I've been having a lousy week. On Saturday, we threw a picnic to celebrate "Safety" over the last year; I was stunned to find that given our Darwin near miss entries we had the gall to ask the government for money to pay for it, and then that they did! Since one of our big charities is Toys for Tots, any money raised will go to the little bastards of Barstow, Hinckley and so on...so, we had a dunking booth, and all the "big bosses" signed up. Well, not really...a lot took passes. But, of those that did sign up, I agreed to go first. Normally in the Crossroads of Opportunity, this would have been nothing...however, by noon on Saturday it was 58 and the wind was down to 12 knots. So, I got wet, and while I guaged the way to dress for my 25 minute stint correctly, I was stunned by how little the water evaporated before I had to flee to the house to a hot shower, coffee and a rethinking of the situation.
On Sunday, I spent entirely too much money on food and a new computer that I planned to set up with various electonic pieces of magic and start recording. On Monday, the holiday, I was feeling misplaced and lousy in general, so I got a flu shot. By Monday night, I felt sick. By Tuesday morning, I felt really sick...fortunately, I'm on a week's vacation. Now, I'm starting to feel human. Went out for dinner to Chilis, and tasted hot, cold, and garlic. I feel like crap. And, reality keeps intruding...And, the 4 track live recorder I bought with the loop function to work on riffs was sent to my PO Box...by UPS. Not sure how that is going to work...
Ok, first thing. Without Robert Plant, there is no Led Zepplin. It's not Van Halen, for Christ sake, and exactly who are they going to get to sing? Eddie Vedder? Might be interesting, but would not be Led Zepplin? Rod Stewart? How about one of those Irish tenor guys that litter the landscape of PBS? You know who would be cool to do the gig? Rod Stewart. You could call it a Jeff Beck Group/Led Zepplin Reunion Tour. Actually, have Page sit it out, and then call it Unleded Zepplein!
Next, I've been struggling through Bernard Henri-Levy's Sartre. Please, Tiffany, shoot me before I philosophize again. Levy is probably the best known Satre-ian running around today, and the book can be summed up as this: Sartre, while generally an asshole and probably useless after 1960 wrote some penetrating stuff in the 40s and 50s, and the other Existentialist figures thought his was the coolest guy in the pool. The end. Help me...Rhonda. It could be the cold, headache, and eye issues, but Jesus wept, what a pain. For some reason, Sartre decided to approach the problem of being by writing about French writers that nobody really cares about. Flaubert. Gide. So, Sartre makes a start on getting it right, goes poltiical which pisses off the a-political, supports the most totalitarian of the totalitarians (Mao) and then decides to write literary criticism of Madame Bovary and whatever the hell Gide wrote. It's as if John Wayne made The Conquerer and decided to start doing romantic comedies. Gay romantic comedies.
Madonna and Guy Richie are getting a divorce? It is Richie, isn't it? I keep confusing him with the guy who left the Commodores. Paris' ex-BFF who has the whole anorexia-vicodin thing going on. Her dad. That guy...who cares? Madonna was marginally talented and had a marvelous sense of self-promotion. Frankly, if she wanted to be British, she should probably have gone after, oh, Simon Crowell or one of the "Stars in a Reasonably Priced Car," or maybe one of the blokes from Last of the Summer Wine.
Browsers. I'm fighting with a bunch of them. I decided that I was going to stick with PCs because I'm a working class kind of guy. And, I'm too lazy to learn another operating system...note to self, I haven't bothered to learn any operating system in 13 years...anyway, I'm vacillating between Firefox, Chrome and Opera. The one thing that makes me less likely to stick with Chrome is the lack of an autofill function. I am enjoying the the Opera Speedial, especially when I want to blog. I still like Firefox but I have found the updates to be less than the original.
Final debate. Slipped all but a very little, and watched next to none of the commentary. Turned the station to the ballgame, and since my wife is Philly fan (I had to walk through the damn Philadelphia airport in uniform once, lugging a damn Philly Phanatic doll that was almost as big as she is years ago) that kept her quiet. Anyway, thank god our longish national nightmare is nearly over, and we can have a center-left governing majority drive us right over the brink. Frankly, the cavalry is supposed to arrive before the settlers are overwhelmed and massacred. McCain probably really pissed off women; hell, his line dismissing the woman's health reason for abortion with the "quotes" pissed me off. I don't have a dog in the abortion fight anymore, but I am concerned about healthcare and healthcare issues in this country...it's not exactly easy in some areas for a woman to get an abortion even if her life depends on it. Poor pre-natal care, child abuse, child neglect, hatred and self-hatred -- does this guy realize that life is not Ozzie and Harriet for most people? I guess not -- a few more tax cuts for the Joe the Plumbers making over $250K net and the rollback of some consumer professions, and little Rickey will be up there playing away, again.
Speaking of Little Rickey, Tom Petty has only nice things to say about his lead guitar player, James Burton. Go figure...the guy is an excellent guitar player. And, some of the less orchestrated Rick Nelson stuff predating the whole Garden Party thing are fairly cool classic rock and roll. Here's a bit with Burton and Roger Daltry...
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