8 - 2003 | ***Dave Does the Blog

Uncle Edo

Today is my Uncle Edo’s 90th birthday. Edo (Eduardo) Reginatto was one of the multitude of boys my Bis Nona had — alongside my Nona as the lone daughter. They…

Today is my Uncle Edo’s 90th birthday.

Edo (Eduardo) Reginatto was one of the multitude of boys my Bis Nona had — alongside my Nona as the lone daughter. They all sound like members of the Mob — Edo, Alberto, Corado, Bruno, Umberto — but the ones I knew were all great guys when I was growing up. Much of my “Crazy Onkle Dave” routine is built on their Coyote-like influence.

Edo I remember particularly fondly. He married, very briefly, long ago, and I ended up getting his silver. More importantly, he eventually took care of my Bis Nona, and she and he were both baby sitters for John and me when we were growing up and my folks were golfing with my grandparents.

In his back yard was at least one huge avocado tree. I’ve never cared for avocados, but they played a big role in visits we paid to Santa Barbara.

And he had a boat, from which he’d fish. Going out on into the Pacific waters on the boat with Uncle Edo was, for years, a staple of visiting Nona and Nono.

(If you need a mental snapshot of him, remember Rocky, Rockford’s dad on The Rockford Files, played by Noah Beery, Jr. He always reminded me of Uncle Edo.)

Edo was a a great person to have around in my chilodhood, and remember him with great fondness on his birthday. My folks are going up to Santa Barbara to help celebrate, and I wish I were there with them.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Edo!

Here, let me pick at that wound for you

Rrg. On a mailing list I’m on, someone in the UK is just discovering that Firefly has been cancelled. Rrg….

Rrg.

On a mailing list I’m on, someone in the UK is just discovering that Firefly has been cancelled.

Rrg.

Support Your Local Blogger

Most folks blog for free. A few put out a tip jar. Assuming that I actually derive entertainment, information, and/or thought-provocation from them, why wouldn’t I toss a fin into…

Most folks blog for free.

A few put out a tip jar.

Assuming that I actually derive entertainment, information, and/or thought-provocation from them, why wouldn’t I toss a fin into the PayPal/Amazon/Whatever?

I’ve tried doing this in the past, but have been unsuccessful at doing so on a regular basis. So I’ve set up a quarterly (or maybe semi-annual, I don’t remember) reminder to run through the blogroll and, them as has hands out (not many) and who deserve it, give ’em something.

(And debate whether I have the cojones to add a tip jar. See, it’s different for me, natch. When I give to someone, it’s an honest acknowledgment that I think they’ve given me something of value. When I ask for something, it’s a tawdry ploy for ego strokes.)

And that happened today, so I did it. I also did some minor rototilling and reseeding in the blogroll, too.

Actually, and by sheer coincidence, Andrew sent me a book through Amazon today, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which has been on my gotta-get-around-to-reading list for some time. Wholly unsolicited, out of the blue from a Blogathon-related conversation. Keen.

“Cast your blog upon the waters –” and all that, I guess.

Urgent cable

Our cable has been off-and-on all afternoon — more the former than the latter. A call to the hapless Comcast cable folks produced (after delving through about fifteen prompts and…

Our cable has been off-and-on all afternoon — more the former than the latter.

A call to the hapless Comcast cable folks produced (after delving through about fifteen prompts and finally figuring out I could just hit [#] and get a Real Person) a Real Person … who faithfully avowed that there was no maintenance activity going on in my area, and dutifully scheduled someone to come out Sunday.

Of course, when we went for a walk an hour or so ago, there was the big Comcast truck, at the top of the street, playing at the big cable box. Margie says there’s been someone at that box on and off all week, doubtless as a follow-up to all the cable pulling they’ve been doing.

The one minor bright spot is that, after the last outage, the TV came on to a commercial from Comcast about how we should get their digitial cable and high-speed cable modem access.

“Bright” as in “amazingly annoying but slightly amusing in that bitterly ironic way.”

UPDATE: Just got a call form the same Comcast lady. They had indeed dispatched someone — perhaps the very person we’d seen. Was our service up?

Well, yes, I said, checking. It’s up at the moment. Since we’d talked it had gone up and down a few times.

“Well, he finished up that ticket around 5:30p. Has it been up since then?”

“It went out right before six for about a minute. I remember, because I was watching something at the top of the hour with my daughter.”

