Calvert DeForest, 1921-2007

Just heard on the news that Calvert DeForest, the guy that played Larry "Bud" Melman on David Letterman's late night shows (you know - back when Dave was actually FUNNY) passed away today after a long illness.

DeForest's old appearances on Late Night used to crack me up. It was obvious that he had no idea what the hell he was talking about half the time, yet could milk laughs out of even the silliest concepts. Who can forget the fake commercials for "Larry 'Bud' Melman's Toast-On-a-Stick", or the nonsensical ones for "Melman Bus Lines".

There was one old Late Night where Dave put "Larry" in the basement of the Port Authority Bus Terminal to greet "travelers" as they arrived in New York City. Of course, only COMMUTERS come in the bottom floor...well, the results are intentionally and unintenrionally hilarious. Watching "Larry" hand out hot towels to weary travelers in Port Authority. Classic.

Another gem was putting "Larry" in a huge bear suit and sending him out in the street to hug people. The results were about what you could expect on the streets of NYC. Every second that ticked by was a potential train wreck waiting to happen.

DeForest's last appearance on Late Show was in 2002 on his 81st birthday.

Little known fact: Calvert's paternal great uncle, Lee DeForest, was a radio pioneer who in 1906 invented the Audion tube, also known as the triode, which made large-scale broadcasting commercially feasible - and for that I will always be eternally grateful.

Rest in peace, funny man. You'll be missed.

Back From The Fest!

Another Beatlefest in in the books, and as is my way - here is the full report!

The basic rundown:

The snow and ice caused many accidents on the roads to Secaucus, so the normal post-work 15-minute bus ride in from Port Authority took almost two hours. From the hotel window, we could spot accident after accident taking place out on the Turnpike. Looks like it was a great night for all those tow-truck drivers making overtime.

The weather made a HUGE dent in the Friday night attendance. It was probably the first time that I've ever seen an open seat in the bar on a Friday night (there was about seven people in there when I poked my head in around 10PM)! Still, the sparse attendance made for a nicer-than-usual commiseration experience with the old friends that did make it.

Attendance was more up to its' usual numbers on Saturday. Bruce Spizer's first slideshow (mainly containing material in his new book) was hindered because some of his audio / video material never made it via FedEx due to the weather! So we missed out on hearing an actual song by The Titans and WWDC playing "I Want To Hold Your Hand" for the first time in the US. Bruce covered up nicely (certainly better than Ashely Simpson would have).

Ran into Billy J. Kramer in the afternoon (he was just hanging around - not an actual guest!), talked baseball with him (of all things), got a picture. I also discovered that while the inclement weather may have cut down on the number of participants in the yearly Beatle-freak show, the intensity of the ones that DID show up were definitely kicked up a notch (bam!). Definitely an interesting side show element this year.

The Smithereens were great in the afternoon (when are they not?) and The Bootlegs had a great crowd (as usual) on the second floor. Saturday night festivitites ran WAY late (Martin Lewis didn't begin his goofy panel discussion until after 1 AM in the morning - when, by the by, Liverpool was STILL playing!!!). The Blue Meanies / Mr. Neutron finally got going around 2AM and good fun was had by all.

Didn't stay around very long on Sunday (I'm STILL suffering from some flu-like symptoms, so I spent more time sleeping than partying this year, and felt a little burned out by early afternoon on Sunday). Lo and behold, here I am back at the ole homestead a few hours later.

Other things of note that were obverved this year - for the first time, probably EVER - the hotel security was extremely Nazi-riffic. There was an increased "beefy rent-a-cop" presence throughout the Crown Plaza, and they were very quick to flash their hotel-supplied rent-a-cop badges and talk tough about people making too much noise (excuse me?) and open bottles (wha?), etc. For the most part, Fest crowds are very diligent about policing themselves, so seeing a lot of heavy-handed, ham-fisted cro-magnons making threats to people that really weren't doing anything out of the "Fest norm" (singing, drinking, etc.), and stomping around like jackasses was a tad disturbing.

