Hot Tamales

"They're Red Hot" -- Robert Johnson (The Complete Recordings)


Holy tomoly---its hot and humid. This has been an absolutely miserable mid-Atlantic summer. Thank goodness for central air; i can't even fathom the fact that my family didn't live in homes with central air until ... well, after I finished High School; and we lived in some very very hot and humid climates

I love this Robert Johnson song. It might be one of my favorites from him. "I got a gal she long and tall; sleeps in the kitchen with her feets in the hall.." priceless lyric. Lots of people have done it; I actually like the Red Hot Chili Peppers cover. Cassandra Wilson covered it, too; but I don't find that she does anything very remarkable with it although I do like the guitar on her version. And I feel a little smug because Lyman didn't know that the Chili Peppers had done it...

The Gorillaz
I don't know what to make of this. Rob saw this band on a DirecTV free-view and was captivated. I never caught it while it was running. He was sufficiently impressed to buy the cd and I must say I kind of dig the music. Its definitely hip hop but very techno, too; I hear tons of Beck influence... Rob cites also The Talking Heads but I think its really more like the TomTom Club. So I was looking through the liner notes and I've got to say---I don't know what the target audience for this cd is. I just keep seeing Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka saying, "that's just weird..!" Also, me saying..."WTF???" But dude---it makes me feel oooooold. So I've decided to not think about it anymore. Haley likes it. And its somewhat less objectionable than Kanye West. Did I mention that Rob started a sentence like this, "Hey----wanna hear me and Haley's favorite Kanye song...?" Help me out here: How many children do I have??

The John Mayer Trio cd---surprisingly good. Worth the purchase. I'll put a sample up soon but there's one up at JohnMayerTrio.com until then.

A week without a nanny...
Well, everyone deserves a vacation. But I miss Pilar. And so do the girls. And Rob. He spent all day with them today. When I arrived home, he went straight upstairs and that's where he remains. Sound asleep since 5:30 pm. Tuesdays are his night off anyway, I only wish he weren't so bushed so he could enjoy himself some.

So I walked into the kitchen after the day away with Rob in charge of the household, really expecting the worst. It was almost eerie how orderly things were. I suspect they weren't actually here at all. Not a single dish was dirty, no discernible change in the stuff lying about. The only clue is the remains of an order of McD's Chicken Strips in the fridge. It will probably stay there until I get annoyed and throw it out in several days---why on earth would anybody think those might be worth saving? Bleh. Besides--its almost as if most of my household regards the fridge as a big white cold garbage can. Things go in and out but ultimately nothing ever gets "gone" from there until I go on a rampage. The bigwhitecoldtrashcan. Remind me to tell you some time about the 3 empty (neatly stacked) pizza boxes in Rob's bachelor freezer...

Computers
I'm knee deep in new computer anticipation. We have an uber-machine on order for me (20" flat panel monitor, too!); I didn't need a new one but the girls did so we'll shift my current machine down the line and I'll take a new one totally tricked out for media center work and Vista-capable. Can not wait, can not wait. Also waiting on arrival of dear neice's machine for her move to college. I'm hoping to be able to see her and maybe her cute sibs when I hand it over. And my little work laptop must have suffered an inferiority attack because it died a couple of weeks ago so I also have a mega-machine with docking station (and another 20" flat panel monitor) on order to replace both the dead laptop and my desktop machine at work. I'm very happy we're going with that configuration; it makes lots of sense.

Work's great, gearing up for two big meetings on the CATI project and work is really getting pretty thick with the organizing committee for this year's Advanced Disease Surveillance Conference. I suspect that soon its going to feel less like fun and more like chaos but for now, I'm pretty engaged and things are going at a nice pace.

Hey==I finally got the Edwin Hawkins mpeg file fixed. Give it a listen...all of it :-)