“Hmmmm,” she said. Did I just get some technician in trouble? Fact is, I remember seeing his truck leave at 5:30, as I was going across the street to feed the dog at a neighbor’s house.

“Well,” she continued, “it should stay up now.”

I politely acknowledge that it should, and we ended the call.

Heh. We’ll see.

But it did flicker off again for about a minute at 6. Which does not fill me with confidence.

The next best thing to being there

Many thanks to Mary, who sent us a CARE Package from the San Diego Comic-Con: A SiP mug for Margie, a Powerpuff Girls mini-lunchbox/piggy-bank for Katherine, and a copy of…

Many thanks to Mary, who sent us a CARE Package from the San Diego Comic-Con: A SiP mug for Margie, a Powerpuff Girls mini-lunchbox/piggy-bank for Katherine, and a copy of Munchkin Fu for me. Plus various and sundry freebie swag.

Thanks, Mary!

Stuck in the Middle with You

Centerville-You would feel most at home in Centerville, which means that you are more or less pleased the status quo-you think the US government has just about the right amount…

Centerville-You would feel most at home in Centerville, which means that you are more or less pleased the status quo-you think the US government has just about the right amount of control over your economic and personal decisions. Your neighbors include democratic and republican party leaders and others who call themselves “moderates” and “centrists.”

Take the Politopia Quiz

Well, I’d kind of like to think so. Certainly there seem to be different issues where I appall one side or the other — as well as a lot of issues where I see danger in drifting too far one direction or the other. So, for the moment, I’m happy to be in the middle (or, as heated rhetoric sometimes seems to make it, “No Man’s Land”).

(via Ipse Dixit)

Title match

From the Bellco Credit Union: Dear Marjorie and David According to our records, it appears that your auto loan with Bellco should be paid off in a few months. Congratulations!…

From the Bellco Credit Union:

Dear Marjorie and David
According to our records, it appears that your auto loan with Bellco should be paid off in a few months. Congratulations!

Well, I’ve heard that before.

This letter is to remind you that the title for your vehicle will be mailed to you 10 business days after receipt of the final payment.

That will be interesting to see, since I don’t think we ever sent it back after the last time. But it will be nice to be “legal” so that we can go for the replacement for the going-on-nine-years-old Saturn.

Up the Tube

Matt Jefferies, who provided the design work on the original Star Trek, including the ship design, the bridge layout, and the ubiquitous “Jefferies Tubes,” has passed away. (via Heinleinblog)…

Matt Jefferies, who provided the design work on the original Star Trek, including the ship design, the bridge layout, and the ubiquitous “Jefferies Tubes,” has passed away.

(via Heinleinblog)

Burial, right?

Folks have pooh-poohed the idea that Iraqi WMDs — raw materials, equipment, etc. — might have been buried. Burial is so obvious, they say. We would have seen it on…

Folks have pooh-poohed the idea that Iraqi WMDs — raw materials, equipment, etc. — might have been buried. Burial is so obvious, they say. We would have seen it on satellite. There’d be big mounds of disturbed dirt. Even if we’re talking about drums of chemicals, crates of machine parts, or even mobile lab trucks, such things are way too large to effectively hide.

Which is why, of course, teeny-tiny, insignificant, and certainly unmonitored things like fighter jets have gone undetected until now.

Search teams, some hunting for Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, found dozens of fighter jets from Iraq’s air force buried beneath the sands, U.S. officials say.
At least one Cold War-era MiG-25 interceptor was found when searchers saw the tops of its twin tail fins poking up from the sands, said one Pentagon official familiar with the hunt. He said search teams have found several MiG-25s and Su-25 ground attack jets buried at al-Taqqadum air field west of Baghdad.

I mean, presumably we were keeping track of something big and visible — and militarily important — like military jets. We were, I would assume, trying to keep an eye on them by satellite. Not to mention by whatever human intelligence assets we had on the ground.

And yet, there they are. Found not because of ‘disturbed Earth,” or spy satellite pictures, or even by interrogation. Found because the sand around the frickin’ tail fins had blown away.

Of course, finding buried aircraft, even decades after the fact, isn’t a new story.

Just a thought.

Soda Font-ain

Ever wanted to do a memo in a Cherry Coke font? Now you can, along with other fun fonts such as Snickers, Heinekin, or Burger King. Cool. (via BoingBoing)…

Ever wanted to do a memo in a Cherry Coke font? Now you can, along with other fun fonts such as Snickers, Heinekin, or Burger King. Cool.

(via BoingBoing)