Sunday, October 30, 2005
Blessed Samhain to everyone who celebrates it, and Happy Hallowe'en to everyone else. I'm having a quiet weekend of it at home this year, doing some cleanup in the yard - pulling up old tomato stakes etc., pruning back the palo verde that's been taking over the sidewalk, and planting some marigolds for the season. Last night I went to see the Flying Machine's Frankenstein at Scottsdale Center for the Arts - it was a very entertaining version of the story, with not much Mary Shelley in it.
Friday night I drove over to Andy Olson's place to record the Hallowe'en show that's going to be airing on Radio Free Phoenix Monday at 8:00 Arizona time. We've got a nice mix of spiritual, spooky, and silly music, and yes this is a plug. If you live in Queen Creek and have a good receiver, you can also pick it up on-air at KQCX 99.1 FM.
AVS gave me some digital photos of Peaseblossom's necrotic kidney (both in her abdomen and out), which I'm not going to post here. Just to demonstrate that this blog has some standards.
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Friday night I drove over to Andy Olson's place to record the Hallowe'en show that's going to be airing on Radio Free Phoenix Monday at 8:00 Arizona time. We've got a nice mix of spiritual, spooky, and silly music, and yes this is a plug. If you live in Queen Creek and have a good receiver, you can also pick it up on-air at KQCX 99.1 FM.
AVS gave me some digital photos of Peaseblossom's necrotic kidney (both in her abdomen and out), which I'm not going to post here. Just to demonstrate that this blog has some standards.
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Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Pop Quiz
Is that guy singing that it'll be alright
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Is that guy singing that it'll be alright
- a) shoulder to shoulder
- b) shelter to shelter
- c) pelvis to pelvis
- d) Albert to Albert
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Friday, October 21, 2005
It's Savannah - in 3-D! Photo upload is working again!
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Peaseblossom's final results came back, and apart from a bit of an infection from surrounding the ex-kidney, she's completely clean - no cancer! And she's being a very good girl about not worrying at her sutures, so she doesn't even need to be a conehead.
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I had to make another quickie business trip to Minneapolis this week, and I can now say with authority that Batman Begins is absolutely incomprehensible with the sound off.
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Thursday, October 13, 2005
Peaseblossom is out of surgery, and the news is generally optimistic so I'm going to give a cautious yay. The mass they thought was an intestinal tumor turned out to be one of her kidneys, which had become enlarged to take up the slack because her other kidney was blocked (apparently some time ago) and had shriveled to practically nothing. So they've taken out the bad kidney and pending the biopsy on that, she may never have had cancer after all!
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Wednesday, October 12, 2005
I figure most of the people who read this blog - all 4 of you - know this already: Barry Bard passed away last Friday. In my minds eye I see him now on the far side of the Styx, handing out goodie bags to new arrivals.
Merry Meet Again.
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On a lighter note, another legend of Arizona fandom slipped away this summer, or is at least greatly diminished: the notorious Anvil of God, aka Phoenix Civic Plaza North. Occupying two city blocks and designed by someone who had never stepped outside during a Phoenix summer, the plaza hadn't a stick of shade on it. It gained notoriety during a big con sometime in the 80's, a Westercon I think, where the hotel was the Hyatt Regency, on one side of the Plaza, and part of the programming was in the Convention Center on the other side, necessitating a ten-minute trek in the blazing July sun in 100-degree-plus weather. Imagine your last hall costume, then imagine running that gauntlet in your last hall costume. One con-goer was rumored to have suffered first-degree burns from her chain mail bikini, just walking from one convention space to the other!
Well, those days are over. A large annex to Symphony Hall is being built on the Plaza, directly across from the Hyatt. I wasn't able to get a good look Friday night, with all the scaffolding etc, but at the very least it takes some of the edge off that long walk.
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Merry Meet Again.
