Welcome back my friends, to the song that never freaking ends...

Somehow ELP’s Tarkus made it onto my ipod and into a playlist I was listening to. My how my music preferences have broadened since my “if it’s not prog rock it sucks” days. Listening to Tarkus reminded me how incredibly tight prog is. You can hear engineers and musicians of the 60s/70s reveling in the control that new audio equipment gave them over sound. Nowadays I tend towards the fuzzy noise of acts like the Microphones.

Okay, here is a real

Okay, here is a real winner in the US patent system. Method to improve peri-anal hygiene after a bowel movement

Bring more dog!

A source of amusement while reading through the journeys of Lewis and Clark is their fondness for eating dog. While they are staying on the Pacific coast they overhunt the game and resort to eating what they have handy which is usually horses and dogs. One of the Chinook indians makes fun of them for relishing dog meat and it’s a funny passage from Lewis’ journal.

“While at dinner an indian fellow verry impertinently threw a poor half starved puppy nearly into my plait by way of derision for our eating dogs and laughed very heartily at his own impertinence; I was so provoked at his insolence that I caught the puppy and threw it with great violence at him and struk him in the breast and face, siezed my tomahawk and shewed him by signs if he repeated his insolence I would tommahawk him, the fellow withdrew apparently much mortifyed and I continued my repast on dog without further molestation.” [copied verbatim]

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Get Happy Product

While the greatest movie of all time is debatable, the greatest animated short film of all time is More. In honor of that film you’ll soon be able to buy happy product.

I’m really hoping for More action figures. I can’t imagine a hotter cubicle commodity to have this winter.

The matt that could have been...

Meriweather Lewis (of Lewis and Clark) wrote the following while staying at the Shoshone camp on his 31st birthday. The Corps of Discovery was about to cross the Continental Divide.

“I reflected that I had as yet done but little, very little indeed, to further the happiness of the human race, or to advance the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had they been judiciously expended.” [copied verbatim]

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Notes from Undaunted Courage

The soldiers, meanwhile, enjoyed the favors of the Arikara women, often encouraged to do so by the husbands, who believed that they would catch some of the power of the white men from such intercourse, transmitted to them through their wives. One warrior invited York to his lodge, offered him his wife, and guarded the entrance during the act. York was said to be “the big Medison.” Whether the Indians got white or black power from the intercourse cannot be said, but what they had gotten for sure from their hospitality to previous white traders was venereal disease, which was rampant in the villagers and passed on to the men of the expedition.

"Other people's dreams are boring" said Port

I woke up from a dream this morning where I went to visit the doctor. I was rotting away. I couldn’t really see it though. I only had some vague idea of what was going on with me. It was so horrific that the nurse gasped in shock when I took off my clothes for the doctor. I don’t remember his reaction. In the dream I thought it must be really bad if it elicited a reaction from the nurse.

What rose colored glasses do

What rose colored glasses do you have on? They are a company. They do whatever they want, when they want if it improves their bottom line. If they violate some law, I have to litigate, or convince a state/federal (whoever made the law) attorney to prosecute. Only if they are convicted do they have to pay a minor fine. Most likely it wouldn’t even go to trial as they’d just settle and continue the offending behavior.

beauty is all around

Emily still manages to surprise me.

She was really down on the killing thing all weekend. She didn’t like that “Kill Bill” had kill in the title. She was bothered by the cartoons that have shadows, and darker colors but admitted that they are sometimes better than the ones with the light colors and no shadows. I was surprised by how often killing came up.

What an unpleasant surprise

Here I am all excited by the new Death Cab For Cutie CD, Transatlanticism. I was wondering who else rivaled Ben Gibbard for emotional sincerity in lyrics and naturally Elliott Smith came to mind. Apparently he died at 34 this week. Pitchfork has an obit to Elliott Smith. While I was not a great fan of his music I certainly acknowledged his tremendous talent.

“To vanish into oblivion It’s easy to do And I tried to leave but you know me I come back when you want me to.”