More TV Blather
Readers are well acquainted with my affection for the CSI shows but a re-run promo the other day rather struck me into the "whaaa!" mode again. In the episode a body is discovered in the cement foundation of a single family home. It turns out to be the ex-girlfriend of the man who lives in the house. As he's being arrested it comes to light that the real killer was the man's wife who couldn't stand losing him to the other woman all those years ago. He thought she left him so he ended up marrying the killer and living in the house wherein the killing happened which is why the body was in the foundation.
But. Really big but. I like big buts. No - wait. That's Sir Mix-A-Lot. Nevermind.

However (whew! -Ed.), the body was discovered by a service man of some sort (plumber maybe) who saw finger bones sticking out of the cement wall. Enh? The finger bones were stuck tight in unbroken cement. And they were able to make a cast of the body as was done with the ancient residents who died in the ashes of Vesuvius's eruption. I don't think so. If the fingers were outside of the cement then the flesh of the fingers would have left a gap in the external edge of the wall where all the stinky effluvia of a rotting body would have flowed out. The corpse would have been found long ago. Even if it weren't (e.g. no one lived there until the construction was complete and the stench had gone), the finger bones would not have been locked in place in the cement. They would have been hanging in finger-sized holes.

And Speaking of pre-Thanksgiving
I made a pilgrimage to the lovely hamlet ("mmmmm! HAMlet!" -Homer) of Aldie, Va to pick up my order of three (count 'em - 3!) Candy Apple pies at the Little Apple Pastry Shop. If my plan works as I intend, I will get one good slice of one of the pies and the rest goes to the rumblin' tummies of friends.
Candy Apple pies are caramel apple pies and as pure a slice of delight as we humans are vouchsafed in this world full of pushin and shove. I do have something to be thankful for!

What I Don't Like About Firefox
I have made my affection for non-Internet Explorer browsers known (I'd link to my previous post but I am well into my pre-Thanksgiving lethargy) but I've come to the point where I have to fling some feces in the direction of Firefox. (You're a dog, not a monkey. -Ed.)
Point taken. Moving right along.... Firefox has a really wonderful skin but there are two things that drive me to distraction in actual use. Point the first: something I mentioned before is the lack of a clickable icon in the toolbar to create a new tabbed window. I can right click and select "new tab" but that's one more action than should be necessary. Point the second: searches are entered in a separate text box at the right side of the toolbar. In Mozilla, I just enter my seach string in the address bar, a menu drops down from the address bar which needs but a click to have the search Googled up instanter.
That said, Firefox still kicks IE's ass.
Now if I can just properly download those new Mozilla skins....

I Actually Heard This One in Manila
A Protestant moved into a very Catholic neighborhood back in the days when meatless Fridays really meant meatless. But the new arrival was an avid backyard griller and sure enough, every Friday evening, he would be out at the grill preparing thick, juicy steaks. Then the smell of those grilling steaks would waft thoughout the neighborhood and just drive the Catholics crazy.
After Mass one Sunday, the congregation discussed what they coul do about it. They couldn't force their non-co-religionist to stop grilling so the logical conclusion was to convert him.
After months and months or serious proselytizing, they actually succeed. The soon-to-former Prostestant is finally joining the Church of Rome! The priest sprinkles him with holy water while intoning, "You were born a Prostestant. You were raised a Protestant. Now you are a Catholic."

A great relief settles on the neighborhood until ... the next Friday night when the delicious smell of steaks once again wafts about from the grill. The Catholics are flummoxed so they rush over to the new guy's yard and see him with a vial of holy water, sprinkling the steaks and intoning, "You were born a calf. You were raised a cow. Now you're a fish!"

Autumn
I meant to post about the season a while back but let myself get carried away with other things. So now, when I have a dozen things of such weighty import pressing on me that I should be well and truly crushed, I find it necessary to delve into a bit of seasonal musing.
But, for the nonce, just a bit. Today is one of the days Festus rightly calls "Virginia weather:" cool, damp with passed and coming rain, grey upon grey skies, light as diffuse and sourceless as the vapor that makes fog. Miserable in so many ways. But such is the price for the days that are bright and cloudless, air cold with a snappy bite yet warm in sunshine when the air is still. I await those days, precious as they are in a Virginia fall.
To touch cautery to this wound of a day, I will give you one of my favorite poems - Ranier Maria Rilke's "Herbsttag" (Autumn Day) in its orginal form:

Herr: es ist zeit. Der Sommer war sehr gross.
Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
und auf den Fluren, lass die Winde los.

Befiehl den letzten Früchten voll zu sein;
gieb innen noch zwei südlichere Tage,
dränge sie zur Vollendung hin und jage
die letzte Süsse in den schweren Wein.

Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich kienes mehr.
Wer jetzt allein ist, wird es lange bleiben,
wird wachen, lesen, lange Briefe schreiben
und wird in den Alleen hin und her
unruhig wandern, wenn die Blätter treiben.

