*tag*

I guess I'm it. At least Russ sayeth so.

So, ummm...here we be:

Accent: People have trouble pegging down my accent. I am a native San Diegan, now living in Pittsburgh's suburbs. I have also lived in Vermont, North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona. I suspect Vermont and North Carolina have a lot to do with how I speak, as well as my native San Diego, and my present home, 'da Burgh. I was recently told by a movie usher that I have a Philadelphia accent. Umm....thanks?

Booze of Choice: I can't drink due to (this is embarrassing, but...) "plumbing issues" related to my disability. I do like Budweiser and Guiness, though. I'm a beer schizoid.

Chores I Hate: Dusting. And cleaning my room.

Dog or Cat: Cats. I grew up with them (Spot and Soleil, d. 2005?)

Essential Electronics: The net. The TV (with cable, of course).

Favorite Cologne: I don't do cologne. My mother has MCS, and, well...I just don't find a need for it.

Gold or Silver: Ummmmm...my father has a silver Acura, which is pretty nifty.

Hometown: Born in San Diego, raised there and near Tampa, and Phoenix (boarding school), went to college in Vermont, lived in North Carolina, went to Sacramento State for more school, now I'm a yinzer.

Insomnia: Yeah, a fair amount, but my new bed just rawks!

Job Title(s): none

Kids: No! I like my sanity.

Living Arrangements: I am single, with a male roommate, in an apartment.

Most Admired Trait: My "courage in overcoming blah blah blah." *sneers* But as far as meaningful compliments that an able body would get, too, I just know lots of stuff, dude!

Overnight Hospital Stays: At least 16, one per major surgery I've had. Mainly on my legs and my cerebral shunt.

Phobia(s): Elevators, heights, being alone at a height.

Quote: Be what you're like. Be like yourself. – They Might Be Giants.

EDITED: Religion: Brought up in the Unitarian Universalist Church. Something at a General Assembly (Spokane? lovely buildings) kinda freaked me out in 1998, and now I declare myself a very hard core atheist, thanks largely to good ol' Anne Foyer, who made the idea all the more tangible to me. (I need to blog about that.)

Siblings: None.

Time(s) I Wake Up: completely depends. I do love my sleep, though.

Unusual Talent/Skill: Not sure.

Veggies I Refuse to Eat: Are mushrooms a veggie? Baby corn, for sure.

Worst Habit: procrastination.

Yummiest Food I Make: I nuke a mean quesadilla.

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius (12 Dec 1975)

Now who to tag back? Don't know yet. I'll get back to yinz. Better yet, who wants to be tagged?

All I can say is...

...what the freakin' hell??! Both Pat and Geno are done for the year. The Women's Final Four in basketball is set, and I think it's between Duke, LSU, UNC, and...I think...Maryland. No Tennessee and no UConn. As Rae would say, blee blah (don't know what that means to her, but I'll use it as an expletive). Speakinawhich, her dog, I think, is set to beat us all in our men's hoops fantasy league.

Mmmmmmmm....corn nut-like thingies.

I ate like half of an extra large cheese pizza in one sitting, the other night. I can be a glutton that way. Suppose it's nice I'm accidentally sparing you all any pictures of me (I again forgot to take my camera to be developed).

But anyhow, that was the last of my food. I went out this morning and really had a weird time of it. I normally almost plan my budget around the necessities for my sweet tooth. None of that today. Instead, I realized that about a month ago, I (quite accidentally, believe) bought what turned out to be two months of Spree, Tootsie Rolls, and conversation hearts. Usually I whiz through sweets with embarrassing ease.

