Stuck Inside of Hotel with the Laryngitis Blues Again

Well, I don’t feel that crappy but this dang cold has become a near case of laryngitis, with my voice getting weaker and more cracked all the time. Perfect time to be attending a conference. By Saturday, when I’m speaking on the wrap-up panel, I hope I can do more than croak.
And it’s even kinda cold here in San Diego!
Really glad I flew out of Oakland and not San Francisco where the disappearing shoe-bomber even occurred. What became of that? I didn’t get my news fix today…

snow in san anselmo

or, rather, everywhere else in the bay area. b barked her shin down to the bone this morning, slipping on ice (!) on our back deck. wrenched her back too. woe is us.

what the hell is 'AOL Scheduler'

OK, I admit it: sometimes I’m a paranoid ignoramus, willing to assume the worse. My Mac has been crashing a lot lately. And when rebooting just now I noticed that one of the extensions was AOL Scheduler. What the hell is that? I don’t run AOL software, I don’t use Netscape except hardly ever (too bad), and I don’t use AIM…

that's it!

after a long day trip to camarillo (burbank airport) and with another trip to san diego coming up, and this damn cold or whatever you call it once again settling in my lungs and sending up dead soliders (white blood cells), i’ve made an appointment with my doctor to see if it’s another infection requiring another antibiotic.
need to jump start my immune system?

fucking hilarious

if you haven’t been reading get your war on you should be…

SPOILER ahead (for Dylan fans)

If you’re the type who forever after remembers the words to a song parody in the place of the actual words, consider skipping this post. The rest of it is a terror war lyric to be sung to the tune of “Visions of Johanna” by a Merry Punster known as j, with a few minor folk-drift emendations (… and ok, maybe it doesn’t all scan perfectly but what do you want from something typed up at our behest from memory after a showertime moment of inspiration followed by an attempt to repress the idea?):
Visions of Osama
Ain’t it just like the Taliban to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it
And Omar holds a handful of nirvana, temptin’ you to decry it
Lights flicker from the opposite caves
In this room, Osama just raves
The Pashto music plays, nay
As there’s nothing, really nothing anyway
Just Mullah and Al-Zawahri so entwined
And these visions of Osama that conquer my mind
In the empty caves where Northern Alliance play blindman’s bluff with Al Qaeda
And the night vision boys they whisper of escapades out in Tora Bora
We can hear the night watchman click his goggles
Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s minding the store-ah
Marine, he’s all right, he’s just near
You go in and we’ll cover the rear
But he just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Osama’s not here
The ghost of ‘lectricity howls in the bones of his face
Where these visions of Osama have now taken my place

Inside the Taliban, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But the video shiek musta had the US blues
You can tell by the way he smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the burqa-covered women all sneeze
Hear Mohammed Atta say, “Jeeze
I can’t find my knees”
Oh, virgins and martyrdom lie in the bed of the tool
But these visions of Osama, they make it all seem so cruel
The countless now speaks to the peddler who’s pretending to care for them
Sayin’, “Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and lay a scare for him”
But like Jihad always says
“Ya can’t look at much, can ya man?”
As death, herself, prepares for him
And nirvana, she still has not showed
We see this empty cave now corrode
Where burqas and turbans once had flowed
The Rababer, he now steps to the road
He plays ev’rything’s been returned which was owed
and the Bamiyan Buddhas implode
While my conscience explodes
The Taliban dodge skeleton keys and hard rain
And these visions of Osama are now all that remain

"…strife in the Middle East, and a whole lot more!"

Fox cut to commercial on its morning news show after an interview with the “if my lips are curled I’m lying” vice president of the U.S. with the perky example of American marketing-speak quoted in the subject line above.

we definitely have a situation here

what did delillo call it in white noise? something like “a moving toxic incident” but even more bureaucraticese than that. warnings today about a chemical leak from a refinery in martinez today. stay inside, close windows and doors, turn off heater and fans.

what is with this?

another sore throat? it doesn’t seem fair!
stress is stress, but this is ridiculous

an anxiety-provoking deadline machine

that’s what i told ngriffin i don’t want my PEP project to turn into. it’s supposed to ease the frictions, not create more guilt and shoulds.
reminder to self: saturn overdue for 45000 mi checkup