Breaking News on Fox

Breaking news on Fox today:

'Anna Nicole's mother wasn't on the best of terms with her.'

hahahahahahahha

Go Fox. THAT's news!

My Orthodox Jewish neighbors are playing some really loud music right now. It is intentionally being blasted outside. Why? I have my windows closed and it is very loud. Their house is maybe a hundred yards away. They are intentionally disturbing the peace with their music. That's rude. (And not the first time it has happened.)

Some video taken 7/15/95 at my old house in Greenwich.

My late cat Bluto, my car, my gardens. No, it wasn't 105 degrees out then. That thermometer wasn't very accurate in its later years.

Friday's Paradecam was excellent. Great quality video and audio and
full motion most if not all the time.

Saturday's has been poor. Lots of blue screens, freezes, audio
dropouts and echoing. Both for the mid-day and evening parades.

Let's hope Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are good.

Juncos appear

I haven't seen juncos until now, when we're having a winter storm!
These fat little black birds. Bunches of them, hopping around, poking
at what's on top of the snow, not much (more snow and sleet). I
wonder where they were until now.

Geraniums are flowering!

The geraniums I put in the garage, which I had heated with the excess from the boiler room until recently (when the cold water pipes almost froze noted earlier), are flowering! I watered them today and voila, there were a few white flowers leaning towards the sunny windows. I was afraid they whole plant had been killed with the extreme cold we've had lately so it's a nice surprise to see it doing so well!

Mardi Gras is coming!

Here are the Bourbocam, Paradecam and the actual parade schedules. Watch!

(Times are New Orleans time which is Central time.)

Apparently the hosts have been cancelled on the Bourbocam and it looks like it's going to be a cold Mardi Gras this year. 40 degrees.

Friday, February 9
• BourboCam: 6:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m.
• ParadeCam: 6:00 p.m. - Til
Saturday, February 10
• BourboCam: 3:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m.
• ParadeCam: 1:00 p.m. - Til
Sunday, February 11
• BourboCam: 2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
• ParadeCam: Noon - Til
Wednesday, February 14
• ParadeCam: Noon - Til
Thursday, February 15
• ParadeCam: 5:45 p.m. - Til
Friday, February 16
• BourboCam: 3:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m.
• ParadeCam: 11:00 a.m. - Til
Saturday, February 17
• BourboCam: 3:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m.
• ParadeCam: 11:00 a.m. - Til
Sunday, February 18
• BourboCam: 3:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m.
• ParadeCam: 11:00 a.m. - Til
Monday, February 19
• BourboCam: 3:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m.
• ParadeCam: 5:15 p.m. - Til
Sunday, February 18
• BourboCam: 10:00 a.m. - Midnight
• ParadeCam: 10:00 a.m. - Til

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9
Orleans / Jefferson
• Oshun - Uptown, 6:00 p.m.
• Pygmalion - Uptown, 7:00 p.m.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10
Orleans / Jefferson
• Pontchartrain - Uptown, 1:00 p.m.
• Shangri-La - Uptown, 2:00 p.m.
• Sparta - Uptown, 6:00 p.m.
• Pegasus - Uptown, 6:45 p.m.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 11
Orleans / Jefferson

• Carrollton - Uptown, Noon
• King Arthur - Uptown, 1:15 p.m.
• Barkus - French Quarter, 2:00 p.m.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14
• Druids - Uptown, 6:00 p.m.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15
• Babylon - Uptown, 5:45 p.m.
• Chaos - Uptown, 6:30 p.m.
• Muses - Uptown, 7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16
Orleans / Jefferson
• Hermes - Uptown, 6:00 p.m.
• d'Etat - Uptown, 6:30 p.m.
• Morpheus - Uptown, 7:45 p.m.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17
• Iris - Uptown, 11:00 a.m.
• Tucks - Uptown, 12:30 p.m.
• Endymion - Uptown, 4:30 p.m.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 18
Orleans / Jefferson
• Okeanos - Uptown, 11:00 a.m.
• Thoth - Uptown, 11:30 a.m.
• Mid-City - Uptown, 2:00 p.m.
• Bacchus - Uptown, 5:15 p.m.

LUNDI GRAS, FEBRUARY 19
• Proteus - Uptown, 5:15 p.m.
• Orpheus - Uptown, 5:45 p.m.

MARDI GRAS, FEBRUARY 20
Orleans / Jefferson
• Zulu - Uptown, 8:00 a.m.
• Rex - Uptown, 10:00 a.m.
• Elks Orleans - Uptown, 11:30 a.m.
• Crescent City - Uptown, follows Elks

What killed the squirrel?

