I'M STILL MODERATELY OBSESSED...

...With the idea of completely messing with the ads that appear in the bar section of this here web page because YHB, complete hobo that she is, is too cheap to actually pay for hosting for this here page.

So, I'm open to suggestions for the best way to screw with the system that one day has COIN DEALERS sponsoring my page and the next day feeder systems based on vocabulary words that appear in the text of my posts.

I'm wondering what kind of ads would appear if I stopped writing about anything but Paracelsus.

Ideas? E-mail me using the handy dandy "Email me, dammit" link on this here page.

GUESS I'LL BE HOUSE-HUNTING SOON...

The Unabomber wants his stuff back.

Actually, this particular archive, brought to us by The Smoking Gun, is damned interesting. And a little spooky, personally, for Your Humble Blogger. Among the documents you can access from that main link are an eight-page list of his books that were seized. Our libraries are similar, to the point where we have 32 volumes directly in common (meaning the same book in and of itself, outside of "collected works" or other kinds of overlap. If, for instance, we match up my Collected Works of Shakespeare with his individual copies of a few plays, the correlation gets much closer), including some pretty obscure books that I'd always wondered if anyone else in the world had ever heard of like Why Lenin? Why Stalin?.

What sets us apart is that, well, I don't have any bomb-making materials in my shack (unless you count the contents of my sink if I've let the dishwashing go for a few days) (I had to say that before MODPM did), and, well, I do have a computer. And electricity. And, new this summer, a phone line.

But really... we're both fans of Juvenal, of Thomas Hardy, of Joseph Conrad, of Tacitus and Plutarch and Livy, of foreign languages...

Too bad no one ever handed this guy some volumes of Philip K. Dick so that he could see the logical conclusion of his weird paranoias lived out in fiction instead of real life.

Or just let him watch the ducks and the caddisflies and the brown myotis flying free of a midsummer evening.

Or elected him to public office.

Heh.

OH, THAT EXPLAINS IT

On the same day that I wound up pulling an all-nighter trying to rescue my beloved iBook from oblivion (it completely lost the operating system), and only finally succeeded at about 9:30 a.m. after having finally resigned myself to losing the text of all three of the novels I've been working on, all my digital music files, etc. (in other words, all my data as I restored from the restore disks) I finally tried the last ditch effort of just using the upgrade disk that upgrades the OS from 9.1 to 9.2 and it worked! Everything worked, no data lost, etc, but my day completely ruined by no sleep and periodic panic attacks...

I learned the following.

Al Gore is now on Apple's Board of Directors..

Follow the link if you don't believe me.

This explains everything.

JUST A GENTLE REMINDER

That dumb things happen all over the place, and not just here.

A clerk at a comic books store in Dallas has been fined $4000 and sentenced to a term on probation for selling an adult comic to an adult "undercover agent" (what exactly was he trying to uncover?) from the adult section of a big comic book store.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied the man's appeal (effort funded by the wholly laudable Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, so he's stuck.

Full story here.

Because everyone knows that all comic books are actually intended for kids.

Yeah, right. Maus, in which a Holocaust survivor tells his gruesome story to his grandson, was certainly meant for little kids, as was, say, Safe Area Gorazde which details Joe Sacco's real life adventures in the middle of all of the ethnic conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.

WTF?

IN CASE ANYONE'S WONDERING...

Here are the results from last month's little poll on what to do about the deer problem.

A total of 56 unique Saratoga residents* signed at least one of the four forms; not all indicated an opinion on all four, however, so the numbers which follow reflect only those registering opinions on each issue.

HOUSE WATCH - 39 total signatures; 8 YES, 31 NO

TALLER FENCES - 49 total signatures; 39 YES, 10 NO

FEEDING BAN - 47 total signatures, 38 YES, 9 NO

TRAPPING/REMOVAL - 42 total signatures, 14 YES, 28 NO

Pretty much what I was expecting, except I am moderately surprised at how many people seem to want to have little misfired darts full of poisonous tranquilizer flying about the village.

And of course, not a single one of the town's known deer feeders bothered to come down to town hall and register an opinion, though I see the brother, nephew, niece-in-law, step-great-niece, and sister-in-law of one feeder all did come out against the feeding ban.

