Taking a breather from the whirlwind of activity, long enough to let folks know what has made my week a pretty nifty one so far.

- meeting deadlines

- water aerobics

- working wireless!!! thanks to a generous early birthday present [Sony Vaio] from pocketnaomi

- garage re-tetris is mostly DONE, thanks to my "vision" and jeffreycornish's timely arrival and willingness to help move boxes.

- good tunes on the boom box; both in my room and in the garage where I was working (before other people showed up; then I turned them down/off).

- S P A C E

- finding a lost "treasure" (of acrobatty's)

- late garbage and recycling pickup, which allowed me to get quite a lot more of both queued for removal today

- informative, generally encouraging results on medical lab tests

In response to McCain aide Michael Goldfarb's ad hominem against those who would question McCain's true war record, calling them "the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd, [living in] the comfort of mom's basement," Wired News has asked a question: If John McCain were something in your typical D&D dungeon, what would he be? (To cite source properly, the Wired author is one of their senior editors, Kevin Poulsen.) (Oh, and Wired has links to both the diatribe and the original article questioning McCain. If you're interested. M'not inclined to give either CNN or mccain dot com any extra traffic.)

I'm with the first answer, m'self. Gelatinous Cube.

But, seriously, folks. A senior staffer in the campaign for the highest office of what for the nonce is the premier empire on the face of the planet in terms of ability to kick butt anywhere, anytime, engaging in a primary logical fallacy? Sure, Wired's response is only slightly better; at least it has humor, though. I wonder if Goldfarb really believes that those of us who aren't going to vote for his boss are really no better (or better off) than that? He's in for a rude awakening if he does. In my opinion, he deserves it, actual belief or not.

(h/t annathepiper for the linky)

So today I head out to the Long Beach International Kite Festival. As I sit here, I am debating whether or not to bring my laptop. The hotel we are staying at has wireless ... but then again, do I really want to be checking my email and being online while I'm there? Seems like a crime against man and nature. The only reason I'm considering it is that the owners of the place where we stay, The Mermaid Inn, made some curious noises about possibly hiring me to do a mural for them. So I could show them some pics that I can't easily bring with me that way.

Hrmmmmm!

But my biggest dilemma right now is Jiji! He as cuddled up next to me and is being soooooo-oooo cute and sweet and furry and purry! How can I leave him, I ask you. How???!!!

This is a little less coherent than I'd hoped, sorry; I wanted to make sure it got posted tonight instead of delayed yet again!

Commercial real-estate credit risks - which is "up" in these graphs - appears to be going parabolic. This implies that something's exploding, possibly two government-sponsoured GSEs with initials FM. The residential real-estate CDO/ABX markets have lost their small recovery almost entirely. The Alt-A implosion is starting to hit as some of the worst of that sector is already exploding badly and wrecking attempts to 'salvage' what's left of subprime value. C.f. the start of the downgrades avalanche on alt-A securities. (Regular readers will recognise a familiar - and previously-credited - chart.)

In similar and related "wuh oh" moments, agency bond spreads are also jumping. That's important because it raises concerns that the Fannie May/Freddie Mac bailout plan - not yet triggered, but give it time, it will be - was forced by overseas governments. Not helping: 2007-originated prime, as in prime, as in best grade mortgages are starting to fail at disturbing rates. This is no doubt related to how nearly one-third of all homeowners who bought a house in the last five years owes more on their loan than the value of the house. Fun!

Oh, housing inventory reports often don't include bankruptcy bank possessions, particularly in places like California. This makes the real number worse than reported, and again implies a longer time to recovery.

Dr. Roubini posted a column a week(ish) ago about why the recession will be global, and the worst since the Great Depression, but not as bad as said depression. However, it has a lot of data on credit, the banks and banking system, and is worth reading. He's still strongly in stagflation camp, but contraction in the M3 ("broad money") supply is starting to kick in pretty fiercely, adding credibility to the deflationista case. "Doctor Doom" is starting to sound like the optimist.

