Dead but not in the Red

You might not be able to take it with you, but that doesn't mean you have to stop making money just because you're no longer breathing. Forbes Magazine has published its annual list of the top earning dead celebrities, and some of them continue to generate quite a haul:

• Elvis Presley – $49 million
• John Lennon – $44 million
• Charles M. Schulz – $35 million
• George Harrison – $22 million
• Albert Einstein – $18 million
• Andy Warhol – $15 million
• Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) – $13 million
• Tupac Shakur – $9 million
• Marilyn Monroe – $7 million
• Steve McQueen – $6 million
• James Brown – $5 million
• Bob Marley – $4 million
• James Dean – $3.5 million

In case you're wondering how a physicist made this list: Albert Einstein's name is used to peddle Baby Einstein DVDs.

It's interesting to note that Elvis last topped this list in 2005, meaning that he's apparently in the midst of a successful comeback tour.

Dang. I should have waited until tomorrow to post this.

"OK, everybody go deep..."

Update: The video is no longer available via YouTube, but it is still posted on the UTube Blog. Watch it while you can; the traffic from Sports Illustrated may well bring that blog's server to its knees.

Your football team is down by six, two seconds to go, and you've got the ball on your own 39 yard line. Quick: which play do you call?

Do you think the quarterback actually specified 15 laterals in the huddle?

It may be Division III, and the announcers may be somewhat less than network-polished, but I seriously doubt that you'll ever see a more exciting ending to a football game than this.

Vid link via the UTube Blog, as described on Stewart Mandel's SI.com column.

A hidden challenge of $100 oil?

Now that crude oil prices have blasted through the $90/barrel level, the century mark is no longer unimaginable. Those of us whose livelihoods are inextricably tied to the oilpatch vacillate between exultation at good fortune and dread at the likely political and economic backlashes. But it occurred to me this morning that $100 oil presents a potential challenge to an unlikely group of folks: systems analysts.

First, a little history. I was a young pup working at ARCO back in 1977 when the Alaskan Pipeline was completed and production began to flow from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield. I had a great job in the Dallas office as an accounting systems programmer, creating data retrievals for various groups. I was not a programmer in the strictest sense of the word, as I used a program called MarkIV to build those retrievals, and I reported through the accounting department. The real code monkeys were in a separate IT group, and they worked in COBOL, FORTRAN, and other lost languages. They built and maintained the systems I and my co-workers accessed to pull data and format it into something useful to the end users.

Anyway, I remember that as the date drew closer for the first North Slope production to come flowing down the pipeline, a general panic began to spread through the systems analyst group. It seems that our production and revenue systems – which were perfectly fine for our company's business, pre-Prudhoe Bay – would not accommodate the anticipated volumes that would be recorded once that production came online. No one had anticipated that we'd ever be booking hundreds of thousands of barrels per day instead of tens of thousands.

As it turned out, the solution was fairly straightforward. The data fields for volumes and revenue were converted into packed decimal format, allowing more data to be squeezed into the database fields. It was still a huge task to make that conversion to the scores of databases, hundreds of programs, and thousands of ad hoc retrievals.

Fast forward to today. I've been out of that end of the business for decades, but I can't help wondering if there are any legacy systems still being used that won't accommodate three significant digits for crude oil prices. I suppose that from an oil company's perspective, there are worse problems to have, but if that is the case, the windfall to the bottom line will be tempered (albeit in a completely insignificant way) by the headaches to the IT folks who will have to make sure their accounting systems are up to the task.

I know that some of you are working in the oil and gas accounting systems business. How about it? Are you anticipating any systems problems due to triple digit oil prices?

Sing Cubed is Not Square

In response to this week's Random Thursday post, Jeff parted the greasewood and mesquite enough to reveal the kind of serendipitous rabbit trail that, for me, is an entirely sufficient reason to keep blogging, by pointing to the following YouTube video showing an excerpt from Benny Goodman's band 1937 performance of Sing, Sing, Sing:

I watch this clip and, frankly, can't think of a better job than being one of the sax players sitting behind Goodman during his solo. What a gig!