Tomorrow night we may discuss these results at the council meeting. It's on the agenda anyway. 6 p.m., Saratoga Town Hall. Be there or shuddapuhboutit.

HE'D HORN A KESTREL!!

SO I just discovered the Internet Anagram Server and confirmed that my name (my actual given name, Kathleen Sherrod, not the nickname of Kate) is an anagram of NOR A THRESHED ELK as well as LETS HONK A HERDER, HE'D HORN A KESTREL, A HELD THORN REEKS and much, much more.

Using my common, ordinary, YHB name, I get (among others): A HORDE TREKS, A HERD STROKER, ADHERE STORK, HEAD STROKER (!), HE'S ROT RAKED (Scooby Doospeak for "he's wearing clothes"), DARKEST HERO (hey, I really like that one!), OH DEAR TREKS, HE'S OK RETARD, TREAD KOSHER (!)... the list goes on and on and on, and I've just picked the ones I think are funny.

So, when a horde treks a herd stroker, tread kosher.

-- Your DARKEST HERO

YOU REALLY JUST NEVER KNOW...

So, wow. About an hour and a half ago, I sold a cowboy hat to Robert Heinlein's cousin.

Who'da thunk it?

THE FRIDAY FIVE

Some moderately entertaining questions this week, so what the hey.

1. What time do you wake up on weekday mornings?

Whenever the birds do. As I've discussed elsewhere on this blog, the birds are what wake me up, and they're in tune with the sun, so it all depends on the time of year.

For the last week or so, it's been about 5:45 a.m. or so.

The more interesting question would be when I get up. I have a ridiculously comfortable bed (an Aerobed, actually) that I am usually loath to abandon, so sometimes I like there semi-snoozing, thinking about articles I'm working on, and listening to the birdies for as much as an hour!

2. Do you sleep in on the weekends? How late?

See above.

Of course, my "weekends" are a little different from other folks. The closest thing I have to what most of you folks would call a job takes place on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at present, so I actually am expected somewhere.

On what most of you would consider my days off (hah!), however, I generally do go to coffee at the Crazy Liver Cantina, meaning I never stay in bed past about 9:30 a.m.

3. Aside from waking up, what is the first thing you do in the morning?

COFFEE!

4. How long does it take to get ready for your day?

About 15 minutes. 20 if I get a wild hair to put on some war paint.

5. When possible, what is your favorite place to go for breakfast?

A campsite with my parents, on a day when my father decides to wield his waffle iron. Cowboy coffee, bacon grilled over a campfire, and gourmet-quality waffles with marionberry syrup.

Crap, I'm hungry now.

BLOGOOGLE ADS

So I guess my silly post about American change and how it confuses EuroTouros had an unintended side effect.

I've noticed for the last few days that the Blogspot ads you see in the banner above this here page because I'm too much of a hobo to pay for webhosting have all been about coin collectors and coin dealers.

I wonder what will come up next?

MYSTERY (PARTIALLY) SOLVED!

A number of family members and coffee buddies of mine have expressed some puzzlement over the last few days about why Wyoming's sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives voted against the prescription drug re-importation bill, since none of us can find a single Wyoming resident (whom Ms. Cubin ostensibly represents) who is not delighted by the idea.

I will not go so far as to say there is a simple reason, but I did find something very interesting over at OpenSecrets.org, a website that tracks correlations between campaign funding sources and key political decisions at the state and federal levels (and one that I have so far found accurate; I have yet to hear anyone say otherwise, and so until I do, I trust it, and recommend it to others).

Since 1989, Ms. Cubin has received approximately $43,000 in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, with $14,500 of that having come just in the 2002-03 fiscal year that just ended. She's right square in the middle of the averages for Republicans who voted against the bill:

"Republicans who voted against the bill raised an average of $38,901 from the drug industry between 1989 and 2002 ($15,347 in the 2002 cycle alone), compared to the $19,051 ($6,662 in the 2002 cycle alone) raised by Republicans who supported it."

