*pronounced, "nuthin' ta dew with anythin'." For the record.

*"Summer weight wool," isn't that like, an oxy-moron? Or better yet, isn't it an ironic term?

"Each small event in life has a meaning, he thought, each event connects us to the web of life. Strands of the past return to haunt us; the past is never dead."
From Alburquerque by Rudolfo Anaya. NY: Warner Books, 1992.

7/31
Transcendental bait (sushi)
Been a long, long time for me. Not that long since I've had raw tuna, but a long time since I've had "the devil roll" at that little place in Dallas.

Many years ago, it was place I went with my sister and friends, and we were all, like, high-rolling, Dallas-style. Carefully cut casual clothing that was less than casual. That "affluent but not" look. And that place was, at the time, the only place to get good sushi in Dallas.

Couple of years ago, a Virgo re-introduced me to the place. A little more casual, as befits my Austin roots, and then, I came face-to-face, or face-to-fin-to-chopstick with "the devil roll." Or, as their menu says, "ultra spicy hot."

"Kramer, I've never seen you cry before," my date for the evening said.

The guy rolling the rice? He tricked me. It's a good place for sushi, around the corner from the Apple store, and yellow-tail was acceptable, but the devil roll was outstanding. Still might be outstanding.

Tricky bastard.

The first slice of devil roll was good, but not so hot that I cried. Second slice, same deal. Then I started at the other end because I'd examined the way the sushi roll was constructed. It's supposed to be eaten in one order, left to right (or right to left, depends on how it's served), and the thin slices aren't as loaded with searing hot sauce. Instead of following the prescribed order, I worked backwards, after I realized the trickery. Mastery and trickery. And hot unlike any kind of Mexican-hot heat.

It's that horseradish - wasabi kind of a hot.

I have seen the light, and I was just short of downing a full glass of water. but tears were coming down my cheeks.

Man enough to take it, and the sushi chef appreciated that I appreciated his mastery. Tricky "cook."

It also prompted a call to Sister to remind her we'd 'been there before," and I was attempting to get her to tell the "Kramer eating sushi story."

I think this trumps it. Devil Roll. It's pure heaven.

7/31
Old ghosts?
"I ain't afraid of no ghost!"

Mecca (Dallas version): I suppose it means something when there's a table with at least six cops sitting at it, like, the food's good or something.

Then, I watched through the window while two more LEOs showed up. (LEO = Law Enforcement Officer, not someone born between July 21 and Virgo.)"Enough cops here?" he muttered.

Another officer was joining him, and there's something ulta-not-sexy about getting out of a mini-van. But that could be my own, personal coloring.

Coffee: new place in Dallas. And surprise, the staff was friendly, and the coffee was amazingly good: tell them Bubba sent you.

Virgo and Scorpio sisters, apparently. Trendy, uber-hipster name: GACHET. But surprisingly enough, a really smooth, deep espresso that made my hair curl. More.

While I waxed eloquent, I doubt my sincerity was appreciated. But it was true. The first time I've tasted something better than Little City's brew. Or Jo's. That's smooth. Smooth & strong. Like I'd like my women?

"No, he likes his women like an iced double espresso: cold & bitter."

The ghosts? I'm not sure there here anymore. I'm not sure some of the folks are aware of their history, either. Lower Greenville, I asked the Virgo, "You know where the old Hot Club was?"

She didn't have a clue. After motoring around for a few moments, I spotted the location. Next to the head shop. Not anymore. I suppose, in part, some of this history occurred before she was born, but that's also what makes the place famous.

The Tango Frogs, on top of Carl's Corner, to Daddy-O's work, the Lone Star Cafe in NY, the fish outside the Hula Hut in Austin. Back to Lower Greenville. Maybe they should call South Congress, in Austin, Lower Congress instead.

Back at the show, back at work? The Aries from the Scientology booth kept cruising me.

"Red and White/Blue Suede shoes.
I'm Uncle Sam/How do you do?
Give me five/I'm still alive.
Ain;'t no luck/I learned to duck."
(Hunter - Garcia, U.S. Blues)

I was once interviewed by the FBI, while I was a part-time property manager. Some tenant had called in with a suspicious (something) about another tenant. The, I'm assuming, local FBI was following up. At my employer's behest, I quickly ran copies of everything on file of the suspicious tenant, who wasn't from an Arabic country, and was speaking Portugues, not an Arab dialect. The funniest part of the interaction, between me and the agents? I kept scanning the badge he flipped, looking for a birthday, like a driver's license. I don't remember the guy's name, but they are just like on TV.