That's Gene Krupa on drums. For you kidwinks who never heard of him, Krupa was likely the first drummer to combine flair and skill and get a showcase in a commercially successful band. He and another somewhat skillful (ha!) drummer named Buddy Rich used to do the dueling drummer thing, much to the delight of audiences. Here's an excerpt from a 1956 interview of both men. It's fascinating reading, especially the part where Rich takes on the so-called "cool music" of the day, and the way he felt it excluded musicians of his ilk:

And speaking of their drum battles, here's another YouTube clip of one that was broadcast on the Sammy Davis, Jr. show in 1966. The tune will be recognizable, I think:

Getting back to the original topic, Wikipedia has a pretty good writeup on the history of Sing, Sing, Sing.

Dear Santa,

I know this is a bit early, Santa, but I also know that you're a very busy guy, and also probably a bit strapped for cash this year, given the downturn in the North Pole real estate market and what must be astronomically high heating oil bills for your pad.

So, I wanted to give you a heads-up so you can start assembling the coin. All I want for Christmas is this humble little trinket. I've been a very good boy (don't listen to that person in Tyler who thinks I'm a big meanie), and I promise to use this present wisely and also to be kind to reindeers.

Thanks in advance.

Your pal,

You know who

Random Thursday

Read a story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about how Nike is teaming up with various "street artists" in an attempt to market to unconventional niches, like skateboarders and crackheads. OK, I made up that last one. Anyway, the writer described the work of one such artist as "hyper-realistic." I kinda thought realism was like being dead or pregnant; you either are or aren't, and degrees are unnecessary.

Nevertheless, today's Random Thursday should be considered hyper-realistic, because it's realer than real. Really.

• Egging On the Users - Still picking on writers, I can't resist pointing out a sentence in a technical article wherein certain software users were deemed to be unfairly "yolked with security provisions" (not an exact quote, except for the "yolked" part). I dunno; perhaps the users truly are eggheads.


• And speaking of eggs and the fowl who lay them, my brother shared last weekend how his herd of chickens has been steadily reduced in size, first by coyotes, and now by – get this – javelinas. I never realized that the peccaries *snicker* were meatosauruses (bonus points for movie ref), but they will apparently eat anything. I once dated...well, never mind. In case you're wondering (and who isn't?), coyotes are clean in their killing techniques, hauling the birds away, while the nasty little piggies act to type and generally make a big mess of things.


• And speaking of acting, we haven't exactly been enthusiastic consumers of this season's new television fare, but one guilty pleasure is Samantha Who, ABC's sitcom starring Christina Applegate, who plays an amnesia victim who is slowly finding out that in her previous life she was a Very Bad Girl. I predict that Applegate will be a front runner for an Emmy, and she's working with excellent scripts. It doesn't hurt that it's got Dancing With the Stars as a lead-in, but the audience has given ABC enough encouragement to extend its run.


• And speaking of Dancing with the [Not]Stars, our dance instructor has taken on the monumentally frustrating task of teaching us the Quick Step, a project akin to teaching, um, javelinas to eat chicken with knife and fork. But, I have to admit that anyone who can listen to the following music without wanting to get up and dance is likely a soulless automaton:
  
  
  Excerpt: Gene Krupa's version of Sing, Sing, Sing

  Anyone know where I can get a good deal on a zoot suit?

Really Slow Doubled is Still Pretty Slow

Are you a Suddenlink customer? If so, have you wondered about the their current TV ad where they claim to have doubled our internet connection speed? Don't know about you, but I haven't seen any speed bump. So, I decided to ask 'em about it. After holding for 10 minutes on the phone, I decided instead to try out their live chat support feature, in order to get a transcript of the dialog. Here's how it unfolded.

Chat History
rod has entered the session.

