I’m sorry, but I found this on Dave Barry’s Blog and I just found it udderly impossible not to pass it on.

Hey, Abbot! I’ve been a bad boy.

The official Calvin and Hobbes site

One of my alltime favorite Calvin & Hobbes comic strips:

Google to Roll Out E-Mail Service

Good idea? BFD? Anybody need another e-mail account? Guess we’ll see.

Check out this insightful essay on Via Negativa. And on the subject of fog, I’ll offer this poem. Incidentally, she still hasn’t called. But it hasn’t been quite five years yet. She will, right? She will.

CERTAIN STREETS

Time passes, so I get up

every morning. I have

soap that smells insanely

like spring in Ireland,

or a waterfall. I brush my hair

and talk to the dog while

calculating how long

it has been since you called.

Seven months, so I drive to work.

The yellow fog burns back

to the water’s edge and leaves

a brilliant path for me.

I slip along the edge of clarity

and listen as the stock market drops

through the morning light.

If time goes on, I have lunch

in the park and everything

hums through the day;

computer, printer, people

and lights. At three o’clock

I have coffee, then drive home

at dusk through certain streets

where I see you float, silk

on a breeze of unremitting weeks.

Should I call? I’m sure

there will be time, some morning,

evening, afternoon, when the clock

is resting in a shadow on the wall.

Kyle Kimberlin

2000

I was over at my folks’ house tonight, and Hollywood Squares was on in the other room. A question was asked: true or false, there’s a theme park called Stalinworld, that resembles a Soviet concentration camp. I would’ve answered False; I would have been wrong.

For Fun in Lithuania, Visit Stalinworld!

In response to comments on my Boycott EMI post …

The whole issue has moved beyond nuance for me. To me, layoffs for the sake of profit margin … as opposed to bottom line survival … are inherently evil.

One of the companies I used to work for lays people off every time there’s a downturn. Then when things pick up they hire new people. The new people, not having earned raises and being under newer, leaner health plans and such, are cheaper than the ones that got dumped. A few years ago, the trend was that you could make more by switching companies — starting salaries were climbing faster than raises for existing personnel. That paradigm is dead.

And downsizing is done on every whim. The shareholders like to see the herd getting thinned, and that appearance is sometimes the only apparent motivation for the purge. It’s as if every time I opened a window or turned on the heat in my home, 12 people hit the streets, clutching cardboard boxes and trying through the panic to remember where they parked.

I want — and I know it’s silly — a national grassroots mandate telling companies that people care about people, and the worker is not an expendable company resource. We are not office supplies.

EMI to cut 1,500 jobs, outsource CD manufacturing

Boycott! Companies have to learn they can’t go on a low carb diet, to increase profits, by eating people.

MI5 agents foil bomb plot

Seems our boys are dishin’ up some tunes in Old Baghdad. Cool.

Link

Well it appears that there really were 911 days between the 9/11 attacks and the bombing in Madrid. Spooky? I think no, just a mass murderer with a twisted sense of irony.

Thanks to Cindy for this one.

I was at my folks’ place over the weekend. Dogsitting, you know. I spent part of Sunday raking up and disposing of the trimmings of their Red Cherry Guava bushes in the back yard. My back is sore, but the truth is that it felt good to be out in the sunshine with a rake. In fact, I had better luck with it than I have with a fountain pen or a computer lately. So it goes.

Did you know that cherry guava berries are edible? I saw some of the berries there on the grass, having sifted through the cuttings, they were resting in the grass. I didn’t see them as food. Maybe it’s residual subconscious suggestion — when we were little, our Mom told us not to eat the berries. She was afraid they might be poisonous. To be fair, she gave us much better stuff to eat. We used to have grapes and homemade jelly makes the best PB&J.

The berries are edible. As are the oranges that hang above them, though the fruit of that tree is best for juice. The oranges from the tree in the corner, where the sun rises, are wonderful. Now that we have oranges sectioned on a plate and oranges juiced, I’ll make some

Toast

It’s time for breakfast, so I

make coffee and toast. A slice

for me and one for the dog.

I have a mug with a red barn on it,

and a radio with piano and guitars.

I break her slice into pieces

the size of my thumb. Her long

whiskers brush my hand

as she takes each bite, then watches

the plate and watches me.

If I hesitate, her eyes get bright and wet

with the grief of unbearable joy.

I leave her whiskers long and wild.

She needs them in the undergrowth,

to shield her face from rough guava

and lilac, to find the trail the cat has left.

One slice is enough for us.

We have the music

and we keep the pieces small.

Kyle Kimberlin

8/14/2001