There is no bottom

I have a friend who took out his phone tonight and showed me the sign featured in this article. Well, I'm not too proud to say that I laughed. Thought I'd look it up when I got home. Something did tell me that the image was too good to be true. I mean, there has to be a lot of sets of eyes on a sign that prominent, people who review the text before it's made permanent. And lo, it turns out to be a hoax.

Not sure I'll tell my friend it's a fake, though. I mean, there are a lot of hoaxes going on out there, and most of them aren't as harmless as this one.

It's alive

I received a plant a few weeks ago. I don't think it's exactly a poinsettia, but the leaves have a similar shape and texture, but they're lighter, and maybe a little bigger in area. If this kind of plant has any special needs, I don't know about it. So I've just set it by a window and I've given it water once per week. While the plant has lost a few leaves, it still looks pretty healthy.



Exactly, Steve. So far, so good.

Double oh

I'm listening now to a show on WFMU where the DJ has compiled a solid hour's worth of versions of the song "Live and Let Die." A for effort to her, but man, it's a little hard to believe so many people have chosen to do that song. The original recording works because it's Paul and Wings, but as a song I don't think it exactly towers over Duran Duran's "View to a Kill". The song Chris Connell did for Casino Royale strikes me as much better and I'm not even that big a Soundgarden fan. I mean, McCartney seems to be going out of his way to be trite with that "you used to say live and let live" opening.

I don't know, maybe I'm being mean. But imagine what Lennon must have been saying at the time.

Bookstore follies

If the time comes when we have to restart civilization - and all things considered, I'm not discounting the possibility - it would help to have a few choice scraps of what went before. The above cartoon by Barry Kliban strikes me as an excellent start, among other pieces by him. It's something to aspire to, yet something to relate to.

i b illin'

Making this brief because I'm about to hit the hay to recuperate. Somehow I got through the entire winter and early spring - winter's sequel - without getting sick. My luck just ran out, as I seem to have picked up some manner of cold. I think I know who gave it to me. No ill will, though. The man was just doing his job in difficult circumstances.

Thoughts (and thank you, Susan)

I've done a few things today. One is just to think. Or to meditate, you might say, although there's been no lotus position nor especially deep breathing. But yeah, I've had reason to think about where I'm at and what I'm doing.

Tonight, coming home, I passed a police car with its light flashing. Behind the squad car was a smallish SUV. The front bumper was a little mangled, and there may have been some other damage I couldn't see. I could have sworn I caught a cannabis smell from the vehicle.

Well, if so, I can only wish the guy good luck.

Light through water

Earlier in the evening we had a rainstorm. You could feel it in the air and hear a rumbling here or there well before it happened. When the rain came it was heavy, and the sky went dark.

It was only a brief storm, though, relatively speaking. It got darker than you'd expect for the time of day and the time of year. Then as the rain tapered off something unusual happened. The sky turned purple, a pinkish shade of purple, for a few minutes. After that, Gold. So it was a picturesque storm.