Watered the lawn all day. Watered the lawn in the evening. When the night came it rained.

         That about covers it.

         Cookie Crisp update: I had it confused with another cereal, Cinnamon Toast Crunk, or something. Turns out there has been a lupine presence in the CC mascot pantheon for some time. There was also a magician mascot at some point named Cookie Jarvis. Seriously. There’s a reason there’s no fanfic about cereal mascots.

         Please do not send me links to slash-fic about Lucky and Quisp. Really.

         As long as I’m doing a bulk email answer: I’m digitizing the old tapes with an ADS Tech Pyro; costs about $100, does the trick. My Macs recognized it right away, and no tweaking was required.

         Odd day. Happy at home, grim things abroad. Hot and sunny, just the way we like it. Wrote the column in 20 minutes, and while that’s a bit shorter than it usually takes, it leaves me feeling like I got off too easy. If my work took longer I’d fell a sense of accomplishment, but dang: can’t coast all day on that much work. But coast I did. Mostly listened to the radio and read the wires. Now I’m sitting in the kitchen late at night with a B-grade vodka (Level, Absolut’s premium-premium brand, but an utter dud in the upscale vodka market, I think; it was on sale. At least it’s inoffensive. My friend in the hooch business slipped me a bottle of Xcellent, the new Swiss vodka, which goes for $31 a bottle. I almost poured it out after one sip. And by “it” I mean the entire bottle. It tasted like rotten grass clippings. I ended up giving it away to someone who liked it, because it reminded her of gin. Say no more.) (As long as I’m reviewing vodkas – someone has to, since Vodkapundit is apparently neck-deep in work and Fischer-Price teething rings – the new Absolut “Ruby Red” grapefruit-infused wudka is pretty good, as you might expect from the king of flavored vodkas. The grapefruit Danska has a tarter tang, if you want your vodka to walk up and slap you. And please: drink it straight, like a Russian. And please: do not pound it, like a Russian. They have the savoring-the-purity-and-subtlety-of-the-ichor’s-mysterious-soul part right, but I’ve never quite understood the need to throw back each and every shot until your forehead clips the table and you end up on the floor. I know, I know: amateur. I sip tequila, too) wondering what will happen tomorrow. Of course, over there, it’s always tomorrow. It’s always tormorrow someplace, and it’s always yesterday everywhere.

         Here especially, of course. To this end I signed up at Veoh, a video site much like YouTube, except that it isn’t YouTube. As much as I enjoy YouTube videos now and then, it’s so obvious to have a YouTube account. Sighing up to Veoh was a snap, as the testimonials say; I was uploading my video in seconds! Then I was part of a growing vibrant community! Et cetera. They have an interesting way of making sure people upload pix or avatars for their accounts: the default picture is a grinning monkey with Cletus dentition sticking out his long long tongue. This will be the place where I upload old commercials and TV shows I did in the 80s and 90s, if you care. For now, I give you this:

The dullest commercial ever made. It’s a local ad from 1988 (I date that from the tape, which had a ST: TNG episode) (beardless Riker narrows it down, like follicular carbon dating) from a bottled-water company. Three acts. Act one: office drone, working at a chunky 286 with an eye-lancing green screen, throws down his pencil in disgust; the love of his work, which once made his step spring every morning when he entered the low-slung office park, has drained away, and now his life is nothing but Tuesday 2 PM forever and again, Xeroxed and collated. On Fridays he goes to TGIF with the rest of the “gang,” but half the guys peel off after one beer to head home to their families, and the only women who stay are the big ones who have more face than facial features, and use that weird half-snort laugh whenever they disagree with you, which they usually don’t because you’re new and cute. (The receptionist came once but that was the exception, yohe learned. And she has a boyfriend.) Anyway this bites the wad big time, and he’s fed up. What to do? He tosses his pen on the desk and stands – will he walk into the boss’s office, pound the table like Patrick McGoohan in the “Prisoner” opening credits – deec if he could make a teacup bounce – and drive home, a free man? Call some buds, wreck a case of MGD,  try again on Monday?

Act two: hydration; renewed determination

Act three: Hell, where everyone is doing their job, except the guy who designed the shot and didn’t account for the natural light coming in the windows

There will be more. Enjoy!

Those who liked the music the other day may, or may not, like this: a Garageband editorial. After spending all day and all evening focused on war news, I decided I should fool around with music instead of writing some obvious screed that says everything you suspect I believe. (Bottom line: it’s one war. It’s always been one war.) The piece that emerged was the mood of the day. One minute long. I played all the instruments except percussion, and yes, it was an experiment in 3/4 time. I have no idea what the radio excerpts say, but you get the gist. Here it is. 

(As for the title, FourYoniCallDay, it has to do with an Israeli who calls the Hewitt show with tips and warnings. When he calls twice in one day, it’s means something’s up. On the Hewitt show today I propsed a DEFCON-style rating for the threat level, depending on the number of times Yoni called in.)  

Anyway, if the tone of the piece doesn’t do anything for you, I recommend you to this brilliant, perspicacious piece on the HuffPo. The most liberal state in a profoundly irredentist illiberal part of the world responds to months of rocket attacks, and the HuffPo’s primary reaction consists of a fantasy about neocon fundies who hope Israel nukes some camels. There’s an SUV reference in there as well, just to cement the author’s cred as a vendor of Piercing Insight. I get the impression the author thinks that vast quantities of Red Staters are rooting for five-buck-a-gallon gas, because they think it means Jesus is coming back next week.

New Quirk, naturally. Have a good weekend; see you Monday.