Cockle Picking Tragedy Averted

It's not so much that the Cockle Pickers were saved. It was that it was reported in the Chicago Sun Times hours after it is said to have happened.

I wasn't aware the Sun Times kept that close a tab on the lives and worries of England's Cockle Pickers. Is there some connection? Are Cockles part of the daily diet of the denizens of Daly's city? Somehow, I doubt it. Chicago, the last time I looked, was a beef town. Thousands of cows were slaughtered there daily.

The first time I was in Chicago, in the late '60s, the entire town smelled like a freshly opened can of . =30=

XP SP2 AMD alert on ZDNET

Dave Berlind's article in ZDNET online about the advantage of having a 64bit AMD processor, which I do, pleased me to no end. All of the other information about this processor told me how wonderful it would be if...

Now, it would seem, the newest update to MS Windows XP will take advantage of the 64bit nature of the processor. If you want to read more about it, from a man who claims to know something about it, then you should read the entire article. =30=

A marvelous day of doing absolutely nothing.

Today was a rare day. There was a barbecue I planned to attend. It was cancelled at the last minute. With mixed feelings I decided to run all of the weekends errands in one trip and then just take the rest of it off. My body needs it, my mind needs it, the earth needs it. Okay, maybe not the earth, but at least the small patch of it I call home.

With than in mind, don't expect any long entries this weekend. Unless I get bored. Mr. G. said boredom was a negative emotion. Stuff happens though. =30=

From whence came the Google beta 2 Link?

Though I know you would find it hard to believe, but I think I cut and past the wrong HTML code in the last entry.

When I came to check the blog; it was as much a surprise to me as it was to anyone who didn't expect it to be there. I think I'll leave it there as a lesson to myself to be more careful with the cut & paste.

It's the middle of the week, I am exhausted and will see the bed before I write another word. =30=

	Security Business
	Browse Archives at groups-beta.google.com

Just when you're ready to go back in the water...

I was reading Security Management Magazine to help me get to sleep when my pager buzzed. It advised me of the rise in alert status in NYC, Washington and New Jersey. Of course, that means it will rise, if not in color, in attitude in all financial institutions on the East Coast. Oh, well, I thought it was going to be quiet with the DNC out of town. Should be an interesting Monday.
=30=

Didn't want to leave you hanging.

During the weekend there is usually plenty of time to list comments here about this and mostly that. This weekend, though nothing of monumental notice occurred, my attention was elsewhere every time it could have been here.

So, the commentaries were short. It is 1789 in the biography: Benjamin Franklin : An American Life. I think I am taking my time near the end of the book. As with most biographies, the hero dies in the end. If they didn't, it would be a memoir. I know when Benjiman dies, I know where and how. I am just in no hurry to get there. He has so much to do, so little time. It can be said, he led a full life, certainly got around, and made his mark not only on his country, but on the world.

For what more could one ask? I'm just glad my name will be preserved in the town records as someone who did his civic duty. I hope most of it has been for the common good and not too much just to feed my ego.

Good Night!
=30=

It has been a long week.

They're gone!!!! Outside of the compressed media event inside the Fleet Center; there was very little there here. (apologizes to Oakland, CA.)

What matters is they are gone. There was a bit of circular traffic jam, the delegates leaving out one door and the natives returning through the other. I think I'll miss the the peace and quite created by everyone moving out of town for a week. We should have these conventions more often.

The next stop for this political road show in Madison Square Garden in my beloved Manhattan. Unlike Boston, NY'ers will see this as just another one of many road shows to slip through town, drop their elephant poop in the streets, (or is it donkey????) get followed by the street sweepers and the street cleaning machines. It won't be the first political mess cleaned up in NYC. It won't be the last.

I had looked forward to the Willie Nelson appearance, but even that was infected by the robot like staging plaguing this convention. When the Hope... signs cropped up at the right moment during the John Edwards speech, I felt sick to my stomach. So much for the individuality of each state contingent. It was the Stepford conventioneers.

If it wasn't for people like my mentor, Harold Ickes, Jr. I would stop watching politics.

=30=

Opera minor upgrade.

Have I mentioned recently how much I am enjoying all of the features of the new Opera browser/email/newsreader/coffee maker? Okay, it doesn't make coffee, but that's okay, because I don't drink it anymore.

Every once in a while I go back to see if the software has been upgraded. Normally I would do this with software looking for a fix to a problem.

Opera is giving me no problems. I still look for the upgrades out of habit. As you have probably already surmised, there has been a small upgrade, from 7.52 to 7.53. Downloaded it, using Opera 7.52. Upgraded seamlessly and am now cruising along on 7.53.

Though I still admit, the radical but incredibly intelligent change in the way email is handled does take a bit getting used to. But, once you get it, and that's what you have to do, "get it," it takes a weight off your shoulders. You no longer need to wonder where everything is filed.
=30=

From the evening news...

Only one arrest so far. It was on The Common. Don't know, don't really care for what.

Right now it's just a matter of keeping score. It will be sorted out in the end.

One point I think should be noted, the protesters refused to be corralled into the gulag created for them, razor wire and all.

I don't blame them.
=30=

At a recent outing in Avon-by-the-Hudson, Andrew displayed British hospitality,
but a poor understanding of how to use the Bar-b-que utensils.  =30=

A little bit more about Leonard Cohen...-

Though I know he is best known for his music, I was first introduced to Leonard Cohen though his writing, his poetry. I was in the local book store, on Broadway and 12th Street in Manhattan, looking for the poetry of Sarah Teasdale.


I was browsing though the books of poetry on the shelf when I came upon a short poem:

Come up to my room,
I was thinking of you
and made a pass at myself.
© Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen Collection

Once in a while something grabs you, takes hold and makes you want more. That short poem made me want more. To a smaller degree, Champagne Charlie a song by Leon Redbone caught my attention and caused me to go out and buy all there is of his stuff.

Neither the poem nor the song mentioned were the best works of either men. They were the point in time and space where we intersected, where they caused me to look aside and notice them.

We come to many intersections in life, most just blur by like the signs in local stations as you ride the express. Like Mr. G, or Neil Gaiman mentioned below, I just happened by them and stopped to look, to listen. My life is richer for it.
=30=

Instead of Random, Widespread would be a better name..

I did a Google search for Random Thoughts, loosely grazing and came up with a few thousand hits. It would seem, and I agree wholeheartedly, that the phrase Random Thoughts and blogging go hand in hand. Except where blogs are tightly focused on one issue, a campaign, a product or cause, all of the blogs are the randomly created thoughts of the blog author.

The good news, if it can be called that, Boogie Street is also a common phrase with over three thousand hits on Google. Most of the hits have to do with Leonard Cohen's song of the same name.


The good news is, if you search for belltowernews.com, you come right to this blog. If I am going to promote, though at the moment I can't think of why I should, it will be with the com name of belltower.

