iconic. Why did it go away?

Since I'm Whingeing
I recently used some non-Epson branded replacement ink cartridges in my printer. I'm all for saving money but phew! The ink in these carts just reeks. I'll buy my brand name ink in three packs from Costco from now on. Only $11 per color cart and $25 per black. That's not too bad, really. The price may stink (a little) but at least the printed page won't.

Just Stick a Fork in My Eye
I have a new online massive annoyance: banner ads that have sound. I loaded a page the other day which had one of those "do this, get something free" ads. What you had to do was move a little cartoon guy to "catch" little cartoon hearts tossed from a little cartoon balcony by a little cartoon woman. And every time the guy catches a heart, he kisses it with a wet pucker and pop sound.
This is fine if you actually want to play the game. But the page I'd loaded had that ad below the displayed screen. And every now and then the guy caught a heart purely by chance. So what I was having was my computer making unaccountable noises for no reason. Can anyone see what's wrong with that? Anyone? Bueller...?
Thanks mutt-bunch (think Spoonerism there) for making me think something is going wrong with my computer. There's also a "cut your mortgage" ad which "features" the sound of an axe thunking into wood which also annoys the crap out of me. But I've only seen that as a top banner so at least I knew what was making the sound.

New Favorite Waste of Time
It only plays three levels but it's quite amusing for a while - Conan O'Brien the Barbarian.

Suffering The Wind
This has been the Year Of The Wind. I don't ever recall being blasted with as many storms with huge as I've been through in the past year. And last night was another. Which means a lousy night's sleep. My house doesn't creak like a galleon under full sail but the buffeting we took was noisy and lasted pretty much all night long. Yeesh. Feel awful this am. Just thought you'd like to know.

Great TV
I recently chanced upon a BBC program being run by PBS called "Battlefield Britain." When I saw the title in the TV grid listing, I thought it was part of the World War II series which I'd seen just enough of to make watching more inconceivable but I was wrong. This series is about battles in English history such as those against the Spanish Armada and the Welsh revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr. Absolutely fascinating.
The series hosts, a father and son team, do an amazing job of bringing the battles to life. They physically go to the locations of the fights - not exactly surprising given the title of the series - and demonstrate in a number of ways what transpired. They walk the field of battle and show how terrain affected the fight. Computer animations of the action give the viewer a remarkably good idea of what happened and, something that strikes me every time I watch, how few men were actually engaged in the battles that settled English history. These armies were of a few thousand men, not hundreds of thousands as the weight of history would make me want to believe.
There are actors in period garb who give a sense of immediacy to the computer simulations. A few men also are put in the position of commenting on the action as if they had been figting for one side or the other. Not that their commentary is particualrly brilliant but as dramaturgy, it is brilliant. Finally, the host has what I call the magic suitcase. It's a terrain model that folds open to show how the men were arrayed and opens the door for the computer animations to flow out of the narrative.
I can't do justice to how well done this series is in my description since they have done a masterful job of making history visual. But I will say this: If the show is broadcast in your area, watch it. It is one of the best military history programs ever.

Updates
Well, I was right to be worried. Duke lost to Georgetown by just a few points after getting behind early by way too many. On the other hand, I'd love to see a re-match in the NCAA tournament because Duke had its bad game. The Hoyas will not beat the Blue Devils again.
After looking at the Apple support pages, I see that the truncating of songs seems to be an issue. What I've found is that the first song of newly ripped in CDs appear to come up short. Actually, I think it's the importing that causes the problem. But I open iTunes, play the song and it pops back to its 'full' version and then updates to the iPod. So there's a work-around but I expect better from Apple.
And just as a note, I actually went back to Baja Fresh for lunch today but it was way too full to bother with. Being full alone is not a problem but I saw a cohort of screaming Hispanic kids with parents and just didn't want to put up wid dat. As the saying goes. So my fish taco will just have to wait. Ah! The sacrifices we have to make.

Doggie Fit!
How do you keep yourt pug of war svelte and lithe? Why, the Snackshotz of course! MMMMmmm! Frisbee snax!

