My higher threshold?

For the record I have a little more confidence in Trevor Noah now. Or perhaps I should say #trevornoah. When they first announced he was taking over The Daily Show I figured that he was a typical submissive, Economist reading TED talk kind of media figure, and I'm still not entirely convinced he's not. Still, having seemingly all of social media jump down his throat for mildly offensive jokes does add some texture.

As for the jokes themselves, at least one of his "antisemitic" gags (the German car one) would be one of the milder bits in Sarah Silverman's act. At least one other is only antisemitic by the standard of "never criticize Israel ever" and anyway he seems to be part Jewish himself. Also the fact that he's not into fat chicks means chubby chasers everywhere can breathe easier knowing that's one less good looking brother in competition with them.

Stray thoughts

People who have bumper stickers that read "Ask me about my grandchildren." I wonder how they feel when you pull up beside them on the highway, roll down your window, and pepper them with questions. Is there ever really a bad time to be a proud grandparent?

You send me

It snowed Saturday. Weirdest thing. Not enough of it to sled on, which is a shame in a way. But enough to make for some white lawns come Sunday morning.

I sent out a query tonight to place a nonfiction piece I've done. It's not a big thing but I think I did a fair job on it, so I'm hoping.

Also getting ready to submit one of my short stories again. I need to send a little something vis-a-vis summary/self-hyping with it, so I'm trying to come up with something good and not too long. Actually that and a couple of other fiction manuscripts I thought I'd lost, because I'd either lost or seriously misplaced the thumb driver they were on. Luckily I was able to retrieve them because they still existed as attachments on outgoing emails. So it's a good thing to submit manuscripts by email, when you can.

Friday Random Ten and Saturday is Here

I have a little bit of a meeting after breakfast tomorrow. We'll see how that works how it affects the Satur-ness of this Saturday.

1. Metric - Lost Kitten
2. The Who - I Can't Reach You
3. Diana Krall - Popsicle Toes
4. Roxy Music - Beauty Queen
5. Fitz & the Tantrums - Get Away
6. Les Baxter - The High and the Mighty
7. Yo La Tengo - Daphnia
8. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Strict Time
9. Sun Ra - Looking Outward
10. Rasputina - State Fair

German trip

"No, I'm just singing the song - my sister wouldn't send me some shit we could steal from Trader Joe's, this is the unpronounceable shit."
Apparently Blaze's older sister, Mariela, a tank mechanic stationed in Germany, had sent him a case of that strong leathery beer we loved so much. Beer that, no matter how much we drank, never left us with a hangover, only an urge to obey orders.

From Slumberland by Paul Beatty, Bloomsbury, 2008.

I've just started reading this book. There are writers who should stop themselves from going on tangents. There are others, probably fewer, who can give into them and still remain readable. Beatty draws strength from them.

Testing...

Hello, friendly readers. I'm in the process - short process, I'm expecting - of transferring blogging over to a new browser. This is to see how it works. The interface is a little more hassle-free, anyway.

Possibly another post later today, tonight. Talk about a red letter day.

Browsing the Saturday Random Ten

So I've heard that Microsoft is discontinuing Exlorer and launching a new browser called "Spartan", or at least that's the name they're leaning towards. And it seems to me that IE has been acting especially buggy in recent months. Even if you have the most recent version, you get a lot of forced typos (where a character or space you know you typed in doesn't appear onscreen) and "Not Responding". So has this been deliberate self-sabotage to make their new product look better? Or is that giving them too much credit?

1. Lou Rawls - Groovy People
2. Magnetic Fields - Desert Island
3. Broadcast - The Black Cat
4. Nellie McKay - I Will Be There
5. The Kinks - Harry Rag
6. Les Baxter - Ruby
7. Roxy Music - Editions of You
8. Elvis Costello - You'll Never Be a Man
9. Mose Allison - Baby Please Don't Go
10. Fitz & the Tantrums - Break the Walls

drip... drip

Last night I woke up to the sound of dripping. There was a leak in my bedroom ceiling, right near my head in fact. I was too tired to do anything about it at the moment so I just scooted down, taking my mattress with me.

A few minutes later ( it seemed like) I looked up again. There was no leak. There never had been.

Weird how your dreams can trick you just by putting you in the right location.

Two bits

Let's see, what's happening today?

For one, Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have won another term as Prime Minister of Israel. Guess that endorsement from Anders Breivik really paid off.*

* Joke, if slightly bitter

On the subject of things sticking around, we're not out of winter's clutches. Certainly with the wind it's felt like sub-zero weather. Some chance of snow over the weekend, too. To me, all that's just funny. Mostly because it will cause grumbling.

Our old pal

This is a few panels from Hello Cthulhu , a webcomic that brings together the worlds of Lovecraft's Elder Gods and Hello Kitty. That's not an idea that everyone would have, so this bears some investigation.

ATMajestic Saturday Random Ten

I found out about the Women on 20s project yesterday and asked myself "Is there any point supporting this thing?" Then of course I went to the site and voted. My votes went to Sojourner Truth (slave who triumphed over slavery), Rosa Parks (no introduction needed), and Frances Perkins (first female cabinet secretary). The last of these was specifically Secretary of Labor, so I figure I'm sending a message there, too.

1. St. Vincent - Regret
2. Pink Martini - Je Ne T'aime Plus
3. The Kinks - No Return
4. Beck - Heart is a Drum
5. Broadcast - Corporeal
6. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Lovers Walk
7. New Pornographers - You Tell Me Where
8. Diana Krall - I Can't Give You Anything But Love
9. Fitz & the Tantrums - MerryGoRound
10. Les Baxter - Never on Sunday
    

Here comes...

How to start the weekend off right? How about with a massive Catholic Fisher-Price wedding? Kicking off with the bride's boudoir photos, because of course.
Reportaje de boda from Daniel Perez on Vimeo.
Stay 'toned for Saturday Random Ten.

The early shift

How am I dealing with daylight saving time? Glad you asked. All right, as these things go. I'm not really a morning person, yet because of circumstances I do have to work in the morning. So I'm not thrilled with having to get up when it's darker, and it's not much of a consolation that the sun is still shining when I get out of work. By that point I'm already up. But so far I've hacked my sleep patterns enough so that I don't oversleep.

Some people I've listened to actually want to expand daylight savings time to 12 months a year. These people must at all costs be kept away from positions of power.

Paging Edward Lear

Cute as they are, these two must know on some level they could work some heavy damage on each other. One's a predator, the other's an alpha predator. Together, they fight crime.

The cartoonist has no idea how Friday Random Tens work

You can see more of these here. It's weird how polarized net neutrality has become. I get the feeling that out in Conservistan there's an idea that jackbooted thugs will take away your computer because your net wasn't sufficiently neutral.

1. Fitz & the Tantrums - The Whistler
2. Diana Krall - Do It Again
3. Les Baxter - April in Portugal
4. Fleetwood Mac - Walk a Thin Line
5. Sun Ra - New Day
6. The Who - Sunrise
7. Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Big Sister's Clothes
8. The Band - We Can Talk
9. Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
10. Dave Van Ronk - Poor Lazarus

The lame and the halting

I'm sure it's been a few days since I did anything crazy on this blog like update it. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere. I've just felt a little under the weather the last couple of days. Yeah, somewhere in this giant smackdown of a winter I picked something up. Not sick enough where I feel like I have to stay home from work, but enough to feel the difference. A couple extra hours sleep and I hope to reboot Saturday morning.

In depth

It was a relatively warm day today. Given the past month or so we had, that meant a lot of melt. Which meant puddles, deep and broad, and mad scrambles not to get ankle deep in water. A sign of things to come? Probably. What are you gonna do?

I'll be back.