Saw this squirrel as I put the recycling out today. What killed it? Did it fall from the roof, a nearby tree? Or was it hit be car? It wasn't squished, no blood is visible. It looks like it was in flight before it landed on the ground. (The pic should be rotated to the left, sorry.)

The tap in the background is dripping water (to prevent the pipes from freezing). Was there something in the water, something leftover from something that was poured there in warmer weather? Would something the squirrel drank kill it that quickly? So close to what it drank? How does the posture of the squirrel indicate what it died of?

Close call with the water today

After flushing the toilet first thing in the morning, I realized that
the water wasn't filling back up. Then I realized that I had no cold
water. Fearing the pipes had frozen I went downstairs and closed the
door that separates the furnace (boiler really) room from the rest of
the downstairs, a garage used for storage space. (I had been leaving
it open hoping that the heat from it would keep the downstairs warm
and thus keep the upstairs a little warmer too. By the same theory, I
leave it open in the summer so the heat dissipates. Two effects of
the same theory perhaps...) By the time I got back up stairs, a few
seconds, the cold water started flowing again. I was able to take a
shower, etc.

I see that my landlady has got a faucet dripping outside. I would
think her basement would be warm enough to prevent pipes from
freezing but I guess not. (it is big).

Saw a bird go into the bird house after breakfast.

Ah, winter. 11 degrees outside now, not including the wind-chill. The
boiler is coming on every 7 minutes and making the outside smell like
the back of a bus.

Deer trail

Deer trail noticed. See the straight line in the the middle? I've had plenty of deer walk through the side yard here but I have never seen a deer trail before. The deer wander in this general direction all the time. Why would I only see this path now? Was there a deer that was dragging its feet/foot (injured)? Most deer don't leave a visible trail. Why am I seeing one now for the first time in 4 years?

The EPA should fine my landlady for polluting the air. My furnace
makes the outside smell terrible every time it heats the house. Now,
I don't want my landlady to really be fined but it does bother me
that the furnace that is heating my house, pollutes the air so badly.
It really stinks. I worry that birds using the suet feeder or deer
walking nearby will be breathing this terrible air. I used to think
it was a bus passing by but it is my house.

My new guilty pleasure - Superbus - Tchi Cum Bah

Cat is back on insulin

The vet put my cat back on insulin today. She'd been diagnosed as diabetic two years ago but taken off insulin about a month after that when it was doing more harm than good. We've been using Purina DM (dry mix) seemingly successfully since then. It's too dry but perhaps has been improved since they now line the bags with foil, after I complained to them that the food was too dry, coincidentally or not to my writing them.

I am probably more worried than the cat at this point. I don't look forward to giving her her shots. Apparently she took them well at the vet today so let's hope that continues to go well.

More as it comes.

New Year's Eve at my house

On the food menu:
1 - Shrimp platter. The 12oz version, from Thailand, little shrimp.
Next time I should get some real big, sweet, LA shrimp. More
expensive but worth it. I thought a whole shrimp platter would do me
but I'm still hungry so on to the Marie Callendar's Fettuccine
Alfredo, this time with fresh pepper, provided by my sister Sue
(thanks!) since they don't provide pepper anymore. Cheapskates. The
pepper turns out to have a little flavor of something I'm not wild
about so I may not use it that much. (red peppers? green peppers?)
Marie Callendar's had a good pepper that used to be included in the
box...
- As much McCormick's Irish Cream liqueur as I want. I usually buy
Bailey's but it is much more expensive. Started drinking at about
8:30. Also have a nice supply of Yuengling's Black and Tans ready to
go. The supermarket doesn't stock their porter.
- Have Boston Cream Pie, chocolate chip cookies, potato chips and
chive cheese dip ready to go (whoopie!) but that fettuccine seems to
have filled me up.

On the entertainment menu:
8-11 The Big Broadcast on FUV. Some nice 20s and 30s music.
10- 1 Prairie Home Companion on PBS. Radio on the tv. Rare.
At 11, I'll tape Peter Bochan's Short Cuts on BAI. Always a good New
Year's Eve compilation of the year in sound. Probably will be too
much crappy pop music but should be some good soundbites.

(I re-foamed (put a new foam ring around the cone cuz it really blew
a night or two ago) the right speaker today so it is hopefully ready
for whatever loudness I throw at it tonight.)

Sound like fun, right?. Wouldn't you want to be with me? Ha!

(Getting harder to type the more I drink... Only 2/3 through my first
tall glass so far.)

