Song: "You Two Don't Make a Nice Couple"

Happy Valentine's Day:

Lyrics:

You two don't make a nice couple
You two are not gonna last
You two are headed for trouble
I suggest you break up fast 

You two don't make a nice couple
You clash like bongos and plaid
I hate to burst your bubble
But seeing you makes me so sad 

A match made in heaven it's not
That arrow was not Cupid's shot
Some hunter perhaps
Who had had too much Pabst
You two the bullseye were not 

You two don't make a nice duo
You do-oh such terrible hurt
To those of us who still are hopeful
There's reason to mingle and flirt 

I know it's hard to admit
You want to believe it so much
It's no fun to be desperate
But you are, it's obvious 

A match made in heaven it's not
Two ships suffering dry rot
Some sailor has gone
And tied one on
He tied you two a slipknot 

Split up now while you're still friends
Enjoy one more night of free sex
Then let this sick fantasy end
Better luck with the next 

Cuz you two don't make a nice couple
You two are not gonna last
You two are headed for trouble
I suggest that you break up fast 

Amen

New Song Draft: 'Blue Faces'

Just coming in the last couple of days. The chorus I am just in love with; verses are mumbled pre-shadows of what may or may not come; I hear spartan, smoky sax; bass, of course; maybe background vocals/wails/murmurs; Hammond organ? (why not!); and a much smarter lead guitar player (Jeff Stanley?).

Thank you for listening:



Chorus (I'm tuned down 1/2-step): Am - Bm - E7 - D7 - FM7 - E7 - Am - C - Dm - Am

Oh heck, I've got to include this video of Jeff (website) playing lead - taken by his brother, phtographer Peter Stanley.

 

Pretty Sure CNN's Twitter Account Has Been Hacked

Why do I say that?

Cuz this (click to enlargenate):

Link - which will no doubt be fixed soon - here.

Time right now: 10:04 AM Sydney time; 3:04 PM U.S. West Coast time.

Update: There were more.

Double Drummer Cicada

Holy cats:

Found this beauty at the tide pool here in Collaroy yesterday. It's Thopha saccata, the Double Drummer cicada, native only to a sliver of far eastern, primarily coastal New South Wales and Queensland. (Wikipedia page here.)

They're enormous:

A good deal larger than the cicadas I knew growing up in Buffalo, New York. (Or in Oregon.)

They're also loud. From AustralianMuseum.net:

One of the loudest of all cicadas, the Double Drummer's high-pitched erratic whine sounds a bit like a bad bagpipe player. When populations are dense, these cicadas are almost unbearable to be near when they sing in unison.

Here's a good article on how cicadas produce their amazing sounds. And a video. And a recording.

In this photo, of our cicada's underside, and still on the subject of sound, you can see where the Double Drummer gets its name:

Do you see those reddish-brown sacs on either side of its abdomen? Those are the Double Drummer's "double drums," as it were. They're the two air sacs all cicadas have and use to amplify the sounds they produce, and while all cicadas have them, they are usually not as large and visible as they are on this variety—hence this one's name.

Also in that belly up photo, you can see the cicada's long, black, tubular mouthparts that it uses to pierce plants in order to feed:

The mouth parts of the cicada are enclosed in a long, thin, beak-like sheath. The sheath (labium) passes backwards from the lower surface of the head between the legs when the insect is not feeding. It contains four fine, needle-like stylets used in feeding.

(Just to note, this cicada appears to have had its butt end eaten off. They normally have a nice pointy end, as seen in the images provided in the links above.)

An interesting note about the Double Drummer, from the AustralianMuseum.net link above:

The Double Drummer seems to have a tendency to fly out to sea. Thousands of individuals have been reported as far as 8 km offshore. Their bodies are sometimes washed up on beaches. 

Which may be why I found this guy in the tide pools.

All in all a beautiful bug:

• Here's a good ABC article on Australia's many cicada species.

Note: Thanks to commenter honeyheights below for informing me that this is not a Black Prince cicada. Corrections made accordingly.

New Song Draft

"Oh, Buffalo."

Used my Mac, and PhotoBooth to get this, and while it's fine on PhotoBooth, during the transfer the video and audio went slightly out of sync. Which drives me nuts. But I redid it three times and I'm not doing it again.

Egg Reside Dried in Stainless Steel Bowl, 11-13

Egss were mixed in a stainless steel bowl. [I had originally written that it was aluminum. Because I'm an idiot, as my wife was happy to point out.] The residue remained in the bowl for twenty-four hours or so. It did this. I do not know why it did this.

A few more:

CARROT GREEN-ONION LEEK CINNAMON SOUP

CARROT GREEN-ONION LEEK CINNAMON SOUP 

I invented this soup yesterday. It surprised me - and even surprised (the famously fussy) Christine! Give it a go! 