But, lest anyone accuse me, OpenSecrets.org, or the CapitalEye website from which OS drew its data, of picking on Babs in particular or the Republicans in general, well, the Democrats seem to have pandered even worse:

"The disparity is greater among Democrats than Republicans. Democrats who voted "no" raised an average of $42,671 from drug companies between 1989 and 2002, nearly four times more than the average raised by Democrats who voted "yes" ($11,125). In the 2002 cycle alone, Democrats who voted "no" raised an average of five times more from drug firms ($13,740) than those who voted "yes" ($2,623)."

Yeah, I know, I know, it's not news that Congresspeople are more interested in pleasing their donors than us saps who elect them, but I can't help but expect a little more from our Congresspeople, who sit with us at UW games, shop with us at RiteAid (the last time I chatted with Sen. Craig Thomas was at the RiteAid in Laramie, for example), and know along with the rest of us where the good fishing holes are, i.e. they're real Wyoming people and not like certain New York Senators who probably can't even name a member of the Yankee pitching staff.

TRUTH IN MISREADINGS?

I was just reading a hand-wringing article in Salon about the DLC and the Democratic party's presidential hopefuls, and I totally misread Joe Lieberman's last name as "Liberace," i.e. for a moment there I had John McCain's running mate – er, partner in a global warming bill that serious lefties view as the ultimate litmus test for your Senator and his or her commitment to the environment – conflated in my head with the late piano-playing, candelabra-loving, besequined cabaret bonfire.

Now that would be a candidacy I could back whole-heartedly. But then again, what am I saying? I'm the one who writes in the late Frank Zappa whenever I'm not happy with any of the candidates on the ballot (so far I've written him in for president twice, Wyoming's seat in the House of Representatives three times [once on the same ballot!], Carbon County School District No. 2's Board of Trustees once, and my old House district in Boston twice).

So, who's with me? Zappa-Liberace in '04!!!!

WooOOOoooOOOoooOOO....

Aw, come on. Where's your sense of humor?

OK, THIS ONE'S DEFINITELY NOT MY FAULT

Amidst all the (lack of) fun this last weekend, I was subjected to variations on the following lecture not once, not twice, but thrice.

Your Humble Blogger: Ok, with the tax that comes to $34.78 (or some such number)

Random European Tourist hands me two $20 bills, stands tapping his or her foot as I count back his or her change.

Then RET contemplates the assortment of filthy greenish paper and assorted coins in his or her palm.

RET: Wait, did you give me the right change?

YHB patiently counts back again.

RET: Yoo are a fool! And you cannot count! Mon dieu! (if French) or Cor! That doesn't make any sense a'tall, does it? (if Limey)

YHB patiently counts back again.

At issue, of course, is the fact that our ten-cent piece is considerably smaller than our five-cent piece, with the one-cent piece splitting the difference between the two and being a different color.

Look, I agree right along with these poor tourii that it's completely illogical, but it is the way it is, and certainly I, municipal elected goddess though I am (not that they know that, of course, unless one of the other cheeky monkey clerks at one of the other stores has told them so. No. For all they know, I am just another subhuman cash register jockey. And that's fine with me. No better opportunity to study human behavior than from below, from the prospective of one so lowly as to be beneath their contempt), have nothing at all to do with it.

Unless, of course, they want me to count back their change in order of size.

I say, there might be a way to squeeze out a little profit in that.

Proper change for, say, $5.22 would be a fiver, two dimes and two pennies... but by size, say it's two nickels, a dime and a penny? OK, very little profit - one cent (though one extra cent per transaction... could add up a bit over a month or so). We could of course, try two nickels and two pennies, and make a dime...

Oh, and of course, there is also the persistent confusion about our paper money because it's all the same color (or "colour")... So what about a single, two nickels and two pennies? Then I'd be netting $4.10 in pure unvarnished profit for Dustcatcher Central! Oh, the glory!

Of course, the accounting would be nightmarish at the end of the day. We'd have to create a whole separate line-item for the "bilked European change" income and that... might not go over too well with the IRS.

Oh, bugger all. It's a good thing I'm honest.

And patient.

