Ella's Still Entertaining But That Depends On What You Find Entertaining (Plus A Few Other Things)

First of all, forget what you thought you knew. Ella Fitzgerald is not dead. She is alive and well, and she is on Facebook. And apparently, there are people in this world who like what she has to say, dammit.

I Know What New Yorkers Are Complaining About

Last week Wired magazine posted an infographic that visualizes a week's worth of calls to New York City's 311 complaint line and segments them by time of day.  They made use of Lee Byron's streamgraph method to create a visually arresting image, but the results were a letdown (if you ask me). Take a look for yourself here; these complaints are a borefest. I'm not judging, I'm just saying I thought New Yorkers would come up with some more interesting things to complain about. I mean, they're in NEW YORK for crying out loud. Chlorofluorocarbon recovery? Puh-leeeze. You can do better than that, guys.

This is not real.

Here There Be Coda

No matter which way you look at it, this is gratuitous hot action.

Who wants to change oil now?

Now then.

The People Want More Neon

It was a few magical nights ago, there were fireflies flitting about the living room crooning about the wonders of airborne life and the dustiness of the Great Lamp that is their shrine, and Sassy and I were sitting together on the sofa. We were watching television. I believe it was a program about food. I want to point out here, even in the midst of this special moment I'm describing, to make sure we're clear: Sassy likes programming about food and watching it with her makes me hungry, so I go along with minimal protest (unless hockey is on). But I digress. We were being sang to by fireflies somehow. Candles were burning. Neighbors were gathering beneath our balcony holding up lighters and sighing (no mistake, friend: they were sighing loudly and in time) little contented sighs to each other because of how peaceful that spot of sidewalk was.

The Best Post In The World

It has been a time since I have posted anything. It was a difficult time for most of you, I know. But it was tough for me as well because of all my readers, who missed me. I felt their collective agonized yearning for the Ish as waves of astral energy, and it invigorated me during my deadlines, but it also set upon me a terrible burden: the desire to ease the thirst for Ish.

R2D2 Got Out Of His Dreams And Into His Car

Sassy and Kid went to Comic Con in Long Beach this past weekend! It was Sassy's first, and she was pleased. Kid was relieved to finally find his dream car.

In space, nobody cares what your hubcaps look like.

Community Helpers Are Your Friends

Today we helped out in Kindergarten for Community Helper Day, impressing all 65 of them with our verbose humor and musical prowess. They came to our station in sets of five, for five minutes at a time. You don't understand how much time that really is until you try to keep a bunch of five year olds focused for that long. They were fascinated by us for 30 seconds before wanting "crazy music" or to touch the guitar/mandolin or to inform us of what their Halloween costumes were. With the four and half minutes eternity we had left we quickly started a game of musical chairs each time, while vowing to respect the hell out of Kindergarten teachers for the rest of our lives. 

To Live And Die on LI

Oh, how I love my little Sassy.

To make this little post worthwhile to peoples other than the aforementioned loved one, here is a song, and you will like it.

To Live and Die on LI by The Goodwill

What Is Love? Let's Ask The 90s

What is love? If you ask me, love comes down to trust and respect, which are earned and given, choices we make daily. Most importantly, trust doesn’t mean never having questions, it means knowing that there’s an answer and it’s only a question away.

On the other hand, if you watched this video you'd think it has something to do with mandarin collars, capes, and leopard print leotards. Egads, I couldn't watch the whole thing.  Can you?

Sassy Is Mad At Ingrid For No Real Good Reason

You might have noticed we've been listening to Ingrid Michaelson lately. (By which I mostly mean "I've been listening" far more.) It was accidental, she popped up on my Pandora one day. I noticed her song You and I and liked it because it had a great line about wanting to do what bunnies do (with you-know-who). Awwww.

Crooners

Sassy and I caught Chuck Ragan playing some tunes in Fullerton before his London tour this past weekend. Even though I'd seen him play plenty of times in Hot Water Music, I had never seen his solo act live before. We enjoyed ourselves greatly, and Sass took a real good picture.

Aren't you glad everybody uses Dial?

Quick Shots

Blog posts are going to be a bit rarer around here until at least November. There are some reasons for this, and they are as follows:

#1. My book deadline is November 4th, I think. I should know this, but all I know right now is good, and ball, and...

It's Saturday, So...

Know what that means?

90% chance of going to this place.

There Will Be Grease

McDonald's is not an eatery that anyone other than my dad would say "tastes good." It serves its purpose in its own special way: it is hot, it is fast, it is greasy, it is [relatively] inexpensive. The only thing this place has going for it is the Monopoly game. I friggin' love the Monopoly game. I have no idea why, because I hate playing Monopoly itself -- although again, my dad thinks it is the best game ever. But I love McDonald's Monopoly, and I already won a medium fries.

Proceed to get fat

A Prologue

I wrote this in a span of a few hours last night and this morning. I used a Univers font, which may or may not transfer -- and if it does, you may not be able to see it anyway, since it isn't a standard font. (Fonts are important to writers. Unless Sassy brings them up, then fonts are just what dorky design folks geek-out to, which is ideal for me making fun of her.)

Without further ado, except for this picture:

So, so right