Eric: I keep seeing TV commercials about how Suddenlink has doubled the speed of its internet connections. I'm not seeing any speed increase at all, so I'm wondering if there's a problem with my connection.

rod: Welcome to Suddenlink Online Support. My name is Roderick and I can help you today.

rod: In order to assist you today, I will need some additional information. May I please have the city and state your services are in; the physical address, name on the account and the last four digits of your social security number or Pin number?

Eric: ****

rod: Give me one moment, I am fixing to run a diagnostics on your internet connection.

rod: The test on your internet connection came back good.

rod: Do you have a router connected to your modem?

Eric: Yes.

rod: How many PC's do you have connected?

Eric: One connected directly; several laptops connected wirelessly (none in use at this time).

rod: Go to
rod has sent you to www.speakeasy.net/speedtest.
rod: Run a quick speed test, and give me the results.

[New window opens and I run the speedtest]

Eric: 2569 kbps download; 514 kbps upload

rod: One moment please...

rod: I recommend that you by pass the router, and connect directly into the modem. Save that link as a favorite, power down your PC, and then bypass. Once you have everything connected, power back up, and run the speed test. If the speed does not improve then, contact us at 1-888-822-5151, so we can possibly troubleshoot further.

Eric: OK, I'll try that, but just to confirm: you think that I should be getting faster speeds than what I'm now seeing, right?

rod: One moment please...

rod: For connections that are running through a router, you are around average. It really depends on how many people are located on your node.

rod: Your total bandwidth is 8 Meg down right now.

Eric: Well, now I'm confused. Should my connection speed have doubled recently or not? And if not, what are the TV commercials talking about?

rod: Your bandwidth has doubled. Before, you were at 4 Meg bandwidth.

rod: So we doubled the bandwidth, and that in turn will double your speed.

Eric: But that's just theoretical, right? Because in actuality, nothing has sped up on my connection. Websites still load at the same speed as before. Sorry to be so dense; I just expected to see more of a dramatic improvement, and I'm confused as to why that's not happening.

rod: Both theoretically and actually, your speed has doubled.

Eric: OK, I guess I'll have to take your word for it. I'll try the router thing and see if it helps. Thanks for your time.

rod: When you had only the 4 Meg bandwidth, you were more than likely getting half of the speed you are getting now.

rod: There are many factors that come into play when you refer to how fast websites load on a periodic basis. The server that is hosting the website may not be able to upload the site faster and all other sorts of things. The only way to get a real good picture of how fast your actual connection is, would be to run these speed test, and see.

rod: The server that is hosting the site may have a lot of visitors, and that may be causing it to slow down.

rod: We see a lot of that with Myspace.

rod: So the best way to really tell is to run the speed test.

rod: Are there any additional services or questions that I can help you with today?

Eric: Nope. Thanks again.

rod: Your welcome.

rod: It has been a pleasure assisting you. Thank you for choosing Suddenlink.
rod has exited the session.

You are the only user left in the session.

So, what we seem to have learned here is that my speed has doubled because, well, they say it has. Never mind that I can't tell any difference in day-to-day usage. (For the record, I have not bypassed my router to see if that makes a difference.)

Anyone actually feel like they've seen a recent significant bump in their internet connection speed?

And, can anyone explain to me the relationship between bandwidth and connection speed? I understand that they're directly proportional, in theory, but how does Suddenlink's claim of "8 meg of bandwidth" relate to a Kbps connection speed? It seems like an apples-and-oranges comparison so I'm obviously missing something.

I have to admit that I like this live chat thing for tech support. I've used it on other sites and it seems to work well. It's good to have a written record of the conversations.

Devilish Details

When scientists finally perfect a truly immersive and accurate virtual reality, I propose that the first application be made mandatory for those considering a custom-built house. Forget about creating memories of scaling K2 without O₂; forget about visiting the rings of Saturn; forget about dancing with Mark Cuban. What I want is a way to envision whether the switch plates will match the faux woodgrain in the shoe cubby of the 3rd bedroom closet.