I love Thai ice tea. So, with it being time to drink egg nog now, I
have ended up having egg nog left over in my glass which I'm too lazy
to wash out or replace so I pour some ice tea in there, my drink of
choice the rest of the year and voila'. I have egg nog ice tea.

What do you think of that? Gross or good?

I love it. As long as the egg nog isn't too spicy, which most store
bought egg nogs aren't, it works.

Should it be called something else? New England ice tea? What would
you call it?

My Darlin' New Orleans

I enjoyed the New Orleans benefit at Riverspace last night. The readings were thoughtfully chosen and evocative. The singing was excellent. I hope lots of money
was raised. My $20 was the first in the cardboard box. It did go on a
little long though, I thought.

But let me be picayune (inside joke).

Two names were mispronounced. One was the Sho Bar, pronounced shoe
when it should have been show. Made it sound like like some NY fetish
bar, giving it some cachet which it probably never had. The other was
a street name but I forget which street. (And it wasn't a Bur-GUN-dy,
like the natives say, vs BUR-gun-dy, how normal English is pronounced,
kind of mistake.)

I did love the characterizations of Truman Capote and Andrei Codrescu.
Can anyone tell me what the Winona Ryder-like woman was talking about
in French?

The Jonathan Demme film wasn't much of a film yet. The first half
endless shots of the devastation that still remain thanks to George W
Bush, FEMA and the Republican party. The second half. an interview
with (? Parker?) in her dark shell of a house. I do look forward to
seeing the finished product. It is always good to see the humor that
defines New Orleanians present - "House for Sale, Needs some work" and
"One pissed dog" are two spray-painted messages I remember.

I wasn't sure what the music that played during the devastation scenes
was meant to say. A nice fiddle piece, reminiscent of the late great
Johnny Cunningham to me, but not relevant that I could tell, unless it
is a contemporary piece, hopefully by a New Orleans or LA musician.
(And did anyone notice that a French Canadian song was played during
the slide show? I love French Canadian music but I'm not sure what the
connection was there other than it being French.)

And for the food served afterwards, I'm no expert on gumbo but
shouldn't it always have roux? Wouldn't that prevent the sausage from
ending up looking unappetizingly waterlogged grey? It was tasty
though. (It is probably responsible for waking me up at 5 am to think
about these things and my getting up to write this before the sun
rose.)

A tip to the band who played the half-hearted New Orleans covers
(Walkin' To New Orleans, Jambalaya, etc). While New Orleans bands may
not always play on key, and thankfully you did, one thing they don't
lack is passion. I did enjoy hearing Holy Cow though...

Eh la bas.

John L

Charlie Rose (on DirecTV) continues to have these video glitches (digital artifacts). Here is one shot OUTSIDE of the studio. How come these things still happen?

Half jelled

I went to the Riverspace Jazz Cafe in Nyack yesterday. First time
I've been in that theater. My impression is that while it is an
interesting space, it has some problems.

1) It smells. When I first got there at around 4 pm, it smelled
moldy. Who knows what mold lurks. (The snack bar also looked like the
Health Inspector should visit it, The counter hadn't been cleaned and
there was food all over it. I think that was cleaned later but when
the food arrived the counter was ugly/gross.)

2) It was cold. It did warm up after more people arrived by the time
the jazz jam started but until then it was cold. Maybe they could
turn the heat up until it gets warm?

3) It was too loud. I tried to figure out why. The acoustic bass
wasn't amplified as far as I can tell so I think it was the kick drum
and the tom tom. Using them muddied the sound to the point of making
it damn near unlistenable. When other drummers used a lighter touch,
it was quite nice. Some acoustic materials may be needed though. I'd
recommend banning the use of the kick drum and the tom tom. It'd help
a lot.

The music in the first set didn't do anything for me. Free jazz but
not very interesting, to me. Maybe to others. Good for them.

The jazz jam was better. I could understand what they were doing.
There are some talented people who showed up. Especially notable was
the woman singer; I didn't get her name.

So, all in all, it kinda half-jelled for me. The jazz jam was good.
The first part wasn't.

And one note about the bathrooms. The men's room is "decorated" on
the inside with graffiti by the door. A very poor choice. And they
think they are being clever by painting over anything that is
recognizable as the door so you can't tell where the door is. You'll
be able to get out but some sort of clue would be nice as to where
the door is.

I love the angels. Another person I spoke with hated them. I couldn't
figure out why.

I am very excited about the upcoming programs there. It looks like a
very interesting lineup.