the frig blig

I just googled ‘frog blog’ and 130,000 hits were returned. Frog blogs a-hoppin everywhere! So this isn’t such an original title after all. Guess I’ll start working on finding a new name (before going too public).

I next googled ‘flog’ (thanks Christopher) and out of the expected 1,250,000 results were items such as these:
Fette’s Flog - Aesthetic Los Angeles
Tenacious Flog
FLOG Plays golf backwards
The Daily Flog
and > 1 million others.

So it appears my work is cut out for me. Frog blog was just too darn obvious. Maybe inspiration will strike this weekend or maybe during tomorrow morning’s staff meeting…

I decided the perfect Christmas gift for George Bush would be a one-way ticket to Baghdad. Unfortunately, no tickets seem to be available (at least from Delta, American, Northwest and KLM airlines). I’m very disappointed. I was looking for flights that leave on Dec. 26. If anyone can find a source for available tickets from DCA to SDA (Saddam International Airport), please let me know, I don’t have time to continue looking at the moment.

This morning while studying tsume go problems and drinking coffee at the Lighthouse, a common housefly landed on the top of the page. I switched my attention to the fly. This fly was cleaning him/herself (my eyes aren’t good enough to determine if it was male or female) by rubbing its legs together. Very methodically it cleaned it’s front legs, then its rear legs, then back to the front, then the rear again, rubbing them against its wings too — hard to tell if it was cleaning its rear legs against its wings, or cleaning its wings by rubbing them against its legs. And it continued cleaning for ten minutes. This fly was fastidious about cleanliness — either its legs had something very sticky or hard to remove on them, or else it had a fetish. Regardless, I am wondering if reports of flies’ dirtiness are exaggerated, perhaps by pesticide companies. Admittedly flies’ habit of landing on feces is dirty. But they may have their own species-specific standard of cleanliness. The germs that make people sick may not affect flies, and vice versa. Flies may spend a hefty portion of their time cleaning themselves, ignorant of their reputation among humans as dirty.

I just wasted an hour trying to add a Page to my wordpress blog consisting of simple php code to display a modified directory listing. Unfortunately wordpress won’t run php code from Pages. I tried using the phpexec plugin and adding ‘phpcode’ tags both from the html post editor (nope!) and then by directly updating the post_content column of the wp_posts table (nope again; wordpress brushed off that feeble attempt). So I’m giving up now and will rejoin the pre-thanksgiving cleanup effort here on Baker Ave. Where we are looking forward to commemorating FOOD with friends real soon now.

blog along with me,
the best is yet to be,
the current bits, for which the prev were made.

I read the news today, oh boy. Robert Altman, director extraordinaire, died.

While the press will certainly mention his wellknown flics like Nashville, MASH, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Player, Shortcuts, etc., I must rave about his early, awesome but rarely remembered Brewster McCloud.

He was old and finally received a ‘lifetime achievement’ academy award just this year (?!), thankfully before he died. (Uh-oh, Altman was 81 and my father is 82!… a scary realization.)

I would never hesitate to see an Altman film. What I liked about his style was, he did not hew to standard formulas. He pursued characters, in the full sense of the word. He found good actors and gave them free reign. And his films were frequently damn good.

Besides Brewstser, I also liked one of his later films Cookie’s Fortune. Altman had a full length career so it is no tragedy that the end arrived. But I will surely miss his work, and hope (and expect) many others were inspired by his craft.

Good bye Robert, and thanks for sharing.

This morning Suzan suggested a walk in Carkeek for exercise. It wasn’t raining (it was actually nice out, I could see the snow-topped Olympics on my morning walk from Lighthouse) so we pointed the Civic north on 3rd Ave NW and arrived in a few minutes. Walking down the trail to the park I enjoyed the sound of our footfalls on the wooden steps and bridge. Approaching Piper’s Creek I stopped to look in the water for signs of wildlife. Nothing…but walking a few yards further there were…people. With dogs.

And by the side of the creek several people staring into the water. Yes, salmon were spawning in the creek this morning. We saw 10 - 12 live ones and several that had already died. (The crows noticed the dead fish too.) A few had tails which had turned bright silver.

Volunteer salmonwatchers were keeping count; their sign said 67 fish had been seen today alone. They were happy to discuss details. We learned that out of a typical 3000 eggs fertilized in the creek, about 300 would hatch; 100 of those fingerlings would grow into young fish; 20 of those fish would make it to the pacific ocean; and 2 of those fish would survive for 3 - 5 years to return to the creek where they were born in order to spawn, and then die.

Most of the salmon are chum, originating from hatchery fish community volunteers brought to the creek. Wild salmon had been extinct in Piper’s Creek for 50 years until the hatchery fish began returning to spawn in 1987. Volunteers initially introduced coho, but they weren’t very good jumpers; chum jump higher and were more successful. ‘Tis wonderous to behold and think on, this ancient fishy saga in the hood reborn.

Weeks before the actual election the news was filled with forecasts of the results.  I know I’m not the only person who finds this annoying.  The news media should just report the news — after it happens, not before.

But my mental state was such that I was convinced the ‘publicans would win, since they control the voting machines…and even if they don’t win by manipulating polling place results they can always pull it out in the courts.  We saw this happen in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004.  So I was shocked when they didn’t do it again last week.  Are elections not totally rigged yet in this country?

I suppose this is encouraging news for fans of “democracy”.  Although we’re still stuck with a two-party machine that weeds out nonconformists.

Suzan and I saw Tony Furtado at the Laurelthirst with C, Dave and friends Saturday nite. Quite the picker. My brain is dead; long live my brain.  (Possibly because I like Portland more than Seattle?)

OK I’m setting up a blog, trying to get with the times…I’m so 20th century! Please bear with me as I figure out what I want to say and how I want to say it. Meanwhile if you want actual (albeit old-fashioned) content, my old home page www.inwa.net/~frog/ is still up and active. Thanks for your patience. -F