So I’m reading the BOFH at work; hey - I’m doing work, too! Anyway, I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud at this passage:

“Now, I think it’s time you took a couple of weeks’ holiday.”, says the BOFH (Bastard Operator from Hell).

“How kind,” the PFY (Pimply-Faced Youth, the BOFH assistant) sighs. “But where will I go?”

“Somewhere where they know nothing about computing…where they wouldn’t know a RAM chip from a potato chip!”

“But I don’t want to visit Microsoft!” he whines.

I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud! Check out the entire series by following the link in the sidebar on the left. Great stuff.

Ernie Peniston put on a great show last night at Great River Days. He sang a number of “classic” blues tunes as well as his own material. Excellent show. I got down there a little after the show started as it was raining and I really didn’t want to be in the rain during his show. When the rain let up and I got down there, he was performing in a huge tent, big enough for the stage, some chairs, some picnic tables and even one of the beer stands.

Looking forward to tonight’s shows, especially the Spatterdash show at 5. If you are in the area, stop on down and rock on!

On time again, here is this week’s Thursday Threesome. I’m getting so “on time” it’s disgusting, huh?

Onesome- Knit one: Do you have a crafty hobby? Knitting, stitching, scrapbooking or model building, whatever it is, tell us about it! Or is there a crafty hobby you’d like to take up if had the time and/or money to do so? I am not into the craft thing. Yeah, I like the results, but I don’t do it. KC does counted cross stitch and is really quite good at it. My hobby is computers; it’s my job also.

Twosome- Purl: Or rather, pearl. What’s your birthstone? And while you’re at it, what’s your sign? *g* My birthstone is peridot. I am a Leo - very much a Leo!

Threesome- Too: Too much? Have you had enough of the political coverage already? …or are you waiting for things to really gear up in the Fall? I haven’t watched any of the DNC circus and I don’t plan on watching the RNC gathering either. I may watch the debates, but I am going to read about what each candidate has done, NOT what they promise to do, and vote on the one who matches my views more. Candidates can promise anything. I remember Bill Clinton telling us that he would not enact his policies if it meant taxes would go up; guess what… his policies were enacted and my taxes went up for eight straight years. Nope, promises are easy — the voting record is the true indicator.

They actually start tomorrow! I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. Great River Days is our local festival celebrating all things Muscatine. Muscatine…. where I live. Muscatine…. the only one in the US. Muscatine…. oh, never mind.

We have a number of excellent local bands performing each night. Thursday night is Ernie Peniston, a 2003 inductee into the Iowa Blues Hall of Fame who is from right here in Muscatine. Ernie has performed with some of the best in the blues world. Friday night is Spatterdash, a local rock band. For those of you who have read my blog for a while, I offered downloads of all their songs from their second CD (with the permission of the lead singer). They rock! Saturday night is Wicked Liz and the Belly Swirls, another great local band. Spatterdash and Wicked Liz have finished in the top 3 bands of the Quad Cities for the past few years, as voted by the River City Reader.

There are also a number of “competitions” and fun contests such as the Horseshoe Tournament, “Hogs for Dogs” Hot Dog Eating Contest, Hot Taco Eating Contest and the Watermelon Eating Contest. Muscatine is well-known in the midwest for having among the best watermelons and cantelope, both being called “Muscatine Melons” and fetching a higher price than melons brought in from other areas of the country. Also, there is the 5K and 10K Watermelon Stampede and an 800m and 1600M Tiny Turtle Trot for the kids. And, the CDAC Carnival out of Peoria will be set up and offering rides all day every day from Thursday through Sunday.

A great time to be had by all. If you are in the area, why not come to Great River Days?

Happy Birthday, Conner!

TV Tuesday is on time again! I am beside myself with happiness and amazement!

This week it’s about you and what you remember about TV!!

1. What’s your fondest memory of something on TV? Fondest? HMMM. Have to be Captain Ernie’s Cartoon Showboat. It was a local kids show that ran on WOC-TV (now KWQC-TV) after school when I was in elementary school. Captain Ernie (Mims) hosted the show which played older (yes, that means VIOLENT) cartoons and in the blackouts between cartoons and before commercials had local kids and kids’ groups on the show. I got my first taste of Tom and Jerry there, which is still one of my favorite cartoons.

2. What’s the first show you remember watching regularly? Don’t laugh, it’s Sing Along with Mitch, where Mitch Miller’s choir sang tunes and the lyrics were displayed at the bottom of the screen with a bouncing ball to show you exactly what words were being sung at the moment. The direct ancestor of karyoke. HEY! In it’s first year I was 5 and in it’s last year I was 10. The sad part is my parents REALLY enjoyed this show, too.

3. What is the (pick one: stupidest, saddest, silliest, most disgusting..) thing you’ve ever seen on TV? The stupidest thing I ever saw? Wow, among the hundreds of stupid things on TV, the Geraldo Rivera show where they uncovered Al Capone’s stash was among the stupidest. Weeks of hype to build up to an empty basement. Wow, I’m so underwhelmed.

~Bonus~ (From the hubby! LOL) What’s the best series finale you remember? Absolutely, without question, no equal to: M*A*S*H: Goodbye, Farewell and Amen. KC and I were faithful viewers of M*A*S*H for the entire 12 year run and it was really a touching finale. I mean, I got to know the characters almost as if I had met them in person. It was sad to see the series go, but I guess in their run they just ran out of things to say during the series.

I frequent the Yahoo technology news forums; not only to keep up on the latest in technology but to put in my 2¢ worth. Anyway, I just want to know: how can a person be a “looser”? There are those who post on these forums who constantly and consistently misspell “loser” as “looser”. Why? Are they that stupid? Are they playing a mental game? They also switch around “loose” and “lose”. Again, why? Genetic mutation? Or is it as Rich, a guy I used to play softball with, always said: “It’s due to a chemical imbalance in the brain”. Maybe Rich was right.

Oh, by the way, Happy Birthday Sue!

So this weekend KC and I meet my brother, his wife and two of his three boys at Culver’s for supper and then head on down to the QC Swing game. I offer to take their youngest son from Culver’s to the game, an opportunity that Nick jumps at. On the way down we’re listening to the radio, 97 Rock, and they are playing TNT by AC/DC. All of a sudden Nick who turned 5 at the beginning of June, starts singing along with Brian Johnson on the radio! Both KC and I were quite surprised. We guessed that my brother was just “bringing the boy up right” by teaching him about AC/DC. Turns out there is a Tony Hawk skateboarding video game that his brother plays that has TNT as the soundtrack. HMMMM. Maybe all kids will learn the “classics” from video games, huh?

Here’s an interesting story: a German clothier has incorporated an MP3 player, headphones and a microphone in a jacket. Now you can listen to tunes and use your cell phone in style!

I’m playing around with the BlogAmp hack for WordPress. BlogAmp is a way to display on the blog somewhere your last few songs played in WinAmp. I need to format the output, but I think I have a handle on it.

Update: I have it working the way I want. I was editing one file and uploading another. DUH! Looks OK now.

We had some severe weather yesterday. It was so dark outside that it looked as though it was midnight at 10am. And wind! And RAIN! Lots of severe weather. I just went to a friend’s house today and he has bigger problems. A HUGE oak tree split into parts and came down in his yard and on the neighbor’s house. No, it wasn’t hit by lightening. Gusts of wind did this damage. Check out the pics. Man, does he have some serious clean up to do!