Lucky, in her favourite snoozing space, 1994.
Author: scruss
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Lucky
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i really do remember when all this was fields: fresh sweet cron
At the corner of Warden & Steeles, there was a little farm. It’s gone now. I think they were better at growing than spelling. -
the action verbs of the Bush administration (according to the Bush administration)
I took all the action verbs used in “100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush Administration Record” (from the now-defunct The Bush Record) and linked them to web searches, so you can find some other opinions:
added, advocated, appointed, arrested, bolstered, called, committed, convicted, created, delivered, dismantled, disrupted, doubled, empowered, enacted, encouraged, established, expanded, focused, generated, halved, held accountable, helped, implemented, improved, increased, infused, instituted, invested, laid, launched, led, leveled, negotiated, outlawed, persuaded, prevented, prohibited, proposed, protected, provided, raised, reduced, removed, rescued, saved, secured, set on course, signed, supported, transformed, warned, weakened, withdrew, worked
If you’d rather search for images for these actions:
added, advocated, appointed, arrested, bolstered, called, committed, convicted, created, delivered, dismantled, disrupted, doubled, empowered, enacted, encouraged, established, expanded, focused, generated, halved, held accountable, helped, implemented, improved, increased, infused, instituted, invested, laid, launched, led, leveled, negotiated, outlawed, persuaded, prevented, prohibited, proposed, protected, provided, raised, reduced, removed, rescued, saved, secured, set on course, signed, supported, transformed, warned, weakened, withdrew, worked,
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emacs: replacing newlines
Jeremy says it’s C-q C-j, and that works for me.
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inexplicable snow balloons
Landed on our deck last night, and are now snowed in:
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A Nobel Peace Prize for Pete Seeger
A Nobel Peace Prize for Pete Seeger; go on, he’ll be 90 this year.
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pricey
Generation costs/kWh for new nuclear (including fuel & O&M but not distribution to customers) are likely to be from 25 – 30 cents/kWh.
— Business Risks and Costs of New Nuclear Power, Craig A. Severance, January 2009. [via Climate Progress]
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blues minus the blues
All the “… Blues” tracks I have, minus the blues:
- 12th street
- 1st precinct
- 30-20
- 99 year
- airplane
- alcoholic
- all
- all in down and out
- all night long
- answering machine
- apron string
- arcade
- arkansas hard luck
- autogeddon
- back door
- bad shoes
- bamalong
- banker’s wife
- bankhead
- barber’s
- barnyard
- bath house
- bay rum
- beach boy
- bedside
- bert’s
- big house
- big mouth
- big spit
- billy goat
- black and blue
- black bottom
- black cat
- black crow
- black dog
- black-eyed
- black hand
- black sheep
- blowing
- bluebottle
- blue coat
- blue day
- blue jeans
- bob dylan
- bob lee junior
- bone dry
- boogie woogie
- bottle of
- bourgeois
- bread line
- brownie’s
- brown’s ferry
- brown skin
- bull frog
- cairo
- candy man
- cannonball
- carroll county
- carter’s
- catfish
- c.c. & o
- cell phone
- checkout
- chester
- chicago
- chile
- chilly wind
- choking
- city
- coal mine
- coal tipple
- cocaine
- cold penitentiary
- columbus stockade
- coming into hard times
- country
- courting
- crazy
- crooked creek
- cross road
- cross tie
- crow jane
- cumberland
- custard pie
- custom-made woman
- cut 1/2
- dachau
- dago
- dark holler
- davidson county
- dead shrimp
- death bell
- deep elem
- deep river
- depot
- diamond ring
- dickson county
- dirty guitar
- dixie flyer
- dom
- don’t let your deal go down
- do right daddy
- down south
- dreaming
- dry town
- dust bowl
- dust pan
- dust pneumonia
- dying crapshooter’s
- early mornin’
- east virginia
- ec
- electro-shock
- elk river
- empty bottle
- empty pocket
- evening prayer
- evil twin
- expressman
- farewell
- farm girl
- fine artiste
- fisherman’s
- fishin’
- fishing
- fixin’ to die
- florida
- folsom prison
- football
- framer’s
- franklin
- franklin county
- freddy’s
- freight train
- fresno
- frisco whistle
- gambler’s
- gambling
- georgia brown
- georgia wobble
