Many Thanks (and a couple of suggestions)

Dear Messrs. Clapton & Winwood,

Thank you for putting on one helluva show at the Verizon Center last Saturday.

Thank you for performing nearly the entire one-album catalog of Blind Faith songs, particularly for opening with a kick-ass version of I Had To Cry Today.

Thank you for reviving the Hammond B-3 organ, which took me back to such acts as Blind Faith, Strawberry Alarm Clock and Iron Butterfly.

Thank you for the little unexpected treats, such as Mr. Winwood's all-alone-on-the-stage rendition of Georgia On My Mind, which seemed so oddly out of place among all the psychedelia of the evening and yet worked so well.

I cannot begin to thank you enough for not subjecting your audience to any version of I Shot The Sheriff, which wasn't a particularly great song when Bob Marley first did it, but when performed by a middle-aged white guy from Surrey descends to the level of a "Weird Al" Yankovich parody.

Thanks also for not subjecting us to Wonderful Tonight or Tears In Heaven.

Thank you for not letting egos get in the way, thereby letting the two of you share the spotlight on songs that were originally done by one or the other. Ending the evening's songlist with Mr. Winwood's Dear Mr. Fantasy couldn't have been better chosen.

Thank you for that pretty incredible 10-minute rendition of Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Chile.

Props to the stage directors who set up cameras for the Jumbotrons so that we could occasionally see fingers flying over fretboards and keyboards.

Thank you for the stunning acoustic rendition of Can't Find My Way Home.

Although it's still nearly a month away, thanks for making my birthday a special one (and thanks to my wife and my good friend for the tickets).

Thanks for dedicating the evening strictly to the music. Two and a half hours of one song after another with pretty much no talk in between them. As each song ended, I found myself anxiously awaiting the opening chords of the next one.

I only have a couple of cavils about the whole evening. First, what was with that row of spotlights on the back of the stage that were shining directly into the audience's eyes? When those lights went bright white, we couldn't see the stage at all. Please keep in mind that your audience largely no longer consists of teenagers with young ears and eyes. We're a bunch of ridiculous old people wearing tie-dye.

Also, with regard to the slow, acoustic version of Layla.... well, I'm not quite sure how to put this diplomatically.... It sucks, Eric. I can understand that you may need a second guitarist of the caliber of Duane Allman to do the song justice and you didn't have that for this performance, but I really can't understand why you would choose to do an elevator-music version of such a classic piece of rock while omitting such gems as Bell Bottom Blues, Lay Down Sally, Promises, or any Yardbirds, Spencer Davis Group or Traffic tunes at all. You had two virtuoso keyboardists there, either of whom could have done amazing jobs on that long piano interlude. I would have loved to have seen Steve Winwood performing that.

Finally, having mentioned the sharing of songs earlier, I was struck by the paucity of Steve Winwood songs (aside from the Blind Faith stuff). I would have loved to have heard I'm A Man, While You See A Chance, Higher Love, Roll With It, Arc Of A Diver, and/or Gimme Some Lovin'.

I do understand that between the two of you, the catalog of songs is enormous and a concert covering all of these would have taken hours, but heck, I was willing to sit for hours.

All in all, though, it was a very special evening which, as I had hoped, focused heavily on Blind Faith. I never thought that I'd get a chance to see (half of) such a seminal, influential rock group as that. Despite the couple of picky criticisms above, it was an incredible evening of incredible music from two rock & roll legends.

I appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Gilahi

To b or not to b

I've written about this before. This is what I've sunk to. I'm writing a blog entry, and not for the first time, about not writing my blog.

I'm sure there are some of you for whom blogging is as easy as breathing. The words just flow and they're witty and urbane and people love to read your stuff. I envy you. I'm sure there are some of you on the other end of the spectrum who agonize over every adjective, semicolon, and apostrophe before you put your finished product out there for the world to see. Believe it or not, I envy you, too.

I find that, probably like most of you, I tend to fall somewhere in the middle.

If I write something just because I feel like I should or because I feel guilty about not writing for so long, then I'm rarely satisfied with the results. I believe I've written a few pretty good things, a few clunkers, and a lot of mediocre stuff. You have no idea how many things I've written in this space that you've never seen because I was so unhappy with what tripped off my fingertips that I didn't feel it was in any way salvageable. Those went into the bit-bucket. Times like these I think it might be a relief just to shut the thing down, but to continue to read and comment on all those blogs that I enjoy so much. I certainly don't want blogging to become a chore.

