Hours of entertainment.

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Note also that the dinosaur page is a hoot and a half. They’re having server problems, though, because so many people are looking.

The TCPR is a ‘free market’ think-tank in Nashville, Tennessee. Their article criticizing the size of Al Gore’s carbon footprint has been circulating widely in email and on conservative weblogs.

I sent this to them in email. Let’s see if they respond.

(For the record: My carbon footprint is between 4.5 and 6.65 tons per year, depending on how many trans-continental road trips I take. )

I saw your recent article on Al Gore’s carbon footprint. Actually, a relative forwarded it to me in email, so the viral marketing thing is working.

The article I’m talking about is here: http://tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=367

I was wondering if you there at the TPRC had calculated your own carbon footprint. You folks seem concerned about keeping carbon footprints small, to the point of criticizing a hero of the climate change awareness community, and using the word ‘shocking’ to describe his carbon footprint.

So how about it? What has the Tennessee Center for Policy Research done to reduce its carbon footprint, and what policies do you endorse in your political action to reduce carbon emissions in general and in the state of Tennessee?

You can calculate your own carbon footprint here: http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/

Please respond, and let the world know that you care about this issue, and that you’re not just shoveling shit.

Thank you.

These people are doing what I want to do: They provide photography and multimedia services to land management agencies and environmental NGOs, including web sites and GIS projects. They have their shit together. And they go to work in shorts.

…that Pentax still makes lenses.

According to Rep. Todd Akin, the US in Iraq is the Republic of Texas, and the Iraqis are Santa Anna. Except Davy Crockett has a Blackberry, and he’s trying to get the US Congress to send more troops.

What a dip.

I’d like to send out congratulations to my mom, who just sold a book she’s been trying to sell for a really long time. It’s a good book, too.

Amazon link when it happens.

More:

Tej asks what sort of book my mom wrote, and the answer is that it’s an historical novel, aimed at the youth market. It’s about the German immigrants to central and coastal Texas in the early 1800s.

I’ll also note with some degree of pride that this isn’t the first thing my mom has published.

I had a dream last night that featured Las Vegas in the year 2200 CE, Mary McDonnell as the cancer-stricken wife of the richest man in the world, and Christopher Lee as… Christopher Lee. There was a tightrope walker, a car chase, Karl Rove’s cryogenically-frozen head, orange juice, a parade, and an assassination.

I woke up realizing that if I wrote it all down, I would have enough for three screenplays. And not only that, three screenplays people would actually want to see. Unfortunately, I can’t remember most of it.

I think one of the best things about dreams is that there is no requirement for a narrative. Each moment is its own meaning, and the linear passage of time only allows these moments to be separate from each other. I love movies that don’t necessarily fit a narrative, though of course narratives are good, too. For instance, there’s ‘Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould,’ which only loosely follows the chronological life of Gould. The viewer basically sees his life as if it were a dream they were having, with episodes and vignettes and images with only minimal context. Also ‘Punch Drunk Love,’ which has a narrative but plenty of diversions into ambiguity and raw imagery.

Anyway. I think I need to be more structured in my writing, so I can catch these things as they fly by.

Today’s bassline: Danny Thompson performing with Richard Thompson (no relation) on Austin City Limits. They’re doing ‘Mingus Eyes.’ Notice how, especially early in the song, the bass line is holding the beautiful chord changes.

I’m featuring this because I’ve been making my way through RT’s ’1000 Years Of Popular Music’ DVD and he’s on my mind.

And why not. Here’s another one. “Red hair and black leather/My favorite color scheme…”

And after Del McCoury covered it (and substituted Knoxville for Box Hill)….

…so did everybody else:

There’s this cat called Peter Borg, and he writes open source software. He wrote one piece of software I use all the time, called Smultron, which is a text editor that can do syntax coloring and all that kind of stuff. He also wrote some interesting-looking stuff called Hallon and Lingon. A berry theme, it would seem. Hallon creates bookmarks for all kinds of things that wouldn’t otherwise have bookmarks. You organize them and assign schedules to them (so it acts like a to do list). It’s kind of interesting.

But Smultron r00lz.

My mood of late has been one of a sort of existential bliss. It’s functionally the same as existential angst, but without the angst. As in, there’s no point in being full of angst, so let’s just try and muddle through without really worrying. Which I guess isn’t really bliss, but it’s easier to say than the truth. Ya know?

But I’m sitting here looking at the Oregon coast on Google Earth. There are little blue and white circles that represent pictures people have taken of those spots. I click on them, and they’re pictures of lighthouses and haystacks and sand dunes… you didn’t know about the sand dunes, did you? But I’m looking at them, and wondering why I need to go there.

And I was thinking about poetry. I was thinking about being there and renting a yurt at a state park (you can rent yurts at state parks in Oregon), and sitting in there with my little electric heater amongst the trees of the forest behind the beach, drinking microbrew beer, eating local chevre on little crackers, and writing poetry as the wind howls and the temperature drops.

Given my mood, poetry is kind of like the thing that someone says that’s so obvious and so needless that there is no foothold for it. In this context, poetry loses it’s foothold and slides down the mountainside, clawing for life. Why would I write poetry? Why would I write anything? Why would I take pictures or relate the tale to anyone? Why ‘blog it?

The thing is, this context is not, of course, limited to just the proposed trip. I find myself thinking about how lonely I am. I imagine taking the trip with someone else, and a few scenarios play out where making the effort isn’t worth it. It’s so very hard to have faith in these things. The goal, setting out, has to be to discover whether the effort is worth it. Which is risky, because it might not be. Ya know?

I’m so very stuck. These things change, of course.