Have you ever built a house (or, to be accurate, paid someone else to build it for you)? If not, take a moment – g'head; I'll wait here; I need to contemplate shelf thickness anyway – and look at your surroundings. Look at the architectural and decorating details, minute and manifold, and consider what it's like to have to make a conscious decision about each and every one of them. Sure, you've probably remodeled a room or two, and perhaps an entire house, so you've had a taste of the nature of the decisions. But that only scratches the surface (unless you've chosen granite countertops, which we're told can be scratched only by a diamond or another piece of granite), because even remodeling gives you a place to start.

We've moved into the interior detail design of our house, a process which is also known as the "what have we gotten ourselves into?!" phase. This is the part of the process where the quality of our decisions will be evident to all onlookers for as long as we own the house. These are the things we'll have to live with, day in and day out, for the next twenty years (at which point we'll curse the day we ever thought we needed a house this big). Sure, everything can be changed, with enough time, money and patience, but one should really not operate with that mindset.

These are some of the reasons I think a virtual reality "trial run" would be a wonderful thing. OTOH, the home building industry would probably rail against it, because I suspect that having gone through the experience in virtual reality, no one would choose to do it in real reality.

OK, I admit that I'm over-dramatizing the situation, and under-representing the fun that some of the process provides. I would give you some examples of that fun and enjoyment, but I really need to think some more about those switch plates.

Ghosts in the Wires

I don't think this is a commentary on the types of calls I get and make, but when I either make or receive a call on my cell phone while it's plugged into the charger, my paper shredder starts up.

I can't even hazard a guess as to why this happens. It took me a while to figure out what was happening, as the shredder sits directly below the phone as the latter rests on my desktop. At first, I thought I had the phone set on vibrate/ring because of the strange whir that accompanied the calls.

There's probably a safety issue at work here. At the very least, I'll be even more careful not to sit around dangling my fingers in the shredder slot.

Local Political Debates & Media Coverage

Update (10/23): As predicted, last night's debate was given prominent coverage this morning by the newspaper (front page story and photo) and the TV station (footage and commentary during the morning news show) which co-sponsored it.

I'm about to again reveal my ignorance of the Way Things Work in journalism, and no doubt be taken to task for sticking my nose into business that isn't mine, but I'm puzzled and concerned about how local media outlets are covering – or not covering, to be accurate – public events meant to educate the voting public.

The latest puzzle arose yesterday when all the candidates appeared at a meet-n-greet event, followed by a debate between the two mayoral candidates. If you read this morning's Midland Reporter Telegram, or watched the CBS affiliate's local news program, you might think that these events didn't actually occur, as neither gave any acknowledgment to them. BUT...tonight, there will be an actual debate between the same two candidates, televised and covered in exquisite detail by both of those outlets.

How to explain this? Uneducated skeptic that I am, I suspect it's because yesterday's events were sponsored by the local ABC affiliate, and thus they were deemed unworthy of coverage by the competition. (To be fair, the local ABC website has nothing about tonight's debate, as far as I can tell.)

I realize that the news game is a competitive one, and one-upsmanship is nothing new. However, I can't see how the public is served when media outlets completely ignore events designed to instruct and inform said public simply because they're sponsored by a competing outlet. That seems juvenile and short-sighted.

I'm especially disappointed in the newspaper's lack of coverage, as it seems to indicate a complete mind-meld with KOSA-TV. Any day now, I expect to see something in the MRT's banner indicating that it's been renamed the MCM-MRT. It's one thing for TV stations to compete head-to-head; quite another – again, in my uninformed opinion – for the newspaper to take sides with one of them.

Random Thursday: Wednesday Edition

It's been a busy few weeks (months?) around the Gazette household, but I'm sure everybody's in that boat. MLB and I are occasionally feeling stressed over some of the things that are going on, but when I take a look at the list of the most stressful life events and see that we're not experiencing any of them, then I have to admit that we're pretty spoiled.