- ghost woman
- ginseng
- go easy
- goin’ away
- goin’ to leave you
- got the drunken
- got the farm land
- grace kelly
- gravel camp
- guitar
- hard time killing floor
- haunted road
- helena
- henhouse
- hesitation
- highway
- highway 51
- hobo
- hometown
- honey babe
- honky tonk
- hot jelly roll
- housefly
- huckleberry
- ice water
- indian squaw
- intersoular
- jailhouse
- jake bottle
- jake leg
- jake walk
- james allen
- james alley
- jellyfish
- jersey bull
- john henry
- johnson city
- just like tom thumb’s
- kansas city
- kentucky
- killin’
- kindhearted woman
- kozmic
- kristin’s
- kyle’s worried
- labor
- land locked
- leake county
- lee highway
- left all alone again
- lightnin’s
- little
- living here
- logan county
- lonely
- lonesome
- lonesome road
- lonesome weary
- long chain charlie
- lost boy
- lost train
- louisburg
- lovesick
- low d
- mad man
- maggie walker
- man trouble
- married life
- married man’s
- married woman
- match box
- mean conductor
- mean old ball and chain
- mean talking
- mehitabel’s
- mexican
- middlin’
- milk cow
- milwaukee
- minglewood
- mississippi boweavil
- miss meal cramp
- mistreated
- mistreated mama
- mitchell
- mixed
- moatsville
- mobile county
- morning
- mourning
- mr. e’s beautiful
- muleskinner
- multiple relationship
- muscle shoals
- my human gets me
- narrow gauge
- natural bridge
- new ground
- new minglewood
- newport
- new river
- new talking
- new white house
- new york j-d
- night woman
- north country
- no sleep
- n.r.a.
- number
- old lonesome
- old rock island
- old weary
- old woman
- ontario
- oozlin’ daddy
- original stack o’lee
- outlaw
- paddlin’ madeline
- pan american
- parchman farm
- patrick county
- phonograph
- poca river
- police dog
- police sergeant
- pony
- poor boy
- poor girl’s
- poor jane
- port arthur
- pot licker
- pouring down
- prison cell
- puckett
- quill
- rabbit foot
- radar
- railroad
- railroad hammer
- ramblin’
- red night gown
- reno
- restraining order
- rheumatism
- richmond
- rip van winkle
- rising river
- rising sun
- river
- rock style
- rollin’ dough
- rolling log
- roll my
- rooster
- rotten world
- rowdy
- rub alcohol
- salt lake city
- salty dog
- san francisco bay
- seattle rainy day
- shaking wee
- showers of rain
- sisco harmonica
- situation comedy
- skool dinner
- sobbin’ woman
- sonny’s
- spanish
- spike driver
- starvation farm
- statesboro
- station
- steel rail
- stockade
- stove pipe
- strawberry
- string band
- subterranean homesick
- sugar
- suits crybaby
- sundown
- sven
- sweet woman
- talking dust bowl
- talking fishing
- talking world war iii
- talkin’ hard luck
- talkin’ woody, bob, bruce & dan
- tallahatchie river
- teasin’ brown
- tennessee river bottom
- tequila hop
- terraplane
- testosterone
- the france
- three ball
- tinker’s
- tipple
- toby woman
- tokyo business
- tombstone
- tough luck
- train
- trane’s slo
- travelin’
- travelin’ railroad man
- triangle
- t&t
- turtle
- tuxedo
- two-timing
- unexplained
- unknown
- up country
- upside down church
- v.b.
- violin
- walking
- wang wang harmonica
- washington
- washington talkin’
- way down yonder
- wayward girl
- weeping willow
- west carey street
- whiskey & gin
- white flag
- white house
- white-shoe
- wilkes county
- window pane
- winnsboro cotton mill
- working girl
- workingman
- worried
- worried man
- xmas prison
- yodeling
- yodeling fiddling
- young girl
And yes, I excluded I Guess That’s Why They Call It The …
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mandolin strata
I spent a great couple of hours with Mike Dulak of Big Muddy Mandolins. Mike’s been making instruments for years, and is the largest industry in Rocheport. I caught him in the middle of moving his shop, so things were a little chaotic. The above pile of part-finished, discarded or otherwise parts summed up the state of the workshop as I saw it. And yes, that is a uke body.
Mike’s really refined his workflow. He’s built a nifty broach to cut all the string slots in a nut in one swipe. He has a fretting jig that cuts all the slots in one pass (hey, mandolin fretboards are quite short). But to make up for that, he shapes heel necks by hand using a rasp and sandpaper.
I’m really glad I visited, and makes my mandolin a little bit more special to know who made it, and see where it was made.
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a green Scottish New Year dilemma
I can’t really wish that Lang May Your Lum Reek if I’m concerned about CO2 and smog emissions, can I?