Kevin Depew writes again that the word of the moment is frugality, which is bad news for a discretionary-spending economy. Mish had similar commentary but I dropped the link - sorry. And Paul Farrell writes a rather angry column about how much Americans love their war economy and is going to keep liking it right up until it can't.

OK, everybody together now, and we might get heard. On three.

One.

Two.

Three.

HEY, UNIVERSE, KNOCK IT OFF!!!!!

Pass it on.

(This is WRT all the various senseless CRAP that seems to be flying around lately... injuries, financial woes, stupid studio tricks, and other stuff that's either not my story to tell or I otherwise ought not talk about.)

That went about as, um, damply as could be expected. When I left the house, the sun had come out again, but walking down the hill you could see this striking sharp edge of clouds right over Lake Washington - the west half, including us, was mostly open sky; the east half - particularly the bit over Kirkland - looked like doom incarnate.

But it stayed dry on the bus ride there, and I got out, and checked in, and the sky looked scary but... still dry! And while the crowd waiting seemed a bit thin, it still didn't look bad. So I set up in a better place than the tent, and I'm waiting for the market to officially open - Kirkland Wednesday is the only market I do that actually has a strict open-time policy, you're not allowed to do anything before 2pm - and the rain started.

I had just enough time to fleet to the tent I'd been told I could use until they needed to set up for 3pm storytime before - after opening bell rang and I started playing - it started coming down in buckets and the market emptied out. I even had to move further back in the little tent a couple of times to get away from blowing rain. And I wasn't even through my set before they booted me because they needed to set up for storytime. So that was kind of a drag, but on the other hand, I did have someone curious about my flutemaking (gave card), one of the few people who did stay for a while said they quite liked my new song, and I did get a couple of dancing kids, one of whom was particularly energetic, which is always fun.

On the way home I stopped at the little store at the bottom of the hill, and the owner was in; he noticed my large flute (Splinter) and we talked some, and I played some for him, and he said that at his restaurant they occasionally have music events and asked if I was interested in playing, so I of course said sure and gave him a card. Maybe something will come of that; you never know.

A TSA agent has a lot of explaining to do and might well face criminal charges for breaking some airplanes. During a "routine inspection" of Mesa Airlines, a commuter operator at Chicago O'Hare, this joker used the Total Air Temperature probe on the nose of the aircraft as a step, breaking the sensitive thermocouple within. The agent's supervisor reported he was "trying to determine if someone could break into the parked planes." TSA is only *supposed* to check whether the aircraft's normal doors are locked (a sane and sensible thing to do, and easily done without climbing around elsewhere on the aircraft).

Some 40 flights were affected after maintenance personnel and pilots discovered erroneous readings coming from the probes, which are just below the cockpit windows. Air temperature is used to calculate safe speeds and runway distances, which have a direct bearing on the safety of the aircraft and passengers. Too high an indication will call for more speed, increasing wear on the aircraft and the possibility of a blowout or other incident; too low, and you could stall the aircraft, which, close to the ground, could be detrimental (ahem). Fortunately, part of the safety of aviation is that a heck of a lot of things get checked *every* *flight*.

Original story, pointed to by ysabel, here
Much of the final graf above is based on my own knowledge and experience growing up in aviation and keeping up with the subject.

Comment: I agree heartily with the editor's rant in the linked article, and would frankly up the ante.... anybody going around breaking commercial aircraft under color of law, no matter how "innocently", needs to suffer the wrath of the pilots they affected... and the administration that put these agents there in the first place with inadequate training and way too much perceived authority needs to suffer the wrath of the voters. And ditto the people who would like to continue on the course currently being set. That's YOU, John McCain.

...to face a possibly psychotic weather situation and possibly empty market, but! I'm still goin'! Wish me luck, 'cause today I'm really gonna need it. There'll be some econochat when I get back, or if you want to figure it out yourself, look at credit spreads. Mmmm, parabolic.


Petals like Planks

Some of the hurts you have cured,
And the sharpest you still have survived,
But what torments of grief you endured
From evils which never arrived!
    -- "Borrowing: From the French", Ralph Waldo Emerson

(Thanks to jenk twittering on How To Be Laid Back for the pointer)

At polymexina's request, I am posting a CBC link to some interviews with Margaret Atwood, spanning much of her career.

