I hate to disappoint, but sometimes I just gotta

A Sunday or two ago, I posted something that I found somewhere on the internets that I thought was funny. Not har-de-har-de-har- har-oh-sweet-chihuahua-I'm-gonna-piddle- on-the-leather-couch funny. Just hmmm-that's-interesting funny. Apparently, right about that time, Hoss caved in to my relentless commenting on his b**g and gave me a visit. I feel bad, as that post hardly represented my best work (hmmpphh. I'm retired. By definition, I don't work. No wonder you don't get the best of anything here. Though chasing squirrels is harder work and more exercise than you humans might think. And while you're thinking about that, look at how short your dog's fingers are, and imagine those stubby things typing. I take it back. This is work).

But old Hoss didn't escape the Old Farts Home by being anything but pure-D stubborn, and he kept reading into my archives.

This is the part where I have to seriously question his judgement. He said that I am "pretty funny. Possibly VERY FUNNY." Unless he has actually seen me bark at the tree the squirrel went up two days ago even though I just chased that same squirrel along the fence and into the neighbor's yard, he has no reason to accuse me of that sort of thing. I am not funny. I am persistent. I am not consistent, but I am persistent. (That's a couple syllables long of being a Haiku.)

I have very nearly backed myself into a corner here, but I will duck away from its confines and run across the back forty with an idea: Red Skelton was funny. The Three Stooges were funny. Chris Rock IS funny. Gene Maudlin IS funny.

And the rubber-tired bitch in it all is that now that he's wandered over here, I can no longer steal his stuff with impunity.

I knew the eye was quicker than the hand

Made it to Lenny's last night for a curl-up inside the door and a bowl of draft. I think humans miss part of the beer experience when they eschew the sweet sound of a bowl sliding around on the floor. Doesn't really matter if the bowl is plastic or stainless, as long as it's not rubber, it slides. There's an element of the chase in the sound. Sweet, I say.

But when Lenny rang up the beers, his fingers purely danced, and I didn't think about that particular magic until just now, when I read this piece over at The Agonist.

Most of the time, I skim through that site like a chased squirrel up a live oak, but I had to drop back to hunker-speed to read about the gal Ian wrote of: she knew the inventory and pricing so well she didn't need that glass-pad-with-the-red-lightlines that you see at Walmart and Tru-Value and HEB and so many other places anymore (including the place where Alpha buys my Kibbles).

I think it's too easy anymore to get so caught up in the magic of the technology, the magic of cutting costs, that we forget the magic of the dance, and we forget that the dance saves us even more.

And somehow, I think all this ties back into my post yesterday about infrastructure...

When you stay close to the ground, you see things differently

Another slow day here, while the crew (can I call the only guy who showed up a "crew"?) works on the remodel out back. No where near time to head over to Lenny's yet, so I'm indulging my favorite sunny-day sport, surfing, and I came across a couple of stories that may or not be connected from anyone else's perspective, but from where I stand with all four paws firmly on the ground, they trigger a caution.

First, there's the weather in the midwest: according to this story on CNN, it'll be another ten days before some of those folks get enough power back to heat or light their homes, because they rely on someone else's infrastructure (just like we do here - my kettle's just as black).

Then, another CNN story, this one about the free web-based software that Google is making available: a word-processor, a spreadsheet, etc. Some of the people quoted in the article are enthused about the built-in capacity to work cooperatively, since the documents are stored on Google servers rather than locally and can be accessed from any on-line computer. Others are concerned about privacy issues. They're both right.

But having the two stories right there in front of me on the same day got my fuzzy little head to wondering: do we really want to rely on someone else's infrastructure for documents we feel are vital? Especially when Mother Nature can be so fickle?

Chasing my tail

1

Number of new blogs created each second of every day, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

1

Number of readers that the average blog has, according to Schmidt.

Ode to koi

I'm guessing that most literate humans know
They each have 46 chromosomes.

Which makes them the most intelligent
Critters on the planet.

Except for goldfish,
Which have 94 double-helixed strands.

Imagine.
Twice-plus the gene-power,
And they can't even climb out of the toilet.