Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

7. Blogging from a Jewel concert.

Listen to this 25 second music file. Now listen to this 25 second music file. What do you think? And can anyone name the sources?

It’s M.S.’s birthday. Go bug her. Someone send her a virtual stripper or something.

Just went to see Final Destination 2. It was a laff riot, with two “F”s. Normally this would be a good thing, except it was supposed to be a horror movie.

Some smart people have formed a collaborative Austin weblog at www.austinbloggers.org that automagically posts if you send it a trackback ping, which I think is cool as hell. And it abates some of my jealousy after seeing the new H-Town Blogs site (spotted on Big Pink Cookie).

A Valentine’s Day weekend without the kids, spent in a romantic hotel.
A birthday/wedding anniversary week in Las Vegas, also without the kids, spent in a 900 square feet suite at the Treasure Island for $175 a night, and all the good things that come with a trip to Las Vegas – shows, good food, gambling, seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time, risking life and limb to get a picture of Area 51, getting my In-N-Out burger fix, and of course the possibility of winning millions of dollars – a pipe dream, to be sure, but where would the human race be if we didn’t dream?

We have three choices of transportation to Las Vegas – first class flight ($2400), Southwest Airlines cattle car ($500), or driving (about $300 in gas plus 48 hours of driving).

Southwest’s pretty safe, aren’t they? I mean, who’s going to hijack a plane and say “Take me to… Yuma! Yes, Yuma, now!”

There was an enormous crash, thud, and sound of stuff rolling around on the floor upstairs a minute ago. The kitchen is directly above the office, and my first thought was that a cat had knocked over a 12 pack of Coke in the pantry. The problem is that both hub and I checked and there is absolutely nothing out of place upstairs.

I think Gus is having some fun with us. This wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been haunted by a pet, but the concept makes hub very uneasy.

Our dog, Polliwog, used to sit at the end of the driveway in the evening and let out one little bark when it was time for Dad to get home from work. For months after she died, we’d hear her bark.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve felt a cat jump up on the bed and then realized that the cats are all in the other room.

I think it’s really comforting. But who knows what Gus is going to get up to, now that he feels well? As a kitten he was absolutely full of beans.

Hub’s wondering if Gus is upset because he’s out in the garage awaiting internment.

I just got through reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It took me about 4 hours to read. I feel a bit gypped when I finish a book that’s supposed to be one of the best written in years that quickly.

It’s about a girl who was raped and killed and who narrates the story from heaven. The first part of the book was very interesting, the second part was long and drawn out with constant, seemingly unrelated, and extraneous scene shifts, and the last part was simply bizarre, as if the author wasn’t quite sure where to go with the story.

I wouldn’t recommend buying the book, but you could borrow it from a friend or the library.

The top books that I’ve read in the last year are still Boy’s Life, by Robert McCammon; House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski; and From a Buick 8, by Stephen King. Any one of those is worth the purchase price, most especially Boy’s Life, where the prose is nearly as melodic as Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles.