Do a little, crappy, charge a lot.

My attitude towards work has always been "Don't do, over do." That has served me well over the years, the folks who have gotten more than they thought they would have been very generous with praise and with referrals. If you focus on the work and not the money, the money becomes the easy part.

On the other hand, the satellite TV guy was supposed to be here between 8:30 and 9:30. He did call, to say he had the wrong equipment -- insert your own 8th grade joke here -- and would be 45 minutes late.

Meanwhile, the new lawn sprinkler people were supposed to be here at 8:00 but, of course, have not been seen. I had the sprinkler system put in this summer because of the the drought and because of the lake full of free water just sitting out there. The sprinkler system has never worked properly -- every time I turned it on, it spring a leak leak or two. The last leak rivals Old Faithful. It case the Yellowstone caldera blows, at least we'll have a back up geyser. The sprinkler people, had they arrived, were not going to fix the leak. At this point, there seems little point in that. They are just going to "winterize" the system and then in the spring tear the whole damn thing out and start from scratch. I certain they'll show up eventually, after they down a few extra Sausage McGriddles.

How I reinvented radio.

You have probably seen pictures of families sitting around listening to the radio. Mom might be knitting, dad might be reading the newspaper, but usually they are just sitting there staring at a big piece of furniture, apparently engrossed in some story or news report.

My parent had such a piece of furniture, as did the parents and grandparents of every kid that I grew up with, but the glory of network radio was well past before I came along. To me, the big, elaborately carved, inlaid-encrusted thing was simply something else to play with. It played records, but big clumsy things that contained music that no one under 90 would want to listen to. Besides what was then just "radio" and now called "AM," the big thing also received shortwave and "ship-to-shore." The latter was a bunch of beeping that I now know was Morse Code.

I was a TV kid, and have always looked upon those photos of people staring at a radio with great amusement and, as some of you know, nothing amuses me more than Edgar Bergman becoming a multi-millionaire back when that meant something by doing ventriloquism on the radio. The whole thing has always seemed to me to be nothing short of sheer idiocy.

Enter books on tape, actually books on CD, now actually books downloaded to my ipod.

I spend a lot of time in the car, hate commercial radio, and dislike the tight rotation of satellite radio (meaning they play the same playlist over, and over, and over on any given channel).

So I bought a book on CD from Amazon. A mystery. Great for driving, it makes the time just fly by on the Interstate. Bad for in-city driving since I find myself sitting in the driveway just to hear "just a little more."

Books on CD are a nuisance, however, since a single book often arrives spread across 17 discs. Arg!

Then I discovered that they can be downloaded directly to the pc, and even more directly into the ipod. Wow! The dealer was able to install an ipod adopter in the car, an option that I had ironically declined when I ordered that car.

Meanwhile, a truck knocked down the cable wire that crosses the street and enters my house. It's happened before. What has also happened before has been my being annoyed with the cable company. Charter! For many of you, that's all I have to provide in way of explanation. I promised myself that the next time they annoyed me would be their last. I had already switch the Internet connection to ATT when the Charter tech people annoyed me for the 100th time. I called about the down wire and, cutting out the unpleasant part, the satellite TV system is being installed on Tuesday.

So I sat in the family room last night, Rooty sleeping in a chair with his four feet straight up in the air, me with my ipon headphones in place, and I listened to a mystery that I had downloaded. As I sat there listening, I realized that I was staring at the TV set, just like those long dead people in the pictures had been staring at their 3 1/2 feet tall radios.

It may have just been the trance from staring so long at a single object, but the characters in the detective novel came alive, really alive, and their world and the objects in their world became real. I was amongst them as they talked, and moved about, shaved and showered, and merged lies and truths and possibilities. This morning I actually had trouble realizing that I had only heard a description of one piece of evidence and not see it (although I can still see it vividly, in detail, in my memory). Network radio must have been grand, sorry I missed it, but glad that I reinvented it again.

Please raise your hand...

Does anyone know how to say
"Stop using lead paint!"
in Chinese?

There's a reason for this, that need not concern you.

There are some things that are very St. Louis, like explaining where you live by parish even if you're not Catholic. Another is the Here Comes the King advertising jingle written for Budweiser, the flagship brand of Anheuser-Busch.

The song is played at the top of the eighth inning during all St. Louis Cardinals home games and during the third period at St. Louis Blues home games. Saint Louis University plays it, and the students sing the lyrics, during half-time of home basketball games. [Note: It's St. Louis and St. Louis Blues, but Saint Louis University.]

The first ad was in 1976. Below is that spot, and the the song being used during the 2007 Cardinals opening day festivities at Busch Stadium.

Welcome home Timmy.

do babies dream?

if so, what about?

Some idiot called me at dawn...

...on my cell phone...
...it was a wrong number...
...so I took a picture of Rooty sleeping...
...yes, it does freak me out some...
...especially when he sleeps that way in the car.

no title needed

Some Monday morning things to think about...

Native Americans in the western U.S., at the time called Indians, were scandalized by skinny-dipping soldiers. Not because the soldiers were naked but because many of them had been circumscribed. It seems the Indian men walked around naked much of the time but that was okay as long (no pun intended) as their foreskin stayed in place. To stay politically correct, the braves (and this might be why they were so called) used "string" made of thin strands of tree bark tied in knots to keep them foreskins in place

Cowboys in the west were called "Pikes" because, when asked from whence they came, many replied "Pike County." There are Pike Counties in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania -- which appear to have collectively contributed more than their fair share of native sons to the cowboy calling.

The Great Plains Indians called a double tornado "a dead man walking" (see photo at top).

And, yes, I do watch way too much TV.

Something nice for a Sunday...

Kick 'm the coin purse

You might have read about the father of a Marine killed in Iraq who won a multi-million dollar judgment against a Kansas church whose members protested at his son's funeral -- carry signs such as "Thank God for dead soldiers." There will be appeals, and it is unlikely the father will ever collect a nickel, but good for him!

The best way to stop fanaticism is to make it costly for the fanatic. The Salem witch trials -- 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, 29 convicted, 19 (fourteen women, five men) hanged, 5 accused people died while in prison and one man was crushed with large stones because he refused to enter a plea -- finally stopped when one of the accused filed a counter suit for libel and slander. Whoops, suddenly calling your neighbor a minion of the devil could cost you a few chickens and your cow.

My last boss once said among a group that my eccentricities were thoughtfully developed and carefully rehearsed. What he was saying of course was that I was a fake wacko, with the 'fake" part being what I objected to. Although I could use the eggs and milk, I didn't sue.