Today, I got a tutorial on the basics of editing audio files with Audacity. This will be useful, I'm sure, at some point in my radio career. I also went shopping in Hadley with Stoic. Maple line Farms and Aldis are, he says, the places to get the optimal combination of fresh produce and groceries at low prices. It took longer than my usual ( Read more... )

My saga of brother's battle with cancer approaches its tragic denouement. He was diagnosed last May with adenocarcinoma in his stomach, and after several surgeries, all the radiation he could stand, and six months of chemo, his doctor at Dana Farber Cancer Institute has thrown in the towel. He's lost so much weight, his liver is failing, and he's ( Read more... )

I was summoned for jury duty today, which necessitated getting up about 90 minutes before my alarm normally goes off in the morning.  The one trial in the offing was a criminal case, and the defendant faced a slew of charges, one of which was dissemination of harmful material to a minor.  When I was asked if there was any reason why I wouldn't be ( Read more... )

1) I'm pleased by the results of last week's election.  Four more years of Obama will be better than four years of Romney, and six years of Elizabeth Warren will, I think, be better than Scott Brown.  More generally, I'm pleased that the hateful and blinkered clique that controls the GOP was so soundly rejected across the land.  I hope the real ( Read more... )

Here's an article from the New York Times, summing up what the scientific press has been reporting for years, that the extreme water shortages of the past decade should not be seen as a drought, or as below average.  They are, rather, the new normal, and this only the beginning of how bad it's going to get for our world.  Our society's only hope is ( Read more... )

I have sore throat, so I'm loafing as much as possible today. The great storm which apparently socked the hell out of south and mid-Atlantic states left the merest dusting of snow here, after I went to some trouble to secure studded tires for Skull Jr. Typical ( Read more... )

This past weekend, M and I went back East.  We drove out on Friday evening after I got out of work, and went to Sol Azteca for supper.  (Pollo a la pimienta, mmmmm), and had dinner with Papi and Gato.  Then we went back to M's family homestead, where we went to bed (though I stayed up and watched the end of game 2 of the Sox/Angels series.)

On ( Read more... )

Our friend Arnaud is visiting from France for the next week.  I haven't seen him in four years, and it's good to catch up. He arrived late yesterday, and after he went to sleep, I stayed up later because a friend wasn't doing well.  (Sadly, said friend will be spending a couple of days in a psych ward--let's hope it's a short stay.)  Anyway, I ( Read more... )

July was quite a month for me.  After my wedding and the hullabaloo of Connecticon (at which the store did really well), there was Secretive's wedding on Long Island.  Well, actually, there was a nice evening with friends and seeing Margaret Cho, who was pretty funny, though she did some material I had seen her do before, so I wasn't as amused as I ( Read more... )

I am a bit startled to realize that it's nearly midnight.  The days just seem to slip past me of late, though to be fair to myself,
( Read more... )