These are the best interviews with her I've ever found, including one where I can't decide if she's being very rude to the interviewer (something she's known for) or if the interviewer is asking for it, or both.

http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/literature/topics/1494-10058/

It was a very interesting contrast indeed jumping from desperance's current fantasy novel Bridge of Dreams clear back to his very first book, the psychological thriller The Samaritan. The prose is clearly the product of the same hand, even with twenty-some-odd years between the books, and even given that The Samaritan by necessity has a significantly terser style.

Paul Fenner is a former cop who was driven into alcoholism and divorce by the overwhelming brutality of a case he never solved: the rampage of the killer known as the Butcher. Since walking away, he's striven to rebuild his life; he's sworn off drinking and has established a new relationship with a young woman, Tina, whose fondest wish is to settle with him in a cottage in Wales. But when Paul's and Tina's landlady and friend is found murdered, Paul realizes that the Butcher is not going to let him go.

This entire story is intense, gripping, and in parts highly disturbing. The sections from the Butcher's point of view are particularly effective--told as they are in second person, which has the immediate effect of placing you right into his head so that you see every little twisted corner of his brain. You even relive the horrific abuse that the character experienced as a child, and this led me to almost, almost feeling sorry for the guy. Yet the gruesome barrage of violence in the very end of the book takes that little glimmer of sympathy, sharpens it right into a knife, and stabs you with it. Brr.

There's only one bit in the book I take issue with, one bit in the aforementioned barrage of violence that for me as a reader was really unnecessary--because in order for it to work, one of the characters in the cast does something that made me want to smack her so hard that I was momentarily taken out of the story. But that was mercifully brief. What comes after that point was otherwise a veritable storm, ripping through almost all corners of Paul's and Tina's lives, until its passing leaves them with barely more than a glimmer of gratitude that they've survived.

And after reading this book, I know exactly how they feel. ;) Three and a half stars.

Greetings to all y'all out there from this shiny new-to-me Sony Vaio VGN-C190G. On the plus side, it only took about two hours to get ALL the user files transferred over (directory by directory) from the old Dell Latitude machine. On the minus side, the spacebar on this machine is definitely something I'll have to get used to; it often doesn't add a space when I tell it to, and the [END] key on this keyboard is right where the [PageDown] key was on the Dell keyboard, which means that when I try to read LJ, I find myself jumping from the first page of entries to the last entry on the page, and then have to page back UP. Bleah.

Ennyhoo... it's up, minimally configured (so far I've added [reinstalled] my favorite terminal application [SecureCRT], Mozilla with AdBlockPlus, and Norton Anti-Virus - much, MUCH more to come), and all the user files are here. This means that I can take poor old Calypso into Advanced Laptop tomorrow and get her checked out and get an estimate on how much it will cost to refurb her (fix the broken internal wireless, see if anything else needs repair) for pocketnaomi, which is the Dell's current projected fate.

Best of all, this wee beastie has a hardware switch on the front to enable/disable wireless. How cool is that?

Now, what to call her... My computers have been, in order, [1]Chrysalis, [2]Gypsy, [3]Calypso. I don't know if I should use a G name (thus keeping up the C-G alternation), or another C-name, or ... what? pocketnaomi thinks I should stick with "something musical" ala Calypso (I really named it for the Jacques Cousteau exploration vessel, though), but I just dunno. Ideas welcome via comments.

ETA: I've decided to name her Citrine, for the coppery-orange accent stripe around the trackpad and around the edge of the keyboard. But thanks for the suggestions, folks, some were amusing, and/or educational!

Then go check out the contest Ann Aguirre is launching to celebrate the release of Wanderlust, the sequel to Grimspace, next week!

Y'all may recall that I read Grimspace earlier this year and enjoyed it quite a bit. I was going to buy Wanderlust anyway, but this? This is extra special shiny bonus incentive! Go! Buy the book! Join the raffle! And if you win the $200 booky goodness, I want to hear about it. :)

Probably not safe for work, but pretty damn funny:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReOw_2f4lpY

Example: Data says "That is not the right port, Sir..."

