They apparently changed the Muzak at the cafeteria.

Before, it had been standard, easy to ignore, old-fashioned elevator music (think symphonic covers of “When Doves Cry”) but now, it’s some oldies channel from hell that is apparently programmed to feature all the most depressing songs of the 1960s that you never wanted to hear again, from Donovan to the Byrds, and beyond. In fact, “River Deep, Mountain High” was about the most upbeat thing I heard through my whole dinner, which is kind of sad. Literally.

After enduring twenty or thirty minutes of this, I think I finally know why so many people did so many drugs during the 1960s.

I seem to have returned home bearing a nasty cold alongside the other souvenirs.

It’s kind of hard to believe that my five-week break from school is sixty percent over before it really even seems to have started. It was a really intense fall semester, and I was sort of looking forward to a few moments of calm. They sort of never came, what with the trip to Fresno in December, followed by the actual holidays, and the big road trip to Pittsburgh last week. I have a lot of things I really want to catch up on before things get crazy again:

• The major renovation of Groceteria, moving it into the PHP world using a content management system (Joomla, to be specific) and integrating flickr photo albums to make the image hosting easier and more logical.
• Back-correcting old links in Otherstream now that it’s a Wordpress site. This is becoming less and less of a priority, I must admit.
• Catching up on all the home video.
• Getting a sports blog set up for one of my clients. While typing that, I had the brilliant idea that they might consider using Twitter, making it all easier for me and cheaper for them. We’ll see how that works out.
• Posting about the just-completed trip, not to mention the one from six months ago that I never really covered either.
• Reading about fifteen books I have piled up in the office.

I have my doubts that I’ll get it all done.

Alive and well, and bearing many new books, photos, and assorted other geeky souvenirs. More to follow.

People who think San Francisco is a more beautiful city clearly aren’t paying attention.

When I was about ten, I spent New Year’s Day swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. It was the warmest New Year I ever had. Last night, we went to the other extreme, welcoming in the New Year on a pedestrian bridge a couple of hundred feet above the Allegheny River in donwtown Pittsburgh,  enjoying nineteen degree temperatures and lots of wind.

More soon.

I have no idea who Monica is…

Christmas, family, food, etc. You know the drill. This year, we hosted my dad’s side of the family (a dwindling group, alas) and my mom took care of her side of the family, which meant she had a much bigger group to face.

Mark and I are off to Charleston WV, Pittsburgh, and Richmond for a week starting tomorrow morning.We’ll be giving the new (to us) Buick its first major road test, and hoping today’s three hundred bucks worth of repairs will have corrected all the problems we inherited with it.

Just in case this turns out to be the last post of 2008, happy New Year.

Majel Barrett-Roddenberry Passes

Depeche Mode
Behind the Wheel, 1987

When I drag up images of myself living in Charlotte in the late 1980s, this is one of about half a dozen or so songs that are pretty much always playing in the background. Others come from such varied performers as The Leather Nun, Tones on Tail, The Information Society, The Cure, and Siouxsie and the Banshees, among others. Maybe I’ll feature some of the rest soon. Or maybe not.