So, what strikes my fancy on this trip? A two-for-one on just normal "American" salad mix (mostly iceberg lettuce, but with a tad bit of shaved carrots and red cabbage), a bottle of raspberry vinaigrette, a big thing of carrot juice (haven't had that since the '80s), another big thing of unsweetened soy milk (to go with a couple of unopened boxes of corn flakes from a couple months ago), nine single-serving yogurts (mostly diet key lime, a couple of cherry fruit-on-the-bottoms---can I call these FOB's?). And finally, for a munchie, a canister of dried, roasted sweet corn. Not Triscuits, not tortilla chips. It was very strange. Not really sure what compelled me to explore the health food isle. I was actually somewhat ashamed, if you would believe. This going back to a time maybe a year ago, when my parents sat thirty-year-old me in their "chair of trouble" and lectured me for seemingly thirty minutes on the fact I needed to lose maybe 40 pounds. My mother knew I've long wanted to go to Sweden. She came up with a deal where if I met the prescribed goal weight for me, she'd pay for me to go. Instead of glee, I met her proposal with horror, and accused her of bribery.

I'm still overweight. Still prone to attacks of gluttony. But I am more aware of what I am doing, even if I decide on that day (and consecutive days thereafter) to ignore the potential consequences.

Life with my parents can be a bit odd. I think we are all a bunch of strong heads, and don't like to back down too easily. I do respect them for certain things though, which is more than can be offered between members of many families I am aware of. I admire their careful sense of aesthetic in their home, something they like to attribute to feng shui, if I remember correctly. That has gotten me thinking about such matters, if executing a bit differently. I also admire their marital strength. The idea of marriage freaks me out. It's as if todays young folks can count on living out at least two marriages, not to mention raising kids within potentially both marriages. Lucky me, I don't have much tolerance of kids, so I don't think that's in my future (even though parenting fascinates me on almost an academic level).

Well, off to a job fair at the Sheraton by Station Square. Peace out.

I took some neato pictures today...

But I forgot to put the flash on. But they were taken inside the local Target which is lit for a delicate cardiac surgery. I wonder if they will come out.

On another note, Target has a do-it-yourself digitizing machine. All you need is a disk or CD. Grooviness. My excuses for not having photos are one less now.

Things to do when not in New Jersey.

Well...you can screw around with your blog and change around the color scheme and templates. Much like I'm doing. I'm also finding out slowly how grossly incompetent I am with this style sheet stuff. Also, one commenter told be the white text on black was a bit hard to read, but I'm not exactly sure her reason. Fortunately, I guess I have eyes of steel. You could play ping pong with them. Except that I'm not going to let you.

Also, as you see, I am screwing around with the banner. I discovered Bloggerheadz off of Run With Me, and I must say I'm rather addicted. It's just that to embed my lil' work of art where I want it, and keep all the other formatting in check, I really need to know a bit more than I technically do. But I'm cocky enough not to care. Gimme an F-16. I promise not to run it into the ground.

Other things to do when not in New Jersey are to watch your friendly, speedy, competent emergency services, such as this one and this one, at work from your bedroom window. This morning, the little pickup truck in this pic was assisted by a copper to what was presumably a paranoid smoke alarm in a nursing home across the way. Yesterday, the aforementioned coppers (four units-worth) chased a minivan and some other car up our very own driveway here at the apartment complex. They arrested some young man for some crime. That never happens here.

Things can be exciting outside of New Jersey, I tell you.

31 Questions

Thanks and/or I'm sorry, Russ.

1. How tall are you barefoot?
Probably 5' 9.5

2. Have you ever smoked heroin?
Nope.

3. Do you own a gun?
No, but I support amendment 2.

4. Do you get nervous before meeting the parents?
People in general kind of make me nervous, but I guess it depends on the situation, why I'm meeting them, who is introducing me, etc.

5. What do you think of hot dogs?
I tend to mistrust them, because the USDA does not really have a clear definition for them. Also, so many are prepared in a really questionable way (heatlamp, lots of filler, etc). Some place in Buffalo, famous for its "Rippers" (fried dogs) was featured on the Food Network, and that made me want to go when my mother and I finally go to Niagara Falls.

6. What's your favorite Christmas song?
Good King Wenceslas, as done by Manheim Steamroller.

7. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Water with lemon.

8. Do you do push-ups?
Nope.

9. Are you vegan?
No, but the older I get, the more I question meat.

10. Do you like painkillers?
Well, I've had 16 or so surgeries, and after many of them, I was on a morphine drip, which left me constipated and speechless (in many ways).

11. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?
The DOA TerrorEyz lure. Oh, I thought you meant female salmon. You mean female people.

I'll get back to you on that.

12. Do you own a knife?
Steak and butter knives, yes.

13. Do you have A.D.D.?
No, but I do have dysnomia.

14. Middle Name?
Martin


15. What time did you wake up today?
9:00ish. Maybe just plain ish.

16. Current hair?
I need a haircut. I look all good to be on Press Your Luck or Tic Tac Toe. My beard will need trimmed soon, but not now.

17. Where would you like to go?
Linkoping, Sweden.

18. Do you burn or tan?
Burn really badly, even though I'm not ghostly white.

19. Last thing you ate?
Tiramisu, after a steak hoagiegrindersubhero, fries, and a crab cake.

20. What songs do you sing in the shower:
Anything I'm trying to remember the lyrics or artist of. Otherwise, I'm too self conscious.

21. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child?
Unknown monsterly things.

22. What's in your pockets right now?
Don't really feel like checking.

23. Last thing that made you laugh?
A post I made on a website that shall remain nameless.

24. Worst injury you've ever had?
I pulled my right ACL when I was trying to walk without crutches, and fell into my bed backwards, and twisted my knee. Had like 25 cops, firemen and EMS folks on scene.

25. How many TVs do you have in your house?
2.

26. Does someone have a crush on you?
No, but I do get hit on buy lots of guys when I hang out in Hillcrest.

27. Do you wish on the stars?
No

28. What is your favorite book?
Anything by Sarah Vowell. I am reading Radio On right now, which I got at a booksigning by her.

29. What is your favorite candy?
Snickers and Cadbury Creme Eggs, but I just love candy in general.

30. What song do you want played at your funeral? ....
"The One and Only" by Chesney Hawkes. Maybe. EDITED TO ADD: I have had "Whole of the Moon", by Waterboys stuck in my head this morning. Excellent song to have stuck in my head. I think I'll also ask for it to be played at my funeral.

31. What were you doing 12AM last night?
I was right here.

Tour cancelled.

We always think we're so hypervigilant about things. But not always. Never always. I am more used to using Greyhound for my trips across the mid-atlantic. I have coordinated only one trip on Amtrak, and my trip to New Jersey this weekend was to be the second. Greyhound has a guideline that if one bus for a schedule (schedule="flight", but in bus terms) gets filled, another one is added. I've never seen that not happen. Thing is, ya just can't make those promises when you're dealing with trains. I overlooked that fact, and when I plugged in Pittsburgh and New Brunswick on Amtrak's site, it said that they were all sold out. This just never happens on Greyhound, for obvious reasons.

On a lighter note, my cleaning people came, did a good job, and for some reason the female didn't feel like talking (which was nice, since, when she does, she goes on and on for half an hour at a time, once trying to bond with me over coincidental food poisoning episodes involving her, me, and my roommate).

I'll likely sleep in tomorrow, and maybe work on trying to get a volunteer gig. I will, I swear, work on getting some photos on here, soon. I did sign up, I think, for Webshots, so darn it, no excuse now!

Fantasy league season is morphing. The NCAA basketball tournament is progressing, and soon, we'll hit Major Fantasy League Soccer season, with Major League Soccer starting up in a month. I also have a team in Yahoo's Formula 1 and NASCAR leagues.

Wish me luck.

Come on Wiki, you can do it. Put a little power to it. On second thought...

Earlier this month Kristi Yamaoka, a cheerleader from Southern Illinois University, fell 15 feet or so while doing a stunt, injuring a lung and chipping a vertebra. Somebody in the media world was filming this as it all unfolded. It culminated in her being immobilized for transport to a hospital, and then breaking out in as much of a cheer (arm movements) as she could, from her stretcher as she was taken out.

I had heard of this somehow, but not paid it much heed until I saw it on Wikipedia. The girl has her own wiki now.

I'm just not sure what to make of that. It's certainly wonderful that she has come out of the accident all right, especially since it seems the world was equating a chipped vertebra to paralysis. It did not end that way, and it probably wouldn't have, if I know my anatomy. It seemed to me that she was indeed lucky to escape with a chip, rather than a clean break, but that only the latter would have likely impacted the actual cord. Funny, I have spina bifida, but I don't know if I'm right; there's still so much to be known about that system of the body.

It's just kind of bizarre to see this on Wikipedia. Not necessarily tasteless, but, well...I don't know. Funk & Wagnall's never included this sort of thing in their 1983 edition, I know that much. Just goes to show what different rules modern media goes by nowadays.

See you next year, Kristi. Stay safe.

Urban Decay Tour 2006---maybe with pics! Who knows.

Well, kids, I'm gonna be Amtrakkin' it once again. This time, following probably the same routing (*groan*), I'm heading to beautiful Piscataway, New Jersey, on Friday. Deliberately. Why?

THE 2006 EAGL GYMNASTICS CHAMPIONSHIPS! Go Panthers!

I was shopping at the local supermarket today and found that they do not sell disposable digital cameras, but they include a CD with every development job they do. So, I believe this is the key to my being able to share with you, my fans, my lovely mug, and the even lovelier urban decay that seems to be North Jersey.

I just need to figure out how to upload my CD pics onto my website. I guess I need one of those flickr or Webshots accounts, no?

Almost time for Folkungavallen to rock the house.

As I previously said, I do not like the Big 4 sports in America. However, I do rather rabidly follow soccer and gymnastics. For the former, I have participated in Major Fantasy League Soccer. This year, I will do the same, with Folkungavallen FC, which I named after the home pitch of Linkoping FC, a Swedish women's team. I fully expect to get my rear handed to me, but it's a nice way to enrich my hours as an MLS/USL couch potato.

Am I suddenly "cool"?

I have gone mad! I have gone March Mad! I decided to join Rae's fantasy NCAA men's basketball tournament league. Be it known, if it isn't already, that I am famous for not following the big American sports. I can't even make good small talk when some UPS guy asks me who's going to win the Broncos-Red Sox game on Friday.

Granted, I'm not watching the tube right now, but I was rather captivated by the San Diego State-Indiana game last night. Helps, I suppose, that I am a native of San Diego, but still...it held my attention! A first!

In other news, I'm contemplating getting myself a crabcake for dinner. And a tiramisu. Who is this La Morra guy that keeps puttin' out suck kick arse tiramisu anyhow?!

Slogans of the hour:
University of Montana---Come study at the axis of evil.
La Morra---We do tiramisu right.
Sacramento State---well...can't think of one for them, but they'll kick Montana's Big Skybutt next season. Go Hornets

We all fight the whammy...

...but (eventually) the whammy wins.

Good on the guy for maintaining direction in his life, especially through his volunteerism.

C but no e to do list

1. Get them darned links in order. I forget exactly what I was doing, but I really messed up my code, and all my links to other blogs and other places on the web that I like went poof! Grrrrrrr. That's all I have to say about that, yo.

2. Get a pic of my bad self up. First, I need to figure out if, and where, I can digitize pics from a disposable, because that's exclusively what I use. No money for a digital pancypants camera. And certainly no video camera, like Brittney used on her latest post (13 March, I think). I just feel a lack on connection with people who read this blog. Whoever does Rae's pics does a nice job of capturing her persona (well, presumably). I feel like I know her somehow. As for me, for all you know, I could be 19 feet tall with a mottled purple complexion and pink smoke rising from my forearms. You never know.

3. Repair my stats counter. I had one just like what Rae had. Pretty neat-o gadget. It recorded all the search strings, which I find rather hilarious.

4. Maybe tinker with color scheme a bit, or font. Who knows.

Anything I'm missing?

Dinner:
frozen ravioli alfredo, canned corn, peanuts, and four slices of "buttered" wheat bread. Water with a squirt of bottled lemon juice to drink, in a 20 oz plastic bottle originally filled with some Surge-like energy soda. Nice souvenir from NYC if I do say so myself (and I...guess I do).

