Click images for desktop size: "Today's City Tomorrow" by Unknown And suddenly its winter.
I'm not used to winters yet so I don't know if this is normal. To me it seems the temperature went from 70, to 60 to 50 to 24 in less than a week.
There's snow too.
The dogs seem to like it. A lot.
I remain undecided.
Yesterday I spent the day raking wet leaves and snow. Shows the value of procrastination. How to make a miserable job despicable . . .
My friend made a trip and got me some ibuprofen. But not before I
Click images for desktop size: "Surf" by Unknown tried some of her Aleve. I took four of them in a gulp. Then read that the max dosage is 3 a day . . . it did a middling job of masking the pain but made me a touch queasy.
The ibuprofen is still the best for that but even it seems to be either lessening in effect or else the pain is growing. Can't really determine.
Its still manageable.
I realized I'm not wearing my glasses like I ought to. Sometimes I feel embarrassed because its a bit disconcerting wearing shades when its cloudy and dark out. But its mainly because my vision has shifted in some way that makes the glasses nearly as much an irritant as an aid.
I need to go see an optometrist and a dentist.
In the state-that-tried-to-ruin-my-life-and-so-its-architects-voted-out they had a cheap dentist. Based on earnings I had to pay 20 bucks a visit. The only drawback was that they didn't take appointments. It was first come, first serve.
That meant getting there at 5 am. They let you in at 9 and the first patient was seen at 10. Had some interesting conversations in that line. Watched a few
Click images for desktop size: "Abandoned" by Shifted Reality neighborhood dogs come by and do their begging in those gray hours before traffic and school.
I showed up once at 5:30 and was 34th in line. Sketchy time. They only see 35 patients a day.
Interesting all the dentists were volunteers. The care was cursory but adequate and you got to see the same dentist.
Similar for the optometrist.
Now it be worth it. Who has the 3 or 4 hundred bucks to front these guys. Something to have to save for.
I've been bugged lately by politics. I was hoping that be over for a while. I guess evil never ends.
Bush and Cheney instead of slinking away and praying they're not hauled in front of the World Court for war crimes are continuing to try and destroy America.
They've already destroyed our freedoms and taken away our liberties and they're doing everything they can to destroy what little we have left.
Bush has violated the law again and is using executive privilege to destroy what little beauty and nature we've got left. He's selling leases to do strip mining and shale oil extraction in our national parks. Maybe not right in the middle of the parks but in those border areas.
What they can't shoot and kill they'll pollute to death.
What I find sad is that the Democrats haven't done a damn thing about it. Why aren't they saying that bidding on these leases is foolish because on January 20th all those sales will be declared null and void.
I don't think that energy independence is worth destroying the world or the tiny pockets of beauty that we have left. The amount of oil they'd produce 20 years down the line could be made up by walking the 5 blocks to the store.
Then to insure Bush's corruption continues he's "burrowing" a lot of his scuzzier cronies in permanent positions in the government. Again the democrats are silent. Instead of promising to review each of these last minute appointments and voiding any that they think are not in the best interest of our country they're fighting to keep Lieberman in charge of the most decrepit useless Homeland Security. Its a burgeoning chunk of incompetence so lets keep the same boob in charge no matter what scandalous things he does.
We got fooled again.
One bright spot I've noticed is that a real heavy weight has gotten involved in the RIAA scandal. And on the people's side!
Charlie Nesson the Harvard law prof is taking on the case of some grad student the RIAA is sung. His argument is vital. THe law that Bush shoved through is unconstitutional. The government and the Republicans cannot make laws that enable private citizens to persecute criminal laws as civil matters.
While I could debate the criminal aspect of the argument in that nasty single sided legal thought it makes sense.
The scuzz RIAA lawyers are fighting it, of course, not because he's wrong but because the kid they're suing should have said that originally and that now its too late to bring in that argument!
Rah!
You know I hate Metallica. I didn't used to. Back when they played Giradelli's almost weekly, when
Click images for desktop size: "Pin Up" by Al Moore they were out passing out tickets trying to get people to come check them out they were all right. They were just regular musicians. A dream and a song.
Then the Black album went platinum and they turned into the biggest jerks on record.
Lars, the sloppy drummer, has a place reserved in Dante's hell right next to Judas Iscariot and Bob Ford in the ice fields of the betrayers.
This is the same Lars who sold a painting this weekend for 14 million dollars, a painting he paid two million for a couple of years ago. He was stunned it didn't go for over 15 million . . .
This is the same Metallica that put Napster out of business because Lars was so freaked out that people were listening to his music and enjoying it and he wasn't getting his cut!
Yesterday I was in the market looking at a newspaper headline. Some band just got a lifetime achievement award. The band took their name from one of the songs I wrote decades ago.
I had that knee jerk reaction, the same one Lars probably had: "I should get paid! or somethin' . . .
But because I'm not an immature jerk, at least about some things, I realized its cooler that I made a contribution to some kids having a good time. Not only the band itself but all of the kids who had their lives shaped the band's music, who lie under the covers having the band's music provide the sound track to their lives.
That's pretty important giddy stuff. More important, I think, that a few bucks. Maybe I'm lucky there's no 14 million buck paintings that I simply need to have.

So, I've got a lot to do today. The roomba is already nicely sweeping the house. Yes, I still love my roomba and really love the improvements its made. It works so much better than before and I clearly loved it in its orignal incarnation.
I have to clean stuff but first I have to take the dogs for a walk. They're stoked by the weather and that we didn't go for a walk yesterday.
I figure there's not enough snow and ice out there for them to knock me down, so that's a big win for me and will clearly demonstrate my superiority over dogs!