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Watch first, read about the joke later…
Oscar Petersson, sorta.
The Tijuana guitar monster, Mister Carlos Santana—in a way…
…and a tender ballad from the flying fingers of the incomparable Eric Clapton.
Makes you want to cry, doesn’t it?
– bob
From Stinko, via BoingBoing via The Panopticist! Whew!
Sure, Senator Obama’s Irish. Everybody knows that…
But what about Hillary? British. Sorry.
John McCain? Irish.
So we’re going to have an all-Irish general election? This is dangerous. They’ll be taking orders straight from Dublin!
– bob
EDITOR’S NOTE: We’re terribly, terribly sorry for this post. We’d especially like to apologize to people who are still voting for Ron Paul. -ed
UPDATE: A touching rendition of Danny Boy by the Swedish Chef, Animal, and Beaker. Did I mention that it’s touching?
Thanks BoingBoing!
No snow yesterday. A bunch of snow overnight. Pretty pictures for you today. For free!
Everybody loves a good cloud formation. Can you see the marshmallow Peeps?
Maybe more people love a good antique Jeep picture. Very dramatic. Very butch.
Other people love a shot of a pristine, unmolested sledding run. That’s my front yard, by the way.
Teak is great for patio furniture. Not so swell for holding up a patio umbrella overloaded with snow. This is not good news for sheltering the Clam’s tide pool. Maybe she’ll know when it’s snowing now.
Your pal,
bob
Friends,
I don’t know if I should stop addressing everyone as friends, since John McCain does it in his speeches and while we should remember he was tortured (who can forget? -ed), I find him icky. In a creepy Bush Administration Forever kind of way. Feel free to throw down an opinion in the comments on whether you’d like to be known as friends or not. Kind of the anti-Facebook effect, don’t you think?
It seems that I’ve caught a mild form of whatever mutated flu bug has been creeping around the Festival Of Dirt. Aches, pains, close and lengthy examinations of the wallpaper in the water closet, the whole thing. I had the privilege of spending a gorgeous but chilly day inside napping today. Not such a bad thing, but the dreams were hallucinatory in nature. While seated at an outdoor bar in Palm Springs (just outside my mountain cabin’s front door) during a book signing party, I found that I had to gouge Johnny Depp’s eyes out. Not the current Depp, but the 21 Jump Street Depp. Then in the dream, I woke up briefly to see an Indian wearing an orange Soroptimist’s vest and tall black hat with an eagle feather walking across my deck. Naturally, as happens in dreams, I tried to get up to follow him but couldn’t.
Semi-consciousness was the highlight of my afternoon. How was yours?
Maybe not yet coherent,
– bob
Again, what’s Accuweather thinking? They’re predicting snow this Saturday and Sunday. It’s been in the late 60s all week, so, um, what’s going on here? Scary cloudy bits. Big chilly clouds full of watery things!
Of course they had to radically adjust their temp numbers down to fit their snow predictions, but what can you do? Get it right?
Please.
– Clam
UPDATE: Oh no! It’s snowing! In your face, Clam! Oh, wait…
Friends,
Jalopnik has a review up of the new WRX (which I find hideous) by Wes Siler (who seems to be new to the site) that includes a nice drive description of my daily drive. It’s a good read and worth your time, but the pictures are lively as well. Here’s one of those pictures (that’s nowhere near the mountain)…
Grant Ray’s photography is lovely, but no shots of The Hill. Sadly.
Is there a nice looking car extant that can do what the WRX can do? Audi, I guess, if you’re talking about all wheel drive. MazdaSpeed 6 as well, if you want a sedan. And a turbo. How about something under $30k with over 25 MPG? Yeah, I can’t think of one either.
Your best pal ever in the whole wide world,
– bob
Friends,
You’ve got to be kidding me. This is super fun playtime hijinks?
“Okay, you be the fey European tourist and I’ll wear my black patent leather TSA outfit and hold the metal detector wand …”
Creepy.
– bob
Friends,
Here are a couple things that just made me smile. You’ll note that there’s nothing here about work. There’s a reason for that.