*Does anyone really care? "This is Radio Clash"

"questio quid juris" (prologue)

"I have, God woot, a large feeld to ere,
And wayke been the oxen in my plough."
(Knight's Tale, lines 886-7)

"This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo
And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro."
(Knight's Tale, lines 2847-8)

Field testing Saturday's rig

If the gods have made decisions about me and the things that happen to me, then they were good decisions. (It's hard to picture a god who makes bad ones.) And why would they expend their energies on causing me harm? What good would it do them - or the world, which is there primary concern?
--Marcus Aurelius Meditations, Book Six, chapter 44.

Bacardi 151 Congratulations! You're 139 proof, with specific scores in beer (80) , wine (66), and liquor (156).

All right. No more messing around. Your knowledge of alcohol is so high that you have drinking and getting plastered down to a science. Sure, you could get wasted drinking beer, but who needs all those trips to the bathroom? You head straight for the bar and pick up that which is most efficient.

Here the light was honest-everything it touched was sharply focused, outlined in heat. The sun kept its eye on the city until its very last moment, looking at you as if to say: "Tomorrow I'm going to kick your ass." (page 11)

There was another decent little bass, on Sidewinder, one of my favorite earrings. I was getting ready for the Gulf next week, and I managed a decent bass on a test rig. Too bad I accidently erased the image.

"Bummer, dude."

Yeah verrily.

Wake Up call | Bass Pro Live Bait vending machine | Mercury Hurricane


(yellow line)

Brit Press:
Guardian's story on the attack.

Which affects the price of oil.

Then the same group, supposedly, claimed to kill the Egyptian envoy.

Unrelated stories:
All about how the rural US is gripped by a meth epidemic.

Archeology. Including some British Romans.

I had a chance to catch Robert Earl Keen live at the ballpark, July 4th. As always, an amazing set. He played for about an hour, after the ball game. His latest album? I'm thinking it's one of his best, if you go for that kind of music.

(click to for larger image)

6/30
Where the rubber meets the road
I wasn't thinking about it as I traversed the trails, highways and byways, me, shuffling from a trailer park to the post office and then back home again, or, I wasn't thinking about it until I happened to see a bicycle.

No ordinary bicycle, nope, not that one. It had a front set of forks with telescopic tubes, rubber dust boots, like old-school dirt bikes, a weird mono-shock rear end, I'm guessing upwards of 24 gears, and a strong lock. Lock was probably the heaviest part of the bike, again, I'm guessing here, but I'm sure it was built out of "unobtainium," which is a special alloy of only the lightest, strongest, most tensile strength, highest-priced material around.

Cool wheels.

I was slurping the grounds out of an iced-espresso, shirt in one hand, sandals going "flip-flop" on the pavement, wondering.

Previously linked, and I can't find it now, there was story about a guy who dropped out of one world and became a bicycle messenger. For fun and profit. What I recall, and I might have this wrong - heavens won't be the first time I was incorrect - but what I recall was that he suggested a single speed bike for messenger work. and if it was an expensive frame? Cover in trashy decals to hide that fact, maybe a can of cheap spray paint - make it less of a target.

I was doing a little, kind of idle, mental compare and contrast, and which lifestyle would I prefer? I kind of like the one I've got. Simple.

Set of wheels like that one bike? Set me back two months work, minimum, I'm guessing. Me, personally? I'd be afraid to leave something that nice locked up downtown while I sauntered into a coffee shop for an afternoon libation, or worse, for an hour long reading. I'd be afraid. To be sure, there's at least one or two places I wouldn't be afraid to leave it, but then, those are places where I'm known asa regular, and in these parts, neighbors do look out for each other.

But otherwise? Not likely. I'm more along the lines of that bicycle courier's tome about a durable, not-afraid-to-crash-it, single-speed. Day in, day out, hard daily use? That's what it's about. Footnote to advertising:
Via a Capricorn's web log, a note about trust. Issues. Whatever.

6/29
Design issue
I've been toying with an idea - a pledge drive - a cure for the dog days of summer - and fittingly - astrologically so - a good way to wrap up the current planet mess.

It's a simple idea, go back to a splash page. The default page, have it be nothing but a couple of links. One would be the free horoscopes, one would be the subscriber "current" horoscopes (less than 2% advertising), sales, site index, and the fine print. Simple. Not too many links. Should load in less than a second.

