A Boy & His Blog

No, your rods and cones aren't playing tricks on you; your genial blogmonger is back on the job again, at long last. No hard feelings for yet another unexcused absence, I hope. We're best buds again, right? Come on now, rejoice! Let's party! Or at the very least, stop with the snarling, already; you're creeping me out. Oh, and do holster those weapons. Um―if you wouldn't mind terribly, that is.

it's not the heat, it's the humidity

It's also the glowering skies, the funnel sightings, and the sirens―just to keep things nice and interesting.

On a more positive weather note, though, spring has finally staked its claim to the Northern Hemisphere in no uncertain terms. Not all that many weeks ago, spring had yet to edge out winter completely. One day the high in this neck of the woods might near 70, only to nosedive into the mid-30's the next. But no longer, thankfully. The thermal nether garments of winter are relegated to deep storage once more, and t-shirts and shades are the uniform of the day. Well, outside the office, anyway.

To be sure, tornado season is already in full swing here in the Midwest, as many a roofless, imploded house and devastated neighborhood bear witness. Still, even that destruction can't outweigh the sheer beauty of the world at this time of year. You really should see the billowing green of the Flint Hills these days, for instance...though I suspect you'll find other examples of nature's exuberance a bit closer to home.

Spring Reloaded: chlorophyll run amok in nearby Listowel Park.

mijn vader bouwt een nieuw huis

A bit of old business now, made new by my having failed to deal with it before today. Regular readers will doubtless note the recent addition of Bert to the sidebar menu. Although updated more often than the would-be blog you're presently reading, Bert's site is more homepage than blog or journal, despite my having shoehorned it into the "collateral bloggage" category. So much for truth in advertising.

In any case, I had the pleasure of meeting Bert online a couple of months ago while downloading music files via WinMX. (Still my hands-down favorite program for peer-to-peer file sharing, BTW.) I was downloading a Dave Brubeck track ("The Duke") from him when he messaged me, curious about my interest in the artist. I learned that he's an ardent Brubeck fan from the Netherlands, and on his site has documented a meeting with Dave when he (Bert) was in this country visiting his girlfriend.

Bottom line: while my knowledge of the Netherlands is pretty much limited to a fondness for Grolsch and Heineken, memories of a long layover at Schipool, and a few Dutch phrases learned ages ago from Radio Nederland's Dutch by Radio (like the heading above for "my father built a new house"), I'm happy to know a very friendly and interesting Nederlander like Bert.

hail to the chief

Yours Truly has heard murmurs of discontent from certain quarters, to the effect that the anti-Dubya comments in my last post made for less-than- sparkling reading. My heartfelt apologies, but keep in mind, please, the man in question is well beyond mere Quayle-esque snarkbait at this point; he long ago crossed over into tiradebait territory. I mean, it's precisely guys like The Pride of Yale who give contemptuously smirking, insufferably posturing, intellectually unencumbered, more-Methodist-than-thou demagogues a bad name. So...please bear with me, if you will, until we can effect some much-needed regime change of our own here at home. Thanks. I knew you'd understand.

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elder male sibling strikes again

Just in case you haven't been keeping up on the surreally spooky Big Brother front, A Boy & His Blog thought you might like to know the latest nightmare-fodder those swell ultra-patriots in the Administration have been cooking up. Not content to afford each and every American the benefits of Total Information Awareness, the Bush League can hardly be accused of not thinking big. Just how big? You can judge for yourself, here...and here. Don't forget, though: get too vocal in your opposition to such a grand vision for America, and you're flirting with a one-way ticket to Guantanamo.

On a minor, but welcome, note of encouragement, the Dixie Chicks concert here a couple of weekends ago was said to have had a single protester―and the protest was against those who had earlier denounced the Chicks as un-American. I never did hear if Ay-jay and Enise-day were able to go (names changed to safeguard their privacy), but I did get to see the cool pro-Chicks political t-shirt they got a few days before the show.

exit, stage left

And with that, the time has come to bid you a fond farewell for today. I hope it's been every bit as stimulating and rewarding for you as it's been for me―or that at least you're not fixin' to swear off the internet for life. If not, you're all invited back next week to this locality, to have a heapin' helpin' of our hospitality...hillbilly, that is....

Toodles.

posted 10:07 P.M.

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