Rating: A +++ This makes a thin-brothed soup with just the right amount of cinnamony sweetness—meaning not too much—combining perfectly with the savory zestiness produced by the tomato, leek, garlic, and cumin, all of this going smashingly well with the carrot pieces. Just very, very good.

Ingredients (for 2)

2 fat cloves garlic
1 fat bunch green onions
1 fat leek
1 big fat carrot
2 tomatoes
1 small carton vegetable stock
Balsamic vinegar
Soy sauce
Cumin
Cinnamon

Directions

Heat a few tablespoons of good olive oil in soup pot - good and hot

Chop garlic into very tiny pieces

Chop green onions into smallish pieces, well up into the green

Slice leek into thin slices

Add the above to very hot oil in pot, stir a bit

Chop carrot into big fat pieces

When the garlic, onions, and leek have gone a good bit soft, add carrot chunks, stir

Slice tomatoes into medium size pieces

When carrot has cooked some - 3 to 5 minutes or so - add tomato to pot, stir

Add a healthy splash of vinegar

Add a bit of soy sauce

Throw a good dash of cumin in

Throw a bit of cinnamon in, stir, stir, stir: you are going to want to be able to taste the cinnamon properly, so do not be shy - but don't go crazy, as too much cinnamon = very bad

Slowly add vegetable stock - keep pot noisy and sizzling/bubbling - stirring as you do

Turn heat down and let it cook for a while - and here's an important note: you want the carrots to be pretty firm, but you want them to have soaked up all the goodness of the other ingredients! So use the carrots as a texture-taste tester timer!

Eat, then...victory! 

(We ate it with rice.)

Underbelly Anniversary

Yesterday late afternoon we were sitting on the veranda reading and chatting and whatnot and Christine said, "You want to go out to eat somewhere?"

I said, "Hmmmmmmm yeah no, not really."

Then I felt bad. We rarely go out to eat. 

"Sorry," I said.

Christine said, "That's alright, maybe tomorrow."

Then she said something else.

"Happy Anniversary." 

And then she bent her head back to her newspaper, nonchalantly.

The thing that happened in my mind at that moment is almost impossible to describe. I could still see, sort of, but none of what I could see meant anything. My mind was a kind of sharp, white blank you imagine one experiences while being attacked by a large shark. My breathing went shallow. Then it stopped altogether. I felt my mind grasping fat-fingered for something, something I knew was dreadfully important, but that I could not put a name or even a meaning on. It has a shape, I thought. It's big, and block-shaped. It's...it's a MONTH! A MONTH! What is a month? I had no idea. But I knew, deep in my blood, that it was very, very important. 

I was finally able to hold this "month" thing in my mind, and determine that these things have names. "August" floated up from the depths of my horror. That's not it, I thought.

Christine was looking at me - queerly - all this time. Several seconds had passed. 

Then, I rose, as if a diver, perhaps in Antarctic waters - without a suit - and, in slow, slow motion, broke the surface of the water, with a name on the quivering edges of my mind: "Oc...to...ber."

Oh...dear...

Oc...to...ber...5th...

Oh...no...dear....

"Is it," I asked, in a voice like breaking glass, a far, far away voice that didn't really want to be itself, "October...5th?"

I can only describe Christine at this point as something like a child who has just witnessed several elephants suddenly standing on their hindlegs and expertly swiveling hula-hoops around their hips. She clearly found this torture session of mine a very special kind of amusing. 

I of course deserved it.

Thankfully, it was October 4. I had, I must confess, somehow not registered the coming October 5. I kick myself for this. Bad, bad husband.

Christine was of course very forgiving. Did I deserve that, too? Hrrm.

Today we are taking a long city bus ride downtown, to watch one of the largest fireworks shows ever conceived - over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. 

Just for us.

Happy 11th Anniversary, baby. I love you more than this...

Headbutting Sleep

Just found this video showing me headbutting sleep, slowly, again, and again, and again, then…sleep.



Think of this next time you find yourself counting sheep.

Absorb This: Florida AG Delays Execution So It Doesn't Conflict With Her Re-Election Campaign Kickoff

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi

You may have heard this from a few weeks ago: convicted killer Marshall Lee Gore was scheduled to be executed in Florida on September 10 of this year. That didn't fit into Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi's schedule: that was the same night as her re-election campaign kickoff! So what did she do? She got the execution delayed for three weeks:

Basically, Bondi told the families of victims who had been grieving for 25 years that they needed to grieve another three weeks so she could break out the champagne flutes and rake in the campaign checks.

Tuesday's event was billed as a "hometown campaign kickoff" at Bondi's waterfront home, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

And, as everyone knows, lethal injection can cast quite a pall on a party. So a few weeks ago, Bondi quietly decided to reschedule … the execution.

What special state of depravity do you have to molt to to even comprehend doing such a thing? For it even to cross your mind, much less to actually follow through and make the phone calls and speak the words and actually get it to happen? To delay by weeks the execution of a human being - so it doesn't conflict with the glitzy campaign kickoff fundraiser for your law enforcement position?

I didn't just throw up a little in my mouth—I threw up a little in my soul.

Bondi has apologized. As smarmily as you might expect.

Bonus:

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi was a staunch supporter of Gov. Rick Scott's Timely Justice Act, a controversial law that speeds up executions in the state by restricting "frivolous" appeals by inmates.

Isn't she special?

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We Need a National DNA META-Database

NSA, DNI, DNA, LOL

Proposal: We should immediately begin collecting DNA samples from every single American citizen. We should use those samples to produce DNA identification profiles, and those profiles should be kept in a secure database indefinitely. A National DNA META-database. There wouldn't be any names or any other personal information attached to the profiles...unless we needed it. 

Legal Justicfication: People voluntarily allow bits of their DNA to be spread outside of their bodies and into the wider, public world - via a third party - every single day. DNA is therefore and obviously not private, as concerns constitutional protections of privacy. This is supported by long establised law.

Important Notes:

• It's just metadata!

• Haystack!

• Terror! (Extra Editor's Note: "Terror" does require a link. Terror is the link.)

• Just think how interesting a DNA META-database would make the "three-hop" system!

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Dead Blog Revived By Zappa

This blog has been dead for some weeks while I recover from quitting smoking after 32 years and dabble in some arthritis. Get it? Cuz "arthritis" starts with "art"?

Anyway,  Zappa. A short one. An excerpt, actually, but holy Jesus:

   

Bozzio.

Belew.

Mars.

O'Hearn.

Wolf.

Mann.

John Oliver on Aussie Elections: Holy Crap

"He's gonna have to soak that thing in club soda for hours!"

Oh God, the dude is funny.

<

In my next life I want to be...

...the drum part in this song:

 

Mitch.

Mitch.

Eating With Little Australia: Tuna Fish Sandwich

Plain old tuna fish sandwich?

BORING.

Tuna with pickled onion and crushed walnuts on Turkish bread roasted sandwich?

NOT BORING.

Ingredients: Turkish bread, one can tuna, mayonnaise, pepper, pickled onions, walnuts, cheese of your choosing (we had a dry, crumbly cheese).

Don't be afraid of the walnuts. They go really well with tuna. You don't need tons of pickled onion—but it doesn't hurt. Plenty of pepper, too.

Turkish bread is the bomb, people.

DO NOT overpower with cheese. Just a light covering.

It's like a disco in here!

Very Important Step: mix extra tuna, pickled onion, and walnuts and eat with a spoon.

After a little while put in the top piece of toast. Put a little mayo on it.

Toast until toasted.

Add chips, eat next to coffee table display of seahsells, driftwood, and shark egg. For the irony.

This has been another episode of "Eating With Little Australia." You are welcome.

Remember: Your tastebuds aren't armed guards protecting your stubborn ideas about food—they're plucky little infants wanting to explore and taste the world! Yes, there are risks involved. And?

ATTENTION WORLD: NSA Scandal About to Fox News's BIGGEST STORY EVER

The IRS is involved now: 

Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal Revenue Service for two years.

The practice of recreating the investigative trail, highly criticized by former prosecutors and defense lawyers after Reuters reported it this week, is now under review by the Justice Department. Two high-profile Republicans have also raised questions about the procedure.

A 350-word entry in the Internal Revenue Manual instructed agents of the U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA's Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files.

Someone call Steve King!

NSA/DEA story here and here.

From here.

Alberta Wildlife Cam Snaps Bear Tree Party

Huh, so this is where Uncle Walter has been going all these years.

 

Surfing Tanzania

This is so cool. My old Oregon and Australia friend Jeff Stanley provides the music for this video, made by his photographer brother Peter Stanley, of he and friends surfing Coco Beach, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. (Pete has lived there for several years.)



More Jeff here.

Pete's National Geographic page.

The Noise of the Green Wall

Walking in Narrabeen on July 10, 2013, the day of the death of my friend John, I stop and hold my phone to a green wall, to hear the sounds in my head.

This video is not sideways.

Recommended Blog: Prof Chris Daly's Blog

Just learned about this blog via comments on this review of that blogger's book, Covering America: A Narrative History of a Nation's Journalism, on Amazon, which was recommended by Reuters' Jack Shafer in this article which I got to via this tweet.

Alrighty then.

About:

Chris Daly is a writer, journalist, professor, and historian. I live near Boston and teach at Boston University. Before that, I worked for many years for The Associated Press and for The Washington Post, where I was the New England correspondent. 

I'm going to read this newly found blog because I think it might make me smarter. Here's hoping.