You're Going Outside, Now!

Oh, giant wolf spider, why do you feel the need to run across the floor at top speed on a Saturday morning at 9am?

Wonderful World Intro

I had to do a pistol cleaning demonstration in a video, so I decided to string together some absolutely stupid clips for the intro. GTA included as a commercial -- yay!

Ping Pong

Gopher Tortoise eggs! Found near the office building where I work. Crows got to them despite my best attempts to thwart their efforts with a cover of packed dirt and a shield of rocks.

Miss You

We're going to miss you, little hedgehog.

Bailey hadn't been running quite as much over the past two nights, but seemed to be eating and still doing well. Last night he was lethargic and slightly wobbly and I knew it was time for a trip to the vet on Tuesday. This morning, though, he was gone.

Two and a half years of age for a hedgehog is a pretty good life, but we're still going to miss him and wish he were around to fill the apartment with the sound of little running feet at 2AM.

Take care, little hedgie.

Money Pool

This American Life has a really excellent episode about the housing crisis that goes into the complex and intricate dealings of how people were whipped into a frenzy, why madness was able to take control during the boom years, what exactly caused the backward slide, and just how big this problem really is. The hour long program is definitely worth a listen. (MP3 audio)

More to fear than sharks this year

"I immediately put my hand on my face and blood was gushing out," said Shoemaker, 50, a housecleaner from Toledo, Ohio, who was vacationing in the Bay area this week. She needed 25 stitches. She is on painkillers and antibiotics and cannot eat solid food.
...

She stanched the blood with her beach towel and went to Palms of Pasadena Hospital in St. Petersburg for treatment, which included a consultation with a plastic surgeon.

The gash on her left cheek is 3 inches long, Shoemaker said by telephone from her home in Toledo. Doctors told her they were concerned about the accident's impact on her salivary glands and the tiny bones that help her smile, she said.

Never let your guard down while out in the Gulf -- it seems absolutely everything is out to kill you.

A Contrasting Audience

We went to see BB King in concert last Friday and, aside from being impressed by the eighty-two year-old's still amazing gift for the guitar, were left somewhat confused by one aspect of the concert at Ruth Eckerd Hall that I didn't notice until Mia mentioned it after we had already removed our earplugs and gone home for the evening: there were, at most, ten black people in the audience. Even more interesting is how the great bluesman spoke of his life in the days of segregation by pointing to himself, saying "we lived on one side of the tracks" and then pointing out to the audience, "and you all lived on the other". (Times, today, are pleasantly different and he was very grateful for the changes he had seen over the decades that led to a more balanced society.) But Mia noted that she thinks the Blues, in current days, is much more likely to have an audience composed of pale middle-aged guys working desk jobs rather than the original intended listeners from when the genre came to be. It appears that she is at least somewhat right and that BB King recognizes this -- he made several references to the audience as, well, not being as "melanin enriched" as himself. For African Americans no longer being in tune to the Blues, I can see them distancing themselves from these historical assosciations or that, simply, the music doesn't appeal to the current generation. But I also have to wonder what caused the other shift, because I'm not certain there are any ways that any given thirty-something, middle class white living in the US could ever relate and be able to appreciate the Blues for why they were written and from what social environment/context they were born.

It has to be a strange experience being BB King and thinking across the memories of years gone by and who listens to his music, who shows up to his appearances, and why. Of course, someone already has a nice set of answers for my questions regarding these puzzling phenomena and even examines the difficulties of being a white blues musician.

As for me? I just love the wail of Lucille. That may be all that really matters, anyway, or at least seemed to when I got to see the great bluesman do what he does best.