One of the eight million articles on the blogging phenomenon contained this throwaway line: "...the blogging community contains a disproportionate number of libertarians..." Really? Who figured this out? Is this like the assertion some random LA Times chick made that blogs were all run by conservative commentators and therefore were an antidote to the liberal media (bullshit -- it depends on what you read)? Or is it slightly more valid?

A question: Does making snarky comments letting the world know that you know -- and are capable of poking fun at -- the fact that you are self-obsessed actually mitigate said self-obsession, or does it just add a whole 'nother layer of annoying?

The tuck-pointing guys are finishing up for the day. The house looks great, the lintel is reinforced, and all is well. However, the process of breaking down the scaffolding apparently involves things plummeting past my window, which I catch out of the corner of my eye. I haven't heard any screaming, so I'm guessing this is a feature, not a bug.

Other banes:

• The new password system set up by my company, which makes little sense, takes forever to get through, and doesn't accept obscenities.
  
• The artistic temperment.

It's a beautiful day in Chicago. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, people are walking around with a spring in their step and a smile on their face. Somewhere out in the countryside, kittens and puppy dogs and fuzzy little lambs are gamboling about in the fields, entranced by the wonder that is life. And you know what? I don't fucking care, because everything is pissing me off today.

Current banes of my existence:

• Traffic
  
• My contractor, who didn't show this morning ("Oh, I should have called you last night." Yes, bitch, you should have.)
  
• The Polish language, which the subcontractors speak almost exclusively and which I don't speak at all.
  
• My teeth
  
• The dental profession as a whole.
  
• The high-pitched whine of the drill
  
• My vivid imagination and passing knowledge of power tools ("What is she using in there, a belt sander?")
  
• The smell of burning teeth.
  
• Tooth bits.
  
• The smell of burning temporary caps
  
• Cap bits
  
• Novocaine hangover, and the concurrent stroke-victim facial expression.
  
• Insurance limits
  
• Money, as a concept.
  
• People who don't push the "Door open" button when you're right outside the elevator.
  
• Hiccups
  
• Waiting to hear about employment possibilities.
  
• The gaggle of high-school students currently cluttering up the concourse of our building as they wander around at some bullshit model government conference or something, thus getting in my way when I'm already in a pissy mood.

Wake me up when the world has been re-formed to my specifications, ok?

I'm hanging out at home, waiting for the contractor to come. the contractor's minions are already hoisting scaffolding and such to do the tuck-pointing, but I need to ask the contractor proper a few questions and get a further estimate on something. Any day now....

Tuck-pointing is good, but the thing that's most important is fixing this -- lintel, I think? -- big old rock slab over my front windows. It's kind of cracked down the middle, and no longer straight across, so the windows are not at right angles. Well, nothing in the house is at right angles, who am I kidding, but this is worse than most things. It's big and heavy and slowly falling apart, which leads to the prospect of it crushing my windows at some point. That would be bad.So getting that fixed is the priority.

Now I'm sitting in my office on the second floor, watching guys climb ladders and scaffolding until they're looking down at me. It's very odd. Time to put those great roman shades my mom made into practice, instead of just allowing them to "remember" how to fold.

JP was shocked and appalled I didn't remember Julie London's last name:

Julie *London*! One of the most famous American torch singers of all time! Her heart belongs to daddy.

Julie Andrews also did a version, but I'm sure you would have recognized *her.*

I am officially chastened.

Jane wrote and taunted me with a cool signed Poi CD she found -- for cheap at that. Fine. Be that way.

And the cat had to go to the vet to get blood drawn, to see if the nummy tuna-chewy drug bombs are having an effect. I'll find out tomorrow.

Plus, my new glasses came in. I have no idea how I look with them with the lenses in, because I tried them on over my contacts. *Ouch.* I am exceedingly blind. I'll check them out tonight when I can be bothered taking my contacts out.

All you perfect vision people out there -- do you have any idea how lucky you are? Harumph.

