Special Guest! The Blue Dot!
Narrow is the door. . .
Other guests & newcomers welcome!
Coffee & Tea under the window.
Goodies on the platters.
Goodies on the platters.
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Newspapers are in their regular spot next to the door
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Please recommend (and unrecommend the Cafe/Lounge from earlier)
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May the 4’s be with you
Man, anybody else feel as sluggish as I do? I’ve even been able to a lot of leaf raking, thanks to mild days, but I still feel as if I need to move.
Oh, and good morning!
When Andi gets here she can tell you where they took the picture. Is that the Archangel Jim behind you?
HIII!
Hi kb! Hope you have a good day at work. I’m thinking of doing a no-eating-between-meals routine for a few days. If I do, I’ll use your website for reinforcement.
Good Morning!!! I’m so glad to see you this morning. I’m about to run out the door (I promised I’d leave by 7:30 & I’ve got about 3 minutes).
But, I wanted to say HI!
And ask what you’re going to do today?
I’m feeling rather groggy and out of sorts too. The past few days I’ve awakened with a major sinus headache and having been visited by really weird dreams. I keep having this recurring dream about my youngest child nearly drowning. I”ve had this dream so many times in different forms over the years that I’ve fretted over it’s significance. Usually he is still little and a huge wave is about to overtake him, or we’re swimming together in a pool or the ocean and he gets swept away and I can’t reach him.
On that happy note….Good morning!
What an awful dream. Welcome to daylight!
Speaking of dreams and sons, we’ve talked about lucid dreams now and then in the Cafe. “Lucid” being where you realize, in the dream, that you’re dreaming and then stay “awake” inside of it. My son had one a couple of weeks ago that was kind of funny. He said he was in an airplane that was flying way too low and clipping off branches and he began to realize it just couldn’t be real. So he said to the pilot, “This is a dream, isn’t it?” And the pilot said, “Yes, it’s a dream.”
I try to do that when I’m having a dream of, say, George Clooney.
Last night I had a dream that a Giant Blue Dot was trying to badger me into becoming the oldest student in the world. 🙂
The Blue Dot leaves that kind of behavior to that pushy woman she occasionally uses as her earthly presence.
When the Blue Dot is ready for you to go back to school [this fall], she will just tell you to do so and you will, of course, comply because it is well known how graciously the Blue Dot forgives her transgressors.
Well, at least it will be quick and painless, rather than the slow death of never being who who you think you should have been.
Thanks for the,um….motivation?
to look on the bright side.
Word to the wise: don’t say “badger.” Just because Marmotdude is hibernating doesn’t mean he isn’t listening.
Well I was hoping that when Damnit Janet wakes up she can write a new song about badger balls.
Trouble maker. 🙂
It disturbs Marmotdude’s sleep:
Marmot predators include the coyote, badger, bobcat, golden eagle, hawks, owls, weasels and marten.
*adgers don’t have balls… they have pucks 🙂
nod to college ice hockey
lol!
Clever way to get around saying the forbidden word, too.
*ophers.
Ha!
I continue to have dreams about my two grown nephews as young kids and they were always and still are about someone kidnapping them -with the subtext of harming them sexually and other scary crap. I don’t know why I still dream about them as being small as I also dream about them as adults now too.
I dream so much that I finally came to the conclusion over the years that dreams do not always mean anything at all. I used to think that there was or had to be some deep meaning to dreams….and in fact research in recent years shows that my personal conclusions that not all dreams have to have any meaning are true. Some do and some don’t.
And I had a really hideous dream last night which happened to have Brad Pitt in it who basically turned into a monster who wanted me to be either tortured or some other really crappy stuff. I never have had a good dream that I can remember.
Does Volksmarching count as hiking?
Used to love to Volksmarch and at the end getting a little plate or medal. One of those horse – carrot kind of things.
Okay, I’m gonna need a translation here. Is this like a parade of VW bugs, all in rows?
It was great fun where you signed in at a starting point and walk through a pre-set course. You can walk the three or five kilometer course as fast as you can or take all day. You can stop in a rest stop along the way or in a restaurant in the small towns – just taking you time. At the end you either get a small commemorative plate or a medal.
It was very popular in Germany when I lived there. I wish they had something like it here.
Favernugen!
Geshundheit!
That was funny.
The Blue Dot, being the wise being she is, has been avoiding the realm of her earthly manifestation because the woman has failed to achieve the righteous wisdom to place her corporeal being in a existential plane where the weather isn’t so damn shitty.
However, she could not resist the request of our gracious host because just like everyone else she is a sucker for the pleasures of being within the sphere of influence of a big macher. (However, the Blue Dot would like to point out that she, a being of great taste and discernment, chose to reveal herself to kansas before the Big Secret™ was known.)
Note: picture of the Blue Dot on the Bright Angel Trail in the Grand Canyon was taken by JimF
Have you and Jim ever thought about retiring and becoming travel writers? Wouldn’t it be great to travel around the world, taking spectacular pictures, and get paid for it?
Jim cannot be gone from home for longer than 11 days (a number arrived at through scientific testing) or he becomes like cheese that has been left out too long — he acquires a crust, hardens, and is unpleasant to be around.
And the only way he will leave the classroom is when they drag his cold, dead body out still clutching his tattered copy of “Reflections on the Gift of a Watermelon Pickle.”
Years ago, when I was freelancing for what I laughably called “a living,” I thought about trying to be a travel writer, but I figured it might suck the pleasure out of the trips.
I wonder if anybody here does travel writing.
Intermittent travel photography count?
(I can be ready to go in about six minutes; the bank account, however, requires more extensive preparations.)
Do you ever get assignments, or do you do it all on spec? Not that it’s a bit of my business, of course.
The “outatown” travel stuff is mostly self-assigned and self-produced, sometimes trying to get ahead of an in-the-pipeline story I hear about from a connection somewhere.
I do get assignments from smaller travel mags and firms, mostly for things within a couple hours of home. More and more I’m seeing the photo business working that way at my level… writer does story by phone, using local contacts, and a local photog gets called in for pix (or they come from a stock library). Not that much actual TRAVEL being done. I don’t know how widespread that is, but in some of the major and many of the lesser travel mags I see a LOT of agency credits, so I’m thinking it’s pretty much the standard now.
Friend of mine did an entire 200-page Chamber of Commerce guidebook to a major midwestern city a few years back — without ever leaving her desk. OTHER guidebooks, phone interviews, Net research…
Okay, she’s a good writer and all, and her name wasn’t going on the book, but….
Clearly I’m too old fashioned — I was doing a fiction project set in Chicago and I made a research trip for that (that probably cost more than I will get paid for the story). But I had family I could visit and it did make the writing easier to actually see some of the places I would be writing about. Tourist books never show you the grimy, lived-in every-day stuff….
How do you do that trademark thing? Sometimes I think you really are the Blue Dot and you’re only pretending to be Her emissary on earth.
Trademark: ™ ™
Registered: ® ®
Copyright: © ©
®
™
©
&:)
a big macher can’t learn new tricks.
Big macher? Hasn’t recent legislation done away with that designation?
this morning. I can’t figure out what legislation you mean.
I’ve always wondered why we always say big macher when its actually redundant.
Sounds like a new curse for Bostonians… macher facher! 🙂
wrong accent — you need a Eastern Eurpean one. It’s yiddish for a powerful, important person.
Ah… a hockey coach!
or a MOM 🙂
Damn, that would mean that if you were to become a hockey coach you could challenge the authority of the Blue Dot!
I can’t ice skate.
Depth perception issues so I’m not the greatest golfer (I’ve yet to hit one of those fucking balls!) or skater/hockey. My husband TRIED several times to help me learn… but instead of hitting the puck or ball I thought of other things I could hit with the sticks… namely Mr. Damnit’s HEAD!!!! 🙂
Except… I CAN roller skate – go figger… but back then my parents were constantly taking me to the base hospital. One good thing about being a military brat – you could break your entire body several times a month and get medical help.
A doctor was amazed one time I didn’t break a bone after a Xanadu like marathon of injuries. My mom retorted… instead Janet broke the pavement. 🙂
I can’t ice skate.
Blue Dot: whew!
I have no depth perception (result of an childhood eye operation) so I can certainly sympathize. The absolute worst was racquetball because there was nothing to use a frame of reference — all those damn white walls.
So let’s here for archery, a sport were you close one eye!
let’s hear it… my typing style is rubbing off on Andi
🙂
I got a concussion from when a boyfriend took me out to play raquetball. I think we got two serves in before I got zonked.
What is was I got hit with the ball AND his racket… and then I fell backwards thus nailing myself on those lovely HARD floors.
Oddly… it took them a full 4 hours to realize I had a concussion… zoinks. Not sure what that says about my friends, or me. LOL
but I’ll play her here at the cafe:
Honey, you can rub off on me any time.
Indy would be proud.
Nah, I’m a second-rater but I’m willing to work at it.
Just a poor attempt at humor. 😉
Need to hop in the shower shortly — leaving in about an hour or so to walk down to the train station for today’s MacWorld adventure. Spouse will leave the convention early to come back and pick up the car from the dealership, then will pick me up at the train station this evening. Taking the wheeled daypack with me; weather is expected to be stormy tomorrow so we’re doing our book shopping today — Peachpit and O’Reilly Books both have booths on the show floor so we can stock up on all our (read my) techie books at a decent discount. 🙂 May hit one of the conference presentations on blogging and site syndication, since that’s a possible project for the year ahead. I’ve ordered the complete conference on CD-ROM anyway, so if I miss it I can always find out what went on in a few weeks (CD-ROM has all the conference sessions as MP3’s, along with all the handouts and presentation materials — very cool!)
Feeling a bit worn down, typical for MacWorld week — I’ve been trying to take extra care of myself but hasn’t been working. I think this weekend I’ll spend most of my time vegging if possible…
Have a great day, folks…
Don’t forget. . .
please help disappear the old cafe from the rec list, and then help keep this one in sight.
Thanks.
care to come spend a few moments with Paul Craig Roberts?
Great interview with him, Cedwyn. Chilling, but great.
Cedwyn, I’ll flip ya an email of my number and stuffaronies so we can hook up. 🙂 I’m actually in the Hillsboro/Beaverton area.
I tried to email ya hon!!!
Subject: failure notice
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.
I’m afraid I wasn’t able to deliver your message to the
following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I’ve given up. Sorry it didn’t work out.
Try me: azulism at yahoo dot com
i’ll holler at you when i git home.
i can log in to that account just fine – how weird
Planning my Oregon camping after rafting Idaho in June…not a good way to motivate to go to work.
Let’s see – isolated campground at 5300 ft, up 12 miles of forest road, next to river, max 15 tent / small trailer sites OR suit, high heels, computer, deadlines….
Time to think about deadlines…
Gee, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t automatically choose the high heels and deadlines.
for some reason. It must have helped to pound on stuff™ yesterday.
And it was genuinely work-related too. I had to bond some heavy leather using a contact cement for shoes. After it dries tacky, you put the joint together, and the mfr actually recommends hammering to set the bond.
Stupid WHACK fascist WHACK gutlest WHACK….
Meanwhile we’re heading for the record books with rain in the Pac North Wet. Today we tie for second place in most consecutive days; 10 more are forecast and that would put us close to the all time record.
And so now for something slightly different from last summer:
Are we looking down through water? Or from up on high?
pound on stuff™
lol!
From now on, it’s all yours.
looking down through a small wave crest passing by, preparing to break toward the shore to the left.
There’s a lot of green seaweed floating near the surface, along with some bits of purple-red and yellow. Darker and lighter grey rocks line the bottom.
At lower left you can see my shadow holding the camera up to my eye.
Ah, the beloved 15 oz persuasion tool.
And tell us more about that picture.
I am waiting for 5 students to finish their exams. School ended a while ago (an hour). I am letting them use their books, and it seems that some just want to re-read the stories.
This will be day two where I miss lunch.
Where’s RubDMC’s diaries??
Back from lunch. . .actual real lunch. . .with katiebird. We solved all the world’s problems so you guys don’t have to worry about them any more. Also, there was fresh rhubarb cake.
I think I’ll knock off early and go for a sail.
Any time. Glad to help. If the world starts getting to you any time in the future, just let us know and we’ll schedule lunch again.
n/t
Nyuk nyuk. Our attempts to torture you have worked.
You have no depth perception?? Well, no wonder you’re not scared to hike in the Grand Canyon! You probably think it’s flat as the Mohave Desert. Andi to Jim: “Just step back a bit for this photo, honey.” Pause. “Jim? JIM? Where’d you go?”
Actually we joke about this but the other way. Apparently you are unfamiliar with this story (and wouldn’t Marie Lightfoot have made a great book out of it):
His second wife, Sharon, author of a popular Canyon hiking guide,
Irony lives, though apparently women who marry him do not.
With it break time here on the upper port side, I’m still getting along well with my budget mackerel salad.
If mackerel were land meat, we’d class it like venison or perhaps duck, calling it a little gamier than tuna. But really, not much. It doesn’t stink up the fridge, its’ nothing remotely in the category of anchovies or even the week-old ‘fresh’ fish we often unwrap from mid-continent grocery stores.
Finished it off with some hot blue corn chips and the last of the seaweed salad we found at the local seafood vendor. Cheap, healthy & yummy.
De-lurking for a moment. Want a laugh? Check out the front page of the NYTimes.com site for picture of Bush in New Orleans with a huge picture of a jester behind him. Photographer must have had some fun with that.
Funny stuff….priceless framing.
President Bush is visiting the hurricane-ravaged region for the first time in three months.
Only jesters (and someone else who I can’t remember) may laugh at the king!
It’s 3:30 and I’m tired of everything I’m working on.
Oh my god, that is priceless and belongs on some sort of poster or T-shirt. As for the rest of the article as usual he sounds out of touch(even according to Andy Card)and just plain stupid but then what’s new.
And that’s better than those photos that were being taken before that showed him with those halo’s over his head that were making the rounds a few years ago..how things have changed.
Except stupid me–I only got one!
Hey everyone, 4’s all around as I’m just making it to the Cafe today..trying to read diaries and play catch up for not being around much yesterday. And because I can not think of one witty thing to say right now I’m hitting post.
Watch out for that… post 🙂
Hey, now! What did post ever do to you?
I’m getting tired of scrolling, so I may start a new cafe. And yeah, yeah, I know about less scrollish ways, but when I use them I lose my rating power. And a host without her rating powers is like a vampire without his incisors.
There’s a brand new juicy cafe open just across the way and it’s calling your names. Or, possibly, calling you names. It looked a little rough to me. You’d better go check it out.
LINK: Afternoon Delight.