Other notes - heavy amounts of ice and snow caused the cover on the lovely outdoor Crown Plaza pool to cave in. A somewhat incoherent Mark ("Cap'n Crayola") Hudson grabbed the mike on the second floor Saturday afternoon while The Bootlegs were on break and made a rambling spectacle of himself. Last but not least, someone made a VERY "intereting", um...shall I say, "phallic" snowman out back some time on Friday night that was easily visible to Saturday morning breakfast diners seated near the lake-facing glass in the hotel restaurant. Looked like someone had slipped Frosty a few Viagra!

See y'all again in 2008!

Beatlefest 2007 Is This Weekend!

Or, you know - The Fest For Beatles Fans, or whatever it is being called this week!

I'm planning to arrive Friday after work, probably around 6PM. Hope to see some of you there!

FLU UPDATE: Believe it or not, still feeling somewhat sick - TWELVE DAYS after feeling the initial signs of illness coming on. Hopefully more of that will clear out by the weekend!

Pete's Influenza Diary

It was exactly one week ago today that I first started to feel the effects of The Flu. Little did I know then that it WAS "The Flu". Boy, would I be sad to learn that this year's Flu is the Nuclear Flu.

It's the Flu on Steroids.

For those of you who may think you are coming down with The Flu, here's what you have to look forward to...

Friday, March 2: This is the first inkling I have that something is wrong. I drag all day and collapse in a heap before 8PM.

Saturday, March 3: I wake up feeling OK, assuming that I was merely tired the night before. Mon and I go to breakfast, hit the Stop & Shop, pick up something for lunch and head home. Between the hours of 3PM and 9PM, it becomes apparent that something is very, VERY wrong. My temperature shoots up. My nose closes up. My head starts to feel like it's in a vise.

Sunday, March 4: I wake up feeling like something cats play with after they've killed it. I can barely get out of bed without feeling like I've run the NYC Marathon. The concept of eating anything is nauseating to me.

Monday, March 5: Called in sick. No energy. Fluctuating between feeling like I am on fire and chattering with the chills. I manage to get some soup down, but that's about it. Nighttime brings massive chills. No matter what I do, I can't get warm. Hobbes throws himself on top of me and I manage to get a few hours of restless sleep.

Tuesday, March 6: Still at home. Chills still an issue, can't breath, throat is killing me, can't stop coughing. No appetite. Headache is debilitating. Can't move because head is pounding. This is how the entire day goes.

Wednesday, March 7: Feeling only slightly better. Some of my appetite is back, choke down some soup. Blow through an 80-pack of cough drops in about four hours. Knocked off my THIRD bottle of Robitussin.

Thursday, March 8: STILL out of work. Finally able to handle some solid food. Temperature is normal for the first time since Saturday morning. Despite all this, my throat is still like razor blades and energy level is zilch.

Today, March 9: Went back to work...big mistake. By midday I feel like I've been hit by a bus. Get some backed-up work done and hit the road as soon as possible.

And here I am, seven days later. Still feel like Hell. Temperature has normalized, but the cough is killing me. Chest aches. Tired. Going to bed.

I wonder how long it will be until I feel normal again...?

Sick...and Getting Sicker

Hey Gang,

Sorry to report that I seem to have been bitten by the flu bug, and have been feeling worse by the minute all day (although it really seems to be intesifying this evening...I feel like I've been hit by a steel truck).

Therefore, I probably won't have the Podcast up tomorrow that I wanted to post, but hope to get it done some time next week.

Well - back under the blanket wit a hot tea and a cat or two.

Life Is Funny

There are people who will say that "life is funny" without really knowing what it means.

I don't mean "funny, ha-ha" - I mean, "funny, like a kick in the balls" funny. When you are young, you have this idea in your head of how you want your life to turn out. Then, one day you wake up and realize you are still going around and around in the same cul-de-sac of frustration you were in ten, fifteen years ago.

The funny part is that life will throw you a bone every once in a while, and you think "Ah, finally - things are starting to turn around the way I always expected they would". But - those feelings are often short-lived; plans get squashed; things get ruined; and you find yourself back in the same spiral, watching sands pass through the hourglass and days get ripped off the calendar one by one, month by month...and your dreams and blueprints that you drew out for yourself the aforementioned ten, fifteen years ago - are not even CLOSE to coming to fruition. If anything, they are even further away than ever.

Like it or not, things WILL conspire against the blueprints you draw out for yourself, knowingly or accidentally. But in the end, the biggest enemy is yourself - because you know you could have done things differently, but you chose the path of least resistance at every turn rather than fighting the good fight because you just didn't have the stomach to fight.

