soapbox

I am not such a fan of the BCS ranking system for championship series football here, but there are a couple of interesting things that showed up this week. I really like the number 1 and 24 slots, but Notre Dame is really getting the shaft if you ask me. If my Buffaloes are going to lose big to Texas, they had best be No. 1. And, not that I really like Texas, but they’re the Big 12’s best representative currently, so I have to say screw the Trojans, and Hook ‘em Horns!

Helix tends to move toy mice from the first to the second floor at the house. He only does one or two a day, but at the end of the week it usually ends up with a big population inversion that then gets fixed by kicking the mice down the stairs to a lower energy level.

How’s that for nerdy?

Anyway, Saturday night before we were getting ready to go to bed, he brought up a mouse. The strange thing though was the fact that when Ida came over to him he growled almost as to say “back off bitch, this one’s mine.” So Kirsten and I looked up at him and he brought the mouse into the den and dropped it at our feet. I said “good kitty” and petted him, then looked up to see Kirsten running out the door and shrieking. Looking down again, I realized a truth. Toy mice have no legs — therefore if it has legs, it’s not a toy.

It was still a little bit alive, enough to occasionally make a face like “o”, but it’s back was broken enough that it’s legs didn’t come off at the right angle. I scooped it up in a garbage can and threw it out in the yard (which really pissed of Helix), and he spent the rest of the night looking for a new mouse. Luckily, he didn’t find one, but that didn’t make it any less stressful when he brought a toy mouse to us in bed.

Killington has snow! Granted, it’s only maybe an inch or two of slushy crap, but still. Snow! It seems as though it was a plowable snow when it first fell, too, because there are piles everywhere.

They’ve also whored themselves out to Sprint, because with this year’s pass, I got a nice little lanyard that says “Killington” on one side, and “Sprint” on the other. Last year, all they gave out for it was a cheap chain.

My car made it all the way to Killington and nearly the whole way back before something in the exhaust system finally let go. I’m hoping i can get it in somewhere by tomorrow to get it fixed. But I doubt it. I might have to drive the loud beast for a few days.

Fall is here and so is my wife’s desire to make cookies Sunday evening.

Come and get them.

This jazz great passed away this weekend at the age of 71.

You can find her brief obit on CNN, but I recommend listening to her work to better understand the influence she’s left on the music.

Fortunately, you can listen to her work all week through the KRTU lunch feature, available as a webcast through their homepage. Astute listeners among you will hear the debt of gratitude performers like Diana Krall and (to a much lesser extent, perhaps) Norah Jones owe to Shirley Horn, a superb jazz pianist and one of the most distinctive female voices in jazz history.

I’ll always be a Billie Holiday man myself, but the sultry whisper of Shirley Horn can’t be denied. She will be missed.

The idea of asking for advice/help is refreshing, but I’m a bit cynical about the end result… fiscal conservatism is often a good thing, but the recent brand of “conservative economics” has left us with a number of significant econ issues.

Anyway, I’m really curious to see who gets the nod - and how the market will respond, since so much of that is a matter of confidence as opposed to actual competence.