=30=

LIFE RULE NUMBER 421b

NEVER, EVER, TRY TO MAKE AN OMLETTE WITH BAKED BEANS. It doesn't work. =30=

News from around the country...

Here I am stuck in Boston, surrounded by the DNC. If it wasn't for the Yahoo! and Google News I might have missed the other important news from around the country.


... Very important, of course, is that Eads and Fox are welcome back into the CSI fold. The publicity stunt pulled by the production company had me on the edge of my chair. Whew!

The people attending the comics convention in San Diego, or Day-Go, as we called in in the Marines, look like they're having a LOT more fun than the people of Boston at the much more serious convention being held here. I vote to have the comics convention here next time.


... There, it would seem, was held the branding, or naming of the next Star Wars III. It will be Revenge of the Sit'h. Okay, there's a name that makes my blood boil, my interest peak, my brain wonder who was the idiot that came up with one?


... Than, most important, is the news that J. K. Rowlings, I know I don't need to tell you who she is, is expecting her third child.


... And, much more locally, the Yankees and the Red Sox had a brawl on the field when the Yankee who was hit by a pitch dropped the F bomb on the pitcher. F-bomb is local usage. If you can't figure out what it means, leave a comment to this blog and I will clarify it for you. .=30=

A gift to me.

This is a general thank you note to all of the people who have given me a copy of this wonderful book. This and Zen Flesh, Zen Bones are the quick reads to put you on The Path. If there is a "Path". How zen of me.... =30=

Newspapers - They might as well be made of stone.

The is coming to town.

Boston has developed a mentality similar to that I experienced while living along the coastline of the Carolinas during hurricane season. There were those who went on about their business, there were those who boarded up, stored emergency supplies and stuck it out and there were those who packed up and moved inland.

I have seen all three over the past few weeks. The dire predictions have been projected by the mass media, but most hysterically by our self-esteemed daily papers, the Herald and The Globe. You would think we were already under attack with the dire warnings about pending this and pending that. We are to expect the 1968 Chicago Convention compounded by terrorist, both foreign and domestic, "activity."

It is the activity justified by the need for "security" I have found myself fearing more than anything else.

There is the pizza shop that displayed a pro-Bush banner across the street from The Fleet Center that was told it had to take the banner down because they lacked a permit.

Though I may disagree with the sentiment expressed by the banner, the act of making them take it down makes me sick to my stomach. In defiance the store owner is leaving the banner up and closing for the week of the convention. I hope the foreign press covered this little side story. That way I can read about what really happened in The Guardian.

We were told to double our expected commuter time. I have a feeling, at least for Monday and Tuesday, the time will instead be cut in half. A lot of people have chosen the option of moving inland to avoid the storm. It is Summer, it is vacation time. I pity the people on the The Cape.

If I am wrong about this, I will say so here.=30=

Another Cult Author

Cult Author may be too strong a word to use for Neil Gaiman. His stories are of interest to me. They are of interest of many other people. We don't meet at the Loge des Neuf Soeurs in Paris and dance naked around a fire pit chanting his name. We do, haphazardly chat electronically about the characters, the stories and the travels of the author himself. In America, that would be called a "fan-base."

Neverwhere was the first of his books to catch my interest. In my cloistered environment, I believed I had discovered a "new" author. Wondering if he had ever produced any other work, I did a Google on him, only to discover he not only was prolific, but his stories were made into television series, he produced adult level sci-f/fantasy comic books and was admired by millions. His children's book, Coraline should only be read by very stable children, and very stable adults, for that matter.

American Gods was not a book I wanted to read except in the company of others. Its concept involves gods from outside America. They were brought here by immigrants, settled and evolved locally over the centuries. They fall victim, in a survival of the fittest manner, to the newly created American gods. The hero becomes involved. His involvement becomes the story.

More could be said about the story, but I hate a review when it reveals too much.

Suffice it to say it is a well told tale, told as a contemporary legend. The narrative engaged me and kept me glued to the pages to the point of being rude to others. Worth reading. All of his stuff I have yet to encounter is well worth reading. =30=

92 pages go.

Just to keep you up to date on the Franklin Biography, the Declaration of independence has been signed, the meeting with Lord Howe in Staten Island is over and he is on the way to France with his two grandsons. Just thought you might like to know. =30=

JibJab

My friend from CT sent me this Political Satire. Both sides could say it is for them. If you watch it carefully, it's FOR neither of them. It's worth it for the laugh. It's worth much more for the kick in the pants it gives all of us. =30=

Itchy Feet, metaphor...

The Zen master Suziki is quoted as saying, when asked if reading can lead to enlightenment: That is like saying will I get rid of the itch on my foot if I scratch the sole of my master's shoes.

Good night! =30=

I think I've figured out a few ways not to have those obnoxious framed book ads, and still get to display the graphic of the books I want you to see. This is the cover of Meetings With Remarkable Men. It's a book, the first of a trilogy, by Mr. G.

In it is the line that has been the corner stone of my lifestyle for over thirty years. To paraphrase: If it's worth going, go first class, including the postage.

This can have whatever meaning you want it to have. If you think it means you should indulge yourself, gorge on life, then do so.

If you take it to mean, if you're going to bother doing something, do it right and then support it, then you would be closer to my meaning.
Mr. G. was many things to many people. If you never read anything else by him, or about him, it is worth it to read this.

Meetings With Remarkable Men was made into a movie, with Terrance Stamp. I was at its premier in Lincoln Center in NYC. If that means something to you, greetings from the far side! If you want to know what I looked like twenty five years ago, pause the videotape on the man who winds the sound contest in the beginning of the movie. My spitting image. =30=

The Tibetan Book of the Dead DVD narrated by Leonard Cohen. Okay, in the words of my nephew, Tad, this is way cool!!

Smoky Mirrors

-
This afternoon, one of our younger Associates, one who didn't receive my training, asked me what it meant when he was told our business was all "smoky mirrors."

It was very, very hard not to break out laughing.

I knew he was serious. It is my business to take serious questions seriously.

When I told him the phrase was "Smoke and Mirrors" a blank look filled every inch of his face.
Most of nature, I told him in my aged veteran's voice, is smoke and mirrors. We're just very good at it. The face was still blank.

Then I remembered an old trick of my history teacher, tell me what do you think it means, I said.

A twenty minute monologue followed, during which he did everything but answer the question. He seemed satisfied, I was satisfied and sent him on his way.

The way I see it, if you're in a business that is all smoke and mirrors, perhaps it's a good thing if some of the people who work there don't know what smoke and mirrors mean. =30=

I forgot to give credit to Amy's New York Notebook for the Franco-American blog.

For my friend going to Paris...

