Hank's Place

Why does Dick Button have the Olympics Figure Skating commentary gig? He either loves or hates each skater. And he (to a first approximation) hates them all. I just about booked a ticket to Italy so I could slap him around when he started complaining about one skater's shoe laces.

And just to go off on a tangent, if an event has judges, it is not a sport. It might be very difficult, it might be very competitive, but it is not a sport. You go faster or farther or score more points to win a sport. Having people watch you and then rate the quality of what you did doesn't belong in the Olympics. So no more figure skating, ice dancing, half-pipe, ski-jumping, gymnastics, etc. They are gone.

Please note that I'm not complaining about officiating, somebody needs to make sure the rules are obeyed. I don't like the panel deciding whose Flying 900 Reverse Smack Daddy Back Scratcher With A Twist was better than whose.

Here's the thing. I really like iTunes. But it's got a bug that drives me wild.

Let's say you like to keep your library on a different drive than the one in the computer. No problem you go to the preferences and tell iTunes to store the songs in a different folder. Easy as pie. But. But if you get a song from the iTunes store it gets stored in the default location (~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music) rather than directory you set in the preferences. And. And then after that if you rip a CD it puts the songs in the default folder just like it did with the purchased song. Sure you can do the Consolidate Library thing and after that it remembers to put songs in the right place, but it still makes me cranky.

I'll be away from the computer tomorrow so I'm getting the Friday Formulaic Posts out of the way a day early. Here we see YW doing his Dr. Evil imitation. Or he's just been caught in the act of bringing a finger up to point out one of his 3 loose teeth. The Tooth Fairy has not yet made a visit to our house. I'm just not sure how much the TF brings these days. I've heard rumors that some kids in the neighborhood got $5 for their first tooth. I remember getting a quarter per tooth when I was a wee lad. Except for the tooth I lost when were down in San Felipe. Then I got a handful of Mexican change. The Mexican Tooth Fairy is/was very generous.

1. Trash Heap - Superchunk
2. An Ode To Maybe - Third Eye Blind
3. Route 66 (The Nile Rodgers Mix) - Depeche Mode
4. Allegro vivace (Sonata No.2 in F, OP. 99) - Ofra Harnoy
5. Emenius Sleepus - Green Day
6. Happy Go Lucky Country - Browne Costello Grabowsky
7. Dancing With Tears In My Eyes - Midge Ure & Ultravox
8. Other Man - Wilson Diesel
9. St Tropez - Country Joe McDonald
10. Take It Easy - Travis Tritt

Here's my idea for how to deal with the "was Dick buzzed when he shot that man in the face?" concerns. Just assume he was. I now call on all news gathers and disseminators to ask Scott McClellan or anyone else in the administration to whom they happen to be talking, "Scott (or whoever) just how shit-faced was Deadeye when he shot that man in the face?"

Here in Pacifica we have a newspaper: The Pacifica Tribune. It's published once a week. That's not so bad, not much news-worthy stuff happens on day-to-day. But when something that is news-worthy happens in the afternoon on a Tuesday (the paper comes out on Wednesday), then you have to wait a whole week to find anything out.

Last night on my way to pick up YW from daycare, I had to squeeze past a red VW beetle that was completely on fire in the right hand North-bound lane of Highway 1 (in a section of divided-by-concrete-barriers road). As I passed it I could see flashing lights of the fire engines trying to get through the back-up behind me. Careful examination as I went by showed nobody in the car, so I stifled my Good Samaritan instincts and kept on going. A few minutes later as I headed South on the way home with the boys, we saw the fire fighters putting the finishing touches on dousing the blaze.

So what's the story? I don't know because it was too minor to make the Chron and too late on Tuesday to make the Trib. Dang. Maybe it won't be such old news next week that it will make the paper.

I was checking my Sitemeter stats and what to my wondering eyes should appear but a referral from xnerg.blogspot.com. That's right, Hank has hit the big time and is on Skippy's blogroll.

I'd like to thank the academy, my agent, and most especially (since she's most likely the one who did it) Cookie Jill.

The Chron has an article, reprinted from the NY Times, about the avian flu outbreak in Nigeria. One of things they mention is that while about half the people who have contacted said flu from direct contact with infected birds have died, it has not yet been transmitted from person to person. But "scientists worry that it could acquire that ability through naturally occurring biological processes" which could set off a pandemic and kill lots of people.