On the other hand, I'm loathe to let go. Occasionally someone tosses a pole-dancing bear or an extremely funny Joe Cocker video my way, and I'd like to be able to share those. On rarer occasions, I'm inspired to write about such things as cause-and-effect or medical procedures or even painting a ceiling or a hallway, which people seem to enjoy. This last one was so well received that a blogger who visited my home demanded to see the results of the effort. But even with these, I've never written more than 13 entries in a single month. I've been doing this for over a year now and, if I've read things right, this is my 102nd post.

Not exactly setting the blog world on fire here.

There's also the consideration of all the great people I've met just by writing a few little things down and putting them out there. I've had a grand time with some folks, a few of whom I would even consider friends at this point, that I would in all likelihood never have even met if it wasn't for blogging. Would that fade away if I stopped? Are there great friends out there that I haven't met yet and will never meet if I stop doing this occasionally?

I'm torn.

So which is better? A) Blogging very, very rarely and then only when I'm in a pretty good mood and feel inspired to do so, B) putting mediocre stuff out there just for the sake of putting stuff out there, or C) just shutting down the blog but continuing to read and comment on others?

Signs Revisited

Spotted on Chincoteague Island, Virginia.

There are 3 things wrong with this sign:

1. They don't mention whether the quality is of the "high" or "low" variety. (Hint: It wasn't the former.)


2. They weren't very hospitable.


3. Should be trivial and obvious to the casual observer.

Friday Funnies

This has been around for a while, but it was just forwarded to me for a second time, and it still cracks me up. Hope some of you enjoy this as much as I do.

The Switch

Switchin' is easy.
Oh, it's essential and you know
when you flick it,
you can start a new episode.
--Golden Earring

(A.P. Somewhere in Virginia)

While attempting to determine the thought process of whoever it was that felt it might be a good idea to send Air Force One flying 15000 feet over Manhattan accompanied by a fighter jet without telling anybody, scientists at the Gilahi Institute of What The Hell Were You Thinking (GIWHWYT) have discovered a small 'switch' in the human brain that allows ordinary individuals to seamlessly move from Plan A to Plan B with no adverse affects on the surrounding population. People with adequate switches in their brain can accommodate unexpected changes so readily that anyone who observes their behavior would not even realize that the switch has been utilized. Some individuals appear not to have this switch. These individuals become so completely focused on Plan A that any unexpected event causes them to appear to be drooling idiots to anyone who might witness their behavior. These individuals are now thought to be the cause of all violence, road rage, war, premature balding, heart attacks, strokes, cramps, wardrobe malfunctions, eye tics, stock market crashes, bad movies, economic downturns, rap music, halitosis, accidental pregnancy, and Milli Vanilli.

Scientists were surprised to observe that both 'switch-enabled' (SE) and 'switch-deficient' (SD) individuals had a nearly overwhelming urge to beat the crap out of SD individuals.

This is big news. It explains a lot. The article goes on to cite examples of the thought patterns of SE/SD individuals in different circumstances:

SE: Darn, I'm already in line at the grocery store and I forgot to pick up a bag of Potato Poopies for little Hiram's lunch. Now I have to get out of line and it will probably add 10 minutes to my shopping experience.
SD: Darn, I'm already in line at the grocery store and I forgot to get that jar of Anti Monkey Butt for Aunt J-Lo. I can't possibly get out of line so I'll just leave my cart full of groceries here and block everybody else while I continue shopping.

SE: Oops! Missed my exit. Now I have to either turn around at the next interchange or take an alternate route.
SD: Oops! Missed my exit. There's nothing else I can do, so I'll just pull over to the shoulder and back my car down the expressway to get back to it.

SE: Uh-oh. I should be turning left here and I'm not in the left-turn lane. Now I have to either turn around at the next opportunity or take an alternate route. (See above)
SD: Uh-oh. I should be turning left here and I'm not in the left-turn lane. But I'm turning left here. I'll turn on my signal and block traffic until the left-turn lane is completely clear and then make an illegal turn. People sure do blow their horns a lot.

SE: My program crashed. I need to find the problem and fix it.
SD: My program crashed. I know the code is good so I'll just run it again. My program crashed. I know the code is good so I'll just run it again. My program crashed.... (this SD was never heard from again).

SE: Even though the phone is ringing, I'm assisting this customer in person so I will ignore it.
SD: Yes, we have those in blue, green, red and.... Hello, thank you for calling Ye Olde Flip-Flop Shoppe.

SE: This person seems bored/uninterested/horrified. Perhaps I'll ask them a probing question or simply change the subject.
SD: ...and despite the nosebleeds, I just can't seem to keep my finger out of there blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah-de-blahblah....

SE: I thought about eating this doughnut, but I've added a couple of pounds lately so I'm going to pass.
SD: I've added a couple of pounds lately, but I thought about eating this doughnut so I have to eat this doughnut.

SE: "Trickle-Down Economics" is a failed theory. The idea that "a rising tide lifts all boats" is only workable if you're so out of touch with reality that you believe everyone has a boat.
SD: Ronald Reagan was a god.

SE: That Gilahi is a very insightful guy.
SD: I keep reading this Gilahi guy and he's just not very funny.

It appears that there may be hope for the development of an artificial switch which could be implanted in the brains of SD individuals. Unfortunately the surgery is fatal a large percentage of the time. Half the scientists at GIWHWYT want to refine the technique until the operation is considered safe. The other half feel that an 80% fatality rate in the target group is really not such a great loss after all.

I suspect there's a new telethon in the future.

Great Ideas #1 and 2

Wife and I have become quite the social butterflies of late.

I'm from the Atlanta area and Wife is from somewhere north of here. We were, shall we say, pretty well established and living on our own when we met. We each had our own circle of friends, hers up north and mine down south. Maybe this is a pattern that couples go through, but for the early part of our relationship we spent most of our time with each other. We would occasionally see friends, but it was always an effort due to distance.

She used to lament our lack of outside contact and sigh that we needed to make new friends.

Not so much any more. Witness our schedule for this month (gleaned from our shared Google calendar):

March 29 - Lunch with friends in Columbia
April 4 - Lunch with blogger friends, Evening birthday party for neighbor
April 11 - Lunch with friend
April 12 - Brunch with relatives in Baltimore
April 13 - Happy hour with blogger friends
April 17, 18 - Visit family in NJ
April 18, 19 - Visit long-neglected friend in NJ
April 23 - Jazz concert at the Birchmere with friends
April 25 - Lunch with blogger friend, Party at blogger friends' home
April 26 - Lunch with friend

Note that there are only one or two occasions above where we'll be seeing any of the same people, and this doesn't include half the people to whom we still have outstanding social obligations. Also, we still make the effort to go on a date every single weekend, just so we can spend some time with each other and treat each other to some place nice.

While gazing out at our back yard last night, I commented that we needed to do some weeding. Wife pointed out that we simply don't have any free weekends on our calendar any more.

Thus came great idea #1, with full credit to Wife: "We should invite all of our friends over here to pull weeds." How great is that? It could be like a painting party where we provide pizza and beer. Since our yard is just really not that big and since we have approximately 9,547 friends, the yard work would be done in 10 minutes and then it's just a matter of waiting for the pizza guy.

I built on that with great idea #2. You know how marketers are always re-casting things with cool names so that it sounds like something it's not? I suggested that we just send messages to all of our friends inviting them to a "Weed Party".

"We'll provide the weed, you just have to take a pull."

Brilliant. Everybody would show up and wouldn't know the real party theme until we started handing out the gardening gloves.

And I suspect it would probably have the added effect of clearing our calendar for the next few months, until we could make some new friends.

Speaking of friends, thanks to Bilbo for bestowing a "Friendship Award" upon me:



Now in the interest of full disclosure, I have to say that I've never met the man, and we often have conflicting points of view. However we are reasonable (if occasionally stubborn) guys, and respect the idea that different people may have different takes on things. What a concept. I have every confidence, though, that if we spent a couple of hours in a room somewhere with a little bourbon and an adequate supply of ice, we could between the two of us solve all of the world's social, political, and economic woes.

If only someone would listen to us.

Thanks, Bilbo!

Hurrah for degrees.info!

You may recall my last post in which I expressed some dismay at an advertisement for an online university website offering me a quick degree if I had an interest in "Public Speach". This didn't even take into account the whole idea of getting a degree in "Speach" on the Internet where people don't typically hear you speak. And I didn't even mention the fact that "speech" is a noun and they really meant "public speaking" (or perhaps "speeking").

Well, I'm proud to say that the good folks at degrees.info are continuing to pursue their fine tradition of academic excellence, despite the fact that they're still trying to sell me something using Christmas trees in April.

Popup ads irk me. The fact that the Google ad blocker is such a piece of crap that it blocks almost no ads at all irks me.

However occasionally an ad does make my life easier and brings me some joy. Witness the latest ad that I got that Google failed to block:



Again, you probably can't see what I immediately saw. Suffice to say the "Public Speach" is now not the only thing for which I could pursue a degree via this august institution.

I thought for a bit about a rant regarding this, but I did that before. Upon further consideration, I realized that a picture really is worth the thousand words I could have written.

I Know You're All Wondering Why I Called You Here

There is a certain website that I like to go to (only at night and on weekends, of course) that has hundreds of games that I can play for free. The biggest downside of this site is that before each game I have to sit through the display of an ad for 30 seconds or so while my game is "loading". The only good thing about this is that sometimes the ads can be as diverting as the games. Take this one from degrees.info, for instance:

You can see my source of amusement, can't you? No? It's not enough that they're showing me Christmas trees in April, let's zoom in on the seventh tree from the left:



That's right, internetters, according to the small type on the left, if your talent is "Public Speach", then you're just one online form away from a degree. And if you think the irony here is the idea of getting a "speach" degree online where no one can actually hear you speak, then you've entirely missed the point (and I do have one, as Ellen Degeneres says).

Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm somewhat anal when it comes to spelling and grammar. I remember being on a fishing trip and seeing a small general store that had its offerings listed all around the front of the building: Bait, Tackle, Snacks, Soft Drinks, Beer, Flim. Yes, flim. My first thought was that if anyone should know how to spell, it should be a sign painter. But then I remembered Gene Wilder's character, The Waco Kid, talking to Cleavon Little as Sheriff Bart in Blazing Saddles: "Come on. What did you expect? These are simple people. People of the land. You know... morons." So I let it go.

Then there's the "Wafle Shop" in Alexandria, near The Birchmere. There's a huge awning with "Wafle Shop" on two sides of the building. At least this gets peoples' attention, though, and from everything I hear that's pretty much all this establishment has going for it aside from the fact that they're open 24 hours a day.

But come on. Here's a web designer creating an ad for an online university fergodsake! Wouldn't you think that someone from info.com read and approved this ad? Would you want to get a degree from a site that puts this much care and planning into what they do? Does the phrase, "Do you want fries with that" qualify as public speach? How about, "Welcome to Wal-Mart"?

It makes me wonder if they have degree programs in riting, bookkeaping, bizness, fizzix, or furrin langwidge.

When you get your degree certificate from degrees.info, instead of saying that you graduated Magna Cum Laude, it should say that you chose this school Lawdy How Come?

Monkeys and Maras and Deer, Oh My!

You learn things when you travel. You may learn that the oldest rum distillery in the world doesn't necessarily make the best rum in the world. You learn that the rum you get in the islands has 3% more alcohol than the rum that's shipped to the States. You learn that dark rum is actually aged in used bourbon casks, which appeals to a bourbon-lover like myself. You learn a lot about rum. You sample the rum and then you don't really care any more.

You learn that Barbados, which produces tons of sugar, has contracts with European countries to export X tons of that sugar annually. If there's a bad year, crop-wise, they may end up exporting so much sugar in order to fulfill their contracts that they don't have enough for their own use, so one of the largest sugar-producing countries in the world ends up importing sugar from other countries.

Then you learn stuff that might actually be interesting. As mentioned over in this article, you learn that monkeys in Barbados are green.



They're not kelly green or avocado green or OD green or even Green Canary green, but they do certainly have a green cast to their fur.

If green monkeys don't convince you that you're in a fantasy land, check out this deer:



Is that weird or what? It's a real deer. Honest. I saw it. I took that photo.

But you start to feel like you're in The Neverending Story or The Princess Bride when you're busily snapping pics of green monkeys and weird deer; your wife pokes you and rather shakily says, "Um.... look behind you;" and your immediate reaction is "whatinthehellisTHAT?"



I took these pictures so you'd all know that it wasn't the rum talking. This is a mara. They're rodents, about 18 inches to 2 feet tall. I have to say that I've been watching nature shows all my life, I've worked with wild animals, and I'd never heard of a mara or seen anything quite like this. It's sort of a kangaroo-bunny-deer-mule looking animal. In true fantasy-movie fashion, they have weirdnesses like three toes on their back feet and four on the front. They can run 18 MPH and are related to guinea pigs.





We went to see the monkeys but admit it, you just gotta love this face:



Apparently they make pretty good pets if you get them when they're young, if you don't mind the idea of 2-foot, 25-pound rodent wandering around your house. Heck, some of you may have that situation right now and not even realize it.

You would not believe how long I sat here and tried to come up with some setup in which you would have a pair of maras as pets, since you got them young they'd be orphans, and this would allow you to sing, "Two maras, two maras, I love ya, two maras...". I even figured you could name one of them Annie.

But then I realized I'd just have to apologize for it.

Bare Naked Pole Dancer

I don't usually post things like this, but this one is so sensitively done and just so beautifully rendered. I'm really not a pole dance fan, but I've never seen anything quite like this one. I hope no one is offended.