MARCHING ORDERS

Everybody go look out your window right now. I'm typing this at 20:33, MDT. The sky out of all of my windows, east, west, north and south is a shade I can only call hot rose as the sun goes down and the clouds of a kickass thunderstorm hover. The lightning makes the entire sky – and my entire house – glow eerily as it flashes from very close by. The willow trees that flourish on the riverbank have never looked so dramatic, outlined against that garish Mimi's-blusher sky. Don't miss it. What are you doing reading these pixels. Get out there and gawk!

NO ME IMPORTA, PERO...

So, I violated my grocery shopping restrictions today – hobo rations include meat, milk, club soda and tinned soup – and bought a can of Pringles. It's been a long, long time since I've had at these things in any quantity, so I was only dimly aware that they came in the variety I brought home – reduced fat – so perhaps I may be forgiven my lateish-night astonishment at the following:

My Pringles speak Spanish!

It says right there on the can, en un bande verde, "Con Grasa Reducida" - 1/3 menos de Grasa* que Las Pringles Regulares.

Oh, dios mios. From now on, I will only and ever be able to refer to these snacks by pronouncing the name to rhyme with "green glaze."

It's more fun that way, anyway!

(See what happens when Your Humble Blogger has spent too much time hawking dustcatchers and having the exact same conversation with every benighted tourist who darkens the doorway at Dustcatcher Central and trying, really trying, with all of her might, not to lose her temper and begin casting about for a ball peen hammer with which to beat said tourists' brains out when they start raving about those adorable Nazi resin bears** that are imported from China for like ten cents each but sold as "finials" to screw onto the top of your lamp for like $20? See? See? Now I'm writing about potato chips! HEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLP!)

*I'm not sure why "Grasa" is capitalized - I thought it was merely German that capitalized every noun – but maybe it's sloganeering.

**It's maybe not so charitable to call them NRBs, but there really does appear to be something deeply archetypal and creepy about the way charming rustic woodcarving designers (who presumably develop original carvings for the Chinese to copy ad infinitem, ad nauseam, in advanced wood-like polymers that probably do even more environmental damage than the wood harvesting and carving on that scale would do) anthropomorphize bears. Said artists appear to love render the bears as standing upright and giving the viewer a friendly wave... but the arm extended always, without exception, no difference from manufacturer to manufacturer, makes the bear look like it is saluting its Fuhrer. Especially when said bear is lined up with its fellows in row after row, awaiting price tagging. They confront one like a little resin army... and of course they're dressed in brown. Coincidence? Hmm? Hmm? Did they really escape to Brazil? Or was it to China?

Or was it to the Green Glaze Potato Chip Factory?

SOOOOO NOT A GOOD IDEA

Readers of Cadillac Desert and/or of Sam Western's book will not be surprised to learn that I think this is stupid:

Officials weigh intrastate water transfer

According to the Wyoming Water Development Commission, the Green River basin has a surplus, and because it has a surplus and the North Platte River Basin (that would be us, here in the Good Times Valley, among others) chronically has shortages, it's time to consider moving water from the Green to the Platte via pipeline.

Oy, dios mios!

This is the part that really sent me around the bend:

"[WWDC Office Director] Besson said Wyoming's remaining and unused Upper Colorado River Compact entitlement is estimated to range from 250,000 to 300,000 acre-feet of water annually."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this ultimately the same Colorado River that already doesn't make it to the ocean because it's already overappropriated? Isn't Mexico already pretty pissed off about this?

Nebraska v. Wyoming would be nothing in comparison.

MAYBE I SHOULD TRY AGAIN...

A few years ago at about this time, I wrote a newspaper column about a dumb pseudo-science experiment.

My Teenaged Lackey and I, having noted that the Rawlins National Bank's digital thermometer did indeed read 100 degrees (and having gathered suitable photographic evidence of same) decided to verify, once and for all, whether or not it was possible to fry an egg on the sidewalk.

We wound up making a big eggy mess in front of the Lazy River Cantina, which, as I recall, our editor's girlfriend's dog wound up cleaning up for us.

Not long afterwards, maybe a week or so, it cooled off again and we were able to resume our normal lives and routines.