I found a blog for you. Look it over carefully. It has a lot of good material for an American in France. It's called NYC a Paris. There are all sorts of French letter things in the name. When you go to the site, write back to me and tell me why the French have to complicate a perfectly good alphabet... Whoops... =30=

Once in a while...

I pop over to the Gawker Blog just to remind myself I am no longer a young man in Manhattan, and why that is is good thing. The tidbit of interest during this visit was to be exposed to the Break Up News. It sounds awful. For the most part it is. That's what makes it so great. =30=

More blog wandering...Postcards from the past...

Found a blog with a sidecar of post cards of older big buildings in NYC.

These are the buildings of my youth. I've had something to do, in one way or another, with at least 80 percent of the buildings shown.
The Commodore Hotel held an auction before it was transformed into a hideous glass monster. I managed to get the rolltop desk used by the building manager.
So, if you like postal cards, or The City or just big buildings from the turn of the last century, it's worth a trip to =30=

As is the wont of Bloggers...

As is the wont of blogger, I have been bouncing from blog to blog for inspiration and enightenment. Boogie Street as usual did both.
-
I have noticed many of the blogs with product placement subtley and not so the same scattered around. Today it was my turn to make an attempt at the same. In the previous entry, boxed-in graphic links to the books mentioned in the body were oddly placed. The entry before that has an attempt to put the link and body of the remarks all in a frame. Below here is a "text" reference.


-
It will take some fudging, but I am sure I can nudge these links in without glaring interuptions in my thought process.
=30=

The Shallow Shoals of Youth

At some time, while wading in the shallow shoals of youth, I obtained the advice to keep three books "running" at all time. No more, no less. I don't recall the source of that advice, though it does sound like something George G. would say.

He was the one who advised that to really learn by reading, be it a book, a list, or recipe; it must be read three times, preferablly once out loud. As more is understood about how the human brain learns, the truth of the last advice is being proven.

But, the three books are the focus of this comment.

Until I finished the Evanovich book, I did have three books running. Now I need another. The three books, to delve further into the mechanics of the advice, should be of three differnt types. One should be for your general improvement, one should be for entertainment and the other should be a book you wouldn't normally read.



The book for improvement is the biography of Mr. Franklin. The book for entertainment is the Ten Big Ones, the Evanovich book. (see blog below...)



The book I wouldn't normally read is called Yellow Dog, a Novel. It is written by Martin Amis. It is painful to read. The style is fractured, London-hip and full of inuendos and sideways glances only a Londoner would fully appreciate.

As a New Yorker, I am sure many such books have been written about New York, even Manhattan that a ploughman from Yorkshire would find incomprehensible. Therefore, it is irresponsible of me to say this is a poorly written book. It's just a book the topic and style of which are alien to me. Though most of the words can be found in our common dictionaries, the order in which they have been placed, and the objects to which they refer can give me eye strain and vertigo simultaneously.

The point here is the number of books and not the books themselves, The book for entertainment is a book that can be read just about anywhere, by the pool, at breakfast, sitting wherever you sit to wait for whatever it is worth waiting.

The book for your improvement should be given one or at most, two solid comfortable places to read. In the case of Ben, it is the couch by the east bay window in the living room. People should know that when you are sitting in this place reading, it is not a place where you should be disturbed for trivial matters. It is a place where, if home alone, you would let the phone ring.

The third book has a very specific place in which to be read. It is the bathroom, on the loo, on the john, crapper, comode, toilet, etc. A place from which you cannot escape. The positive side is that the length of reading time is shortened. Assuming your bowels don't cause you to spend endless hours indisposed. It took me a month to finish Yellow Dog. It took me two days, two work days, to read Ten Big Ones. Ben, I read a chapter at a time.

When the advice mentioned in the first paragraph was given, the Internet, along with it's freedom to publish and freedom to research, did not exist. I look at the Internet as a fourth book. The fourth book can be used to compliment the other three. It can be used to find out about the author, the publisher, the subjects and topics of the books themselves. It broadens the experience and numbs the mind simultaneously. Much like this beginning of the Twenty First Century is doing to me.

=30=

Janet pulled me from Ben

I am sure you have been waiting patiently for my comments regarding the latest biography of Benjamin Franklin. I must admit I was dragged away just before Ben crossed the Atlantic, back to England, (without his wife,) during the early years of the reign of George III. It was by a Tasteycake of a book called Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich. Being an admitted addict of her books, I will sadly say, without giving away the plot, such as there is, this was my least favorite of the Stephanie Plum books. The characters were rubberstamps of themselves, there was no conclusion, the laughs were much thinner than usual and the end, well it just plain sucked. There I said it. Of course, I would not have given up a chance to read it for anything, and I look forward to the next book, Eleven whatever, where she, Janet that is, will redeem herself. It was the ending, that literally came out of nowhere, that was most disappointing. Did you ever get the feeling an author was tired of writing and just wrapped things up, sometimes neatly, sometimes not? This was it. It was worse than the Johnny Depp film where he walks through the brightly lit castle doorway with no explanation as to why and what happens afterward. For those of you who have read the book, I ask you: aren't you a tad curious about what happened at the shower. Where did she sleep that night? With whom, etc... And does Joe wear boxers or briefs? These are all very important to the plot, to the character development, to my sleep. It was like opening a box of Twinkies, only to find one missing and the one left without filling. You would still eat the Twinkie, but you would certainly examine the next package carefully, very carefully. Back to Ben... =30=

Spam Spam Spam Spam!!! on Sunday, no less!

I've never counted them before, SPAM messages. I just deleted them.

This morning, I was too lazy to go the extra step of deletion after moving them from the SPAM directory to the Trash. Now I look over to Mail column in my Opera 7.52's M2 and see that between eight this morning and now, 7:30 p.m., I have received 297 SPAM messages.

It would be good if the deletion was automatic. I suspect our ISP, Comcast, has already deleted a good deal of them before my reader picks them up. Unfortunately, about two or three times a week, I discover a message I DO want read in the SPAM pile.

The Opera 7.52 mail reader M2 does an outstanding job of winnowing out the luncheon meat and leaving mostly what I want to see. I can breeze through the headers to see if I want to download any of the messages delegated to the SPAM directory at my leisure. This is a good thing. As I have mentioned a few times in the past, we like a good thing.
----------

My father

While walking around The City with my son, I had a vague recollection of doing the same with my father about a half century ago. I remembered the brown suit, the fedora and the thin red mustache on his ruddy skin. What I couldn't conjure up was his face.
-
He left our household before I have any real memory of his being there. I have a memory of his things being there, large photographs of people in tuxedos sitting around huge tables; gathered in cavernous halls. I remember the oddly frozen faces all staring up expectantly, waiting for the flash. I remember trying to find my father's face in the crowd, almost always failing.
-
I remember his sailor hat from the The War.
-
A photo I have of him was taken before I was born. He is standing next to my mother, both seemingly dressed for a fancy dress ball with a '40s theme. She's smiling and he has the same expression I've always seen on photos of Dashiell Hammett.

