Dancing the lighter sidestep

There's still so d--ned much outrage to go around. But I seem to be OD'ing on Crook and Liars lately. Plus, I'm re-acquainting myself just now with Supertramp's "Crime of the Century", forewarned from memory to skip past the faux psychosis of "Asylum" like I always do with "Mother" on The Police's "Synchronicity". And with a sunny--but not too warm--summer Sunday and a 70s rock soundtrack, I'm afraid that I have to work at outrage.

Two bright spots in the week's news, too: Warner's sabre-rattling at the White House and the fact that the waste/fraud whistleblower scandals caught the attention of Forbes. Normally, I'd expect the boot-licking business media to ignore anything that they can't spin to the credit of Republicans. Maybe Forbes and Fortune are trying to distinguish themselves from the Wall Street Journal, now that Agent Murdoch is busily re-wiring it for his Matrix. Who knows? I'm just tickled to see inconvenient realities like this rubbed into the faces of MBA PHBs still moronic enough to think that the Bush Regime is "pro-business" for anyone other than Haliburton, Blackwater, and Big Oil. (Ha! Swallowed the red pill by accident, did we? Welcome to the Reality-based Community. Don't take the bullets personally; The Matrix is out to get everyone.)

Oops, this post was supposed to be "lighter", wasn't it? Bad blogger!

Actually, this--meaning www.blackle.com--isn't "lighter" at all. But, then, that's entirely the point. I've already forgotten where I found out about Blackle, but the basic idea is that every time you want to make a regular Google search, you can save electricity because it doesn't cost your monitor as much energy to render black pixels as it does white. Google's Advanced Search feature isn't included in Blackle, but I don't even use that ten percent of the time. Blackle certainly won't save the world, but it doesn't hurt, so why not switch your browser's home page?

I'd say that I finished reading "Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day", except that it was more of an intensive skim for a book review needed to fill empty newsletter space. Only four more benighted issues before I hand the wretched thing off to someone who will actually relish the job--and who is guaranteed to add sorely-needed style. At the same time, I also give up maintaining the (largely redundant) website, packing it off to someone else who ~thinks~ he's going to enjoy it. That'll last for about a month. So I'll have the additional joy of watching the nitpicker become the nitpicked. He and I are both prima donnas, no question, but I'm Patton to his Montgomery. And that'll be plenty obvious after Jan. 1st, mark my words.

Speaking of books, it's a given that I won't have time to snarf the last half of Harry Potter VII before vacation, but I'm not sure I want its bulk tagging along, even for the sweet sake of whiling away two trans-Atlantic flights.

But the afternoon is starting to slink off, and I still need to go into work by way of remote access. And "Crime of the Century" has given up its seat for "Breakfast in America", which is as good a cue as any to get on with the business that pays for "the jumbo across the water"...