Wow, I'm really terrible at this whole "blogging" thing...

You know, the reason I started this blog (my fourth...or fifth...geez, I suck) was to give myself a special place devoted to recording and sharing the precious nuggets of wisdom and insight that rattle about in my head constantly. Only, I guess I really don't have any precious nuggets rattling about, 'cause if I did, I'd post more frequently than every 4 weeks.

Well, anyhow...

Hey, it's fall, right? That's cool.

Of course, the start of autumn in the South means a cessation of full-on summer, but not yet the arrival of cool, crisp days, nor the return of frosty, enchanted evenings. Nope, the early fall in the South is more about the decline and end of one season than it is about the start of another. Early fall in the South is really late summer, in the same way that late spring is really early summer. True fall (leaves, wood smoke, cider, pumpkins, crazy blue skies, banjos - yes, banjos: autumn is the most bluegrassy time of the year) is still better than a month away. But, hey, it's not 90 degrees, there's a chill on the breeze, and there are giant bags of Halloween candy in the stores, so we'll take what we can get.

I think this is my new favorite web page...

Best of Craigslist.

Check it out; you will not be disappointed...

Sometimes, I am certain that my favorite song is this:

Other days: other songs.

Some things that were good this week...

*Duct tape wallets.
*Wrestling with Noah.
*Aldi whole wheat pizza.

Submitted for your approval: Nineties-est popular music group

*****To clarify: By referring to this Canadian quintet as the "nineties-est" band of all time, I mean to say that the group in question is the best example I know of a band that could have been successful only during that X-treme, grungy, Ok Soda-guzzling, microbrew-fetishizing, indie, flannel, cynical-yet-strangely-earnest, Starbucks-scented period. So, who am I talking about?
Well, these guys (and gal):







This song hit #4 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart in 1994. #4! No way these folks could ever have been remotely successful during any other decade. The only band that rivals the Dummies (that's what I call 'em) for ninetiesness is, perhaps, The Presidents of the United States of America, but, y'know, I think they were far less precious and twee in that particular 90's kind of way. The Presidents were just straight-ahead funny, plus they rocked. Plus, apparently, they're touring and recording again. so they've still got actual fans. So, no, it's gotta be the Dummies.

By the way, I still really like The Ghosts That Haunt Me. Don't judge me.

Things about which I could really not care any less...

Here, in no particular order of emphasis or importance, are some things about which I care not even a tiny little bit:

+Transformers 2 in general and Megan Fox in particular.
+Neither John nor Kate, though I am concerned about the plus eight.
+So You Think You Can Dance Your Ass Off With The Stars.
+Whether or not America has talent.
+Who has won, and who will yet win, any iteration of American Idol.

The Devil is married?

We had a bit of a sun shower earlier this afternoon, and as I drove home in it, wondering all the while whether I should turn on my headlamps (I finally did), I was reminded of what I was taught it means when rain falls under a shining sun.

Of course, I found this notion of a married Satan dubious at best, though I considered more reasonable the idea that, were he married, he would make a very poor husband.

I still totally believe that thunder is God bowling, though.

I believe these truths to be self evident...

*Though Marvin Gaye's version rightly is considered a classic, Gladys Knight and the Pips take on I Heard it Through the Grapevine is hotter, funkier, and a lot more fun.

*If you refer to yourself as a genius, you probably are not.

*Real estate business cards are generally train wrecks of design. Cluttered, cramped, difficult to read and hard to look at. (Too much stuff is the problem, really. All that is required is name, title, contact information, maybe a small, tasteful logo.

*Jesus doesn't want you to spend $4 million, taken from money donated in his name, to build a massive, 9000 square foot house (with 2000 square foot screened porch) overlooking lake Keowee. Well, not unless you plan to house Bosnian orphans and South African AIDS babies in your obscenely huge lake-front mansion. Because, hey, guess what, Jesus wants you to help people with that money, not use it to erect an enormous, disgusting monument to your ego.

Drippings from a leaky brain pan

A brief and very mild thunderstorm blew through this afternoon shortly after lunch. A very mild storm, with soft, gentle rain and low, quiet, rumbling thunder; but it reminded me, somehow, of the summer thunderstorms of my childhood. I remember gray, stormy afternoons in Taylors, circa summer of '81, waiting, waiting, waiting for the rain to end and for the clouds to move off. Bored in the apartment, wanting to go down to the pool. Wondering why it was that a rainstorm kept us from going to the pool to get wet. Of course, it wasn't the rain that kept us from the pool on those stormy afternoons; in fact, Mom had let us swim during drizzles and downpours. But never during electric storms. Of course not.

I remember that later, after the storm was over, Rachel and I would step out into the parking lot adjacent to our apartment building and play in the water streaming alongside the sidewalk and pouring into drains in the lower lot, behind our building. We'd throw pieces of grass and pine mulch into the streams and watch them ride the currents and eddies. Afterward, if it was early yet, Mom might take us, finally, to the pool.

Things that I belive are better than other, better known things

+Del Taco is provably better than Taco Bell. That this fact is so obviously true does not mean, however, that anyone I tell it to actually cares.
+Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is better than any other televised version of Star Trek. Which still does not mean that my wife will watch it with me.
+Ubuntu is the superior version of Linux. I know this to be true despite the fact that I have no experience whatsoever with any other flavor of Linux.
+A Nestle Crunch bar is better than a Hershey's Krackel bar. By the way, does Hershey still make the Krackel bar?
+Craig Ferguson is the best of the late-night talk show hosts. I know this to be true, despite the fact that Craig's show is the only one I watch with any regularity, and despite the fact that I have only been watching Craig's show for a few weeks.

I believe these things are better, therefore they must be.

Late.Tired. But.....

Five Things That Excite Me Way, Way More Than They Should
----------------------------------------------------------------

+The fountain at Greer City Park (every 30 minutes, it "dances" to music that broadcasts from hidden speakers)
+Aldi's weekly specials (well, not so much this week- but next week, turkey sausage!!!)
+Del Taco (let's talk about bean and cheese burritos again!)
+Going to TCBY for the first time since Bill Clinton was president (white chocolate mousse frozen yogurt- least masculine 5-word phrase in the English language? You be the judge.)
+Finding Morning Thunder tea at Wal-Mart

ISIHAP (RIP)

I swear I have a point (really, I promise).....though I may have forgotten it for the time being.....

Jayhawks Rulez!!!