Woody Guthrie's American Song kicks ass. CD recommendation of the night.

I've talked about how much I love Old Town School of Folk Music -- great classes, and a great community. You can take everything from Tuvan throat singing to Aztec ceremonial dance to jembe drum to accordion to tin whistle to... well, you get the idea. Plus they have kick-ass guitar classes, private lessons, workshops (yodeling! digeridoo!), ensembles, concerts and more. It's a great place. Almost every class I've taken there is incredibly energizing and fun.

Almost.

I just dropped a Torch Songs class, first because I'm soon to be unemployed and don't feel like spending the money, and second because the class just wasn't quite right for me. It's for people who want to perform more than people who want to sing. The teacher played us three or four versions of a classic torch song (Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered by Ella, Sinatra and Julie... someone) and asked us -- as a group -- to work on the stylistic quirks from each version. But not everyone actually knew the song, and not everyone, to be honest, could actually carry the tune. I'm more interested in the substance than the style, and this class was all about style. It's not the teacher's fault -- she's great; I had her for vocal harmony 1 and 2. It's just the focus of the class is one sounding original and unique rather than actually singing. Not my idea of a good time.

That's not to say I would be disappointed to sound like Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughn, but going into it trying to sound like them is missing the point, I think. You don't sing like that, you imitate, and it's probably going to be a pale and/or piss-poor imitation at that. I'd rather get to the point where I feel like I can really sing before I start trying to develop a style.

So, sorry Brian and others who I'd told about this -- I'm afraid I won't be singing Someone to Watch Over Me or I Want a Monster to be my Playmate at the bar in June. I'm sure you'll live.

I went downstairs to lend Wendy the Angel/Buffy tape, and got sucked into a documentary about wildfires. They talked a little about the Yellowstone fires of 1988, which she was there for and which her father was instrumental in letting burn. (He's a fire god, and a plant ecologist, and advocated letting the fires burn. He won, and apparently was right.)

It's fun watching stuff like this with Wendy, because she's, well, she's insane. She kept saying "Isn't that amazing" and "isn't that great" when huge pine trees burst into flames 10 stories high. It is amazing, but I'd say terrifying rather than great. She snarked about the forestry people vs. the park people -- who knew there was a a rivalry?

Quote of the evening, from someone supervising the crews of firefighters at an 800,000-acre blaze in Idaho: "We're going to have to control this fire now, or Mother Nature will have won." Um, yeah. Nature tends to win, when you're talking about, say, huge natural disasters. Wendy was saying "Sure, why don't you bring in hurricane fighters, or tornado fighters. It's just as effective."

So yeah. Wendy and fire. Scary stuff.

First, a column that neatly sums up my reaction to the controversies on deep linking and such. My additional remarks: Get over it, schmucks. You can't make it illegal to stop fast-forwarding through commercials, or linking to pages within a site. That's just stupid, and it shows you have no understanding of (1) the medium, and (2) the user. Duh.

Second, my boss is exceedingly pregnant. Like, due-next-week pregnant. Which brought on the following discussion with Andy, who had asked how long the Boss would be in the office:

andydehnart: so she's going to keep working until the little bugger comes out?
sjerslix: Pretty much, yeah
sjerslix: Terrifying, isn't it?
andydehnart: mm hmm
andydehnart: I keep thinking noises coming from her office
andydehnart: mean a baby's a'comin'
sjerslix: Remember to bring your catcher's mitt to work -- we might need it.
andydehnart: shit
sjerslix: Boil water!
andydehnart: heh
sjerslix: Why do they always boil water? I think it's just to get people out of the way
andydehnart: maybe
andydehnart: or for some nice coffee or tea
andydehnart: once it's all over
sjerslix: Yeah, but then wouldn't you be saying "Brew vodka!" or something?
sjerslix: I mean really -- a nice cuppa tea just ain't gonna cut it

The Boss has not chosen any of us to be her Lamaze coach, and the hospital she's using is less than a mile away, so I'm thinking we shouldn't have to worry to much about being present at the birth. If nothing else, we could stick her in the Aeron chair and roll her to the hospital before she popped.

But wait! There's more:

sjerslix: I think I may borrow this for my blog tonight -- you mind?
andydehnart: not at all
andydehnart: but: you must also put in this part of the conversation
andydehnart: and then discuss the use of IM conversations in blog posts
andydehnart: and whether or not that constitutes cheating

So there it is.

This shows a couple of things: (1) Unlike some people, I make sure my quotes are on the record before publishing them, and (2) Andy thinks about the ethics of blogging much more than I do.

I mean, cheating? Hell, when I say something even halfway witty, I'm going to pounce on it. I don't care whether it was in an IM conversation, a phone conversation, whatever. If something I think is amusing happened, I'm blogging it. How much time do you people think I have to come up with witty bon mots anyway? Jeez.

I do ask for permission before publication of other's words, definitely, or stories, most of the time. Sometimes a story just has to be shared. But if it's something seriously personal, I'll change names or hold off on telling until the information is no longer embargoed. For instance, I've known Laura and Jorge were pregnant for weeks, and was dying to say something about it, but I didn't. Why? Because I protect my sources.

See? Some of the journalism-school ethics crap did stick. Who knew?

Another day, another root canal.

I was thinking about this: My mom had 20-20 vision most of her life -- she's only recently needed reading glasses -- but lousy teeth. My dad, as far as I know, has good teeth, but crappy vision. Me? Half blind and three root canals in a year. I'm a bit bitter about the luck of the genetic draw in this situation. I can only hope that I inherited my mom's hair -- hardly any gray, even still -- rather than my dad's, which is, shall we say, retreating.

The tulips have bloomed and are rapidly passing their prime. I was going to go out and trim them this weekend, only to discover someone had already done it. I was going to thank Wendy, but it wasn't her. Nor was it The Mormons in the Basement (and we keep getting new ones, so I've stopped feeling bad about calling them that), nor my neighbor, Jola. Jola's theory is that its the dealers and gang-bangers who have re-emerged on the block. If so, they did a great job taking out the ones I wanted gone. Maybe gardening is one of the vocational programs in the Cook County lock-up? Alas, I have yet to spot Clive Owens loitering around my rather pathetic excuse for a garden.

The weather has gotten gorgeous again, which is a mixed blessing. I can hang out outside, but then, so can the friendly, possibly horticulturally minded dealers. It's getting pretty noisy out here at night.

That reminds me of one of my favorite Dorothy Parker quips: "You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think."

Heh. Words are fun.

Spider-man, spider-man, friendly neighborhood spider-man...

Good flick. Lots of fun. Angie and I saw it last night, then met up with Wayne, Laura and Jordan afterward. For reasons I can't quite understand, Laura is apparently vehemently opposed to Spider-man. I told her that she's probably evil, or at least not human, and definitely not American. She seemed to take it pretty well.

So, with unemployment looming, I can't really justify spending any money on, well, anything. (Except Spider-man, evidently. And the new Star Wars. And Men in Black II. And... sigh.) However, there is a loophole: I can still spend money on the house, as that's, well, house money. And lets face it -- if worst comes to worst and we have to sell (not that I think that will happen, Wendy!) it'll be a hell of a lot easier to do if there aren't, say, gaping holes in the bathroom wall. And the vanity in my bathroom is pretty scungy. And if I'm getting the walls redone, I might as well get new towel bars and such. And... but you get the idea. So I've spent the weekend looking at bathroom stuff. I'm thinking white tile floors, white vanity, dark blue paint below the chair rail, silver-toned accessories, that sort of thing. Except cheap. Because even if it's house money, that doesn't mean I've got buckets of it to spend.

Now I just have to nail down when the damn contractor is coming to do the work. He's good, once he gets started, but scheduling with him can be a bitch. Fortunately, I worked in trade magazines for a while, and therefore am perfectly capable of calling at half-hour intervals until I get the answer I want.