The image I snapped Tuesday afternoon, on my way for a swim in the creek. I kept toying with the image, but I couldn't figure out how to work it into a simple splash page. The key is simple.

There's a couple of sites I hit almost daily, and one of them is an online version of a newspaper comic. Although I've bookmarked the URL to go straight to the dynamic page that renders the daily version of the strip, I've encountered problems, and I've found it's easier to hit the introduction page, then click once to get to what I want. But in two other examples, I skip the splash and go straight to the content.

I tend to prefer the content being straight up on the front page. Way I like my web sites. But then, I could run this a for a little while, see if it helps with the sign up process.

Splash or not? Take the plunge?

Two-meat Tuesday
[style=floatpicright>[/style>But first, a word from our sponsor? This article was almost disturbing. Except, I'm all about full disclosure. Want something plugged in this spot? Offer up some cash, we can talk. Obviously, the Amazon links work, as they call it, "an affiliate." Doesn't generate much cash, but every little bit helps. And is appreciated. Plus, there's no hiding the fact that it's a sponsored link.

I've tried dozens of advertising options, but only that Amazon seems to provide reliable results. Book beats:
Radio Activity by the always funny Libra (if I recall correctly) Bill Fitzhugh. He's a good writer, and he hooked me first with Pest Control, and it's been long series of entertaining novels since. Besides, he heralds from Jackson, Mississippi, if I recall. There's that "Southern" flavor that seems to run through all his texts. A proper sense of the absurd. As a little bonus, I like his "recently read" selections, on his website.

So far, with this one book? It's a murder mystery framed around rock radio formats. In fact, I don't care about the murder mystery - the filler is far more interesting, and what's odd, there's a carefully hidden skewering of homogenized, taped elsewhere, canned (think Clear Channel) formating. Gentle satire. Brilliant.

On the aforementioned author's website, in one of the book reviews he's written, he said that Stephen King wrote that the secret to writing is to lock yourself in room every morning and not come out until you've written 2,000 words.

What was amusing to me, and tickled my senses? The Bill Fitzhugh alleges that it's a good day if he gets out 250 words, much less 2,000. Just color me someplace in between. Commute times: There's a new super store that's making, almost literally, quite a splash. A new Cabela's, on the interstate, between Austin and San Marcos. Or, in a more general way, on the road between Austin and San Antonio. Virtually the present-day outskirts of town.

I've shopped Bass Pro a number of times, it's nice enough. I suspect that this Cabela's, from all the pre-press I've seen thus far? It's about the same. Same size, same gear.

The biggest problem I foresee? That location? It's going to add hours to my monthly commute to work in San Antonio.

The Pisces got the deal, as the oracle predicted, and the Aquarius server brought the best ribs I've had in a long while. Then Sandy's for a quick cone, and back around to Jo's for Sagittarius coffee. For just a split second, or several hours, all afternoon, life was good. Unrelated inter-web history: The life and death of Suck, as no doubt, linked elsewhere, is a big inter-web splash these days. I never did look much at the site, not after the first year or two. The web was narrow back then. Here's the official timeline for my web work:

1994, monthly Fishing Guide to the Stars scopes introduced as a way to learn cgi programming. Also appears on students' web pages.
1995, moved to it's own 'web space' at the then legendary "io.com."
July, 1995, introduced weekly scopes.
August, 1995, picked up for AOL's astronet.
August, 1998, moved server and added the vanity URL, astrofish.net.
November, 1998, added a blog.
January, 2002, moved to a Thursday format.
July, 2005, celebrate ten years of a weekly column on the inter-web thing.

And finally, some nice South First Street "sidewalk" philosophy:

Cherchez les poissons:

Cherchez les poisson:

(These images are from a camera phone, old school camera-on-the-phone.)

Sidebar about Apple/Intel:
It should be so obvious? "iNETEL iNSIDE?

Blogging sidebar:
EFF guideline to legal stuff about blogging. (I wonder, can I sue myself? For that bad check?) What happens when I say bad things about me?

Dot-boom?
CNN Money is reporting that there's a mini-"dot boom" going on.

From the useless stats department:
(Pursuant to yesterday's notation) I was looking at the hit counter, and it's gone backwards, forwards and basically, it's not reading anything but the up-to-the-minute updates for either this week, today, yesterday, who knows what all. However, according to the server stats, real-time hardware info? The site averages about 100,000 "hits" each month (this year).

(I was "stuck on a horoscope," as it was.)

(Life imitates art?)

(two tiny bass and another fish)

Sign by the roadside: