sharon has a great new template for her great blog. i had the pleasure of giving her a bit of a hand with it. what a somewhat odd, yet very cool experience of working with someone half way around the world which you have never met. this along with the people i've gotten to know on at least some level thru blogging point to me the "humanizing" potential of technology.

based on my experience, here are some tips for those thinking of changing their blogger templates (could be adapted for other systems i bet) - esp. if someone is giving you a hand:
a. create a test blog to try out your template - hey they are free - can always delete them later
b. if someone is helping you make them an administrator on the test blog
c. have at it...exchange msgs either by emal or by posting to the test blog...
d. when your happy - copy to real blog - if you want you can backup your old template

and, by the way, if anyone else needs a hand, let me know - i'll help to the degree i have time...

bbc6 album of the day is from the ramones 1977 - they are playing surfin' bird

thanks suggs and the folks at the bbc - this really helps (see previous entry)

i'm kind of tired, very achy, probably depressed and don't feel like doing anything; so i won't.

i am moving into the "software testing" phase of my summer project. it is a little known fact, but a couple of years back, a few states started pilot programs geared to move their prison systems into the 21st century by having prisoners perform software testing. human rights organizations protested immediately and vigorously. in a string of rare unanimous decisions, the supreme court found each program violated the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause of the constitution and therefore were unconstitutional. hundreds of prisoners gleefully returned to the relatively cushy job of breaking big rocks with heavy sledgehammers in the sweltering sun.

OK - the song survey was fun, so i thought i'd make a band survey - when answering these questions disregard, if you wish, trivialities as time, space, money and death, as we are surely beyond all those things by now...

Which band/musical performer:

would you get to play your birthday party, if you could: Ruben Gonzales - the Buena Vista Social Club

did you have a crush on: Sheryl Crow (did?)

do you think, personality-wise, you'd fit in with: Steely Dan - although 3 smirking, aging, quasi-hipsters that can't sing might be insufferable

should you skip the records and see live? Santana

should you skip the show and buy the records? Queen

has aged the most gracefully? Neil Young and Wayne Shorter

has aged least gracefully? The Who (they would have won this award pre-Entwistle's death - now it is a lock)

do you wish you would have seen? Beatles, The Who (with Moon), Hendrix, Monk, Ornette

do you wish would re-unite (assuming there are bands that haven't reunited)? Talking Heads - though it's probably good they leave us with fond memories

do you think should have made it big, but didn't? Tin Huey

will everyone be talking about in a year? No Clue (not a band, a comment, help me out here)

dresses the best? Neil Young (our first two time winner)

is great, but get too much praise? Radiohead

is most unjustly ignored? badi assad

would you travel furthest to see? ralph towner/oregon

have you seen the most times? pat metheny group

do you have the most recordings of? ralph towner/oregon (second two time winner)

it was muddy waters, i believe, who sang "the blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll" - well, if bessie smith and werner von braun had some babies and they formed a band, they might have sounded like the group of guys playing at our research facility for some summertime fun. it was the birth of a new genre "scientific blues rock". i imagine the band were all staff members - and their lyrics included "got that mojo workin', won't be no research today". isn't it wonderful when lyrics really speak to you? that kind of sums up my day.

during my summer fellowship i do not blog at all until i get home. there is a rather ominous message when you boot up about using the machine for only authorized business and as much i as i love blogging, i can't see going to jail over it. at school on the other hand, given i am a computer science instructor, i must keep current with internet trends and therefore blogging is acceptable, dare i say, it is my duty.

got a great comment from a close friend who said that for a successful person work and play cannot be distinguished. perhaps that is why i am always out skating when there is work to be done.

heard a tune by the stone roses on the bbc (i am the resurrection, or something like that) - was very good - got a glimpse why the brits seem to love these guys so much...

coming soon - (perhaps later tonight, perhaps even now )- a band survey, much like the somg survey!

tonight, at the pool

a one act blogplay^®

strongly based on actual events

kid 1: (gets out of the pool)
kid 2: hey, where are you going?
kid 1: i gotta go to the bathroom.
kid 2: oh, my sister just pees in the pool.
me: crikey!

-fin-

ps - the guy is WAY too tough on the beasties as well - anyone who writes the lyric "i got more hits than sadahuro oh" can't be all bad...

One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Collection Immediately is so much fun, that i will hold back a bit when i thrash the author for including captain beefheart's trout mask replica, miles' bitches brew, coltrane's giant steps, husker du (how du you make that sideways colon thing over the u's) zen arcade and bob marley's legend. but only a bit...

great site, if, like me, you find the world's greatest rock and roll band the world's least comprehensible band - you know finding out the actual lyrics is kinda like finding out the secrets to magic tricks - i'm not sure i want to know. i kinda liked it better when i thought it was "...heartbreaker, with your bowling ball..."

kristiv added some categories to the song survey...the only one i care to add to mine is:

what song makes you want to headbang?
toxicity - system of a down

in what must be the musical equivalent of changing political parties, i have changed my vote for "the world's greatest rock and roll band" from the beatles to...

survey nicked from kristiv

Which song

reminds you of an ex-friend:
uh - what's that song by blues traveler

makes you cry:
beatles - in my life

makes you laugh:
anything by ian dury

makes you wanna dance:
got to get it up - marvin gaye

makes you wanna sing:
take a chance on me - abba

reminds you of the one you love:
pat metheny - secret story cd

do you wish you wrote:
icarus - oregon

do you never want to hear again:
anything by journey

do you want to get married to:(in my case, i WISH we'd have used this song..)
i think it's named "thank you" by led zeppelin - you know - "if the sun refuse to shine..."

sums up your teenage years:
the who - baba o'riley

do you like to wake up to:
stones - exile on mainstreet (whole album)

do you like out of your parents record collection:
muddy waters

do you love that you wouldn't know about if it wasn't for a friend:
alive - P.O.D.

do you love the video more than the tune:
close to the edit - art of noise

do you love which is from your favourite movie:
From O Brother Where Art Thou;
Ralph Stanley - A Man Of Constant Sorrow (gotta go with your answer here, stina - great one)

makes you think of the moon:
tonight - smashing pumpkins

makes you think of stars:
across the universe - the beatles

makes you think of the sun:
i want to soak up the sun - sheryl crow

makes you think of the night:
crepuscule with nelly - monk

makes you think of sex:
marvin gaye - let's get it on

makes you think of being alone:
beatles - eleanor rigby

(ok - i cheatedand sometimes did not name specific songs..., also, i've edited out some irrelevant questions):

one of my favorite bloggers fluid pudding has returned from her vacation. in her latest post, ms. pudding, a fellow vegetarian describes a snippy flight attendant who insisted tuna was appropriate for a vegetarian - read her full account...i hope ms. pudding gave the attendant a sound thrashing

anyhow, it seems like there is a lot of misunderstanding about vegetarians. i've been asked if i eat chicken. i've been asked if i eat fish or other seafood. sometimes, amusingly, people ask if i'm allowed to eat fish. i think folks get confused between catholic lenten rules (which forbid meat (from land animals) on friday, but allow fish) and vegetarianism. one person, in particular, was rather insistent that i was allowed to eat fish. it is as though people cannot conceive that one would follow their own ethical guidelines - people assume that i must be following some set of rules someone else defined.

while it is only a word, to me a vegetarian strives to eat nothing that came as a result of killing an animal - that includes beef, pork,fowl, fish, snakes, bugs, etc... it's actually even harder than just avoiding all those given all the "natural ingredients" and hidden animal products in much of the food.

you don't know how often as i glide thru my neighborhood on my skates, i'll hear someone yell out "hey space! what's your fitness secret?" (actually that never happens, but wouldn't it be cool if it did, in case it does, i felt it prudent to have an answer ready)

MY TRAINING SECRETS
1. some activity is better than none
2. watching what you eat some of the time is better than watching what you eat none of the time
3. try to get better at 1 or 2, but remember to have fun, listen to your body and balance your fitness with everything else in your life.

tonight, i had other things going on, but still managed to do a bit of yoga and as the evening wound down, i got to strap on my skates and cruise for about 15 minutes. granted with a workout regime like this casey fitzrandolph has little to worry about. yet, for me, taking a simple approach like this has meant enormous physical and mental benefits.

edward abbey quotes

"man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." (a quote he joking attributed to louisa may alcott when he was editor of the university of new mexico student newspaper. the misattribution got him fired.")

"the fear of death follows from the fear of life"

"one good laugh is worth a thousand homilies."

"i write to entertain my friends and to exasperate our enemies."

perhaps if he were alive, he'd have nothing to do with the internet, but i gotta think - what a great blogger he'd have been!

ok - now i'm p*ssed - after sitting thru - as god is my witness - a song in tribute to hunting dogs (to the tune of the old irish hymn, i believe, lord of the dance (not the michael flatley one, btw, but horrific enough)), which, if anywhere else but oln i'd have sweared was a parody - NOW, huntin' with hank is on?

what's up with that? if i recall my high school french (taught by a lovely ingenue...) OU EST LE PELOTON, AUJOURD'HUI?

anyhow, think i'm done template fiddling - i quite like it - this has kinda turned into a tour de france theme - blue for us postal, yellow for le maillot jaune.

an old high school acquaintance pointed out how amazing it was that i had such cute kids. it was said not in an overtly jocular fashion nor in a mean, spiteful way. somehow, the matter-of-fact-ness about it made it all the rougher...

anyhow the party was kind of fun, though as designated driver, you get a new insight on how obnoxious other people get when drinking - got bored and tired - music was too loud to really talk to anyone - although given the above conversation snippet, undoubtedly that was probably a good thing. anti-social tendencies took over as i slipped away to my car to lay down and get away from the "excitement" and to chill to massive attack's mezzanine - another one of those cd's i picked up a while back and am only really getting into now...

anyhow, after having literally one sip of a margarita, I wake up with a headache - fortunately, it has seemed to have gone away quite quickly. went for a very leisurely skate - only turned on the jets for a couple of straight-aways on the best pavement. still just a bit sore from fri's yoga seminar - not as bad as i thought and oddly enough not the legs as expected and is usually the case - but a bit thru the shoulders - one too many down dogs, i guess, (adho mukha svanasana, for those fluent in sanskrit) - a very basic pose which manouso's insight,as usual, brought new depth to...

anyhow, oln is showing some stoopid fishing show instead of le tour - perhaps it the coverage is just starting a bit late today - oh well, the torture never stops