Criminal

If thoroughness was high priority, I could mention many small crimes which a person might cruelly inflict upon his fellow man; but thoroughness is for another day, and now I willl mention only one: cooking a quantity of bacon to be used later in a recipe without also cooking a few pieces for the attending company to snack upon. A small but pursuasive punishment should be prescribed to dissuade such offensively bold behavior.

Saturday Cat Blogging

Sony P7

Ralphie

This is my sandbox. I'm not allowed to go in the deep end.

This one, and more, at the Ralph Wiggum Soundboard!

Horned / Spiny Bellied / Arrow Shaped

NIkon D100, 105mm macro

Bur Marigold, Blue Butterfly

Nikon D100, 105mm macro

N Degrees

I haven't done this in a while. Pick two musicians, find the shortest path between them, a la "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon".

So, let's pick John Coltrane and Junior Brown, because those were the last two artists my iPod played.

John Coltrane played with Miles Davis who played with John McLaughlin who played with Buddy Miles who played with Junior Brown.

The real test is to do it from memory, without the help of Allmusic.com, but I just couldn't find a link from Miles Davis to Buddy Miles. I tried to find a link from Jimi Hendrix (who played with Buddy Miles) to Miles Davis through Davis' associations with Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, etc., but couldn't come up with anything. Alas, I resorted to Allmusic, which, after much digging, turned up the McLaughlin/Buddy Miles link, allowing let me to skip Hendrix completely.

If anyone out there would like to try, here's one I've already worked out: Alison Krauss to Katrina & the Waves in three steps (Alison -> XX -> XX -> XX -> Katrina & The Waves).

Start Your iPods

The iPod starts the work week with:

1. Spoon - Lines In The Suit. One of my favorite Spoon songs:
   
   The human resource clerk
   Has two cigarettes then back to work
   She eats right but hurts
   And she says it could've been good by now
   It could have been more than a wage, yeah
   How come she feels so washed up
   At such a tender age
   
   
2. John Mayall - Lonely Years
   
3. The Cure - The Dream
   
4. Shellac - My Black Ass. Everything Albini does is pure rage. There's no posturing or self-aggrandizing you get in other genres that like to come across as angry (metal, rap, etc). This stuff is just pure white hot rage.
   
5. Thelonius Monk & Sonny Rollins - I Want to be Happy. Ah ironic juxtaposition.
   
6. fieldfresh - pissin. One of my college bands...
   
   I like pissin
   I like kissin
   If I can't be kissin
   I wanna be pissin
   On the girl that won't kiss me
   Such brilliance.
   
7. The Replacements - Gary's Got a Boner. What an excellent pairing.
   
8. King Crimson - Three of a Perfect Pair
   
9. Beastie Boys - Ch-Check It Out. One of the few I like from their last record.
   
10. Cat Power - Foot. Good one...
    
11. Special bonus: Elliot Smith - Waltz #2 (XO). My favorite Elliot Smith song, and somewhere in the top 10 of my all time favorites.
    

Monday Cat Blogging

Nikon D100, 50mm

Dead bee

Nikon D100, 105mm macro, 5T closeup

This bee was dead, so i dropped him onto our African Violet for a close-up. Posing dead bugs ? Am I becoming the Joel Peter Witkin of the insect world...?

Record Reviews

...from Something Awful! This time, System Of A Down:

They have all the rhyming skills of a middle-aged schoolteacher from Nebraska trying to show his students he's "with it" by busting out a funky-fresh rap. Oh, but they said "cock," so I guess they're as edgy as a giggling fourth grader. I don't know who's stupider, someone who writes those lyrics, or someone who listens to them and says "this is great!." Wait, yes I do, it's the person who listens to them. Those lyrics have gone far beyond the point of being justifiable with a claim that they're tongue-in-cheek. They're not tongue-in-cheek, they're finger-in-nose. Period. And did I already tell you that you're stupid if you like them? Okay, I guess I did.

Ahh... I love it.

Here's another good bit:

To add injury to insult, the vocal duties on Mezmerize are shared between irritating but capable singer Serj Tankian and irritating but extremely incapable whiner/screamer Daron Malakian. Malakian taking over more vocal duties speaks not of intra-band conflict, but of a disgusting lack of intra-band conflict. Why won’t anyone tell the guy he can’t sing? They need to sit him down and say “sorry, you sound like a twelve-year-old diabetic with bad insulin regulation. Sit this one out and let the singer sing or we’re going to be even shittier than we were before, if that’s even possible.”

And, as all the cool kids already know, there's more if you click the link...

Also from Something Awful: if you are a serious Harry Potter fan, or are at work, or have little kids nearby, or know what "Harry/Snape slash fiction" means and don't want to see it, or are the kind of person who likes to shoot messengers, don't look at this. If you looked anyway, shame on you.

(wondering, is there an Edward Gorey and Something Awful connection ?)

Irony

Nikon N80, TMax 400(?), 105mm macro

(repost)

Ah fall

Fall: the time of year when all the parents in the office bring their children's new colds to work to share with the rest of us.

Idiocy

High school student who was beaten-up for wearing a shirt depicting a KKK lynching defends his shirt choice thusly:

"'I'm not racist or anything,' he said. 'It's just, some people I hate, some people I don't get along with. And black people just happen to be the ones because they think they're better than everyone else.'"

And this kid went on to graduate. Time to re-evaluate what it takes to get a diploma from Fleming Island High School?

More at Jacksonville.com. via The News Blog.

Dildo

Welcome to the Community of Dildo.

Bur Marigolds

Nikon D100, 50mm

(repost)

The Japanese Caused Katrina

MOSNEWS.COM says:

A meteorologist in Pocatello, Idaho, claims Japanese gangsters known as the Yakuza used KGB inventions to cause Hurricane Katrina, Wireless Flash reported Thursday.

Scott Stevens says after looking at NASA satellite photos of the hurricane, he’s is convinced it was caused by electromagnetic generators from ground-based microwave transmitters.

Mm 'k.

And they're off...

The iPod starts the work week with...

1. Liz Phair - Nashville
   
2. Hector - She Said She Said. My first post-college band.
   
3. The Cure - The End of the World. Surprisingly un-bad. I'd given up on them a long time ago, but this is pleasantly acceptable.
   
4. Getz / Gilberto - Doralice. Mellow Brazillian jazz... ahh.
   
5. Sonic Youth - Tunic (Song For Karen)
   
6. Moby Grape - Indifference
   
7. Bauhaus - Telegram Sam
   
8. Cream - Sitting On Top Of The World
   
9. White Stripes - Blue Orchid
   
10. Fleetwood Mac - Watch Out. This is the old, pre-Buckingham/Nicks time, when they were a blues band, with Bob Welch up front.
    

I think this means the people in my office are going to talk about stupid fucking fantasy football, constantly, for the next four months.

What I did this weekend

Nikon D100, 50mm

Plantar whosawhatsits?

One weekend at a party, we were talking with a friend of a friend, a runner, who had developed plantar fasciitis in both her feet: damage to the tendons and ligaments on the bottom of your foot, where they attach to your heel bone. She had it so bad, that even after after months of treatments, there were times that she literally could not walk.

So after that, I started wondering what was going on with my own foot. I had started feeling a little tenderness in my right heel. At first, I thought it was just a bruise; but when it didn't get any better after a couple of weeks, I started worrying. A quick trip to the doctorGoogle told me that I had the same thing as she did, though still less severe: constant tenderness at the front of the heel, soreness spreading over the entire bottom of the foot after long periods of inactivity (ex in the morning, or after a few hours sitting at a desk).

Treatment? Stretch, and don't run, for as long as it takes. Probably at least a month. Possibly two months. Possibly six months. Maybe more. So, that's the end of my running.