Is that what it's going to take this time, too? I saw that magic number on the bank clock again today, and I'm seriously physically and emotionally challenged to even sit here as I am, at my kitchen table, just a foot away from the air conditioner, wearing nothing but a sarong (get your mind out of the gutter - there are many ways to tie a sarong).

Momma, why's it so hot out there?

In other news, I contacted the guy at the University of Delaware who found a way to make a good plastic out of chicken feathers – a good plastic that could replace silicon in computer parts – to see if he could come up with a practical, value-added, economy-saving use for sagebrush.

Amazingly, he didn't not immediately stick my e-mail in the crackpot file, but rather wrote me right back this morning with specific questions to consider as we begin.

So, does anybody out there in LIANTland know how much biomass of sagebrush there is, or anything about the plant's special properties?

Oh, also, anyone with whom I can hitch a ride to Delaware anytime soon?

OK, time for more blender drinks...

MORE HOBO-VANTAGES

Retired people and people like me have many wonderful things in common... a tendency to spend the middle of the day napping, time for multiple coffee klatches, formidable penny-pinching skills, intimate knowledge of the per-pill cost of our allergy medicines...

And we also have one other advantage over the conventionally employed: We get to go camping in the middle of the week!

Which is what My Own Dear Personal Parents and I, along with our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Timber Beast, have been doing a lot of lately.

Though of course, despite the utter emptiness of our favorite campground, we shun same in favor of a meadow just beyond it. Yes, we're a few miles away from the outhouses, but the latest addition to the Sherrod family, The Bus, is more than adequately equipped (though alas, the door makes a bit of noise at dawn when Your Humble Blogger urgently emerges from her tent [the low woman on the totem pole, she hath not Bus sleeping privileges] to rid herself of the previous night's excess Paisano. Sorry, mom, sorry, dad).

We've been camping in that meadow for – I'm not exaggerating here – my entire life. It was there our campsite was invaded by a few hundred sheep when I was five and we camped in a tiny Red Dale trailer that would at best make a midday snack for The Bus, there where My Own Dear Personal Sister and I spent countless hours trying to push each other out of the high bunk in the eight-track-tape-playing Prowler with which we followed the Red Dale... there where we floated toy boats in the streamflow of Brush creek and tried, always, to dam it up so we'd have a bigger pond (we laugh now to hear our father muse the same musings, to create a better fishing hole)...

But now the sister is in Portland and it is only the Collie of Folly who wets her silky locks in the rushing waters... and wets... and wets... and wets... I don't think that dog spent a dry hour the whole trip, and yes, she did in fact share my tent at night. Sigh.

The best part of all, though, was the Hummingbird Wars; Mr. and Mrs. Timber Beast and My Own Dear Personal Parents had each set up hummingbird feeders in camp (making it necessary for me to keep a hat on my head at all times; my hair is just bright enough to make a favorite target for dive-bombing otherwise), giving occasion for a thoroughgoing and painstaking sociological study of what circumstances are necessary before two hummingbirds will consent to share the feeder (like signs of frost in Hades). We should have laid bets to make it more interesting, though we quickly learned that the Rufous males won every time, even if they weren't hungry.

Alas, no hot Rufous-on-Rufous action to be seen, but we saw Rufous on Black-Chinned, Black-Chinned on Broad-Tailed, etc.

And so passed a pretty stupid but highly agreeable few days at Camp Sherrod, background bickering between MODPD and TB over who was going to saw down the big dead tree right next to the fire pit notwithstanding. The debate there was so heated, so loaded with contumely and neologisms and just plain surreality, that I didn't even miss my coffee group!

Especially since the "cowboy" coffee, made over the course of hours in a sturdy iron pot shoved right down in the coals of the campfire, is the best coffee in the world.

We're all counting the hours until we can go back. Probably on Monday.

About the same time most of you are getting ready for work.

TICK, TOCK

I just came back from a quick visit to the Saratoga Town Hall, where I had a gander at the polling sheets I placed there on Monday. Opinion expressed thereon is, so far, divided, as I expected, with one exception.

So far everyone who has bothered to register a preference has said "yes" to the proposal to ban deer feeding in Saratoga.

