Me need Lotto ticket

"Most people already know the chances of winning Lotto are slim. But did we know just how slim? Rosenthal points out that the odds are so huge that you are more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the shop to buy the ticket than you are to win the major prize."

Chain, chain, chain

Yesterday a regular patron axed me for my email address because he wanted to send me some information about how all our cell phone numbers being released to telemarketers. My urban legend sense started tingling yet I gave him my email address. After I received his email I went to Snopes.com and found an article about this email being a bogus chain email. It copied the link and sent it to him. He was a little embarrassed because he had sent that email to, in his words, "a lot of people." If an email sounds far fetched be sure to check with Snopes.

Just in Case

If you were looking for another reason to distrust the Bush administration I found today's entry.

Holy Christmas

Check out the chart from a recent study of countries and how their citizens view evolution. I think it's a nice touch that evolution deniers denoted with a red bar.

Slave to the Ipod

I dig the Ipod. Heck, I love it. For the last few days though, I have spent most of my free time dumping songs into it. This is going to take weeks. I just checked my bank account and I am regretting the purchase a little bit. Next payday can't come soon enough. If you need me this weekend I'll be sitting at home adding songs to my new master.

I can't help it though. I did some math and it looks like I will be able to put almost all of my massive CD collection into this contraption. I'm going to make a playlist of all my Led Zeppelin bootlegs. How fun will that be?

I got up early today. Real early. I can't wait to see how tired I am going to be when work ends at nine tonight. Am I doing dishes? Reading? Making a nice big breakfast while listening to NPR? Hell no, I'm messing with the Ipod. Someone save me.

Changing the toner

We have one of those Dell 3100cn printers here at our branch. It reminds me of the contraption that Captain Pike was strapped in in the original pilot of Star Trek. Today it was my turn to change the black toner in the printer. I approached this task with dread. I observed another librarian here change it a couple weeks back and he's pretty good with computers and he almost quit while changing the toner. My experience was worse.

First I couldn't get the expired cartridge out. I Got ink all over my hands in the process and had a patron hovering and offering "helpful" suggestions. I was following the instructions printed on the printer. I know I was doing it right. I unlocked the cartridge and pulled. Nothing. I pulled some more, this time harder. Nothing. then I really pulled harder and the printer slid across the tabletop. I was grappling with that cartridge like a frontier dentist and getting more frustrated by the second. After about twenty minutes of this there was a horrible cracking noise and it came out. I was sure I had broken it.

Then I had to put the full cartridge in. Twenty minutes later and a few more scary cracking noises I had managed to get the cartridge almost in but couldn't get it to lock. While trying to lock it the barrel holding the toner cartridges managed to rotate around to where I couldn't get to it. I started crying, the patron left and then I emailed the help desk.

John, who is now my hero, walked me through rotating the barrel full of toners so I could get to the one I was "fixing." When it rolled around I was able to lock it in with no trouble at all. What's up with that? Do I have to break it before I can fix it. Nest time someone else can replace the toner. I'll do it again in a few months when I have recovered emotionally.

Souvenir from the mountains

At some point during the rock show at last week's Rhodo I took a stroll into a field to check out the stars since the stars are brighter when you are not in the middle of a smog-choked city. Around Tuesday I started to get a horrible itching rash on my legs. Turns out it's poison oak. Holy hell, does that stuff itch. Not only does it itch, it oozes a clear sticky fluid. I can't begin to tell you how much fun it is.

I am a pod person

Yesterday I couldn't take it anymore. I went to the Apple Store at the mall and got me an Ipod. I decided I might as well cripple my bank account for the next two weeks and go all the way with the Mack Daddy Ipod. I spent all of yesteday afternoon watching the race at Indianapolis and downloading as much as my CD collection as possible to the Ipod. I figure I have a good chance of putting a large majority of my collection onto this Ipod. I'm chomping at the bit to get as much music on it as possible. Unfortunately, as you upload a CD to your computer it is converted to the mpg format the Ipod accepts and it takes over five minutes to convert it. It's a much slower process than I hoped it would be. A faster computer might help but that's going to have to wait since I broke the bank with this tiny little Ipod. It's going to take a couple of weeks but when I hit shuffle at the end of this project I am going to be in music heaven, baby.

Better everything

Not only do kids these days have better toys than when I was a youngster they have better Summercamps also. The little creeps. Oh, if only I had gone to Jesus camp as a child. I am sure I would have lost the faith much sooner than 1984. Damn my luck.

Finally

It still doesn't seem real. The night before last I stood about 20 feet from Tom Waits while he played a two hour set up in Asheville, NC. There's not more to say, really. It's just a show that was on my top ten list before it even started. A few highlights:

1) November. November was a surprise and my favorite song off of Black Rider.
2) Clap Hands. I had the lyrics to this song written on the front of my notebook at one point during high school.
3) Invitation to the blues. Done on piano with bass accompanying. He flubbed a line or two but he did the song on a whim.
4) The call and response he did with the crowd while using a bullhorn during Don't Go Into that Barn.
5) The odd little stories he tells between songs.
6) That sligtly hunched over hobo walk and they way he stretched his hand out to the crowd.
7) The footlights that cast his shadow on the curtain behind him. The man knows hot to present himself and he casts a distinct shadow.
8) Shore Leave.
9) Heart Attack and Vine. The way he moaned through the chorus was so different than what he put on wax but it felt just right for the arrangement.
10) I saw Tom Waits.

Of course there were a couple of lowlights.

1) What is it with people that feel the need to fill every empty space a band leaves in a song with their own voices? It's there for a reason, you yahoos.
2) We know you love Tom Waits. He knows you love him. That's why you paid between $65 and $85 for a ticket. Can we leave it at that?
3) There were at least two songs where it looked like Tom was attempting to take it down nice and quiet and work with silence and sound but each time the song got quiet the crowd, aticipating the end of the song, started cheering and Tom then waved his hand behind him to the band and ended the song.
4) When you recognize a song you like is it really necessary to drown the band out with screams? It's nice you like the song but please refer to complaint #2.

That's all. The same thing happened at the Neil Young show in Nashville in 1998. I guess that's part of the price for being an icon.

Rhodo

This weekend was the annual trip to to a place a few miles north of Boone, NC called Valle Crucis. Or as Wendell likes to say while moving a hand slowly in front of his face, "Vale of the cross. Vale of the cross." This year was the ninth time I have been up to Valle Crucis during the last weekend of July. Since 1998 Wendell has gone up there with me also. He missed one back in 2004 but he's made the rest. The summer of '04 was a tough one for Wendell. He missed the trip due to a graduation and he missed Sonic Youth at the Orange Peel because he was sick.

This year's Rhodo (officially known as the Rhododendron Festival) was one of the best. There is a softball tournement that takes place but, once again, we didn't bother to go see the games. We are there for the company and the band that plays on Saturday night. Brigham went with us and he had never been before. He's been job searching for a few months now and a trip to the mountains was just what he needed.

The usual cast of alcoholics was there. There is a great group of people we only see about once a year for this event. Sometimes I am in awe when I see how much booze these fory and fifty and sixty year olds can put away.

Saturday night was a night to remember. After the band played a smokin' set in an old barn down the road we headed back to the campfire as we do every year. Some guy at the campsite next to ours that was sharing our campfire stayed behind and had a roaring fire going when we got back. That was cool but starting a fire is half the fun. We didn't complain.

Hanging at the fire with Lenny, Stevie, Barry, Kathleen, Bobby, Brigham, Wendell and a dozen other folk was a hoot. For some reason this guy showed up and started interviewing Lenny. I don't know who he is. I don't want to know who he is. Well, maybe I do want to know who he is just so I can be sure to never be anywhere he is ever again. He was dressed in a black and white urban cowboy outfit and he thought he knew about music but was just a terrible blowhard. Sometime after 1 am he disappeared and then reappeared with a jambox slung over his shoulder and he followed Lenny around playing him Allman Brothers and music by the band and the Monkees. Here's a picture of him. If you see him run.


The cowboy ended up getting smashed and he brought Lenny along with him. It got very silly and started to get annoying and...he...wouldn't...leave. He kept blaring music around the campfire and my tent was right there. I said to Brigham that there was no way I was going to be able to sleep until he and that radio were gone. Three am comes by and he's going strong. 4 am, still there. Sometime around five he finally disappeared for good and I crashed somewhere around six. After it hit five I said to hell with and decided to see how long I could hang. I haven't stay up that late since my clubbing days in Okinawa. The sky was getting light by the time I hit they hay. I think I got about three hours sleep which isn't too bad for staying awake almost until dawn.

One of my traveling companions (I won't say which) got as drunk as I've ever seen him. I had to help him to his tent which was a pain because he was being a belligerent little bastard. About an hour after he passed out I saw him stumble out of his tent and step behind someone's van to tinkle. I rushed over to make sure he didn't fall and hurt himself. After his micteration we chatted for a second before Bobby came up to say hey. We stood there and marvelled and my buddy's drunkeness and I saw another Federal teenager walk by. I waved her over and three of us laughed our drunk-ass friend for a minute. He finally decided to back into his tent. I didn't realize until later that he had had to cut the mesh screen of his tent open because he couldn't find the zipper when he had to tinkle. Instead of messing with the zipper he decided to dive through the hole he had cut in the mesh. Instead of diving he fell through the hole, getting through up to about his belt. As he belly flopped his weight brought the front half of his ten down on top of him. All me and the two kids could see were his legs kicking like a breach baby. The three of us laughed for a good two and half minutes solid. I mean, we just roared. I don't know the last time I have laughed that hard. I got one of those good breathless giggle going that I used to get because of Tom's wit while in telephone reference. It was one of those classic moments you have with friends that you will never allow them to forget.

That was Rhodo. Rhodo always provides you with memories. What more can you say about something.

One more thing

Oh yeah, I am going to Asheville to see Tom Waits tomorrow. You heard me right. I have't been this excited about a concert since the KISS reunion tour in 1996.