Not sure why I feel compelled to divulge all this, but consider it irrevocably divulged.

OK, so yeah, New York. I went to it.

Well, I really should have posted this right when I got back (last Wednesday, maybe? Geez, week and a half ago!), but unfortunately, I suffered from a few days of fatigue, followed by a few more days of laziness :P .

So, yeah. It was my second trip to NYC. In the mid-1990's, I went on a very ill-conceived day trip with a bunch of folks from my college in southeastern Vermont. It wound up being a four hour trip down there, and a four hour trip back, leaving us with five hours to communally figure out what we wanted to do. We settled on lunch at Hard Rock, which I can't stand, and then we went to FAO Schwartz and a few other places that I can't even recall. It was kind of lame.

But this year, things were different, albeit not without their plusses and minusses. I left Pittsburgh on the morning of the 7th, at about 7 am. This time, I took Amtrak, whereas I usually travel on Greyhound when it's a day or weekend trip. Not sure why my preference. Amtrak was quite lovely. Spacious, comfortable seats, gracious attendants who weren't overbearing. It was quite nice, albeit very long. We passed through Harrisburg, Lancaster, Lewistown, Acton, a couple other Philly suburbs, then on into New Jersey, which was quite...well...brown. Dead vegetation, lots of dirt, and tons of reddish-brown brick buildings. We stopped in Trenton, Princeton, and Newark, that I remember. New Jersey was basically pretty depressing. There was poverty everywhere, especially around New Brunswick on north. Maybe it's just that, due probably to nimbyism, the tracks go through really gawdawful places.

So, without any problem, we eventually make it to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in Manhattan, somewhere around 8th avenue and 43rd street. So, I get out and figure out what my options are as far as getting to Columbus Circle (which wouldn't be too hard, seeing as I had two hours). I wind up spending a good 30 minutes trying to figure out where the busses and subway are, and which would be better for me. The busses were at the surface, and the subway was, if I remember, one floor below me. I say "What the heck", and shell out two bucks for the subway(the A train, to be specific).

While waiting for the next A, I dang near lose my balance near the edge of the platform. My sleepy fatigue, stiffness, and the freeway-like pedestrian traffic patterns are a potentially lethal mix, I found. But no, I didn't fall onto the tracks, thank gosh. :)

So, the A train arrives, and I board. Somebody asks if I want their seat, and I kindly decline, and they give me a look of puzzlement, as I am on crutches due to my disability. So, I had to explain that I was getting off in two stops. Pretty easy ride, just like DC's Metro, if y'all have been that way.

So, I get out, and head on up the stairs to the surface, as the elevators are broken. I get out onto the circle, and find the Shops pretty easily. Borders is at the top of the escalator. I get there an hour early, but about half the seats are already taken. I secure one in the front row, though.

La dee dah de dah. Boy, there's no room between seats, here. That sucks. But hey, I'm only two feet from where Sarah Vowell will be. Wheeeeeeee!

So, Sarah Vowell shows up, and as soon as the lively, artsy Borders people glowingly introduce her, she launches into a reading from her latest book, Assassination vacation. She reads for about 20 minutes, touching upon Canada for some of it, which I find fascinating. Other than that, I'm zoning more into her well-known, teenly voice than what she actually says. I am very tired at this point. More so than I had hoped. That's OK, though.

After she finished reading, she fielded some questions. She was utterly charming in her responses, but I just couldn't think of a good question I wanted to ask. So I let that opportunity go. After the Q&A, the ushers explained the queueing procedure, and I got almost first dibs. I couldn't think of anything to say; I was reeeally tired. So Sarah just opened up the book, said "Hi, Cory" (they post-it noted our names in the books we bought), and I said hello back, and she signed it. She was a lovely, approachable gir...uh...woman. I am inspired to go to another reading of hers next year.

So, I leave, go down the escalator, and head out to the circle, whhere I stand (they really should have benches) and mack on a Nature Valley bar and an MDX or some such drink. Then I just start walk walk walking. For the most part, I wind up accidentally avoiding any tourist spots. Also of note, even though Manhattan is a fairly logical grid, there were at least five instances where I went completely around the block I was on, making no progress. So, I'm walkin' NYC as though it's some ordinary city like Spokane, really having no clue where anything is, but not outright lost, either. This goes on for a couple of fairly quick hours, and then suddenly, without even meaning to, I bump into the Radio City Music Hall. The RCMH is one of those places that I know is all famous and historical, but I have no clue why. Probably has one of those award shows or whatever. I avoid that stuff. Neat building though. And very important-looking.

A little while later, after having completely given up on it, I happen upon the Ed Sullivan Theater, home to Dave Letterman's Late Show, on CBS. It was nicely lit up with it's blue LATE SHOW sign. That was the only site I had dreamed of seeing, but up until that point, my errant sense of logic was keeping me from it. My trip was now complete---with about two hours to go.

So, at that point, I knew I was on Broadway, so I start walking towards the lights. A bunch of theaters, a Twizzler store (didn't know those existed), a McDonald's that delivers (didn't know those existed), and an endless stream of controlled chaos. I just stood with my back resting on the window of some restaurant, and just watched life occur.

Fun stuff. On the whole, not too much emergency action. Only one fire truck (24 Ladder, I think), and one FDNY ambulance. There wasn't much of a police presence, at least not in the normal sense. There were several bizarre occurrences of a long line of maybe ten NYPD cruisers behind an unmarked car barreling through the streets in linear formation with their red and white lights and sirens on. I never thought to ask an idle policeman what that was about.

So, I head back, just deciding to walk---no bus, no subway. Twenty blocks or so, but lots of time to cover it. I get back, and eventually make it downstairs to Greyhound at Port Authority (yes, Greyhound, not Amtrak. I had to settle for an Amtrak on the morning of the seventh on the way to NYC, rather than a bus on the night of the 6th).

Here's one little quirk about me: I have a minor elevator phobia. It's worse when said elevators are slow and creaky and/or jerky, which is the case throughout NYC, IMHO. So, my night wasn't too fun. I had to ride several times because I kept getting lost trying to find the ticket counter. Signage just stinks in NYC.

But, I got my ticket, got myself a meager Greyhound generic dinner of a tuna sandwich, a pretzel, a cherry yoghurt, and I think a bottled watter. Slept a bit, got called to the bus at 3:30 am, on schedule, and slept basically to Harrisburg.

In the past few days, I have slept and otherwise vegged some more. My arms were insanely sore from walking, and my sleep pattern was disrupted pretty badly. I also thought I had caught a cold, but that never materialized.

So, all in all, quite an amazing trip. Not sure whether or not it's my favorite city, but is quite special. Unfortunately, due to a late change in my travel plans, I had no opportunity for photos. It was almost dark when I got there.

accidental makeover

Well, kiddoes, c but no e isn't quite itself today. See, I decided I'd get all creative and whatnot, and try to install a graphical title banner, like Rae did. I'm not a runner or a lovely redheaded female, but I dig the concept of the graphical banner, just to make this thing my own a bit more. Oh well. I screwed up. Least noone died as a result.

On another note, isn't the women's basketball selection show today? Gotta see who Geno's Huskies get to beat up on!

On yet another, more boring note, I'm going shopping tomorrow. Inevitably, it'll be without a shopping list, and inevitable, I'll buy easter candy, because hey, easter candy rocks hard core. But while there, I'm going to avail myself of the opportunity to pick the photo people's brains. You see, I want pics on this site. I just want so desperately for the world to know what I look like. I feel like I owe it to the world.

OK, enough melodramatics. But I do think this e-less c could use a bit more...je ne sais quoi. Je ne sais quoi is good, right? So, I'm a-gonna pick some brains about whether they have or know of any services to digitize pics from a disposable.

That's the way it's gotta be, 'cause that's the way I like it. And darn it, I'm Amtrakking to North Jersey in a couple of weeks to see the Pitt gymnasts at Rutgers. Don't y'all wanna see some pics from the projects?!?!

Yes you do.