Kmart Buys Sears
From now on, the hand tools will be brand named "Crapsman."

Another Roadside Attraction
I meant to report on this one a few days ago but I lost my scrap o' notes. Rather than rely on my reportorial skills, I'll just haul out the ol' blockquote:

SUFFOLK, Va. - A load of Georgia peanuts was delivered unexpectedly Thursday to a discriminating fan of the goober.
The 46,000-pound load of peanuts was dumped in J.S. Doughtie's front yard after the trailer they were in slipped off the road and tipped in the soft shoulder, driver Jeff Lanier told police.
Doughtie, 83, said he was working in a shed in his back yard when he realized what had happened. He was told to help himself.
"Oh, I'm going to roast some, make some candy," he said. "I love peanuts, but I do wish these were from Virginia."

What else was going on that day? Glad you asked:

CHILHOWIE, Va. Nov 11, 2004 — Fourteen cars of an 83-car Norfolk Southern train derailed near an industrial park, leaving the area smelling like a brewery Thursday.
About 20,000 gallons of beer leaked from three cars of the Roanoke-bound train, said railway spokesman Robin Chapman.
No one was injured when the cars skipped the tracks about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, Chapman said.
Investigating officers said the leak did not contaminate any nearby water sources nor affect any highways.
"Everything was contained away from the creek," said Jack Tolbert Jr. of the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

Peanuts and beer. Is this a great Commonwealth or what?

Your Superhero Persona by couplandesque
Your Name
Superhero Name	Manic-Depressive Man
Super Power	Irresistable Sexuality
Enemy	The Landlord
Mode Of Transportation	Unicycle
Weapon	Baseball Bat
Quiz created with MemeGen!

I'll Have the Calamari
Forget the knife and fork, just bring me a straw.

Today's Feature: You Finish the Carly Simon Lyric!
First, you must educate yourself as to the latest science news.
Then you update the following Carly Simon lyric:
"I had some dreams they were clouds in ___________"

Thanks for playing. All contestants win the home version of the game.

National Ammo Day
Go see Kim. Today is the day to buy your 100 rounds of ammunition. Or tomorrow. Just do it this week. And I did something I don't do often enough: donated a sawbuck to the BANG (Buy A New Gun) Fund on Kim's blog.
One of my favorite African Americans he is.

Gut Wrenching
I finally watched "The Magdalene Sisters" (link below). Brutal. I have no direct knowledge but I think, though it is fiction, it is based on facts. It is a movie of sufficient power and anguish that it could easily lead to very strong anti-Catholic feelings. It brought me as close to wanting to punch a nun as anything in my life with the possible exception of Algebra II at Duke. ... Don't ask.
It's tough but I do recommend it. It's the story of Irish girls in the 1960s who were thought to be at risk of sexual activity or who had conceived out of wedlock. They were sent to work in the laundries of the Magdalene Asylums where they were treated as galley slaves. There is a particular difficult scene where one old woman who had spent her entire life in the laundries is abed, dying, talking with one of the leading girls about how she didn't want to go to the hospital but wanted to stay with the nuns. The girl then leans close and tells the dying woman that the nuns didn't care about her, they just wanted her for work so she should do them a favor and just die. As I said, brutal. But it had the ring of truth.
Joni Mitchell has a song on her "Turbulent Indigo" album about the "Magdalene Laundries." Damn good song on a damn good disc.

The Things You Find When You're Not Looking
April Winchell. Daughter of ventriloquist Paul, voice talent, radio dee double e jay ay wye. Click the "multimedia" link on her site and see the most amazing collection of MP3s in the known universe. "Stairway to Gilligan's Island." ABBA in German. X-rays of things found in ... a place where only a proctoscope should go in. I haven't had so many laughs in such a short space of time in a while. She's cute too. I mean - it doesn't hurt, right?

I Don't do the Aquarium Thing
But this is dead cool. Not quite cool enough to make me set up a tank, but dangerously close thereto. I'd probably want something insane like having it run up the stairs and spiral around the living room.

The Heroes of Ia Drang
Power Line has a report on the reunion of the American heroes fought the "the first real battle of Vietnam." Really fought. Not like the Poodle.
It was my great honor to work with Joe Galloway who wrote "We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young" with General Hal Moore. In fact, it was my honor to have worked on the special issue of US News & World Report featuring that great book. To add to the honor I have had in connection with that work, I was able to meet Gen. Moore and he was a gentleman of the highest order. If you've seen the movie, Mel Gibson's portrayal of then Lt. Col. Moore is amazing and, to the best of my personal knowledge (limited though it is) quite true. We who did not go to Vietnam are so remarkably blessed to have had good, honorable, courageous men go and fight for freedom that we should wake every day with their praise in our hearts.
Just as we should wake every day and say a parayer for the good, honorable, courageous men who are today fighting for freedom in the Middle East. Some times the game is worth the candle.