Of course, not a one of the known deer feeders has bothered to squeak out anything yet, with the exception of the Troll (not his real name, but a self-proclaimed one, i.e. I did not bestow this name), who muttered his displeasure to me in a bar one night.

Sorry, but that doesn't count.

So anyway, folks, now's your chance. If you enjoy feeding deer or know someone who does, git your hineys down to town hall and tell us so.

I figure we'll leave those out until the first town council meeting in August, and maybe put a discussion of what to do on that meeting's agenda, if the mayor agrees to do so.

But guys, I really don't want this to be another junk car ordinance-style debacle, where the people who don't like this idea keep silent until it's too late or almost too late and then raise an unholy ruckus. That's why I bothered with the meeting and the poll sheets.

But if you deer feeders can't be bothered to stand up for yourselves this month, don't even try coming to me for sympathy if your little pastime is rendered illegal.

But god, I hope it doesn't come to that. I'm trying to imagine how a ban like that would be enforced without creating a whole new slew of civil liberties issues, like yard inspection. Ugh!

The ball, though, is in your court at the moment, fellow Togies.

IT IS TRULY SUMMER

Dateline Saratoga, 4 p.m., July 4. The telephone rang, still a surprising sound in the Unabomber Cabin, one that sends the Collie of Folly into the closet.

On the other line was none other than Erin-Go-Braless, a.k.a. the Punk Martha Stewart, who "just wanted me to know she was thinking of me on the holiday" and was I doing the usual that evening? The usual being, of course, drinking on the porch of the Whistle Pig with my family and watching Old Baldy Club's fireworks display. I grunted some kind of affirmative and rang off, being late for dinner at Fort Sherrod.

A few hours later, My Own Dear Personal Mom, Dad, and Sister and I are on said porch, watching said fireworks, and lo and behold, EGB/PMS doth turn up on same!

She's only here for a few days.

Blogging may be sporadic.

Longtime readers will understand what a hilarious, fun, disruptive influence EGB truly is. Apologies in advance.

On the plus side, those of you who occasionally encounter Your Humble Blogger in the flesh may note an aesthetic improvement, because the Kate's Landing Plein Aire Hair Salon will of course be open for business later this evening.

OK, I guess it's summer now.

FOURTHWITH

I don't know how people in places that are actually hot deal with it.

I'm now gratefully sitting right in front of the air conditioner in the Unabomber Cabin and I feel like one of those collapsible containers for campers after all of the water is gone. I sag in my chair, my eyes half-closed, and it's taking a real effort of will to type this.

It's already been quite a Fourth of July and it's only 2:30 p.m.

But I really need a nap before I can even contemplate constructing a narrative of same.

For now...

Rode in 1958 black Buick with mayor and two mayoral nieces (aged seven) and one mayoral nephew (aged eight) who seemed to be trying out for a Three Stooges revival (who knew clocking oneself in the head repeatedly with one's own fist or a tootsie roll could be so hilarious?). Threw candy, waved, got one arm sunburnt.

Watched shoot-out play in the street, grateful not to be in period dress this year. Joked with former teachers and long-lost friends about how I tried not to read too much into the fact that when I'm in this show, my character is always the first to die and I am thus on the hot asphalt "playing dead" for 20 minutes or more.

Rode bike the long way up the hill to my parents' house. Sat on deck. Spilled diet coke on myself. It felt good. Almost as good as when a neighborhood munchkin tagged me with a super soaker.

Winced at sunburn.

Rode bike back to Kate's Landing. Temporarily converted same into rugged, all-terrain croquet lawn for slow, tortuous game of Extreme Croquet with My Own Dear Personal Mom and My Own Dear Personal Sister. My Own Dear Personal Dad napped in a lawn chair. Molly the Collie of Folly swam in the river, rolled in the grass, swam some more, rolled some more. I got an ass-whoopin' in croquet match. Should have made them play "cocktail croquet."

They're all napping now.

My turn.

Fireworks to be watched, people to be greeted, beer to be consumed in a few hours.

Before that, must eat dead cow with parents.

Very rough being me.

But I really do think it's horribly, horribly hot today.