Now, I'm gonna be a mountain biker !

Thursday cat blogging

Nikon D100, 50mm

Tricksey loves to sit in the bathroom sinks. I thought this was a quaint quirk unique to our special precious kitty. But no. All cats love to sit in the sink. Our cat is merely typical. Sigh.

Pepper

Nikon D100, 105mm macro

(repost)

Start your iPods

My iPod starts the short work week with:

1. The White Stripes - The Denial Twist
   
2. Yo La Tengo - Upside Down. One of their perfect little super-catchy rock songs.
   
3. The White Stripes - I'm Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman
   
4. Van Morrison - When That Evening Sun Goes Down
   
5. Fleetwood Mac - Think About Me. A little gem from the kings of catchy songs.
   
6. The Shins - Fighting In A Sack. A great song from a great album from a great band.
   
7. Grandaddy - Yeah It's What We Had
   
8. Gillian Welch - I'm Not Afraid To Die. Yay!
   
9. Miles Davis - When I Fall In Love.
   
10. Chris Bell - Look Up.
    

Veddy veddy catchy.

Folksongs Are Your Friends

Over at Making Light, we can learn the invaluable wisdom provided by English folksongs. Here's a sample:

Professions to be particularly wary of: clerks, salty sailors, serving maids, blacksmiths, highwaymen, gamblers, rank robbers, stonemasons, soldiers, tinkers, and millers. Anyone described as "jolly", "bold", or "saucy". Supernatural creatures are best avoided. If they can't be avoided, they should be addressed respectfully. If a supernatural creature sets you a task you're well and truly screwed.

If you are a young lady and a soldier promises to "marry you in the morn", it means he's already married. And has kids. And he's not going to marry you anyway. Even if you're pregnant. Which you will be.

If you're a young unmarried lady with child, and your pregnancy embarrasses or inconveniences someone else, consider yourself a sitting duck. Don't meet with your young gentleman alone, or at odd hours, or in isolated locations, even if he says he's taking you to be married. Next thing you know your Doleful Ghost will be telling your mother all about it. While he may say "Come all ye..." in the last stanza or two this will be small comfort. "

Go read more. It may save your life.

Aphorism

Overheard at Obsidian Wings:

"Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice."
(attributed to Rob Hansen)

For those not familiar, this is a play on Arthur C. Clarke's "Third Law", which states:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

1981 Was a Shitty Year for Pop Music

Or so says Rox Populi. The method? Find the Billboard top 100 from the year you graduated High School and "Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you hate and underline your favorite. Do nothing to the ones you don't remember (or don't care about). "

I'm goning to take it a step further and put songs I don't remember in italics. So, to recap:

• Favorite
  
• Like
  
• Hate
  
• Don't remember
  
• Ambivalent
  

Let's try 1988:

1. Faith, George Michael
2. Need You Tonight, INXS
3. Got My Mind Set On You, George Harrison
4. Never Gonna Give You Up, Rick Astley
5. Sweet Child O' Mine, Guns N' Roses
6. So Emotional, Whitney Houston
7. Heaven Is A Place On Earth, Belinda Carlisle
8. Could've Been, Tiffany
9. Hands To Heaven, Breathe
10. Roll With It, Steve Winwood
11. One More Try, George Michael
12. Wishing Well, Terence Trent d'Arby
13. Anything For You, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
14. The Flame, Cheap Trick
15. Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car, Billy Ocean
16. Seasons Change, Expose
17. Is This Love, Whitesnake
18. Wild, Wild West, Escape Club
19. Pour Some Sugar On Me, Def Leppard
20. I'll Always Love You, Taylor Dayne
21. Man In The Mirror, Michael Jackson
22. Shake Your Love, Debbie Gibson
23. Simply Irresistible, Robert Palmer
24. Hold On To The Nights, Richard Marx
25. Hungry Eyes, Eric Carnen
26. Shattered Dreams, Johnny Hates Jazz
27. Father Figure, George Michael
28. Naughty Girls (Need Love Too), Samantha Fox
29. A Groovy Kind Of Love, Phil Collins
30. Love Bites, Def Leppard
31. Endless Summer Nights, Richard Marx
32. Foolish Beat, Debbie Gibson
33. Where Do Broken Hearts Go, Whitney Houston
34. Angel, Aerosmith
35. Hazy Shade Of Winter, Bangles
36. The Way You Make Me Feel, Michael Jackson
37. Don't Worry, Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin
38. Make Me Lose Control, Eric Carmen
39. Red Red Wine, UB40
40. She's Like The Wind, Patric Swayze
41. Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi
42. Kokomo, Beach Boys
43. I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That, Elton John
44. Together Forever, Rick Astley
45. Monkey, George Michael
46. Devil Inside, INXS
47. Should've Known Better, Richard Marx
48. I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love, Chicago
49. The Loco-Motion, Kylie Minogue
50. What Have I Done To Deserve This?, Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield
51. Make It Real, Jets
52. What's On Your Mind, Information Society
53. Tell It To My Heart, Taylor Dayne
54. Out Of The Blue, Debbie Gibson
55. Don't You Want Me, Jody Watley
56. Desire, U2
57. I Get Weak, Belinda Carlisle
58. Sign Your Name, Terence Trent d'Arby
59. I Want To Be Your Man, Roger
60. Girlfriend, Pebbles
61. Dirty Diana, Michael Jackson
62. 1-2-3, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
63. Mercedes Boy, Pebbles
64. Perfect World, Huey Lewis and the News
65. New Sensation, INXS
66. Catch Me (I'm Falling), Pretty Poison
67. If It Isn't Love, New Edition
68. Rocket 2 U, Jets
69. One Good Woman, Peter Cetera
70. Don't Be Cruel, Cheap Trick
71. Candle In The Wind, Elton John
72. Everything Your Heart Desires, Daryl Hall and John Oates
73. Say You Will , Foreigner
74. I Want Her, Keith Sweat
75. Pink Cadillac, Natalie Cole
76. Fast Car, Tracy Chapman
77. Electric Blue, Icehouse
78. The Valley Road, Bruce Hornsby and The Range
79. Don't Be Cruel, Bobby Brown
80. Always On My Mind, Pet Shop Boys
81. Piano In The Dark, Brenda Russell Featuring Joe Esposito
82. When It's Love, Van Halen
83. Don't Shed A Tear, Paul Carrack
84. We'll Be Together, Sting
85. I Hate Myself For Loving You, Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
86. I Don't Want To Live Without You, Foreigner
87. Nite And Day, Al B. Sure
88. Don't You Know What The Night Can Do, Steve Winwood
89. One Moment In Time, Whitney Houston
90. Can't Stay Away From You, Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine
91. Kissing A Fool, George Michael
92. Cherry Bomb, John Cougar Mellancamp
93. I Still Believe, Brenda K. Starr
94. I Found Someone, Cher
95. Never Tear Us Apart, INXS
96. Valerie, Steve Windwood
97. Just Like Paradise, David Lee Roth
98. Nothin' But A Good Time, Poison
99. Wait, White Lion
100. Prove Your Love, Taylor Dayne

Hmm... lots of stuff I don't remember, very few likes, and a bunch of stuff I'm kinda OK with. So, it seems 1988 was a shitty year for pop music, too.

Ugh

Watch Geraldo and Shepard Smith absolutely pleading for someone to do something for the people locked in the SuperDome (on Fox News): here.

Horrible.

A whole gallery of Tricksey

This is going to be a demo for ThumbNailer, but I thought I might share it with y'all, too: Tricksey.

Lazy Boy

Sony P7

Chair in the fast lane, I95 S. South of DC.

This jumped off a pickup in front of us, as we were driving back from picking up Tricksey, last year.