It helps if you've seen the show. ;-)

So ever since marzipan_pig suggested that I should make a print of Ma Tapir and her flying capybaras I've been thinking that it will be the first of a new series of prints that I would like to make with the intention of trying to do an exhibit somewhere.

The theme would be Original Religions, or maybe My Mythology (My Myth?), and the images will all be inspired by actual personal beliefs, ideas, religions, and myths that people hold dear. But it's kind of a delicate thing. Naturally I would want to use 'real' beliefs, not just make up a bunch of stuff. Real beliefs (in whatever way you care to transate either 'real' or 'beliefs') would have more depth, more detail, and for me more impact than just I just made up for the fun of it. But it also means that I need to cull for such things, not only exploring my own ideas, beliefs, myths, but asking other people like marzipan_pig to share their colorful concepts with me. Which might be tricky, cause stuff like that is often very private.

So! If you have any beliefs, myths, dreams, ideas, or personal religion that you think would be interesting to 'illustrate' and are willing to share with me, please reply here or send me mail to mimi at sun and moon murals dot com. :-) They don't need to be even things you currently believe or hold dear - maybe something from your childhood?

Thanks in advance for sharing!

According to this article, the International District is hosting some night markets this month, which sound really cool! Alas, I didn't find out about it till today and the last one is this coming Saturday, and I'll be off at the Kite Festival. Dang.

Also didn't make it out to the gallery show after all. Just too dang hot. I do plan, however, on doing a gallery stroll sometime in the next two weeks when the weather is more amenable. Today actually would be good, but I'm working, so that nixes that idea. :-)

I'm happy to say that things are much better due to a monthly biological event finally occuring this weekend. I had a feeling at the time that that was why last week was so insane making. I really need to start looking into some sort of dietary or herbal supplement 'cure' so it doesn't hit me so hard and mess me up so bad. Recommendations for such things are gratefully accepted.

I should have the next two days off, if no work crops up in the meanwhile, before I head to the Kite Festival. Once again the weather report does not look good. I really don't understand why they don't just move the festival up by one week. The second week in August is almost always great sunny weather, the third week almost always crappy and rainy. Siiiiiiigh. I should see if they have a 'suggestion' box anywhere this year.

One of the native rodentia of Cascadia is something called the mountain beaver, which is a silly name as it neither lives in mountains nor is a beaver. But it does look a little bit like one. We see them around the house occasionally; they're harmless, and tend to hide.

Anyway, we have this retaining wall behind our built-into-the-hillside-cliff house, and at the bottom of that, there's a planter, and somehow one of these little guys got into it and spent about an hour trying to find a way out that didn't involve being exposed to the daylight:


AAAGH I'M GONNA DIE

The cats, of course, loved this action. Eventualy, it made a break for it (video kinda fuzzy):


And then I discovered it has burrowed into the rockery! (Video not at all fuzzy; sorry about the tea-timer noise):


So that was fun. And now I go back to doing the laundry and some client work.

( Quizzies )

There's a nice article in the Seattle Times today about the Daily Show. Not that anyone who's seen it probably needs to be reminded of why it is so great, but it's a very well written and entertaining little article. Makes me sad that I don't have TIVO or even cable. I miss me the Daily Show. *sniffoo*

Why hasn't anybody used Mr. Cash's hit song "Ring of Fire" as the background music for a hemorrhoid treatment commercial? It's such a no-brainer! Truckers love him!

"I sat down on a burnin' ring of fire,
The road was long and the flames grew higher..."

I've probably spent too much time thinking about this.

Catchy tune, though.

Yeah, too much time.


UPDATE: corwynofamber provides an almost instantaneous answer:

"The family of late singer Johnny Cash has blocked an attempt by advertisers to use his hit song Ring of Fire to promote haemorrhoid-relief products."

Full article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3498749.stm

Thanks Don! You're a veritable goldmine of pop culture trivia!