And Another Thing...
I was listening to Billy Joel's "River of Dreams" disc the other day and his song "Blonde Over Blue" sort of stuck in my craw. My craw oftens gets stuck with things. But I digress. Why do blue-eyed blondes get so much notice? Yes, I've seen beautiful blue-eyed blondes but I've seen some really spectacular brown-eyed blondes about whom you never hear somone rhapsodizing. Not only that, a woman from my college years (OK - year: she was a senior in my freshman year) was a blue-eyed brunette and she was quite possibly the single most breath-taking woman I have ever personally met. And yes, she was a cheerleader. What's surprising was that she was as nice as could be to this goofy freshman on whom she didn't need to spend a moment of attention. Go figure.

What? More TV?
Yep. I am severely digging the new ABC show "Lost." And tonight's episode just cemented my loyalty by casting the amazing Mira Furlan as the mysterious French woman. How does a Croatian play French so well? Maybe I just don't have a good enough ear for an accent.
For those of you not so Sci-Fi obsessed, Mira Furlan's Minbari Ambassador Delenn was one of the prime reasons to watch J. Michael Straczynski's "Babylon 5." Never has a bald woman with a bone crest on her head looked so scrumptious.

"Desperate Housewives"
I've not watched this alleged show for the same reason I don't read "lad" magazines - I prefer honest porn to this softcore, fake, bullshitty porn that masquerades as a television show. But the thought strikes me, as it did earlier with "Fear Factor," that the name is just wrong. This show is just "Sex In The Suburbs" without the real skin that "Sex In The City" could show.
Jeebus. Just hire Kim Catrall and be done with it why doncha!

A Moment of Pure Grace
I went to Blockbuster this evening. If there's anything more mundane, more quotidian in modern America, I'd be hard pressed to figure what it is (buying gas? eating lunch? -Ed.). I pull into a parking space and as I'm getting out of my car - with my bad hip, this is not a quick action I assure you - a sweet, big, electric blue pick'em'up truck pulls into a space near mine. And as I start my slow, halting progress toward the door, the woman who drove the truck passes me and says "Hi." This is unusual. Modern America teaches us, especially women methinks, to be circumspect around strangers. But being charitable and cautious, I said something on the order of "That's a nice truck." To which she replies, "I love my truck!" And I say "I don't doubt that for a second."
Strange. An actual conversation in the agora between strangers. Keeping in mind, for those who've never had the pleasure of meeting me (I figure somebody I don't know must read this), I am not such a specimen that I would be hit on by women previously unknown to me. Anyway, I figured it was a pleasant moment and continued toward the door. Rounding the corner of the building, the woman with whom I spoke was holding the door for me. And she was quite a lovely brunette. I thanked her for holding the door and picked up my pace as best I could. She said that she thought people moved too fast these days anyway. I said I was doing my part to keep the average down. Now, I'm really off balance. This stranger would have to be the sweetest person I've had the pleasure of meeting in public for .. well, since I can't remember when.
So into the vid racks I go. Shrek 2 (what a fantastic movie - 5 stars in the Movie Dog food bowl) and, on a whim, The Magdalene Sisters. As I am picking up the latter, my mystery woman picks up whatever it was she was looking for in VHS, saying to me, "Not everyone has DVD." And I say, "But you will." And we both head to the checkout. She is held up as her account has been 'put on hold' for some reason neither she nor the counter guy knew. It seems something done at another branch was the problem and they couldn't access such information at the branch we were in.
I'm usually a pretty patient line-waiter though if somebody is wasting time, I will do a slow burn. In this case, I'm thinking I'll wait here for this lovely lady as long as she wants to deal with this problem. Still, as if on cue, she turns to me and apologizes for making me wait. Oh, I assure you! It's not a problem.
Counter guy calls manager chick who looks at the situation as displayed on the checkout screen, approves the transaction and moves to another register to check me out. Thank you, manager chick. As I'm passing this new paragon of feminity (full disclosure - she did say to the counter guy that the problem might be something "he" did - sigh!), she asks what I'm renting, I tell her and she seems, well, delighted. A foreign flick and an animated neo-classic. Heck, even I'm thinking I must be a nice guy. I pay and then walk out the door immediately behind her, and again she holds it open for me. And we talk all the way (make that "all the way" since it was a very short walk) to the cars and for the life of me I couldn't tell you what we said. But I had some grocery coupons in my car that I wasn't planning to use so asked her if she wanted them. She said yes, I gave them to her. She asked me what my the vanity plate on my car meant and I gave her the 2 cent explanation. Taking the coupons she said "Bless you!" I said, "God bless you!" She told me her name. I told her mine. We shook hands. She got in her beautiful blue truck. I scrunched into my Outback and knew that if I were to remain sane, I'd best just forget her name and hold this amazing moment in memory.
So I did. And now I've blogged it.

Why America is the Greatest Nation in the World
Five words: the fattest poor people, ever.