Nevertheless, I am dealing with some pretty weighty issues. Like, how do I know whether to refer to someone as a "rapper" vs. a "hip-hop artist"? I mean, what's the difference? Are the former's lyrical vulgarities more crude? Are the latter's drive-by shootings done with a gold-plated rod? And does anyone still refer to a gun as a "rod"?

Also, why does Charmin insist on having eight varieties of toilet paper? Big rolls, mega rolls, ultra rolls, ultra-freakin'-ginormous rolls. Who can figure it out?

Anyway, here's some noteworthy stuff that I trust won't stress your mind too much:

• Got a lot accomplished before 7:30 this morning, including installing and configuring a message board for a nonprofit client, and tweaking the home page layout for a second customer. I also caught the appearance of fellow Midland blogger Ricë Freeman-Zachery on the local CBS morning show, as she took temporary leave from her easy chair at the Rankin HIghway S$s to plug her new book, Living the Creative Life in advance of her book signing at Barnes & Noble on Saturday. I trust that she was pleasantly surprised that the interviewer pronounced her name correctly.


• I think there's a whole boring post to be made around this concept, but for now let me just say that website designers are in danger of becoming the next used car salesmen (and by that I really mean no disrespect to any actual used car salesmen, all of whom are paragons of fiduciary responsibility and compassionate marketing strategies; I'm referring to those unfair stereotypes, doncha know?) if my most recent clients are any indication. The last three have retained me to rescue them from lousy designs and/or unresponsive designers. One of them told me, "I'd be happy just to have someone who answers their phone." Methinks we need to have a little group meeting to discuss such things as reliability, discipline, and customer service. After that, we can move on to the many reasons why scanning a brochure and slapping it on a server as a series of JPEGs does not a useful website make.


• How out of it am I? After telling some friends last night about the new album being released by a major recording artist, Toni informed me as diplomatically as she could without rolling on the floor in laughter that George Harrison's All Things Must Pass is, in fact, more than three decades old. (I have socks older than that, so that's not a big deal.) Say, did you know that he's dead? Next up: I share some rumors about this really big boat hitting an iceberg and sinking while an orchestra plays a hymn.

I'm pretty sure I had a couple of additional observations that would bring the world closer to true harmony and the ubiquitous availability of really good chile rellenos, but it all escapes me now.

Political "Job Fair"

Mel Hudman, news director over at KMID-TV, is asking the Midland blogging community to help spread the word about next Sunday's candidate meet-n-greet-n-debate at Midland Center. I won't be able to attend but I promised Mel that I'd give a plug to this event, which is likely one of the last opportunities to find all of the citywide candidates in one spot.

The keynote event is a televised debate between mayoral candidates Wes Perry and Stephanie Sparkman. The debate starts at 6:00 p.m. at Midland Center, and will be televised by KMID; Mel will be the moderator. You can submit questions to be considered for the debate via this website.

I don't know whether another debate between these two folks will reveal anything new; this will be at least the third such face-off (unless I'm getting confused by all the other political debates). However, the "Job Fair" that precedes it seems to be a unique opportunity to talk with all the candidates for city council plus the mayoral wannabes. They've all agreed to participate, and each candidate will have a booth, making them in effect, captive audiences. This little soirée commences at 3:00 pm, again at Midland Center.

Note to Midland bloggers: Please help publicize this event if you don't mind devoting a post to it. I don't do much political blogging anymore, but this is an exception. The goal is to improve voter turnout in November. And if you post some interesting questions or issues to be submitted to Sparkman and/or Perry, Mel might even give you a hat-tip!

The Gazette: Lowering the Bar for Adoxography Since 2002

MLB emailed me the entry from her Word Of The Day subscription:

She accompanied it with this delicately diplomatic query, which I tend to believe wasn't entirely rhetorical: "Is this what some blogging is?"

No, my dear, that's what all blogging is, at least at the Gazette. Well, except for the "good writing" part.

I think I prefer the Gazette's Content Free™ designation, as it avoids those sticky value judgments.

For more on the etymology of this word, which was hitherto unknown to me, read the Wikipedia entry, which also includes a reference to blogs.