-
He was thin, too thin. The suit hung on him, like it was cut for a bigger man. On his lapel is the ruptured duck worn by veterans of the war. I have a feeling the photo was taken very soon after his return from the Pacific theatre.
-
The only other photo of him we have was taken on Rye Beach sometime in the early '50s. It is of him, in slacks and a shirt, the shade from the fedora hiding the facial features. He is standing behind my brothers and I.
-
We're dressed in bathing suits. I barely come up to his knee. He has one hand on my shoulder. I don't think it was a touch of affection. More likely to keep me in place long enough for the Kodak Brownie to snap.
-
He either left soon after this was taken, or it was a rare weekend we all spent with him after he left.
-
He died in 1985 while I was living in San Francisco. I had returned from a visit to New York the day before he died. It didn't even cross my mind to see him while I was there.
-
His girlfriend called me asking me to tell him to go to the doctor. When he got on the phone, I asked him to act like I was telling him to go to the doctor, but that I knew he would do as he damned well pleased. He thanked be for being so understanding and hung up.
-
So, to me, my father's last words were to thank me for being so understanding.
-
It was his wish to be cremated; his ashes spread over the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
-
The ashes are still in a cardboard box, wrapped in brown paper. It sits on top of the hot water heater in our oldest brother's garage in south Jersey.
-
That's fine with the four of us.
=30=

Conversation with a ten year old...

Each evening, when we can, my son and I go for a walk after dinner. Sometimes we turn right and go up the hill. Sometimes it's left out on to the main road. Then the choice is south to the Civil War monument, affectionately called The Monument. Or should we go north as far as Short Street?

This evening, it was north.

Along the way, we noticed a yellow arrow spray-painted on the berm along the roadside. That started the conversation on graffiti on the "T" tracks under Boston.

From there to the traditional prison garb in Britain, to the stripes on classic American prison wear. The topic wandered over to the unique quality of Zebra markings and the similarities and differences between brothers.

By the time we turned back we were in the Hawian Islands, the Earl of Sandwich and prepared meat. We ended it with the concluding word "Bologna" as we again passed the spray painted yellow arrow in the road.

James Burke, eat your heart out!!! =30=

A Brit goes Back! 

Rain! Rain! Go away!

Come to play another day, like tomorrow, when I am working.
++
My family will be going up to the family compound in Maine for the next week, leaving me behind in sweltering Boston to earn the keep, to bring the bacon home to an empty house...
Oh, boo-hoo for me, right? I have a family, I have a home and bacon to bring.
++
Lillian and Glen are also leaving to go back to The City this afternoon. They are taking with them their wee bairn, Olivia and Ellen. Having the children with us for a week was a joy.
__

And now for something completely different:

The first book for summer reading is Benjiman Franklin: An American Life by former CNN CEO and Chairman Walter Isaacson. I am up to chapter seven, "The Politician."

Rendering a full opinion will wait the book's completion, but I can say, so far so good.

Not as much fun as Franklin's biography, but certainly more informative about the side characters Franklin left out. More to follow:::::: =30=

Lillian and Glen tie the knot! 

When in the course..

...of human events... These few words,first published 228 years ago where the starter's pistol for a run that continues to this day. Though at times not happy with the people in government, I am certainly happy with the form of government that evolved.

Our small New England town still uses the Town Meeting form of government. I sit on a commission entrusted with the protection of a portion of our natural resources. We are all volunteers. It feels healthy, it feels like it works. Cumbersome at times, but at least the people haven't the excuse of an anonymous government doing things over which they have no control.

Of course, on the federal/corporate level, that is true. It is a force of nature beyond the control of the common man. It is a bus with no brakes driving down a windy mountain road. The trick is to know when to jump out of the way and not go down with it.

To all who so celebrate, Happy Fourth! =30=

Not so lazy days of summer

The three children in our house are rejoicing in the summer weather. They are in frolic mode. Ah to be young and clueless again! Gameboy has replaced PC Video games as the contemporary "opium" of the masses. Our son started playing it at the beginning of a long car ride and was still playing four hours later. I am afraid to pick the thing up. It might suck me out of my phama of choice, the Blog.

This started out as a complaint about having to work in my air-conditioned, windowless office while the youth of the world frolicked, played tennis, saw Garfiled, The Movie and just generally enjoyed life. But then, it hit me that we were both having fun and doing what we like to do on a summer day. I hate frolicking. I have never enjoyed the mode. When I go to carnivals, I spend my time figuring out how rubes are robbed.

I hope some just told me to cheer up. Like Charley Brown once said to Lucy, "Smile you poor sweet baby." I will pretend our orange cat just said that to me. Ramble Mode Off. =30=

Still Plugging Along

The past week at work has been too hectic for me to do anything else but focus on it. Tomorrow is the first day of the third quarter, the first day of July, and the first day of RFP review. I will be a zombie until Friday. Then we have a three day weekend, only two of which will I be 'on call.' This is a good thing and we like good things. =30=

To All the fathers out there

Being a father myself, I just want to say, relax and enjoy whatever it is they want to do. Remember, this is not YOUR day.

It is THEIR day to express, however oddly, what they feel about you. Just smile, say thank you and go along with the program. That way everybody will be happy.

Happy Father's Day!

Last Comic Standing Ripoff II

I thought it was a farce the last time around. This time around, I now know it is. The "judges" up front, the professional comics voted for certain people as the funniest of the crew.

I agreed with almost every one of them. Few of their choices made the final cut. It was obvious that rather than a contest being held, a sitcom was being cast. The producers were looking for "types" to interact in the controled circumstances of the Hollywood Mansion. They were not looking for The Funniest.

What a crock!

I don't intend to watch the rest of the series. With the exception of one "contestant, I don't see the outstanding talent that would inspire me in today's saturated entertainment environment.

She will go quickly by the wayside because of the threat she is to the others.

If I think so little of the show, why am I spending so much time on it? Because the concept had great promise. It was ruined by The Suits.

The Suits are evil. One day, I will do an entire blog on The Suits. That is, if they don't cut me off first...[G] =30=

w:bloggar still wins out

It is hard to believe, I know but the free blog editor w:bloggar v.3.03 is still the easiest to use and gets the results I require. There are certainly more complicated editors, with many more "features." As with many bloated bits of software, these are "features" I either don't need or can find a way to accomplish with w:bloggar by rtfm.

We all patiently await version 4. It is my hope the author doesn't fall into the trap of bloating the software. =30=

So tired!!

Have you ever been so tired you can't sleep? For the past two weeks, on top of everything else, my team needed to do "A Presentation." It was exhausting work. When it was finally submitted, to raving reviews, the relief, the pure giddiness, is not something I have experienced in a very long time. It felt good.

