Just in case any of you haven't seen this:

Don't Stop Believin'

These cartoons are really funny. Especially "Confessions of a Serial President Hater."

New story from the trenches of first grade...Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I introduce to you, dear reader, to "Ella" and "Chad", first graders. Ella announces last Monday that Chad is her boyfriend and she is his girlfriend. Chad seems basically uninterested in the whole boyfriend/girlfriend business. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday pass. Ella tells anyone who will listen that Chad is her boyfriend, she makes sure get behind him every time we line up, she tries to get him as a partner whenever we work in pairs. Throughout, Chad is uninterested. He doesn't really protest or avoid Ella, but he makes no indication that he has any special feelings for Ella.

Thursday morning, Ella (who is still only beginning to read), finds a small, folded note on her desk. She brings it to me and asked for help reading it. I, ever the reading teacher, ask her to try to read it herself. She tries, although she is hampered by the first grade handwriting in the note. She reads aloud, "Ella, you are hot, my girlfriend, from Chad". She is beaming.

Except the note does not read "Ella, you are hot, my girlfriend, from Chad", it actually says, "Ella, you are not my girlfriend, from Chad." Those lower case h's and lower case n's are tricky.

Oh, early heartbreak. And lots of laughter in the teacher's lounge at lunchtime.

Last night Ann and I attended a Burns' Night dinner at our friends Amy and Dave's apartment. Dave read the first three stanzas of Address to a Haggis and Amy cut it open. I could only manage one small bit, but Ann was able to eat more. I stuck to the "tatties" (mashed potatoes) and sausage roll with HP Curry Sauce. I enjoyed the single malt whisky much more than the haggis. Maybe a little too much...

Ann and I think it would be funny if someone walked into their American Idol audition and announced "I'll be singing 'Piss Up a Rope' by Ween." Actually a lot of Ween songs would be great.

Bush on North Korea: "We Must Invade Iraq"

I like beers that have stuff like this on the bottle.

Copying Jake again - click on recent tunes to the left to see what music I've been listening to at my computer lately.

Happy Birthday Jake!

Is this the greatest song ever?

Do you still sing of the mountain bed we made of limbs and leaves:
Do you still sigh there near the sky where the holly berry bleeds:
You laughed as I covered you over with leaves, face, breast, hips and thighs,
You smiled when I said the leaves were just the color of your eyes.

Rosin smells and turpentine smells from eucalyptus and pine
Bitter tastes of twigs we chewed where tangled woodvines twine
Trees held us in on all four sides so thick we could not see
I could not see any wrong in you, and you saw none in me.

Your arm was brown against the ground, your cheeks part of the sky,
As your fingers played with grassy moss, and limber did you lie:
Your stomach moved beneath your shirt and your knees were in the air
Your feet played games with mountain roots as you lay thinking there.

Below us the trees grew clumps of trees, raised families of trees, and they
As proud as we tossed their heads in the wind and flung good seeds away:
The sun was hot and the sun was bright down in the valley below
Where people starved and hungry for life so empty come and go.

There in the shade and hid from the sun we freed our minds and learned
Our greatest reason for being here, our bodies moved and burned
There on our mountain bed of leaves we learned life's reason why
The People laugh and love and dream, they fight, they hate to die.

The smell of your hair I know is still there, if most of our leaves are blown,
Our words still ring in the brush and the trees where singing seeds are sown
Your shape and form is dim, but plain, there on our mountain bed
I see my life was brightest where you laughed and laid your head...

I learned the reason why man must work and how to dream big dreams,
To conquer time and space and fight the rivers and the seas
I stand here filled with my emptiness now and look at city and land
And I know why farms and cities are built by hot, warm, nervous hands.

I crossed many states just to stand here now, my face all hot with tears,
I crossed city, and valley, desert, and stream, to bring my body here:
My history and future blaze bright in me and all my joy and pain
Go through my head on our mountain bed where I smell your hair again.

All this day long I linger here and on in through the night
My greeds, desires, my cravings, hopes, my dreams inside me fight:
My loneliness healed, my emptiness filled, I walk above all pain
Back to the breasts of my woman and child to scatter my seeds again.

Woody Guthrie (1944)

Go buy Mermaid Avenue Vol. II by Billy Bragg & Wilco if you want to hear it. Heartbreakingly good.

Did you buy at least one CD between January 1, 1995 and December 22, 2000? If so you are entitled to a cash settlement of $5 from a price fixing class action lawsuit. Go to this web page to file a claim. You don't even need a reciept!

If you didn't buy a CD during that time period you are officially lame.

I just bought this:

WorldWide Stout is the world's strongest dark beer. It is brewed using six different yeast strains over seven months and then aged for half a year. Dark, rich, roasty, and complex, World Wide Stout has more in common with a fine port than a can of cheap, mass-marketed beer (released November 1 each year...very limited availability). Bottled in 12 oz. bottles (because that's about as much as most of us could handle!) 

23.04 % ABV for 2002!!!!!

It's chilling now.

Wookies! Next time you are listening to some Phish, check out that page for the full concert experience.