Ways Women Are Not Like Men – #4,872

You have one new message and three old messages. All messages...played back.

Hi, LB*, this Mabel*. I noticed your haircut at church a couple of weeks ago and it's soooo cute** that I have to know where you got it. Please call me back at this number: 550-3253***.

That message was on our answering machine when we got home from church this afternoon. Now, can you see a guy leaving another guy that message?

Dude, I saw your mullet at the bowling alley last week, man, and it rawked. I have to know who your barber is, man!

OK, I guess when you put it like that, it doesn't sound so unreasonable after all.

*Names have been changed to protect the guilty.
**Granted, it is a really cute haircut, but, still...
***I've always wanted to use the fake Hollywood phone number prefix, and embed a hidden message in the digits.

Why Blog: Part Eleventy

Several of my blogging buds recently posted about an article that appeared in Christianity Today in which the author proclaimed the death of blogging. I haven't read the article (nor, I confess, all of the posts about it) but I suspect it goes something like this: blogging is hard, you can't make any money at it, and besides, no one cares what your cat had to eat yesterday.

Fine. Whatever. If that's what the author had to say, he or she missed the point of most blogs, and that point was eloquently stated by my pal Jim (OK, so I did read some of the posts): I'm just interested in writing stuff down. IOW, there's no grand over-arching scheme to get rich and famous and do anything more than have fun with words and ideas.

And, occasionally, uplift the spirit of someone you don't know and likely never will.

Like the family of the man to whom Tricia pays tribute in this post, a man many Midlanders will recognize.

That post is an example of why blogging should continue. A woman writing from the hinterlands of Michigan about her memories of her pediatrician back in West Texas represents the purest motives for blogging: telling others about someone who was important to her, and doing so in a way that honors the memory of the one she's writing about. As an added bonus, she also added something to our knowledge of our city's history.

I didn't know Dr. Allen while he was alive, but, thanks to Tricia, I do now, if only in the tiniest of ways. Because of her skillful writing and her interest in just writing stuff down, an intangible fabric is woven a bit stronger.

What did you do with your time today?

Finally. A truly worthy task for the MDC.

If the Midland Development Corporation wants to truly make an impact on our city, it needs to get it in gear and figure out (a) why Odessa was selected for a branch office of Dunder Mifflin Infinity and Midland wasn't, and (2) how our fair city can get on the list.

This injustice cannot stand!

If you have no frame of reference for the preceding, other than agreeing that it's always good when a new business opens its doors in the area, then this post is not for you.

The Life Cycle of Students

Warning: What follows is possibly the biggest setup in history for the lamest joke. Proceed at your own risk.

The guy pictured at right (hi, Dale!) stopped by our table at Romie's last night (fajitas are the Wednesday night special, doncha know?) and asked me about an English teacher I had in junior high (following up on a comment he left on this post).

On the drive home, after stopping for dessert at S$s, my wife asked me who he was, because she moved to Fort Stockton fairly late in her high school tenure and while she thought he looked familiar, couldn't quite place him. I said something to the effect that I would pull out a high school yearbook when we got home and she could see if she recognized him in his larval phase.

She, being of the razor sharp and quick wit, replied, "are you sure he wouldn't have been in his pupal stage?" Get it? "Pupal"? "Pupil"?

Ah, you just had to be there. And being a biology major might help.

High Thread Count TV

This TV ad for Sony's Bravia brand is as inscrutable as it is impressive.

Link via Adrants, which likens it to running bunnies through the Congressional Cemetery.

I Love Lucy

I drafted this post two weeks ago. After deciding it made me sound like a pitiful fanboy, I put it on hold. Then, yesterday, I again fired up the iPod and after listening to the album three more times, I realized that I am a fanboy. I can live with it.