Sloppy Dan 1941-2006

So, Slobodan Milosevic, former European leader who was being tried for war crimes, has passed away in the Hague. Could Saddam be next, or will he live to be executed? We (pronounced "I") here at c but no e welcome your input.

Tired, sore, and hangnaily...but very much clinically alive!

That's me. I'm back. I managed to make it work...on Amtrak. I'm gonna keep this short and largely irrelevant until I fully recuperate.

Hey, did yinz hear that Major League Soccer's MetroStars (the team in the New Jersey suburbs of NYC) were, I believe, bought out by Red Bull , the energy drink folks? So therefore, MetroStars have changed their name to Red Bull New York. Or maybe it's the New York Red Bulls. I don't think any of us will really ever know. But hey, man! MLS has a new sponsor on board! Makes me wanna cave in and buy that vile-looking (in the nicest way) drink.

On a semi-related note, let's play "Fun With Yahoo!" I'll go first!

I want badly to move to New Jersey.

An actual recap to follow soon, I promise.

holding my horses

Oops. Dang bus leaves at 1:30 am tomorrow morning, which could be construed to be an extension of tonight. The transportation arrangement I have here in Pittsburgh requires that I plan a day ahead. Oops.

But we'll see if I can cook up a good Plan B to get to the Greyhound station.

I just love my time management LD.

a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes Sarah

Well kiddies, I am off to brave a swarm of yellow taxi cabs. Yessiree Zeb, I am going for a day trip (yes, day trip---on GREYHOUND!!!) to New York City. I am going to a booksigning by the witty and vocally charming single atheist Sarah Vowell.

Oddly, I haven't the foggiest clue what the heck I'm gonna do to pass the bulk of my time. I went to NYC last in the mid '90s. On a really badly planned daytip from Putney, Vermont (thankfully nowhere near Burlington), where we took 5 hours to get there, leaving us with four hours in the city. We went to FAO Schwartz (which I found out did not fold a few years later, contrary to rumors), the Hard Rock Cafe, and a few other things I can't remember. I was kind of frustrated, though. Felt hurried, like cattle.

This time, though, I arrive at maybe 8:00 am, and don't need to be in west Manhattan's Borders Columbus Circle 'til 7:00. I have absolutely zero plans as to what to do, except maybe try to find the Ed Sullivan Theater.

Stay tuned. Or at least file a police report if I take too long to update this blog.

Thanks. You're the best.

Davidus Bowieski

I had some nasty insomnia last night. I sometimes get that way if I've, say, posted an important thread on a bulletin board and am waiting intently for it to be answered. Such, if I remember correctly, was the case last night.

I forgot to set my alarm, and I awoke to the sound of the door buzzer. Right before I realized that was happening, I was amidst an odd dream that a guy who looked exactly like David Bowie had walked into my room when I was still sleeping. Thing is, he started speaking to me in an Eastern European accent.

I sort of wonder if the door buzzer and the dream were related. If someone is in a leaden sleep, can you just...like...wake them to the point that they are dreaming, but aware of it, and not really functionally awake?

Does that make any sense? Any of you into dreams and such?

background check

So, what do you have as desktop backgrounds right now? Mine is this. I'm kind of a geek, especially with regard to symbolism and nomenclature. I've long been fascinated by highway markers. Colorful, but plainly informative. I like this site, which describes all that you ever have wanted to understand regarding our highway coding and such. Many sections of signage errors, as well, where maybe U.S. 5 is marked as Vermont 5 (which does not exist). Many articles on this and other sites also go in depth to explain route numbering systems (if they aren't completely random). including oddities like West Virginia's "fractional highways".

Let's all post a blog entry about what a geek I am.

(Ever been in the mood to blog like crazy, but not had any good ideas? That's about where I am tonight. Don't mind me.)

Who's famous?!

Brittney is!!!!! Brittney Brittney Brittney!!!

Sheesh!

Brittney's famous.

But those of us that matter know that.

Click on "play video" under that guy with the "It's Sarah" graphic underneath. Does she have an accent? I have no speakers, so just tell me (and all of us who read c but).