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chris coole at the local
Chris Coole – The Local, Toronto – 7 December 02008:
First Set
- Sail Away Ladies – medley
- John Henry Blues
- Hey Porter
- John Hartford intro
- Let Him Go On Mama, Don’t Put Him Down For It Now
- Chilly Wind Blues
- beautician’s school – cold guitar tuning
- Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright
- I Know What I Know
- The Bandit Cole Younger
- Walking Boss intro – gourd tuning
- Walking Boss
- Little Sadie Intro – more tuning
- Little Sadie
- There’ll Be Hell To Pay intro
- There’ll Be Hell To Pay
- one more tune – tip jar – Slurf Song intro
- Slurf Song
Second Set
- Bonaparte’s Retreat
- re-intro
- Big Steel Rail
- John Hartford – batman cape anecdote
- Wish We Had Our Time Again
- recyclable banjo tuning
- Six Days On The Road
- Civil War Medley
- Introduction to Townes van Zandt
- Pancho & Lefty
- Railroad Blues
- Shelter from the Storm
- Old Dog
- Medley intro
- Turkey in the Straw, Soldier’s Joy
- tip jar – Uncloudy Day intro
- The Uncloudy Day
- tuning
- Lonesome Whistle
- thanks – and buy banjo CDs
- Cannonball Blues
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i remember that ben elton back when he was funny
Mr Butcher: [sits down on a bollard, then jumps up in disgust] Eurgh, I’ve just sat on something horrible and smelly!
Mr Baker: What was it?
Mr Butcher: My bottom.– and that, kids, was the essence of alternative comedy.
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emusic’s precious censoring
emusic really must not like Dick Gaughan. -
Stewart & His Constant Search for Patterns in Randomness
Three consecutive tracks in today’s the automatic podcast from “& His” artists:
- May Flower — Mike Shaw & His Alabama Entertainers
- Call On Me — Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
- Reset — Casper Fandango & His Tiny Sick Tears
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no, I don’t have one. yes, I want one …
One of these turned up in our office today – the semi-legendary Lego #4999 Vestas wind turbine:
Operations guys need Lego too, y’know …
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ttc kalimba again
I love this busker’s sound.
ttc_kalimba-081215-083745 -
best of 2008
Best albums; and yeah, even in order of preference:
- Shall Noise Upon — Apollo Sunshine: came to this completely cold, having never even heard of them. Stylistically all over the place: whisky and hellfire on one track giving way to mellow dippiness that I think even McCa would blanch at. Ultimately, it’s Singing To The Earth (To Thank Her For You) that sold it to me.
- Funplex — The B-52’s: worth the wait from 1992. Fun dance music with gleefully smutty lyrics. Now my very favourite B-52’s album.
- Music Tapes for Clouds and Tornadoes — The Music Tapes: look, it’s got Freeing Song By Reindeer on it. If it doesn’t make you shed tears of joy while you caterwaul Ride the elves’ cloven-hooved horsey … along with Julian, there’s something wrong with you.
- Proof of Love — Old Man Luedecke: Chris Luedecke just gets better and better as a songwriter, and his self-deprecating stage persona as Old Man Luedecke is a hoot.
- Recapturing the Banjo — Otis Taylor: great banjo work from this bluesman.
- Everytime! —Sheesham & Lotus: the high-steppin’, cake-walkin’ fiddle, banjo and harmonica duo release their first official album, recorded in crackly faux-78 “Sepiatone”. Almost as much fun as seeing them live.
- Earth Sciences — Laura Barrett: Toronto’s queen of the kalimba‘s second EP wins out over her full length release (Victory Garden), in that the EP has Robot Ponies, and doesn’t have the annoying final track which appears to be all of the other tracks layered on top of one another.
- Luna — The Aliens: Piper-era Floyd mixed with the Beach Boys, all fed through a special Fife filter.
- Með Suð à Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust — Sigur Rós: I still have no idea what they’re singing about, but I wish they’d keep doing it.
- Then We Were Older — Ideal Free Distribution: another slab of catchy psych-pop from Kentucky.
Near Miss: Holler and Stomp — Dressy Bessy: angular bubblegum pop, quite delightful.
Definitely Demented: Live! From CarnEGGy Hall — Orriel Smith: seriously, coloratura chicken impersonations. Beyond weird, and beyond brilliant.
It Came Out Last Year, So Now It’s All Car Ads: Oh, My Darling — Basia Bulat: despite that, it’s great. And she plays autoharp. -
20000th track
My music archive just hit 20K. The lucky track is Momus‘ I was a Maoist Intellectual.
Momus is giving away his albums that he did for Creation as an advent calendar. So far, he’s released The Poison Boyfriend and Tender Pervert; more to follow.