You can look around one day, and in the blink of an eye you can feel the walls closing in on you - or, feel the foundations you built around you being dismantled with the cruel, clinical precision of an undertaker - brick by painful brick. Before you know it, the foundation is gone, and the ever-closing walls - will snuff out the dreams like a tsunami on a single candle.

It's at that point when you reach your nadir. How to get back to where you expect - no, demand to be - seems like a distant, darkened light at the end of an endless tunnel (that you have no clue how to navigate).

Thank goodness that at the end of the day, there is AT LEAST an iced tea and a cat on your lap to look forward to.

The Eagles Are Gathering

Last time the anti-war crowd decended on Washington, they spent a lot of their time desecrating monuments, causing disruptions and spitting on war vets. Horrors of horrors, they will be back on March 17th.

Thanks to a heads-up from Michelle Malkin in her column today, maybe we can do something about it this time:

A 'GATHERING OF EAGLES' TO MARCH FOR AMERICA

February 28, 2007 -- HOW many times have you sat in front of the TV over the last four years, watching anti-war activists march on Washington, chase the ROTC off your local college campus, vandalize war memorials, insult the troops and wreak havoc under the surrender banner?

How many times have you thought to yourself: What can I do?

Here is the answer: Get off the sofa and join the Gathering of Eagles on March 17 in Washington, D.C.

Perhaps I shall free my schedule for this.

Please go to the GATHERING OF EAGLES WEB SITE for more info.

Some Cool Jazz After The Snow

Hope everyone is successfully dug out from last night's latest round of snow and ice (remember back in November when it was in the upper-60s?). Got "iced in" again here today and used the opprotunity to get some stuff done around the house.

Thought I'd share something that is entertaining on two levels: it's a cute cartoon, and the music is top notch (Ella and Louis - does it get any better???).

Enjoy!

Busy Week

Hey all...had a pretty busy week so not a whole lot of time to blog, which is just as well - there wasn't a whole lot going on anyway. Work, as usual these days, gave me a headache - but I did take some time out to visit Hank and Jim and do some show, which was nice (I love doin' shows, man).

As a bonus, I recorded a George Harrison tribute for his birthday tomorrow (Sunday). George would have been 64, and while he may not be around anymore, he left behind a ton of great music for all of us - so I'll be playing much GH tomorrow at 4PM ET on the one-hour WBCQ show normally hosted by H&J (thanks, guys) at 7415 on your short wave - or you can get it on the net at WBCQ's Web Site and click where it says "Click here to listen live". Check it out, we had some good fun.

By the way, in case you missed it - Punxatawney Phil called for six more weeks of Global Warming! Good thing I bought that scarf!

A Little Ice for St. Valentine's Day

Unbelievable day in progress here…after a night of freezing rain and ice, we’re now being pelted by huge chunks of frozen…stuff.

Still have power (as you can tell), but the lights HAVE flickered on and off a few times. The fireplace is in full effect and the cats are bemused by all the racket the racket the ice is making.

Check out this picture I just took of the back yard. The white stuff LOOKS like snow, but it’s actually SOLID ICE. I haven’t heard a car on I-78 (what is on top of that hill and noticeably empty) in hours (just the occasional truck that is probably salting).



Still cannot believe how bad the roads are. Made one feeble attempt to get to the train this morning – the car went sideways and we turned around and came back. Saw a few cars up on the shoulder on the way down and back.

Good to see my tax dollars at work!

PS - Yankees pitchers and catchers reported for Day 1 of Spring Training - yesterday. Go figure.

The Wild Week That Was

It's amazing what can happen in just a few short days, isn't it?

Super Bowl XXVVXXWWIIXXVVIIXX came and went in a blur, as sports and news organizations alike tripped over themselves pointing out that both coaches were African-American - something the coaches themselves kept trying to downplay without much success. Both Dungy and Smith are fine coaches (religious fellows, too), who led less-than-perfect teams to the Super Bowl on skill and guile. The fact that the 'skill and guile' parts of that equation are not being mentioned very much shows you that we still have a long way to go in this country if we're ever going to have a TRULY "color blind" society.

Astronauts gone wild: Space Shuttle astronaut Lisa Nowak popped a cotter pin and strapped on an adult diaper to drive from Texas to Florida in an effort to "confront" the lover of a fellow astronaut she'd fallen smitten with. "Confront" could mean a variety of things...Nowak had a card full of items that could have been used for a kidnapping, attack of some kind, or worse. There was a time when our Astronauts were the best and brightest we had to offer. This could be the first one that becomes eligible for NASA's experimental "shock therapy" program.

By now, unless you've been living under a rock you know who Anna Nicole Smith is and you know that she's dead. You also know that there's now a couple hundred million dollars just floating in the wind out there like Forrest Gump's feather. As a result, there has been a mad rush on potential daddies for Smith's baby, the likes of which we haven't seen since the California gold rush of the 1800s. Who knew there'd be such a huge queue of men willing to admit to repeated unprotected sex with a notorious skank (not named Britney)? Stay tuned.

Also in the news, the amazing snows in upstate New York. The poor folks in Oswego are digging out from over ten feet of the white stuff, while several other towns around the Great Lakes region break all-time records for massive snowfalls and low temperatures. At the same time, here in our neck of the woods we are waiting for a storm that's supposed to blow through on Tomorrow night, dumping snow and ice all over the Middle-Atlantic region, up to New England - with more record cold to follow.

Global Warming Fever: Catch it!

Last but not least...I don't know if you've ever seen it, but there's this repuslively horrible reality show on MTV called "My Super Sweet 16", where cameras follow the exploits of these conniving, disrespectful, annoying, spoiled, bratty, rich 16-year-old girls around while they whine and stomp and bitch and scream like the spoiled little bitches they are for half an hour while their poor, long-suffering parents arrange a multi-thousand dollar birthday party for the little twats. That's right - no punishment for being horrible human beings - just more rewards. It will actually make you physically ill watching it all unfold before your very eyes.

I can only assume that's pretty much what watching the Grammy Awards was like last night when the Ditsy Twits got all their "statement Grammys" for a bunch of songs that about eight people outside of Hollywood and New York have heard. I understand there was also a Police reunion, and Lionel Ritchie performed.

And people want to know why I NEVER watch awards shows.

All The News That Causes Fits

As many of you know, I have begun to commuting to NYC via train instead of bus. The bus was just too damn expensive and at least I know WHEN the train will get in at night

Much to my chagrin, I have learned that one problem has followed me from the bus to the train: the dreaded curse of the large tabloid.

There was ONE kind of person I hated to sit next to me on the bus: anyone with a copy of the New York Times or the Newark Star-Ledger. Let's take annoying editorial policies aside (that's enough reason right there). The freaking papers are BIG. Too big, if you want my opinion. They are big and think, and have 100 sections in each because both papers seem to think people still have about three hours to read the newspaper in the morning.

It seems that any time a guy with The Times or The Star-Ledger sits next to me, they always do the same thing. First, they start disassembling the paper like some kind of sophisticated spy puzzle: this section comes out, goes back in the bag. This section stays on top. This section is not going to be read at all, so it gets folded and crammed under their seat.

Then, they whack and smack the paper into several readable folds. Of COURSE, they ALWAYS sit with their elbows at thier sides, flush to the seat - so that you get dug in the ribs with their freaking elbows for the rest of the trip. Then, the turning of the pages...grrrr. Perhaps the number one, most-annoying trait of the large tabloid reader. Since the dopey papers are so big and unruly, the pages can't just be TURNED...oh no, the have to be snapped, slapped, pounded, twisted and crinkled...in a cacaphony of noise specifically designed to disrupt and bring to an end the extra hour of sleep that I like to squeeze in en route to a day at the salt mill.

Naturally, it's logical to assume that the lack of respect for personal space and creation of all sorts of unnecissary noise just go hand in hand with that "I'm a Times reader" or "I'm a Star Ledger" reader attitude. "I'm better than you because I read a paper the size of a 1950's-era Mobil roadmap", the Time reader being the more arrogant and oblivious of the two.

At least the Star-Ledger has a couple of comics pages.

New York Deep Freeze

This just in from the Radio Free New York weather center: the Central Park temperature at 3PM ET was 16 degrees. That's right - sixteen.

The rest of the week isn't supposed to get any warmer, either. In fact, the highest temperature for the next five days is supposed to only be in the upper-20s.

Remember back in November and early-December when it was in the 50s and 60s, and every time you turned on the news all you heard was "Global Warming this" and "Global Warming that"? Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?

Humorously, a group of U.N.-picked scientists decided last Friday was a good day to release a report claiming that the ever-dreaded Global Warming WAS happening and it'll be all over for us in a few thousand years! Never mind that the foundation of this report was all based on "predicitons" and "estimations", but very few "facts" (unlike this article HERE).

No matter how much proof there is that shows climate change is cyclical and as natural as dandelions in a sea of crab grass, there are always going to be those who insist that we'll be sorry when the Polar Ice Caps melt and pengiuns are forced to wear wife beaters. Why? Because the U.N. says so!

They also probably believe THIS.

PS - Now that Super Bowl XXVVIXXVVVIIIXXXVVV is over, the good news is that Pitchers and Catchers report in 10 days. Whee! Were those the WORST Super Bowl commercials EVER, or what???

New Classic WHOT Podcast Now Up

I know, it's been a while since the last Podcast posting...so I forced myself at mousepoint to post a new classic WHOT show from 20 years ago!

This time around, we hear the ever-frantic ramblings of Terrence Alexander Walker III, as he graces the microphone with one of his earliest WHOT shows.

WHOT-FM - February 12, 1987 Part One

WHOT-FM - February 12, 1987 Part Two

As always, don't forget to tune in to the Hank and Jim Show tonight, coming to a set of PC speakers near you! Just click Click HERE to listen!

Enjoy!

Stupid Hillary Tricks, Vol. 1

What did I say? Didn't I say it was just gonna be a matter of time before Hillary started double-speaking in only that way a Clinton can?

There's ole Hilly in Iowa on Sunday, dipping her toe in the Presidential waters and ending up with a foot in her mouth. During a Q&A session with the local media, she was asked what on the surface seemed like a legitimate question: what was it about her background that made her quailfied to deal with evil men?

In perfect Clintonesque subterfuge, Hillary avoided having to give a serious answer to the question by first repeating it, then smirking and raising an eyebrow. A crowd full of Hill-lovers seemed to "get" the joke and roared with laughter for half a minute.

The question, of course became "Well, who was the "evil man" she referring to when she pulled her Jack Benny impression?". The general consensus seems to be that she was referring to her hubby Bill. Others suggested it was a general comment about all the "evil men" in her life, like Ken Starr, George Bush, et al. Regardless, the chuckle worked: she avoided having to answer until later (when she could get a more suitable reply from her handlers).

It's intersting to note that while this vaudevillian moment was being reported all over the news, the Dem-controlled Congress was quietly working on a way to undermine the law and force a cut-and-run resolution on Iraq. Gee, this wartime campaign is shaping up to be a real laugh riot!

First, Hill denied she was trying to be funny and blamed the moment on the crowd in attendance. Then, she did a 180 and said she WAS trying to be funny, and blamed it on the media for telling her to "loosen up" in the past.

Where have I seen this strategy before? It all seems SO familiar...

You know, Bush has been on my shit list for a while now, for a variety of reasons. My biggest fear is that this non-qualified shrew will actually get elected because of W's repeated second term bumbling (remember, it was this sort of thinking that led to Jimmy Carter being in the White House, whose foreign policy ineptitude led in many ways to the explosion of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East we see today). Thankfully, there are some folks out there that will try and prevent this from happening (these folks, for one).

It's would be really nice if the GOP would put up a candidiate of substance, too. But I'm not holding my breath.

Toilet Humor: It's My Potty

Apparently, Murphy's Law also applies to the powder room.

I'm in there trying to "take care of business" earlier tonight and lo and behold, the freaking toilet won't flush. I remove the tank lid and discover that the plastic arm that pulls the chain that lifts the stopper has snapped in two.

Why do I mention this? Because this is the second time the same exact thing has happened here at Casa del Sayek since we moved in. BOTH times it happened after 8PM on a Sunday night - when either everything is closed or you have NO desire to hit the Home Depot (especially since it's snowing outside). Plastic breaks...metal rusts. You can't win.

I guess until tomorrow I'm on manual flushing duty. No pun intended.

There IS good news - the condo folks finally decided to give us a new roof, so we shouldn't have any more 'waterfall on Thanksgiving' incidents. We hope.

The office let it slip that our roof is NOW 'up to code'. Which I guess means that BEFORE the leak, it wasn't.

Make of that what you will.

Worst Kept Secret Dept.: Hillary's In

Unless you live under a rock, you know by now that Hillary officially threw her hat in the ring for the 2008 Presidential Election over the weekend. Good God, just THINKING about the concept of HILLARY possibly being the next President makes me a little queasy, so I've been deliberately avoiding making any comments about it.

Well...I just threw up in my mouth a little, so I guess it's OK to unburden myself now.

I figured out what the Clintons are a long time ago. They are the guests that came to your party (even though YOU didn't invite them - someone else thought it would be a "cool idea" to bring them along) and refuse to leave. You know the ones I'm talking about: the house is a mess, there's empty bottles and crushed tortilla chips all over the rug. All you want to do is kick them out and go to bed. You're tired, you're weary, and quite frankly - you're sick of looking at them - and once they DO leave, you hope you never see them again. But they refuse to go. They keep spilling shit on your rug, touching your books and records with greasy fingers and scaring your cats. You're in HELL.

That's the Clintons - the uninvited party guests that keep channel surfing your digital cable and eating the salsa off the sides of the bowl with thier index fingers at a quarter to five in the morning while you're struggling to stay awake on the barca lounger.

You see them FINALLY going for their coats, but you know something else is up. The wife has been saying she has a big announcement all night but hasn't made it yet. So you know it's coming. Sure, you hope she might forget, but she never forgets. You're still gonna have to sit through the announcement. Without warning, she drops the bomb on you - and it's so potentially disasterous that it keeps you awake...night after night.

Hillary dropped her bomb on Saturday - rushed mainly to counteract Barak Obama's Presidential bid announcement that came earlier in the week (Obama being the perennial empty-suit candidate..I have this visual image of the two of them whipping out light sabres at the Democratic Convention and saying, "There can be only one". Hillary's is of course, bigger). Talk about rotted pickins - the air fills with the stench of moldy, soft pumpkins. Oy and vey.

Hillary feels that she has what it takes to be the first female commander-in-chief. She's about as qualified for that job as Geena Davis. We're talking about the woman that looked the other way while her husband slipped the high hard one to any piece of ass that walked in his general direction. Under normal circumstances, women would ostracize Hillary for being a friggin' idiot. But I'm sure she will be canonized for being smart enough to stay on Bill's coattales while he drained the noodle.

The Clintons are the emodiment of self-absorbed political arrogance. Why not? They have (either seperately or together) gotten free rides from the media and magistrate alike on such unseemly matters at Travelgate, Whitewatergate, Cattlegate, Gennifergate, Filegate, Paulagate, LincolnBedroomgate, Hubbellgate, Chinagate, Auditgate, Pardongate...oh, I could go on and on. Former associates would rather rot to death in prison than turn on them. So why SHOULD they feel anything other than Teflon-coated arrogance?

Of course, Bill and Hill's greatest legacies will be Lewinsky, having their heads in the sand while the 9/11 plot was being hatched (and having enough pull to get a movie about it edited beyond recognition) and extremely skillfull carpetbaggery. With everything the two of them have been able to get away with, I would put nothing past them - even this.

Today officially began campaign Week One for Hilly. I'm sure she already hit the department stores to stock up on new pantsuits. While she talks about having a "discussion" on her web site, let's see how long it takes before she starts talking out of both sides of her mouth.

The clock...starts...NOW.

Another Weekend

Well, another week is in the can, and what a week it was. It finally snowed for more that ten seconds here - in fact, we got about two inches of snow in the wee early hours on Friday, which made the drive down to the train station quite the adventure. It's all gone now, but the cold decided to hang around. Another day by the fireplace watching TV and being surrounded by cats. I love days like this.

So - I'm now into my third week of commuting to Manhattan via train instead of bus. I thought that I would tire of the Newark / PATH transfer thing, but it's actually started to grow on me. The bus commute had gotten SO bad and SO expensive, I don't miss it at all. Plus, it's nice to know you are going to get home at the same time every day, not at the time the bus decides to get you home. Not bad at all.

I have not posted the WHOT 2nd Anniversary show YET because I am still trying to put the show back in proper order. Apparently, in 1982 Hank and Jim decided to have TWO "second anniversary shows" - one on October 8 and ANOTHER on October 15. Then Jim recorded BOTH shows over the same four reel to reel tapes - on different sides. So figuring out which tape is part of which show is becoming quite the challenge. On top of that, I am pretty sure one of the tapes is MISSING. So some more rummaging through the tapes will be required before I can post the show properly. In the meantime, I'll try to get something else up in the next day or two.

In case any of you missed Comet McNaught's appearance a week ago, you really missed something. McNaught was actually visible IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY here in the Northern Hemisphere (I saw it in the parking lot of Shop Rite and thought I was hallucinating)...but the BIG story is what it is currently doing in the SOUTHERN Hemisphere. We may not be able to see this unreal display first hand, but the photos will knock your socks off. Trust me, you've never seen anything quite like this from a comet. Check out the photo gallery HERE.

Last but not least, somebody sent me THIS mildly amusing blog link that points out some of the more, um, annoying aspects of MySpace. The guy can't spell too good, plus he's a smarmy jerk (the layout of that blog ain't so swift, either), and MySpace has made a lot of improvements since he wrote all that stuff - but he DOES have some valid points, especially the ones about rabid Bulletin posters and ridiculous page layouts. Thankfully, some of us still use MySpace for the purposes it was intended for. At least we TRY to.

If I ever get annoying like that guy or the goofballs he's writing about, just tell me.

UPDATE: It tuns out that Kris, they guy that wrote the schpiel about the MySpace insanity e-mailed me and he's a pretty cool guy, so I take back my snarky little pissant comments...!

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Maybe y'all didn't notice but Old Man Winter finally arrived. After dumping a couple of buckets of ice on the midwest, it's now bitch-ass cold here in the western reaches of New Jersey. As I write this, it's 15 degrees (gasp!) going down to 11 overnight (double gasp!).

Thankfully, as you can see above, the old fireplace is doing it's thang and keeping our tootsies and kitties warm and toasty. Where would I be without the fireplace...probably in debt to JCP&L up to my frozen nipples.

Looks like we might even have a couple of inches of snow tomorrow. Will wonders ever cease? It's amazing what a little shift in the jet stream will do: a couple of weeks ago at this time it was in the 60s and all the doom-n-gloom Al Gore chicken littles were running around like the sky was falling - and now, half the citrus crop has been frozen solid (good for frozen concentrate - not so good for fresh squeezed). Which just goes to show you that the weather - believe it or not - CHANGES from time to time. I know...hard to believe!

In other matters - the aircheck archive project has yielded some really delightful (unfrozen) fruit lately. Several unlabeled reel-to-rell tapes ended up having the WHOT 2nd Anniversary Show from 10/15/82 on them! As soon as I can get out of the clutches of the flu bug and assemble the show into a cohesive order, I'll put it up on the Podcast for all to enjoy!

The sleep weasels AND the ice weasels are calling me, so off to bed I go. Keep warm kids!

Just Sitting Around...

Hey hey,

I was sitting here tonight working on the Archive and I figured I'd get some stuff off my mind as I am feeling a tad stressed out tonight.

So far, 2007 has been pretty stressful. I switched from taking the bus to taking the train in to work to try and save a few bucks - and let's just say it will take some getting used to. I certainly will be getting my walking in from now on! I'm also slightly concerned about my job as the particular office I work in has become the dumping ground for all the crap that no one else wants to do since the merger and layoffs.

It's basically been the busiest it's ever been since I started working there, and they're still giving us MORE work to do that we don't have time for. Add into the mix that we are about to spring a new product on the unsuspecting masses that (I am sad to report) is so FRIGHTENINGLY user-unfriendly that I am positive it's going to be like mailing out a train wreck in a box. The debris from which is sure to fall squarely on us.

Because of all of this, as well as OTHER stressful things going on right now, I just feel tired, anxious and completely stresed out. The good feelings I had while on vacation are completely gone, and I just don't know if I am coming or going.

I'm hoping that 2007 does not continue to be the fickle bitch she has been (at least for me) so far.

Back to the tapes...