Odds And Ends
I've been sweeping up the cyberdust for a couple of days and figure I have enough accumulated dross to make a post.
First, the new iPod is brilliant. I only have one viddy to watch, which is the first thing I did of course. Yes, the screen is not huge but it is incredibly sharp. So you hold it a little closer to your face - not a big deal. On the other hand I've been having some weirdness in iTunes itself. Some songs are just truncated on the former iPod. For example, this morning I started listening to Jethro Tull's "Aqualung" and the song stopped about two minutes and change in. It's a six minute and some song so I have no idea what was going on. I pulled up the iTunes app and checked the song length and it displayed as the iPod had it - short. But I then played the song in iTunes and it came up as the full version. I then connected the iPod and it "updated" the song to its full length.
I may have to go poking around Apple site to see if anyone else has reported such behavior.
A couple of things off the sports page need a quick glance. First, even as I write this, Duke is playing Georgetown and I'm rather nervous. I have no question that Duke is the better team but this just the kind of game that the Blue Devils can lose. The Hoyas are a good team, a top 25 team without doubt. They have a good coach who just may in the fullness of time prove himself to be better than his father. Duke has entered its ACC schedule which makes a non-conference game easy for the team to not be "up" for. Whereas G'town has every reason to be sky-high for the No. 1 team in the country. This game can make G'town's season. For Duke it'll be pretty much just another game. So I hope Duke plays the game necessary to win. Because it is possible for Duke to do the one thing it has never yet done - go undefeated. But I'm not holding my breath.
Secondly, dang. I would have put money on the Indianapolis Colts to win it all. They deserve it after their season and the fact that they have superb players. But the Steelers played the superb game. Oh well. Good thing I'm not a betting man. Well, there was that one rupee bet on the horses that won me 5 rupees in Mauritius. But that was a lark.
A moment of foodblogging. I went by Chipotle last night to get dins. Denied! The line was from the counter almost to the door. So I went to the local "Baja Fresh" which is actually closer to home. Got me a burrito. It was good. I can't say every bit as good as the Chipotle burrito because I got chicken instead of a carnitas. But it was very good. And I'll try their carnitas ere long and give the straight up skinny. The menu at Baja Fresh is more extensive. They have fish tacos. I want to try the fish tacos.
I see in today's news that little Jimmah Carter's son is going to run for office. 58 year old Jack Carter moved from Bermuda to Nevada about three years ago and since he's a new resident and not run for political office before, he's goign to run for the state legislature. Oh no! I got it wrong! I forgot the overreaching Carter ego. He's going to run for the US Senate. And let's look at a qupte to see the depth and brilliance of little bitty Carter: "I'm disturbed by the Bush Administration policies, ... I don't like the partisan bickering." Well which is it ya dumbass? If you don't like the partisan bickering then why don't you support the President in a time of war? Oh fer egotistical jackasses! I hope the people of Nevada have the native sense to slap this fool down.
Urg. I didn't mean to rant but the Carter family will do that to me. As a president, Jimmy was a pretty good poet. As a poet, he was a fair president. But the bottom line is that he was a crappy president and now he's a crappy author. But the Habitat for Humanity thing is laudable. Having said that, I'm off to watch hoops.

Denied!
This not the Jake post I promised. This is another fargin' iPod post. I loaded my latest acquisition onto the old G3 iPod and am left with a shade under 309 MB of space on the thing. I'm not sure of the numbers but I think that gives me maybe another two CDs of hard drive capacity before it burps on anything new. Which means I need to get a new iPod. A 60 gig viddyPod. Yeah. Must happen.
And I figured I'd buy it off the Apple site. This allows me free laser engraving just for funz. And I thought I'd grab a phrase off Chris Onstad. Specifically : "Everybody dance like/there's ass in your pants." It amuses me. And it's a call to dance on a music device. Apple, it seems, disagrees. My choice violates their offensive content rules. Which I don't know what are. My second choice is "What we need more of/is science." Which I can live with.
But I am not a little hacked off at Apple. I'm buying something from them which they offer to engrave for me. And yet they are going to censor my words. What the hell? MY money. My words. End of discussion. If it's offensive, anyone who sees it is going to blame me not Apple. So just stuff the censorship. ... Yeah, like that's going to happen!

More Jakeblogging Shortly
I saw Jake at a house concert on Sunday. He was fantastic. I want to add "as usual" to that sentence but this was the first house concert I've been to and the intimacy of the venue makes comparison to a more formal show a bit difficult. I'll have a full post up later today.

Just Can't Rant Today
I have been working up to a rant on the sad spectacle of "Brokedi Brokeback Mountain" but just haven't been able to make my remarks temperate. So I'll go off in another direction. Perhaps Hollywood can start making gay movies out of everything. My first suggestion: "Last of the Homohicans."

MovieDog Says "Go To Hell, Hollywood"
I see ads for the new installment of "Underworld" and wish for the parallel universe wherein I get to choose between Kate Beckinsale in a leather catsuit and Charlize Theron as Aeon Flux. And then the ugliness rolls in. I see ads for the marginally talented Martin Lawrence in the sequel to "Big Momma's House." Why for the love of all that's holy was this craptacle (i.e. that which is craptacular) even conceived? Was the first one such a roaring success that it made this baby from Sheol's womb necessary?
And they wonder why box office is down? Oy gestalt.
And oh yeah: "Tristan and Isolde?" No! Bad studio! Down boy! Heel!
Luckily America has the option of seeing a new Queen LaBeefa movie to watch instead. No! Bad studio! Heel!