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On a lighter note, another legend of Arizona fandom slipped away this summer, or is at least greatly diminished: the notorious Anvil of God, aka Phoenix Civic Plaza North. Occupying two city blocks and designed by someone who had never stepped outside during a Phoenix summer, the plaza hadn't a stick of shade on it. It gained notoriety during a big con sometime in the 80's, a Westercon I think, where the hotel was the Hyatt Regency, on one side of the Plaza, and part of the programming was in the Convention Center on the other side, necessitating a ten-minute trek in the blazing July sun in 100-degree-plus weather. Imagine your last hall costume, then imagine running that gauntlet in your last hall costume. One con-goer was rumored to have suffered first-degree burns from her chain mail bikini, just walking from one convention space to the other!
Well, those days are over. A large annex to Symphony Hall is being built on the Plaza, directly across from the Hyatt. I wasn't able to get a good look Friday night, with all the scaffolding etc, but at the very least it takes some of the edge off that long walk.
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Thursday, October 06, 2005
Every year I say that next year I'm going to stay in Prescott for the whole folk festival, all day both days - and every year life gets in the way. This year I missed all of the Sunday programming, but packed as much as I could into Saturday. (That included doing a little hiking in the Thumb Butte area before the festival got started at 10:00.)
The songwriters' circle I was in in the afternoon was fun, and I had an unexpected reaction from the audience. There are usually 5-8 people involved in these, all songwriters sharing their material bardic style, which means in a 90 min slot we each get about two songs. It's a very relaxed atmosphere that attracts a good-size audience. When my second turn came around, I started with, "I couldn't let the whole festival go by without singing a filk song." A good half of the audience applauded, and this is a folk audience! Very cool. I did Fangrrrl to great appreciation; the biggest laugh seemed to be on "My resume is longer than the Hitchiker's triology." Just goes to show how much SF has drifted into the mainstream. Or perhaps how perniciously filk has infiltrated the Arizona folk scene. Hey, I've been doing it for a good ten years now, and Lon Austin was singing both ways well before then.
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Peaseblossom went in to the vet today for what was supposed to be a routine checkup and teeth cleaning. No such thing. She has a mass of inflamed lymph nodes in her abdomen. We're waiting on the biopsy results, hopefully Saturday morning.
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The songwriters' circle I was in in the afternoon was fun, and I had an unexpected reaction from the audience. There are usually 5-8 people involved in these, all songwriters sharing their material bardic style, which means in a 90 min slot we each get about two songs. It's a very relaxed atmosphere that attracts a good-size audience. When my second turn came around, I started with, "I couldn't let the whole festival go by without singing a filk song." A good half of the audience applauded, and this is a folk audience! Very cool. I did Fangrrrl to great appreciation; the biggest laugh seemed to be on "My resume is longer than the Hitchiker's triology." Just goes to show how much SF has drifted into the mainstream. Or perhaps how perniciously filk has infiltrated the Arizona folk scene. Hey, I've been doing it for a good ten years now, and Lon Austin was singing both ways well before then.
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Peaseblossom went in to the vet today for what was supposed to be a routine checkup and teeth cleaning. No such thing. She has a mass of inflamed lymph nodes in her abdomen. We're waiting on the biopsy results, hopefully Saturday morning.
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Tuesday, October 04, 2005
I used to drop something in the kettle each December because I knew the Salvation Army did social work as well as being a religious organization. No more. If there's nothing to prevent a government-funded charity from discriminating based on religious belief, there's nothing to keep them from denying aid to a person in need based on religious belief. Or race, disability, marital status... anything you can think of.
They're not getting any more of my nasty Pagan money than they already have.
Ya know, while we're busily tackling the task of demolishing the wall between Church and State, howsabout we make our next task rescinding the tax exemption for religious organizations? It'll be a genuine boon to churches, driving out the charlatans who are only in it for the money, and make a sizable dent in the Federal deficit!
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My blog has finally come of age -- yes, I'm getting comment spam now, so I've turned on the word verification feature for new comments.
4 comments
They're not getting any more of my nasty Pagan money than they already have.
Ya know, while we're busily tackling the task of demolishing the wall between Church and State, howsabout we make our next task rescinding the tax exemption for religious organizations? It'll be a genuine boon to churches, driving out the charlatans who are only in it for the money, and make a sizable dent in the Federal deficit!
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My blog has finally come of age -- yes, I'm getting comment spam now, so I've turned on the word verification feature for new comments.
4 comments
