Checking in

Give me a minute here. Reentry takes longer than you think. For the moment, just some random thoughts.

1. See Billy Elliot, the musical. See the movie, for that matter, if you haven't already, but that's not what I'm talking about. (For those of you in the know, if there were a book, you could also read that, given that all media are interchangeable in certain eyes, but that's an issue for another day.)

2. Don't read The Half-Blood Prince. Not that it's bad, really, but not much happens, give or take the obvious, and if you want all sorts of new stuff, you'll apparently have to wait till the climax. On the other hand, reading Harry in the UK adds a certain charm, I must say. So does reading Wodehouse on golf.

3. Figure out a way to eliminate spam. Please. Talk about clogging the old mailbox. I did get some really superior phishing posts on the old AOL account while I was away, though. I like to figure out where the error is and I enjoy it when I'm especially stumped. I entered O'C's social security number into a couple of the best ones.

4. I sent out umpty-ump requests for Districts judges and have startlingly received quite a few fewer than umpty-ump responses. Jeesh. We're going to have to ask O'C again, I guess. Worse things have happened, though. He likes when I sit in my comfy chair at the chez and give the "Engage!" command.

5. No judges have turned up for speech at Regionals, so I guess they're giving up the ghost, given that tonight is the deadline. This is not good, but I can't imagine what one could do about it. Whatever happened to rabidity? We used to have Speecho-Americans you couldn't fight off with a stick! Those were the golden years.

6. I thought there'd be at least three new versions of the iPod released while I was away. Jobs has been sleeping on the job, I guess. Or his employees have been sleeping on the Jobs. Or something.

7. Wallace & Gromit is perfect for an airplane. And probably anywhere else. I really didn't think it would work for a whole feature, but what do I know? Pass the cheese, what.

8. Fortunately I prepared material for tonight's meeting before I left last week, because I plan to be asleep on my feet in about 45 minutes, when the jet lag usually kicks in.