Hold your breath ’till the sun goes down

Second Life is under attack again, this time by green penises wearing Santa hats. (Did I really just write that?) They say Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Me? I’d play that tarantella ’til the hounds all start to roar.

Bring them on

Another Connecticut institution is planning to offer a degree in journalism. Like we need more journos. Ah well, I suppose we’ll all end up in the blogosphere together anyway. And I can always use good company.

Change of the Guard (redux)

I’m thinking back to a Tuesday when I was a little kid. My parents had brought the black-and-white TV set — it was always “TV set” back then — up into the bedroom my brother and I shared so they could watch something while they put us to bed. They obviously thought it was really important. My dad was trying to read to us but he was really paying attention to the grainy, flickering image on the TV; I seem remember seeing a really sad-looking man come onscreen and say something, and I felt bad for him even though my parents seemed weirdly happy about the whole thing. I now know that man was Gerald Ford. Then another man with a big smile spoke for a while. He was Jimmy Carter and he’d just won the 1976 election. Here, my parents’ reaction seemed more appropriate.

Interesting how your mind can play tricks on you. I was 6 at the time, and this memory is very clear: It was the moment I became aware of the political world, and I developed a lasting curiosity about it. I tasted the sorrow of the loser and the joy of the victor. It still seems so real.

Just one problem: President Ford did not deliver his concession speech. Betty Ford did.

No justice

The man who brought us Jar-Jar Binks and wrote the script in which the future Darth Vader utters the line, “Yippee!”, does not deserve to drive a car this cool. I hope he drives it into an asteroid field.

R.I.P.

“The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing.”

“Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he’s got it all.”

“I don’t really care what people think. … I just do my own thing. … I like being loud and letting people know I’m there.”

“Thank God for the journey.”

James Brown
May 3, 1933 – Dec. 25, 2006

Ho ho whores

In Walgreens the other day (actually it was three weeks before Halloween) I noticed they had put an animatronic Santa Claus just inside the doorway to greet visitors. It was almost life-sized, and had been rigged with some sort of motion detector so that when you got anywhere near it, it started belching out distorted Christmas music and ho-ho-hos while flailing about in some mechanical approximation of jolliness. After bruising my foot on its shin and finally unplugging the damned thing, it occurred to me how surreal a world it is where fake humans are employed to spread the Christmas spirit. It offends me at some gut level, and I’m not even Christian. (By all rights, they should be mad as hell!) It’s like some Pavlovian thing where Walgreens rings the bell and we’re supposed to start salivating over discounted Flowbees. At least human Santas usually have enough sense to shut up when they see the look in my eyes.

Anyhow, my antidote to this seasonal plague is to watch the first half of “A Christmas Carol” and listen to music I personally think better represents the spirit of the season than the usual holiday pablum. Here’s one selection:

Fairytale of New York

Singing voulez voulez voulez vous

I don’t usually post about parties I attend. But when Gary Heriot (far right, with guitar) busted out with “Any World (That I’m Welcome To)” and Greg Sherrod (left) and Mike Scarpa joined in, the moment was suddenly bloggable — at least for this blog. They banged out an impromptu Steely set, which is something of an accomplishment for half-drunk musicians playing unrehearsed with borrowed guitars. They followed up with two lesser-known tunes, “Barrytown” and “Pearl of the Quarter. Surprisingly, half the people party knew enough to sing along. Some other scenes:

Fire

Tucker & Melissa

Ia ia Cthulhu fhtagn!

This post about Sherlock Holmes taking on the Olde Ones reminds me that it’s time to dust off my old book of Cthulhu carols. On a related note, check out what these Japanese fishermen found.

Meanwhile. Louis Hau makes a bold prediction about the future of newspapers.

Now they tell me …

Turns out drinkers live longer. Who knew?

Drink kirschwasser from a shell

Sometimes you drink from the bottle. Sometimes the bottle drinks from you. But there’s a wee dram of hope even for the whisky-addled brain of this semi-retired boozehound of 20-plus years.