Now I need to just sleep. I will go do that right NOW! =30=

Grazing in other fields

It took a little tinkering. I think I like it the way it is now.
The end result was this blog. =30=

Found another blog host: Blog-City

This morning I did a Yahoo search for "Blog Directory" and came up with a link to Blog-City.
Every ready to try something new, I popped over there and set up an account.
All went well, until I tried to use their online editor with Opera 7.5. When the POST and PUBLISH button was pushed, it stuck at waiting and never published.

Then I went to the ever faithful w:bloggar. There were settings for it listed in the Blog-City FAQ. Tried them, didn't work. The dreaded 404 error was keeping me out. There were default settings on bloggar itself. More 404. I will dwell deeper into this later in the day. My family seems to like it when I drag myself away from this drug of choice, blogging!!!

It occured to me that perhaps it was Opera 7.5. I dragged IE out of the attic and tried it. BINGO! Now there is another Grazing blog out there.

The pitfalls of SPAM editing.

When I checked my email this morning, there were an extraordinarily high number of files in the SPAM directory. As a caution, I don't have the filter delete the files but put them aside for viewing on a Sunday morning. Much to my surprise, there were 14 messages in the list that weren't SPAM.
One announced the death of a dear friend, with his funeral listed for yesterday.

Another was from a friend on the left coast:

Though she changed from one ISP to another, she was wise enough to select the same user name and to very clearly state in the subject line her name and that this was a change of eddress.

Then there was an email that has been part of a running thread with a friend in NYC:

Her email was piled in with the many offers to improve my manhood, destroy my debt and offer me photos the street dealers of Tiajuana in the late sixties would find offensive. I suppose I have to tweak the filter further. I would rather tweak the noses of the SPAMMERS but we must rise above it all. (I suppose...)=30=

...a very special group of pixels

Near the bottom of the blog called Boogie Street there is this bouncing thing:
Out of curiosity and having a lot of time on my hands, I clicked on it. Do you remember the Pet Rock? This is one level above the pet rock in that it appears to move and changes color. A pet rock had its uses. It could be used as a paper weight. Like all good paper weights, it could also be used, as they say in the trade, as a blunt intrument. This bouncy thing, called a "SpaceFemBlob" would make a very poor blunt intrument. But, as I said, it does move and change colors. There is value in that. Have you see Times Square lately? =30=

Appointment Cancelled, Oh Dear!!

As I am sure anyone reading this has done, I have cancelled many an appointment with dentists and doctors. This morning was the first time one of them cancelled with me. It threw my entire Saturday off. I had intended to drag myself out of the house because I HAD to go to the dentist. Now that I don't HAVE to, a severe case of malingering has overcome me.
=
I associate this with the one day I showed up at the door of our grammar school to find it was closed. ALL of the other children's parents had been notified. If you knew anything about my childhood, you would know why I didn't get the news. Here I was, a child of ten or so. As far as my family unit, what there was of it, was concerned, I was at school. As far as the school was concerned, I was home.
=
A ten year old boy, off the radar in Manhattan on a perfectly good week day.
It was the first time in my life I was overwhelmed by the options before me. I could go anywhere in the city.
The subway was at my command. It was dime back then, or free if you snuck under the turnstyle while the token clerk was distracted. I could have gone to the Bronx Zoo, Broadway, Central Park, Inwood Hill Park anywhere in the wonderous city.
It was too, too much. I took out a book, read a little. Played a little ball in the school yard and went home. I put myself back on the screen.
=
Too many options hurts. That's why when I considered turning on the TV, the 375 stations now available on TiVo-via-cable was just too much. Oh for the days of Your Show of Shows and Milton Berle's Texaco Hour!
Wait! I think one of those stations lists the old shows. Let me go to the Cable website and see... Elaine Stritch at Liberty. A documentary on her road to her first Emmy. Not and old show but a show about an old broad. And I mean 'broad' as a title, like Dame in the UK. =30=

At 0239 Finished watching Matrix Revolution

Enough is enough certainly applies to this, hopefully, the final Matrix film. It flew into my hand this afternoon while I was grazing in the Best Buy in Brockton, MA.
I went in to get a Serial/USB connector to hook my Palm Vx to the lap top. Of course I walked out with all sorts of goodies, one of which is lighting my wireless Microsoft keyboard.
I got the USB/Serial connector, but the Palm cradle doesn't seem to like it. It is too late tonight to do anything about it.
It WAS a pleasure to watch a DVD on the laptop. I felt a Matrix movie of any kind should be the one that is first shown on the laptop screen. It did, I will admit, add a little to the experience to watch a movie about a world run by computers on a computer. It really wasn't that big a deal, just interesting.
Bed Time!!!

Had to fire a man today...

Probably the hardest thing a boss can do is fire a man. My boss had to do that today. This was a man who was dragging things down for everyone; a man who thought himself untouchable.
I cannot argue with the reasons. If it was up to me, he probably would've been gone sooner. What saddened me more than the firing was the glee apparant in the bosses face; as if it was a goal scored, a prize won, a good piece of work...=30=

New BlogJet release.

Of all of the sharware blog editors, so far, BlogJet is still in the lead.  They have just issued an upgrade, upon which this post is being uploaded

Gramps in-law... 

&Last Comic Standing Rip Off

We just finished watching our TiVo'd version of last year's Last Comic Standing.
&
We, and I mean every member of this household, thought Dave Mordal was, without question, the funniest of the bunch. The third least funny of the ten, who I won't even give print time to here, won. In the wordage of Mr. Mordal, he was "disturbing."
&
Don't forget now. All of the above is in reaction to a carefully orchestrated TV reality show. Edited to cause particular reactions. It did a very good job of it. We were meant to dislike the four of the five losers. We were meant to like one. It all worked out.
&
Of the two finalist, the fatter was funnier. He used all original work. His hubris was his downfall. America likes the humble. The sympathy for the underdog, and in this case I do mean dog, won the day.
&
More power to him. I hope his hydrogen impaired star burns bright for as long as it can. =30=Dave MordalDave MordalDave MordalDave MordalDave MordalDave Mordal

Just when I thought I was going to bed

I made the mistake/correct decision, to check a blog of interest. There I found the posting of another work of art by the author. If you haven't been to Boogie Street to see the work recommended earlier, Great North Run, you're missing something worth seeing. =30=

The Home of the Brave...

