We blog (We do)

I picked up a copy of John le Carré’s spy novel “Absolute Friends”.   In it there’s a character with a “Scrofulous Retriever” at his feet.  Apparently this is some British breed of dogs that haven’t made it off the Isles.  I’ve known some Golden Retrievers, eponymous with fetching gold, no doubt.  A useful characteristic in a dog, I should think.  But the Scrofulous Retriever must retrieve something else.  All it is known for, according to le Carré, is sleeping and flatulence.

With those two characteristics, come to think of it, I’ve known more than a few Scrofulous Retrievers myself.  And not all of them had four legs, if you get my drift.

There’s a white dog in the neighborhood, who has been running around for a while with enlarged breasts, so in my mind I named her “Mother”.  Then she disappeared for a while.  Now I see her in the park (or is it a vacant lot?) across the street with her puppies.  So I think I’ve mastered the plot.  She used to be very shy with the puppies, and now she comes right up to me on the sidewalk.  But now there’s only one puppy left.  I shudder to think what may have happened to the others.  And I don’t know what they’ve been eating, but they don’t seem too thin.  So I guess somebody’s been feeding them. 

These are all my shaggy dog stories…

A window sign:  “Sam’s Bagels.  Women only.  C-Cup and Over.”

I’m pretty sure one store is replacing another.  At least I hope so.

I have fallen into the habit of talking to the neighborhood cats. Unfortunately, several of them appear to take a dim view of my efforts and look at me as if I’m the one who is somewhat unbalanced. Well, say what you will about my apartment, but I don’t live in a dumpster.

Others, however, are more diffident, more reflective, and are clearly trying to think of the correct response; It is just that I lack the patience to stand around and wait for their replies, no matter how well considered.

It’s not that they never respond, but that when they eventually do, my own limited language skills impede understanding. The cat in the picture, for example, was unable to tell me his name. But I think he was signaling that he’s a kind of feline Superman. Or that I am.

I’m not a terribly demonstrative or emotional person. But a few days ago I got excited — I was up til 2:30 in the morning, and ended by standing and applauding. Myself.

I was working on a web site, and got it to leap through an entirely new set of gyrations I had never made it do before. I have a skinny border around a box and now it shifts through colors, slowly, one after the other. Nothing we haven’t all seen before and basically a cheap trick, esthetically. It’s saved from being garish only by the thinness of the line and the generally restrained environment around it.

What made me so emotional is that it took a lot of doing. This particular dog and pony show is located at the intersection of about 5 different web technologies. So I had all 5 tech manuals open at the same time, jumping from one to another.  In retrospect, this stuff isn’t Rocket Surgery, but it was a nice new step for me.

Parking lots are good for more than parking cars. Here’s a photo I took in a nearby lot. In a blast of imagination, I’ve called it ‘Yellow Flower’.

Yellow flower from a parking lot

There are some cats who hang around in the parking lot. If you’re a good reader, then someday I’ll put up a photo of one of the cats.

I came across this brilliant little video on the web. It’s worth watching right now, it’s French and it’s called Sortie d’egypte. Technically, it’s about living in Egypt, and about leaving. All in less than 7 minutes. Which is like saying King Kong is about a monkey.

Watch it full-screen if you can. There’s a ‘menu’ button on the lower right that shows the button for this.

There aren’t any political parties that have anything so powerful in video, but I’m sure they’d like to. The music is top-notch, apparently by Vangelis.

And in really important ‘News You can Use’, scientists have finally cracked the code and have been able to create sexually perverted flies. We all need more of those. Especially in these times of trouble…

What’s more, they analyzed the love songs of the flies. I confess, I never guessed that flies even had love songs. But if you look closer, you can see it makes sense: They were fruit flies.

The practical application of this new research may turn out to be some sort of acoustical Viagra for flies. You know, to combat the fly shortage. Did I say practical?

More Later

Ricky in Charge