I was watching a now-forgotten movie on AMC a few weeks ago, and enduring the endless repetition of that channel's ads for upcoming movies. My pain was eased somewhat by the music that accompanied one ad, a snippet remarkable for its energy and intriguing arrangement, a catchy pop tune with some throwbacks to another period, including a clarinet riff and some nasty horns. Fortunately, AMC had the good sense to show the song title and artist in the lower corner of the screen, like MTV used to do in the old days when it actually featured music videos. The song was Use What I Got by a woman named Lucy Woodward. I immediately sought it out on the iTunes Store and invested 99 cents.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. I'm doing some rather tedious image editing, one of the few tasks that actually goes better for me with a musical background. Use What I Got popped into the shuffle rotation, and again sent me back to iTunes where I sampled a few more tracks from its album, Lucy Woodward is Hot and Bothered. Noting that I had a few bucks remaining on account from a gift card, I did something I rarely do: downloaded the rest of the album. I've listened to it a dozen times in the last three days or so.

In a nutshell, I'm smitten by Lucy Woodward's voice and musical talents.

I now see that her songs have been featured in a slew of movies (none of which I've seen, by the way, another testimony to my sad state of uncoolness), and she's even had a top 10 pop song, Dumb Girls (which I sampled and passed on; it's from an earlier album). So I'm late to this bandwagon, but in this case, it's better late than never.

Woodward's got this crazy voice that adjures adjectival alliteration: sultry, sophisticated, sassy, sizzling, soulful. She writes songs that beg for repeat listenings in order to dig all the layers. She has a feel for pop hooks that turn tunes into earworms, but this is oh-so-much more than a pop album. The lyrics are sophisticated and occasionally racy, and the musical references span decades (or, perhaps, centuries) and cultures. How can you not like a song entitled Hot and Bothered set to the tune of a Yiddish lullaby? Woodward cites influences ranging from Julie London to Ray Charles to Bjork to Etta James, and you could picture her singing in a speakeasy from the 40s as easily as in a trendy 21st century nightspot.

The musical arrangements on this album are imaginative and grown-up. This is not your teenybopper's pop music. In fact, the only reason I apply that genre is that it's what the iTunes Store uses. Regardless of the classification, the tunes are uniformly catchy and sufficiently layered (there's that word again) to bear repeated hearing.

I don't buy many albums – Love and Tommy Castro's Painkiller are the only others I've purchased this year, in fact [I would have bought Kyle's In Harbors Gray but I've got connections] – but Hot and Bothered is an investment I'm thrilled to have made. If you've never heard of Lucy Woodward, don't worry; you can make up for it by adding her album to your collection. It may not make you cooler, but then again, you probably won't care.

Technorati tag: Lucy Woodward

Fire Ant Sightings

It's time once again for the ultimate in blogging narcissism: Fire Ant Sightings from around the globe!

First up, we have that lovable duo, Molly and Colin, who spared no expense in having the accessories for their wedding reception – which took place in Baltimore, home to my bud Soccer Dad – done in a tasteful Fire Ant motif:

Molly and Colin are members of the Washington Improv Theater, which explains how Colin manages to appear marginally interested in the proceedings when, in reality, he's thinking "I'm delaying my honeymoon for this?" But, really, when you have penguins in your wedding, what harm comes from also including a Fire Ant?

Then, a thousand miles or so to the west, I attended not one but two family reunions in lovely Denton, Texas (that definition of "loveliness" must be adjusted to consider the fact that it was Texas/OU Weekend [or OU/Texas Weekend, depending on your nationality] [or The Worst Weekend Ever To Come Within A Hundred Miles Of The Metroplex, depending on your level of patience]). At one of them, on my dad's side of the family, I encountered not one, but two Fire Ant aficionados:

Those lovely ladies are Sally (on the left) and Alice, who I'm proud to claim as my aunts. (Does that make them Fire Aunts?) Alice is actually the owner of the coffee mug; Sally has one, but is still doing penance for appearing at a family gathering without it. That sign she's making with her right hand is not evidence that she's an old hippie (as far as I know, anyway), but is sibling rivalry code for "I have one, too!" Observant observers will observe that Alice is wearing her Kansas Jayhawks t-shirt; she has a grandson who is a starter on the undefeated KU football team. I have no idea about the significance of the number "81." ;-)

You, too, can gain untold fame and glory by submitting a photo of yourself and Official Fire Ant Gazette Merchandise, preferably the kind that you paid for, but, as you saw with Colin and Molly, our standards are fairly lax.

That's why they make the big bucks

The headline in this morning's newspaper presents clear evidence why we leave the meteorological prognosticating to those with years of scientific education and training:

(This should also be of some reassurance to Al Gore.)

We're gonna need a bigger rabbit

It appears that our guard bunny is falling down on the job:

This creature was lurking about this evening in the guest bedroom. It's a young bull snake, about 12" long. I managed to wrangle him into a box and carry him outside where we hope he'll grow into a large bull snake and keep the population of mice under control.

Forgive the poor image quality. There's only so much I can do in Photoshop with a picture taken in low light via a 1 megapixel phone camera. Especially when there are snakes involved.

36 Reasons to Regret Visiting this Blog

Jeff over at ArchaeoTexture has tagged me for a meme, which is a relatively harmless (to me, anyway) excuse to ease back into blogging after yet another prolonged absence:

• Four Jobs I've Held - Disk jockey, gas plant roustabout, multilith operator, accounting systems analyst


• Four Films I Could Watch Over and Over - Serenity; Galaxy Quest; Deep Rising; Tremors


• Four TV Shows I Watch - Numbers, Dancing With the Stars, the 6:00 a.m local news program (CBS), The Office


• Four Places I've Lived - Wheeler, Richardson, Garland, Bryan (all in Texas, and not in that order)


• Four Favorite Foods - Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Dessert (not in that order)


• Four Websites I Visit Daily - Whatever client sites I'm working on; I no longer have time to regularly surf the web


• Four Favorite Colors - Light black, medium black, dark black, and brilliantly muddy black


• Four Places I Would Love to be Right Now - Standing in line to cash this month's million dollar check from my MegaGigantoHuge Lottery winnings. The three other places would just naturally fall into place at that point.


• Four Names I Love, But Could/Would Not Use for My Children - Sylvestre (like the cat, only classier), Banner (once had a boss named that), Mephibosheth, Jesus

I'd find my Content Free Celebrity Head™ and put it with this post but I'm too lazy. Try to imagine Sean Penn's head right here.

Oh, and consider yourself tagged. Unless, of course, you don't want to be.

Say what?!

I had despaired of finding either the inspiration or the time to post anything, but the former came in the form of ten minutes of television and the latter is being carved out of the time I usually devote to counting ceiling tiles.

Do you ever really listen to what's being broadcast? If you do, you won't be surprised by the following:

• The anchor on a national news show, describing a "breaking story" about a landslide in California, said that details were sketchy but that they were "efforting" to get more information. Just what we need: yet another noun-turned-verb.


• This was closely followed by an ad for a resort in the Caribbean which features many amenities and wonderful things, including an "exotic offshore island." Those really are the best kind, of course.


• Asian TV ads for English speaking audiences are an endless source of amusement and/or bafflement. The latter reaction accompanied the commercial for Korean Air, which featured a series of images (most of which had nothing to do with air travel) accompanied by various adjectives in text form. You know, adjectives like "graceful," "visionary," "admired," and, um, "pledging."


• Not everything on TV is silly. Car maker Hyundai is running a series of ads with the theme "Think About It." Along with the world's slowest loading website and some excessively preachy messages, it's providing at least one bit of commendable commentary. The ad I just saw spoke of commitment, and how it had become a scarce commodity in today's culture. "Don't like your nose? Get a new one. Don't like your spouse? Get a new one. Whatever happened to commitment, of making a decision and standing by it?" I confess to being puzzled as to how this will help them sell more cars, but it's a refreshing perspective.

Obligatory warning: Paying close attention to what's on television is not recommended. The preceding was done on a closed course by a professional cynic. Do not try this at home.