blivet 2.0

We’re off to rendezvous with SirDeath to see Ghost World. Note: this is not a ‘feel good’ movie…
Ghost World (2001), QuickTime trailer, Salon review.

The jelly is cooling… <sniff, sniff, salivate>

Thanks Dan!

This morning’s soundtrack is Steve Roach’s Early Man ambient CD.

Audrey’s morning project is some rhubarb-raspberry jelly. It has been almost a year since we have had any and It is so very good. Obviously neither of these grow in Las Vegas, so we are at the mercy of the grocery stores getting rhubarb in. My maternal Grandfather’s favorite pie was rhubarb and gooseberries. I haven’t seen one of those at Marie Callendar’s for a bit (ever?) either. I keep hearing “yes, YES!” and “yum!” coming from the kitchen.

Cale, who is Greg (who I work with) and Alice’s six year old son, loves that rhubarb-raspberry jelly. He calls it Audreyjelly, all one word. The last couple of times we have all been together, he has let Audrey know that he is quite ready for her to bring some more Audreyjelly over. If we have some with us, that would be fine.

I’ve been enjoying Andrea’s Kenya travel journal. Well worth a visit.
—–

On the Las Vegas front, 10,000 people working in the hotels and casinos have been laid off in the last two weeks.

We have been washing baby clothes and putting them away on some closet shelves after folding them. They are so tiny. When Audrey hold them up to her pregnant belly we laugh at how they will be the right size. My mind fills them with a squirming, pink child and I find it had to speak. I know many other things take my attention when I sit at this computer. I read things at wood s lot and garret’s, ponder over what Dave and Alwin post, stop by Susan’s 2020 Hindsight and read and think some more. I wonder what other folks are doing that haven’t updated their weblogs in a couple of days. Then I find myself drawn back to the living room or the bedroom, wherever she is. Everything is perfect and just as it should be. Other things are being handled by those whose duty it is to do those things. Others will discuss the various aspects from a variety of perspectives. Nothing else seems to hold my attention for long. The release of the latest version of Mac OSX, science news, political news, movie news, news of the aftermath of September 11, whatever is the latest, it all washes over me and passes along. What I remember is a string of moments involving feeling the baby kick, watching the look on Audrey’s face as the folds those tiny clothes. My thoughts and attention always ground themselves there. I have my own latest and greatest, it doesn’t have a very wide sphere of effect, but here at the epicenter, it is utterly engaging. Hopefully this confessional will, at worst, elicit a bit of eye-rolling…

I suppose this is the ‘nesting’ I keep hearing about. That always conjures images of us with string and twigs in our mouth weaving a nest in that bedroom like a songbird. Or me prancing in front of an arch of grass like a Bowerbird enticing Audrey to look at my shiny rocks and pieces of glass and go inside to stay. I suppose the best analogy is making a platform in the tree with sturdy branches, away from the leopards and lions. Others are dealing with all the aspects of things like that and I am grateful. I think of firefighters and police, infantry and paratroopers, people in submarines and planes, artists and planners and programmers and analysts, thousands of people who make this possible. I have done my part at different times when others stopped to wonder at the wonder about to unfold in their lives. Turnabout is expected I guess, but I can’t help but feel a bit self indulgent at not being engaged elsewhere. But then, I’m not sure I could pick up my part of making things work if I looked away and missed these moments. I’ll need them to keep going later, knowing what I have to come home to.

I can remember my Dad making passing mention of doing things he didn’t want to do, but it was OK once he got home. It has taken several decades to begin to fully understand what he meant…..

I have it on good authority that the mountains around Santa Fe, NM are more colorful than they’ve ever been. Sounds niiiice.

I’ve been browsing The New Homemaker’s Own Store, which comes to us via Dori at backup brain. BabyStuf˙!

There should be a print this page link over there on the left hand side courtesy of the new {printFriendlyLink ()} macro. Thanks UserLand.
—–

John has been stalking the wily Cucurbita. Once great herds of them roamed the plains of North America, but now they are seldom found outside of the carefully tended enclaves that have been created specially for them. Andrea tracked one to its lair and, in the end, outwitted the shy vegetable with the cunning that only a Mathematician can wield. I wonder if our cat is as talented as that Iowa panther?
—–

I obviously recovered from yesterday’s ‘improve the silence’ thing. Have a great day tomorrow. I’ll close things down with this, be sure to read the whole thing…

The Onion: God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule
I hate to call it satire because it is so true. Whatever it is, it doesn’t get any better…
pointers from many sites

…Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: “Can’t you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism… every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you’re supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It’s not that hard a concept to grasp.”