One Laptop Per Nephew – I was finally able to deliver the tiny laptop to my six-year old nephew’s Charge d’Affaires and gave her a little instruction on its operation. No real manual is available and my help was minimal, but the printed Quick Start guide give a nod toward serendipity. She sent this note:
I just had to write you a quick note about the laptop. So Maxi was eating his breakfast as I jumped into the shower. I could hear him shout, “YES!” I finished up and he yelled to me, “Mama, I got on the internet!”
He was sitting on the couch with the computer in his lap and sure enough, he was on the net. He was so proud of himself. He said, “Mama, I figured it out before you could.” Then he showed me a map of Europe. “Here’s Sweden.” He went on and on exploring different countries.
I think in a way it is good that there is no instruction b/c he was really excited to figure it out on his own and then show me how to use it.
Thanks so much.This is really an amazing present.
“Here’s Sweden.” Good gravy, he’s already smarter than the rest of us. I always thought that Sweden was a county in Wisconsin.
The Mighty Road Racing Dakota – I out-drove and out-handled a guy in a late model Porsche Carrera 4 running down the hill this morning. In a crappy (but free) ten year old, four-cylinder mid-size American pickup. I found it a completely bizarre and hilarious development. It’s so wrong.
Primaries – Obama won Texas after all by three delegates? Breaks the narrative of Hillary as comeback kid, doesn’t it? Dad’s already bored by this thing though. We usually have a long chat about the latest results on the phone, but this week he couldn’t care less. And he watches fishing shows—on purpose!
The Mollusk Channel – The Clam has been doing very well with the weather predictions lately. Everyone else (except for Yahoo!, who we don’t track regularly) has been wildly inaccurate. Your winning lottery numbers are forthcoming…
Your pal,
– bob
Dear Friends,
Today was absurd, but the weekend in America’s Finest Most Run-Down Clearly Done Dingiest City was good fun. I managed to convince a very cute girl to try Indian food, which went well. What else would you expect at India Palace? It’s worth trying if you’re in the neighborhood.
I dropped off the pups with their keeper on Saturday. They immediately forgot about me and went about their business of checking the perimeter of The 1912 House. Expected, but sad nonetheless. My thoughts about rescuing my own dog bubbled back up to the surface until I remembered that my day at the Festival Of Dirt combined with my commute would keep me away far too long. Not what you’d hope for if you were being rescued.
More tomorrow, when the need for sleep shouldn’t be so dire. Thanks for hanging in there.
Your pal,
bob
Friends,
You’ll recall a post about my vivacious writing partner’s move to East Texas and her pet cows Sid and Nancy…
It appears that somebody has been busy lately. Meet the new calf.
Working title—The Squeaky Veal. Yeah, I know.
I know!
– bob
Go visit garfield minus garfield. You take out the most annoying part of the strip, and it becomes a “…comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life.” You’ll see. It’s better.
Thanks, daringfireball!
– bob
Friends,
My brother Stinko’s birthday was yesterday. I gave him a call last evening to wish him well on his 40th, launched into a cheap impression of Gabby Hayes for ten seconds, then he ended the call. So, um, Happy Birthday!
– bob
What is Accuweather smoking? A daytime high of 73° is just not gonna happen and is so far outside the realm of possibility that they’ll need to have their infrabranchial chambers examined.
They must have a severe case of the munchies right now.
– Clam
The grand master of making ’32 Ford Roadsters into different ’32 Ford Roadsters passed away today from unreleased circumstances. He’d been hospitalized recently and was only 63. Love him or hate him (too many tantrums on his “reality” show for my taste), but he sure made some pretty cars. If you like shiny things, as we all do, he will be missed.
Your pal,
bob
You may not enjoy this as much as I do, but La Mesa mayor Art Madrid was found by police near his home drunk, and in a pool of his own sick. (“Um, Mr. Mayor, would you mind coming with us?”) Two things make this story much better: an equally drunk city employee was in his Ford Exploder with her feet hanging out the window, plus the La Mesa City Council hauled his sorry butt into chambers to read him the riot act.
At last night’s meeting, Madrid would only say that “it was unfortunate for me. It’s embarrassing and humiliating, and I promise it will never happen again.”
Next time he’ll drive the pickup.
– bob