On things military

[cross-posted to Live Journal]

It's a good day to talk about this: I was nervous about discussing things military when I first met The Mux. He was, after all, a Vietnam vet. I had protested the Vietnam war. [Although I'm not much of a pacifist. My friends at the Individuals Against the Crime of Silence called me their token hawk. I just felt that we were being lied to about why we were there. And come on, people, I was 21. I still knew everything!]

But I digress. The point was that Mux said that he was as proud of me for acting on my beliefs as I was of him for acting on his. I told him, "I'd like to think that if I were operating on the information that you had, I would have done the same thing and stepped up to serve." And he said, "I'd like to think that if I were operating on the information you had, I would have been out with the protesters."

Until I met Michael, I didn't really understand that Richard Lovelace line, "I could not love thee half so well / lov'd I not Honour more."

Thanks to all of those who put themselves between us and peril.

Thanks especially to Mux.


You're my hero.

nothing to report

Embarrassing. I did not read a single book this week. Between critical research stuff, file reorganization, and beating the crap out of my operating system, there wasn't time for much more than perusing the Funny Times when I was in the john.

Arf

Typo/spell-check du jour: "... on the previous schedule, it immediately followed Clifford the Big Red Dong."

Doing it doggie-style, perhaps?

typo/spell-check fail du jour: "When covered with dried fried onions and naked at 350 degrees it makes a hearty cold-weather casserole... "

I don't want to think much about that one.

ya gotta watch them

typo-spellcheck fail du jour: "An eerie clam settled over Little Round Top ..."

And Chamberlain's men fixed bayonets and just swarmed all over them pesky bivalve molluscs.

feeling accomplished

Laptop was getting way too sluggish, so last night I killed it and clean installed Ubuntu again. Spent the remainder of my evening watching The Good Guys and Criminal Minds while tweaking the video player so it would play FLVs again, resetting all my add-ons, and constructing my Mozilla bookmarks list.

Yearning for the past?

typo/spell-check fail du jour: "... meanwhile, Gollum continued to covet the Ring, which he called 'My Previous.'"

Sounds kind of like an ex-wife ...

On the agenda

Things to anticipate with delight today:

Trip to the library

A new Criminal Minds tonight

Brownies, maybe even frosted brownies

Starting to watch two series on DVD: The Wire and The Universe

Goddaughter Megan's birthday. How can she possibly be 21??? Where has the time gone???

Tuesday book notes

I've been immersed in a DVD series of lectures on the history of the New Testament, so not as much reading as usual.

Only new book I have read this week was Dead in the Family, by Charlaine Harris.

If it's possible for printed media to "jump the shark," then I believe Ms Harris took that leap with the volume that preceded this, Dead and Gone.

No spoilers here. Just it's no longer as witty and insightful as it had been. I don't even like Sookie as much as I used to. Just too many horrible things happening out of pure meanness and spite.

And I get all the meanness and spite I can handle IRL.

Just naturally friendly ...

typo/spell-check fail du jour: "... a familial history of diabetes and congenial mental retardation..."

From an actual social services report I read back in the 1980s.

interesting one

... because the sense of this sentence is not changed all that dramatically.

typo/spell-check fail du jour: He has been charged with inviting the crowds to rebellion.

Maybe in calligraphy, on heavy cream stock?

One of mine own

typo/spell-check fail du jour: For help, lick the big red "?" at the top of your screen...

From my days as a chat host on AOL, ewwww ...

The Old Goat's Birthday

He's 64.

I still need him, still feed him.

I love you, Mux!

it's the hooves that does it ...

typo/spell-check fail du jour: "... and many outlying villages fell prey to the Mongol horses ..."

Reminds me of a song from Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog ...

(grumble)

Random whine: Stupid old Ubuntu won't let me rename a Russian language file that was so ineptly transliterated that it makes my teeth hurt. And I went to all that flipping trouble with the character map to call up the Cyrillic.

Я тот, которому внимала

There, now it wasn't a total waste of time.

Correction: I have slain the mighty file-naming dragon, and the aria from Demon now wears a proper label.

Happy POETS Day

typo/spell-check fail du jour: "Around here, every day is causal Friday."

Which leads to ... what?

for mathematical cowboys

typo/spell-check disaster du jour: "LOL, this ol' cowgal is gonna saddle up and head off into the subset."

Yee haaa. Cubed.

progress report

Got Ubuntu installed on the Compaq.

Got my permissions problem on the laptop straightened out.

Got the entire Z and P to Z's apartment into SFD.

Ordered the second 100 ft. ethernet cable so Henry will have connection in his room.

Yay me.

Stuff I'm looking forward to --

A new "Criminal Minds" tonight.

Finishing this cotton-picking chapter!

Making spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner

Watching the Bernstein DVD of Beethoven's Sixth this afternoon.

Washing my hair.

Another reason I love opera ...

Au fond du temple ...

I'm sitting here poking through YouTube in the US, listening to an Italian and a Bulgarian pretend to be in old Ceylon by singing a duet in French.

That international quality is something I love both in opera and in ice hockey.

OMG! Porgy and Bess by the Warsaw National Opera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J7z2C9isfM

Most recent reads, 11 May 2010

Over the past week

Guinn, Jeff
Go Down Together, the true and untold story of Bonnie and Clyde

Ehrman, Bart
Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and why we don't know about them)

Beiler, Jonas, with Shawn Smucker
Think No Evil: Inside the story of the Amish schoolhouse shooting and beyond ...

Golden Oldie

previous typo/spell-check fail: Beware the idea of March.

De gustibus, etc.

typo/spell-check fail du jour: "I like Lost and Nurse Jackie and Herpes."

Oooooooo-kay

Good morning, world

typo/spell-check disaster du jour: Waiting for Godot features two sad-clown men, Vladimir and Estrogen.

Yeah. That would explain a lot.