“Why would you think I’d want anything else? Humans don’t need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other˜you’ve been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!” God said. “The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?”

“I’m talking to all of you, here!” continued God, His voice rising to a shout. “Do you hear Me? I don’t want you to kill anybody. I’m against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don’t kill each other anymore˜ever! I’m fucking serious!”

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God’s shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

Wow. Al’s lead in to Banned Book Week is just great. Book Of Dreams is brimming with references to some of the most wonderful books. Great job Al!

“I get to share my thoughts in the non-threatening, casual environment of my little weblog, where I don’t have to dress my ideas up so they can be seen in respectable company.” –Dave Rogers. Darn right Dave, you don’t want inside that gated community. Come on over and we’ll sit on the porch and drink some iced tea.

Kevin Murphy pointed to the web site for the concept for Towers of Light so I changed the link at the left.

It does make your page load faster, but I miss those icons Jeff.
—–

Happy Birthday David!

I think this was just a page flip to have a page flip. I think one of the hardest things would be to have a daily column where you were expected to be lucid to the tune of 20 column inches. I guess you would have to have several stockpiled so those times when the muse wasn’t talking to you there would be a backup plan. Anyway, today is just one of those days when I really have nothing to bring up that would improve the silence. It is like that sometimes and that is OK.
—–

The seven-part PBS series Evolution starts tonight. As always, check your local listings for broadcast times.

A big Thank You goes out to Joelle Silverman Miller who came here via Dori’s link at backup brain and sent us a wonderful email about BabyStuf˙.

An alliance of world weary webloggers standing honourably and intelligently together. glad to be a conscript…

Here is the transcript for today’s Meet the Press. Colin Powell and the Congressional leadership were guests. I feel reassured after reading their comments. via Rafé

We had a long interlude of an early supper and a VHS movie with Dr. ‘Liz. The only other time you’ve heard of her is when we went to see Monty Python’s Holy Grail. She is good people… We watched Dr. Strangelove, … which just seemed kind of odd, given the events of this September. ‘Liz had never seen it.

Audrey is in the other room listening to news, and just told me that Isaac Stern passed away. So, I went to the fount, and sure enough, garret had the link.

Thanks to Scott Hanson of PapaScott & MamaMaus for the “Tower of Light in the margin” meme. The top graphic on the right comes from Mike Donellan at blackholebrain. thanks for the clarification Scott
—–

Good to see you back at the ‘blog David.

The memory I mentioned ordering on 9 September came several days ago, but I hadn’t done anything with them until today. Installation of the two 256 meg simms in Neo (the iMac) was a two-minute procedure. Neat! Adding memory to the printer wasn’t quite as easy, but after a stroll with my friend Google I found out where the out of the way release for the side panel was and could get started on installing the ram. Sadly (for me at least), the HP 6MP does not recognize the additional memory and stops immediately after power on with the indicators lit in the “bad memory simm” configuration. sigh I’ll call on Monday and see what can be done. I suspect they are not “presence detect” modules…

Anyway, ram is still cheap, go get some ram and make your computer happy!

Today the early morning air actually felt cool. High temperatures will probably top 100°F again, but this morning signals that the northern Mojave summer is almost over. The next couple of months are the most pleasant for hiking, biking and general desert-ratting. Field work becomes a joy and I’ll be working outside a lot, never mind the pollen. However, SPF30 sunblock is still mandatory. I’ve already received the wake-up call on that one.

Good Morning.

We have America: A Tribute to Heroes on. I’m pretty impressed with the performances, though I don’t know who some of the people are. I’m a little out of touch.

When I heard the first bars of Imagine I wondered who was doing that song on an occasion like this. Finally, the camara moved to show Neil Young’s face. I thought, “yeah, Neil has the gravitas to carry that one here”. I think I used that correctly…

Happy Birthday Doug! Doug writes Erehwon Notebook

Good Morning…
—–

Mabon/Autumnal Equinox is coming up this weekend - 22 September, 23:04 GMT, or 7:05 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on 22 September (00:05 GMT 23 September) according to Sky & Telescope Magazine. Go figure…

There has to be something I can dredge out of what synapses remain.

My brain is like a tv set with no antenna. White noise. Too much information, not enough MHz in the wetware right now. I try to sit zazen and all I want to do is sleep. Sometimes you get what you need rather then what you think you want.
—–