.......
Let's talk about wanting to grow up and have an adventurous life. Much of my youth was spent wandering the streets of lower Manhattan. I would have breakfast in a Greek diner, lunch in an Italian corner store and dinner at the home of many of my Asian friends. There was always a first generation Greek, Italian, or Chinese person doing the cooking.
.
I would talk to them about their coming to America. About what an adventure it was for them to leave what they knew and come to a place they had seen in movies and on TV. I had a lot of trouble seeing what they saw in America, or to be more accurate, Manhattan.
.
This was my hometown. Like any other kid, I found my hometown to be boring, nothing to do I hadn't done before.
I wanted to go someplace really interesting, like the Tahiti in Mutiny on the Bounty, (Clark Gable version.) I wanted to roam the dunes of North Africa, cut my way though the jungles of Tarzan, (2nd movie, if you've seen it, you know what I mean.)
I wanted to fight Nazis, gangsters, Gentleman Anybody. If I walked away with a black eye, or better yet, my arm in a sling, so much the better.
.
(I must write an entire piece on the Hollywood cure-all for all hero injuries, the arm in a sling, one of these days.)
.
In real life, I have fought gangsters, sailed on both the Atlantic and the Pacific. I have been in more than one jungle and just a few years ago, walked on the dunes of the Sahara.
.
In my one good boxing match I was knocked cold and am told flew through the air rather gracefully. The man that knocked me out wasn't much of a gentleman.
I have had bullets crack past my ears, (they don't whistle.) I have been stabbed, hit by cars and trucks. I suffered heat stroke in the swamps off the South Carolina Coast and while force marching in the Mohave Desert. I've walked away with a little more than a black eye and don't ever remember wearing a sling.
.
The point here is do I feel like I've had an adventurous life. So far, so good.
.
My latest adventure is working for Corporate America. If you think that bland; I have to tell you on Friday, I was required to attend a class on what to do when confronted with a suicide bomber. It was a gruesome and frank lesson; given by a former member of the Isreali security forces.
.
Perhaps today's Corporate America is a little more than an adventure than I thought it would be. Wish me luck. =30=

Highschool Graduation Day in Massachusetts

It is High School Graduation Day in many of the local towns. My Niece lives in one of the small towns south of Boston. They always have the ceremony out in the ball field. The stadium stands make a perfect place to deposit the family and friends. The fields surrounding the stage make a perfect romping area for the younger siblings and cousins.
For reasons I won't explore here, I was only able to attend the pre-graduation party. My son and I went home and left my wonder-of-a-wife to represent us.
She came home soaked to the bone and found our cat in a similar condition.
The wise people at the school decided not to move the ceremonies inside because it was only a light drizzle.
Perhaps it was because this is the 50th Anniversary of the Allies invasion of Europe. "Ike" made the decision to go ahead when faced with similar weather. All he had to do was move hundreds of thousands of men and tons and tonnes of equipment across a choppy bit of water. He didn't have to deal with soaked to the bone High School Seniors.
A quote from one of the girls, "I have trouble walking into the cafeteria. How can they expect me to walk up on that stage!!!?"
The anxiety in her voice was real. Her fear was real. Her friends laughed and pooh poohed her. To this she could only display a nervous smile. It would seem her fear of ridicule by her peers was momentarily more important than the stage fright suffered walking up the wet and slippery steps.
Of course this is a rite of passage. Of course most of the memories will be fond ones. We skipped out graduation out of protest back in The Sixties. We did a lot out of protest back then. Here I am more that thirty five years later wondering if I would have suffered stage fright. I'll never know. Oh, well... Okay, that feeling is gone. I don't do nostalgia very well. Probably a good thing. =30=

Okay, now I am playing with the settings. This is the copper pot on my stove that holds the various items used in the preparation of food. It means nothing, has little artistic method, but it is a good test shot because of the color and texture of the subject matter. 

This is a photo of the artist in her student days in my living room... 

Didn't work the first time, trying again, this time with the photo up in the screen on the left and not the instructions... 

I am now playing with "Hello" the uploader for Bloggerbot. If all goes well, it will upload the same picture that is in the upper right corner of this site's current template, "Moving Flowers" by the Southeast Massachuetts artist, Beverly Tricco. 

Go to the Boogie Street blog to see this painting: Great North Run (oil on canvas, 48 x 48 ins).
I could easily reproduce it here, but I never do that without the permission of the artist.

DON'T WATCH THE TRAILER

Whatever you do, don't watch the trailer at the Official Harry Potter website. It gives away one of THE best moments in the film. I am so glad I waited to watch it until after viewing the film. The bastards! It was one of the moments the audience applauded. I am sure, the ones that didn't break out clapping had been contaminated by this evil trailer.
You can, of course, watch it after you see the film. That bit was fun, like the good aftertaste of rich chocolate pudding. =30=

"Okay, Oh! Wow!

The best review for the latest Harry Potter flik came directly from my son's lips when the lights went up and the credits began to roll: "Okay...Oh! Wow!" It was a spectacular film and a dark film. Not dark like the forest with spiders and the creature sucking the blood of the shining unicorn. It was dark like "these are the times that try men's souls" dark.

Another indication of a very good movie was the spontaneous applause at the end, as well as several times during the film.

We no longer had to be overcome by the wonder of it all. The realty of Hogwarts and Muggles etc. is now excepted fact in our culture. There was an entire family sitting down near the front dressed as Hogwarts teachers and members of the Hogwarts Quiditch team. No one gave them a second look.

It was a fun time and I hope everyone in the world finds two and a half hours out of their dreary lives and goes to Hogwarts for a ripping good time.=30=

Harry Potter, tonight

I am being brought out to see Harry Potter III tonight. I'll write my review when I get back. Don't hold your breath, I may be too tired. If you would rather go to a blog that takes itself very seriously, you should try Smart Mobs.=30=

The adventure in blog creation software continues.  This entry is being created by Broadcast Builder 1.48.  It was downloaded from SnapFiles.com, a good source for just about any kind of software.

The trick here is to see if it will publish a picture.  That's a drawback in the other programs.  The pictures have to be ftp's and and then a img ref needs to be written into the HTML.  The Flash Demo on this product says it will upload the image for web view.  We shall see.

Broadcast Builder has a "Wizard" to take you through the more simplistic steps of creating a blog. It is a wizard designed for idiots. This is a good thing. When I write "Idiots" of course I mean the typr for which books that begin with "The Idiots Guide to..."

Catastrophic Failure...ooooOOoooh!

Now that's an error message that gets your attention: Catastrophic Failure. Whoa! It is certain to increase your blood pressure. This happened while I was evaluating a program called Broadcast Builder vs. 1.48. I am sure it's something I did wrong in the set up, but boy! What an error message. So, I'll dive back into the setup and let you know when I come back how well it works for me.

Ah, HA! A BlogJet advantage.

I have been trying to find reasons that BlogJet costs money with :bloggar: is free.  I think I just found it.  BlogJen easily switches from one online service to another, while :bloggar: does this, the method is clumsy.  SLEEP TIME!!!

This on is blogbuddy. No subject line. I think having no subject line takes this interface and throws it out the window, XP that is... =30=

LiveJournal?? Do they make it hard on purpose?

Being new to this activity, I have been looking at the other blog sites.  Testing the water here and there with differing versions of titles containing versions.  I tried the "LiveJournal" site.  I found their interface to be THE most confusing  of any I've seen yet.
First, they make you go through a sign-on procedure that would make Harry Potter wince in all its mystery.  Then, when you are finally verified, there is no clear interface for creating even the first blog entry.  The edit page link is buried in a FAQ.  It's not a FAQ on the opening page, not even a link on any set page, logical pages, like the one to manage the account.  It's a FAQ link, way down on the third page of a FAQ about "communities, whatever the hey that is.
Then there's the emoticoms...Good Lord!  Was this site designed by a thirteen year old with right brain disfunction?
I don't think you'll see me back there, anytime soon.  I hope the "Community" can go in without me...=30=

Monthly Report

At work, (work that pays that is,) we have a monthly report due. It is where we explain to the people who sign our checks what we did to justify the oodles of cash that trickles down. When I was lower down in the food chain, I had a daily report. It is hard to believe, but twenty five daily reports are much easier than one monthly report.
+
The point is, I thought I would do a monthly report about what isn't done "for" a living, but just to live. It is hoped that the later far exceeds the first in effort and resulting satisfaction. I know the general life instruction to find something you like and then figure a way to get paid for it. It is good as a general rule. In a way, I had done that.
+
It was that evil trap of agreeing to manage a group of others who also do what they like. Soon the doing falls by the wayside and the managing becomes a thing in and of itself. Managing isn't work. It is seeing that work gets done, that results are achieved and goals met. All of those are not tangible things. They are ideas. You can't eat ideas. You can't hang an idea up on a wall and admire it. You can admire the statement of Direct Deposit, and the food, shelter and clothing it represents.
+
The point here is to figure how this monthly report will appear. When I do, I'll let you know. In a month or two..

Circumstances will curtail my constant graffiti starting tomorrow. It's a gelt thing. Roof over head, food on table, clothes on back, broadband connection, you know, the essentials of life.
The breaking of the 24th and perhaps the 25th bone in my life gave me a short respite from the daily grind for a bit. The holiday will be over at 0800 tomorrow.
Before I return to that awful thing called the morning commute, I thought I would jot down a few thoughts about my grand tour of Blog-land
-----------------.
For one, it was fun to go someplace I had only really seen in postal cards. Even if it's just part of the Virtual Reality that has so overwhelmed our lives, it is still a 'place' in the mind.
As with most trips to foreign lands, I pondered first what brought the people here and then what made them stay.
-----------------.
Before seeing the Sarhara, I could never understand why people would live there. Once I had the chance to visit, to spend a few days there, I can't say I fully understand, but I can say I've seen how magnificent it is, how alluring and oddly enough, romantic it is.
The same can be said about California, both Northern and Southern. They are two different worlds. I've lived in both and prefer the Northern region.
-----------------.
Before the web was open to public grazing, I SysOp'ed a BBS out of Marin County. A place where you could post one message at a time using a 1200 bps modem. If no technological advances were made, if the web had not been opened, I might still be doing it.
-----------------.
Once the web was opened, I jumped right in, learned HTML and put together a small holding of websites and domains. This was before the bubble burst, the one that our older relatives, the ones who had lived through the Great Depression, warned would happen.
It was then I was lured into the world of Corporate America.
-----------------.
I now work for one of the richest companies in the world. The word Trillion is not foreign to these people. There too, it is a visit to a foreign place. I am enjoying it, but miss my adopted home on the web.
This blog is a letter home, a way to keep in touch with virtual friends and virtual family. It's a way to scribble graffiti on the door to the bathroom stall in school, it's a way to be part of publishing the school newspaper, but on a much grander and at the same time more intimate scale.
-----------------.
The graffiti and the school newspaper where for a limited audience. Though no restraint of content was put over your scribbling on the wall, there was the limit of time and scale. For something like a school newspaper, you have the larger scale, the larger audience, but still there were editorial and social restrictions, as well, again, the limit in time and space.
Here on a blog, the limit is how long your fingers can make sense out of the keyboard and the size of the storage device hosting the blog. I let you know when I've reached either limit.
=30=

What's with this Yankees Suck thing in Boston

I have been in Boston for a while. We came here from Vermont by way of Marin County in Northern California. I have been in every state in The Union. It has been my experience that the New York Yankees are not well liked in "the rest" of the country.
However, in Boston it has become a mania, if not a disease to hate the Bronx Bombers.
There are "YANKEES SUCK" bumper stickers, signs, even tattoos at the part of a woman's back that should be covered by their jeans but it not.
I have been part of several conversations in Boston where it was explained to me why the Yankees are in this condition.
None of them seem to have anything to do with the Yankees themselves. It has to do with the way Boston feels about how their American League team, the Red Sox are always bested by them in the Pennant Race. It seems for many years, the Red Sox have come in second. Not since near the end of the Great War in Europe, that being called WWI around here, have the Boston Red Sox surpassed the Yankees in the World Series.
The obvious solution is to move the teams into two different competing areas. That way they won't loose their "edge" by having to constantly look up from the road and see a pin striped behind trudging ahead of them.
The kicker of this mania manifested itself at the celebration of the first Superbowl win of the New England Patriots in Boston. One of the team mates, holding the trophy got up to speak to the crowd, to thank them for their support and promise another trophy in the near future. All he could say was "YANKEES SUCK!"
The two teams don't even play in the same sport! The crowd reflexively roared in response for a moment or two. They then realized this had nothing to do with what they were there to celebrate and went on with the business of mob celebratory behavior.
If you expected something about the Yankees winning so many world series, pennants and all of the other baseball related trophies, it's a beaten path and there is always Google to get the facts, or as they are related on the Intenet.

SO MANY NEWSPAPERS, SO LONG AGO...

There was the Sun. There was the Mirror. There was The World. There was the Telegram. There was The Daily News. There was The Journal. There was The New York Times. There was The Post. There was The American. There was the Herald. There was The Tribune.

Then the Mirror just died. The World became The World Telegram. The Journal became the Journal American. The Herald became The Herald Tribune. Then the Sun became The World Telegram & Sun. The Journal American died. The World Telegram & Sun died. They say the unions killed them. I say it was TV. Or Walter Winchell, or both...
The Herald Tribune moved to Paris. If you ever read the Herald Tribune you could see why. The French deserve them.
Now there's the NY TIMES, called NYT by some. That's like Kentucky Fried Chicken becoming KFC. The Daily News is still around as is the Post. Newsday is a Long Island paper that is sold in Manhattan candy stores and newstands.

When I return to Boston I will have the Globe. I know the Globe belongs to NYT, so it might soon become just TG, but that's okay. It has comics. NYT, except on the web, doesn't.
Though I truly enjoyed the papers in my youth on that small island on the Atlantic coast, I see little use for them. I felt privileged when a relative would return from the UK with The Times, or The Manchester Guardian in their luggage. Though the papers where days old, I still enjoyed reading them.
It was like visiting another country.

Now The Times website looks and feels pretty much like the BBC world site. (Don't even let me get into shortwave radio.) They all look like CNN. Soon, I believe the entire world is going to look like CNN.
Do any of you remember when CNN started? The newsreaders all had the big hair, I mean the men now, and poorly tailored jackets then common in The South. For that is really what it was, an Atlanta based news program that could now be seen in homes all around the country, that had cable.

Now it's the daily diet of diacritic despots and tea salesmen alike. With satellite, even the windows of the houses lining the narrow streets of Fes bloom satellite dishes from one end of the ancient city to the other. =30= (Coming soon: What's with this Yankee Suck thing in Boston?

Below is a story going around the email humor circuit. Three of my friends have sent it to me. They must be trying to tell me something.
I do not know the original author.
If anyone reads this and knows, I will gladly give credit where credit is due.
I am posting this as a back up to my entry about losing Tuesday.

Recently, I was diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D.
that is: Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests:

I decide to wash my car.

As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the hall
table.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the trash
can under the table, and notice that the trash can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the
trash first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take
out the trash anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only one
check left

My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go to my desk where
I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke
aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in
the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the coke a vase of flowers on the
counter catches my eye-they need to be watered.

I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses
that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to
water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with
waterand suddenly I spot the TV remote someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for
the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table,
so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll
water the flowers.

I splash some water on the flowers, but most of it spills on the
floor.

So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe
up the spill.

Then I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to
do.

At the end of the day:

The car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid,
there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter,
the flowers aren't watered,
there is still only one check in my checkbook,
I can't find the remote, I can't find my glasses, and I don't remember
what I did with the car keys.
When I try to figure out why nothing got done today,
I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm
really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help
for it, but first I'll just check my e-mail.

Do me a favor, will you? Forward this message to everyone you know,
because I have no idea to whom it has already been sent.

Don't laugh! If this isn't you yet, your day is coming!

GROWING OLD IS MANDATORY
GROWINGUP IS OPTIONAL.

The BlogThis! entries below

This entry is being created by w.bloggar.exe.

The BlogThis! utility is quite minimal. Its's no more than email entry really. It has no design functions readily visible.
I am sure if you hit some obscure undocumented key like Ctrl Shift F8 or something like that, a magnificent array of functions will pop up. Nothing obvious to those of us with a maximum attention span of about four minutes, if gentle music is playing.
..............

The post just below this just happened!!!

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ? That is a good question. I clicked on it and all of sudden I had a new post with a topic asking that question. It should be the post directly below this. So, if you find an entry on your blog that looks like the one directly below this, it was stealthily created by BlogThis, a utility that comes with the Blogger.com account.

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

Not A Commercial Posting!

The last post with all of the links to coffee discounters and NOT-discounters was not a commercial post.
Except through personal consumption of the tea, I am not associated with either Starbucks or Coffeeforless.com. I was just playing with w.bloggar's easy linking and graphic upload utility.
You may consider this and the last blog an endorsement of all of the products mentioned. This is freely made with no expectation of compensation.
Can you tell I hang around a lot of lawyers?

Where did Tuesday go?

I swear it was here a moment ago. I looked up at my Palm V sitting in its charger next to the laptop, displaying the date, calendar and time-(using v.2.8 of BigClock,) and I notice it isn't Tuesday any more.
If you've ever had a day start early and zip by, then you know how I feel at the moment. I was up at 0520 this morning. Now it's almost 0125 the next day. I swear, it seems like a moment ago I placed my steaming cup of Awake down next to me. Now there sits an empty white mug with the leavnings of tea no more that a dry brown stain at its bottom.
Mentioning Awake above reminded me to reload my Starbucks card.
I wouldn't want to walk into the hole-in-wall Starbucks on Winter Street and not have my card charged.
There was a paragraph here bemoaning today's culture, but it sounded too much like most of the complaining on blogs these days, so I deleted. You can thank me later, over a cup of Awake!!! =30=

The Holiday is Over

It was a nice Whitsun , (whoops, went ethnic there,) I mean to say Memorial Day Weekend.  Now it's a rainy day Tuesday.  I am looking out my office window at the rain swept streets and humming Simon & Garfield songs relating to weather.

I'd like to mention the Abilon program again.  It was just too much, too soon and in the words of that kind cartoonist, my brain was quickly full.  This is not to say the program was in any way defective.  On the contrary, it was too good.

It's the War and Peace of online information tools. Or, perhaps it just seemed that way at first when it pulled in so much information so quickly. 

They rebuilt the 2-bit, literally, computer used by the British to crack the German code during WW II.  It could do over 4000 computations a minute.  The 64 bit AMD processor with 1Mb of onboard cache can do many million a second.  What's in store for us tomorrow?

When I was a kid, growing up in the middle of the last century, on a small 14 mile long island on the Atlantic Coast, we had five television stations, three morning papers, three afternoon papers and four evening papers.

The radio was made of wood and played only AM.  There was one phone in the house, in the hall on the telephone table.  It was rarely used.  If someone had something to say to you, they came over, knocked on your door and told it to your face.  Or they sent the youngest of the brood over to convey the message.

We thought we were the communication capital of the world. We were, back then.  Now the world has no communication captial. 

When I sent an email from a cybercafe in a small roadside cafe in the remote hills of Morocco to my wife in Cape Cod, I knew the days of one phone in the hall were like the days of listening as the Morse code keys at the railroad station report the news of Lincoln's assassination to the world.  Gone.

This is not a case of nostalgia, but a case of wonder at it all.  A desire to dive right in and take it all in one fell swoop.  That is, until I have to raise my hand to the teacher, like the small headed boy in the cartoon and ask to go home because  my brain is full.  =30=

 

Going to sleep...

I have turned off my Opera.  All is about to go to
sleep because I have set my ClocX 1.5 to turn off the computer
in fifteen minutes. But there was this program Albilon 2.0 Build
158 sitting in my tray.  I should have right-clicked it and turned
it off, but, again, noooOOooo.  The left click finger won once again.

I am not fully sure what this program does.  It has this simple editor
included, or it can default to w.blogger.  If I decide to use it again, it
will be set for w.blogger.  I'll now read the FM in peace and leave the
blogging for another day. =30=

BlogJet vs. w.bloggar...hmm one free the other almost $20.00...

You would think, after playing at this for over 6 hours, I'd give it up.

No!  Just as I was about to turn off the labtop, I noticed one more tag on the top of my Opera screen. 

It was for this program called BlogJet.
Instead of a freeware program like w.bloggar, this is a shareware program with a going price of $19.95.  Thought I would take it out for a spin before retiring.  More on it tomorrow.

  =30=