iPods on the soles of her shoes...

I do long for the new two-ounce iPod that has 150 hours of battery life, a wide screen for video display, wireless connection to everyone’s library within a 3-mile radius as well as to one’s own earbuds, and a 2 terabyte storage capacity flash memory (upgradeable to 4 terabytes). Unbreakable, of course. And I’d even settle for the white one, to minimize scratching. On the other hand, I’m not in the market for an iPod I can put in my shoe. Even when I ran every day I wasn’t in the market for an iPod I could put in my shoe (nowadays I walk the same distance I used to run, at roughly the same speed, which says nothing for my walking ability but speaks volumes of my general running fleetness, and I do it with El Nano around my neck on its lanyard). Because I’m on their mailing list, I get messages from Apple every time they do something new. This one I’ll skip. Although I am beginning to think that, along with that iPod described above (let’s call it the Gen 6 for argument’s sake), a nice iMac with Leopard installed might not be a bad idea either. As you can see, I’m storing up imaginary lusts for the winter. Then, maybe next spring, we might go shopping and buy Little Elvis a big brother…

Speaking of big brothers, Tik pronounced teek continues to harass Pip the Wondercat regularly. In fact, he seems to attack the old guy about as regularly as WTF updates with yet more news for a waiting nation. It’s painful to watch. Pip walks along and Tik jumps on him from one side, Pip growls and shakes him off, walks another couple of steps, then Tik jumps on him from the other side, Pip growls again and shakes him off again, continuing until eventually the old guy finds some sanctuary too high for Tik to jump up and join him. Yesterday I caught Pip reading the bulletins from WTF; I guess the pain of the one distracted from the pain of the other. Oh well. It’s better than being lonely.

Having not read Fever Pitch, but seen both films and read just about every other one of his books, I’m willing to add it to the GRL. Kt wonders who exactly I’m targeting, and I’m thinking of, simply, smart guys who have given up on (or never taken up) reading. I’m proselytizing with this, doing my best to sell to some great unwashed something I strongly believe in. I strongly believe in a lot of things, but some are easier sells than others. I strongly believe in music, for instance. But that requires no cheerleading from me. Who doesn’t listen to music? Sure, I may occasionally buy my mother a Madeleine Peyroux album as a measure for expanding the ear pool, but teenagers don’t need me pointing out stuff because they’ve got plenty already. Doesn’t matter much what it is. It’s around the age of the early 20s that music will become an issue, the age when one has pretty much heard enough rock and roll to know that, like it though one may, it isn’t going to change much, and it’s time to spread the ear pool a bid or condemn oneself to a lifetime of “Stairway to Heaven” (in the case of my generation; probably for today’s Sailors it’s a lifetime of Fiddy’s or Diddy’s “Yo Mama’s Yo-Yo Ma” or whathaveyou—I don’t exactly keep up with everything, if you know what I mean). There comes a time to put kid music behind you and explore everything else: there is more music in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our adolescent philosophies. Classical music, standards, jazz, a couple of hundred countries in the world with their indigenous musics—it’s all a lot of fun, and I’m sure you’ll do it without any help from me (although I’m happy to recommend all kinds of starter sets if you want something really obscure). You’ve heard me on movies already; I love movies but I’m getting bored with them, or at least with the mainstream films, which seem to be in an endless rechurn of previous mainstream films. I don’t mind watching obscure foreign films with subtitles or indie films that send me into a state of permanent depression, but every now and then I want to eat popcorn with air conditioning and be carried into mass fantasy, and Hollywood is failing me on this. We were going to go to the movies last night but decided to go out for Mexican food instead. Probably a wise choice. But again, people will go to movies regardless of what I say, and mostly I’ve only felt an itch here to point to movies beyond the bland norm. Books, on the other hand, sit unread on shelves for a lifetime while people while away the hours playing World of Warcraft. As a result, some muscle of the brain will atrophy, and eventually rot and fall out completely. And then where are you?

Speaking of brains falling out, I’ve put up the first piece of part 2 of Caveman; the rest of part 2 should go up over the weekend, then I’ll record part 3. Unfortunately the chez will be going through some renovations soon; I may have a week or two of roughing it. I do like my creature comforts, everything in its precise place, more or less. The end result of the renovations should be a more agreeable chez meeting spot, among other benefits of interest only to the home team. But first there will be some displacement. I’ll soldier through, somehow.

If you’re wondering, the tornado that ripped through Westchester a couple of days ago was south of here, roughly on the horizontal with Hawthorne. Scary stuff. This is what’s supposed to happen in Kansas. It’s all Dubya’s fault!