They just couldn't say "scientists worry that it could evolve to acquire that ability." We wouldn't want to use the e-word. It might upset those readers who have an imaginary friend that doesn't like that word.

The other day we took the opportunity presented by sun in San Francisco to run up to the zoo. While waiting for MLWN to finish getting ready, YA struck a pose and said "Take my picture!" So I did.

1. The Other Side - Salter Cane
2. Tough Girl - Open Hand
3. Ta Bueno Compadre (It's OK Friend) - The Texas Tornados
4. Seasons Of The Heart - John Denver
5. Scar - Fuel
6. You Ought To Be With Me - Al Green
7. Thats All Right - Jimmy Rogers
8. Can't Hold Out Much Longer - Little Walter
9. I Need Lunch - Dead Boys
10. My Babe - Clifton Chenier

sucks. I heard from my latest interview that I didn't get the job. At this interview I was one of two final candidates and at my previous interview I was one of three. I got neither job. Dang. I did just apply for a job down in Santa Barbara. It's been open for a while. I hope that they just haven't found the right person yet rather than being too slothful to take the ad down from the website.

It would be OK to live in SB again. Who knows I might bump into the world-famous bloggers Cookie Jill (of Skippy The Bush Kangaroo) who seems to have moved back to town and TBogg (when he actually relocates there).

Update: I just got an automated response from the person in SB. She's at sea until Friday and I should consider sending a new e-mail after she's back so that my message is not lost in the clutter of accumulated-while-out-of-the-office e-mails.

Internets, I've got a question for you:

What is this "Strategy For Victory" that our Fearful Leader keeps talking about? Because watching the news and reading the paper and, of course, reading you, internets, I get the impression that our strategy is to drive up and down the roads of Iraq looking for IEDs. Why, you ask, are the IEDs there? That would be because the US Army and Marines keep driving up and down the roads, so the insurgents put them there.

Perhaps the "Strategy For Victory" is to drive up and down the roads of Iraq until the insurgents have used up all the explosives they looted from the Iraqi Army's ammo dumps that were left unguarded for months after Blitz to Baghdad. Then the Army and Marines will be able to drive around and not get blown to pieces. Victory!

Early in the week YW's class had a field trip to 826 Valencia, which you'll be enchanted to find out is located at 826 Valencia in the City of San Francisco. I'm not exactly sure what you'd call the place. It's not a museum. It's not a school. It's kind of a performance art piece supported by field trips and a store that sells pirate-themed things.

When you go there on a field trip the class collaborates to produce the beginning and middle of a story. Then each child writes their own ending to the story and ends up with a book featuring their own version of the story. There are also a couple of pictures in the book that are drawn in real-time by one of the 826 Valencia people.

YW's class wrote a story about the pirate Yellowbeard and his parrot Perky. They find a skull-shaped island on which live a snowboarder named Ricky Hamslot and a snowman. Adventures ensue featuring avalanches and a search for buried treasure. It's all quite exciting.

The picture shows YW writing his version of the end of the story.

1. Love Never Runs On Time - Paul Kelly
2. Wait No Longer - Joshua Redman Quartet
3. Summer Love - Frank Sinatra
4. Tangled Up In Blue - The Whitlams
5. Golden Years - David Bowie
6. Main Theme from Joe 90 - Barry Gray Orchestra
7. Moten Swing - Oscar Peterson Trio
8. Time - David Bowie
9. Baby Love - The Supremes
10. Bridges - Chris Bailey

I'll stop comparing Dub And The Cronies to a certain ruling group in a Teutonic country when they stop imitating them.

During the Big War, Adolph Hitler didn't put Germany onto a Total War footing until 1943. Before that he wanted to be able to wage his wars of aggression without having too much impact on the home front. He talked a big game but he tried to fight a Guns And Butter war. Does that remind you of anyone?

George Bush is without doubt the rankest coward in the US. Surrounded by his SS protectors he still didn't have the balls to be in the same room as Cindy Sheehan. A woman whose only crime is to have let her son be killed to feed the war fantasies of GW and his chicken-hawk ilk. She was in possession of a valid ticket and sitting down while wearing a t-shirt. For this she was arrested and ejected from the People's House.

"Sir! We have preserved the integrity of the bubble Sir!"