Friday 10 October 2014

Autumn Holiday 2014 -- First Full Day

Well, this is ridiculous: i'm naturally an early riser anyway, but today i woke even earlier than normal, at around 2:15. I love the early morning hours, though: so quiet and peaceful...

Anyway, i spent the first few hours listening, as is my wont, to KSHE and my friend the deejay Tommy T., whose program "The Rock Magazine" is one of my favourite radio shows. This morning Tommy devoted the hour to Paul McCartney (and Wings). McCartney is a performer who hasn't interested me since the eighties, but as Tommy featured mostly his seventies output, all was well. (This is Beatles Week on "The Rock Magazine." It will be a good week!)

I also caught up on the news (the Qbot, a nasty online banking Trojan, infects 500,000 systems; the St Louis Cardinals won last night, yay!) and then continued with a research project i've undertaken,into the life and times of 1950's pin-up queen Bettie Page. Her photographs, whilst pretty scandalous at the time, seem pretty innocent compared to some of the schtuff that's out there now, but i'm fascinated by her charm and almost angelic good looks. Here she is:




And i did pretty much nothing else for the rest of the morning, although i switched radio stations: to KROCK -- where my friend Wendy Boomer is the co-host of the morning show and is followed by my Facebook friend Courtney (with whom i exchanged some jollity via email this a.m., too).

Of course, i scrubbed Catieboo's litterbox -- the usual Tuesday morning ritual.

And then, after breakfast, a sausage samwidge, i started to watch the Nicolas Cage film "Lord Of War" and ... fell asleep. This was not a reflection on the film -- from what i saw (and what i remember) it looked damned good. But i couldn't keep my minces open, and i woke at around 6 p.m. After which it was just another quiet evening at home.

Life in the bus lane.... 

Monday 6 October 2014

Holiday Diary, Autumn 2014

Quotation Of The Day ~ Billie Joe Armstrong: I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies /
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives / On holiday. (From "American Idiot.")

Right well, i am now on holiday for 8.5 days -- today being my half day off -- and it began in dismal fashion, with me leaving an hour late (because no one was scheduled to come in and take over for me). I'm not well pleased about that, it completely screwed up my lunch plans -- and i truly believe that the two-hour lunch is a pinnacle of Western culture. But that's the restaurant biz for you: i learned long ago that one cannot make plans for right after one's shift, leaving on time is not something you can reasonably expect to be able to do.

I'm not going anywhere, i'm trying (although not with much success as yet) to save the $$$ for the trip to St Louis next year), in fact my plans for the eight days are very vague at this point. There's a lot i want to do around the house; i may actually get some of it done. A new computer is definitely in the cards so some time will be spent configuring that. Beer will be drunk, music will be listened to, porn will be looked at, movies and reading will be caught up on, and many sentences will be ended with prepositions.

Two things i'm really looking forward to, though: finally being able to try Kelsey's weekend brunch, and listening to the Sunday Classics programme on KSHE radio. It's such a great programme, and as i've only had one Sunday off in two years ... I have the KSHE app on my phone and i try to listen when i'm slaving away on the Sabbath day but that's a long, long way from being ideal: not much volume and loads of peripheral noise -- it's slightly better than not at all, but only slightly.

Here's three more from my CD collection:


And the playlist:

Howard Jones - Best Of Howard Jones
10 c.c. - How Dare You!
Marillion - Clutching At Straws
Paul McCartney - Driving Rain
Chris Leslie - Origins
Marillion - Fugazi
Fairport Convention - Festival Bell
Van der Graaf Generator - World Record