Dandyfunk

Signs of Spring

The first crocus:

And some others on their way:

Now if only the deer would stay away.

YAQ

Yet another quiz -- two actually. One for spelling, and one for vocabulary.

DWT Spelling Test

DWT Vocabulary Test

I got 100% on the vocabulary and 75% on spelling. Thank goodness for spellcheckers!

more good stuff at Daily Writing Tips.

Thanks for the trip, Arthur C Clarke

And I don't mean the head trip from the end of 2001.
I read the book many years ago after seeing the movie and leaving the theater both mystified and intrigued. I found and read the novel, the first one I ever read by Sir Arthur.
My favorite part was the trip to Saturn (Jupiter in the film) and the part that I always remembered was after HAL went homicidal and was disconnected, Bowman had to spend months alone on the ship. That showed what space travel between planets is -- not like space opera where ship zip between planets during commercial breaks.
2001 was the first book or story I ever read that dealt with realistic space travel, and it's in the back of my mind every time I write a story. Not the all powerful aliens, not the supercomputer with a Frankenstein complex, not the pre-history prologue. Just a realistic depiction of what life in space would be like in the next millennium.

Art School

I've been taking watercolor classes at Montclair Art Museum .
So far I've been mostly "experimenting" and don't have any interesting paintings to show, but my palette looks nice.

The Day the Music Died

My annual posting for today . . .

Today is February 3, the anniversary of the day Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. Also known as The Day the Music Died.

I got into Buddy Holly around the time I got out of college and got into stuff like playing guitar, Rockabilly, and music in general. And I found out that I had been a fan longer than I thought. Let me explain . . .

Back in grade school, among my collection of records, and in fact among the very first that I ever owned, were Parallel Lines by Blondie and Get the Knack, by The Knack. Now these records, which were 12" disks
of vinyl, processed from the now long extinct hides of vinylsauruses, came with cool stuff like liner notes, lyrics and  song writing credits, all of which could be read without the aid of a magnifying glass, unlike the tiny foldouts that come with CD's today. One thing I noticed while perusing this wealth of information and really cool pictures while spinning the records was that two of my favorite songs from these albums, "Heartbeat" from GTK and "I'm a Gonna Love You Too" from PL, weren't written by anyone in the band. These were cover songs, but never having heard the originals, I didn't know any better.

 

Flash forward -- it was quite a surprise to learn that some of my favorite songs were Buddy Holly songs! I had been a fan for years and never knew. Right now I'm listening to "Mailman bring me no Blues," from the  the 5 album boxed set The Complete Buddy Holly (yes, 5 vinyl records, not available in CD and all in glorious mono). Later I'll get out my guitar and play along.

Epiphany Shocker!

The baby Jesus totally ignores the Three Wise Men in favor of a bunch of runaways from Santaland bearing miniature Christmas trees and candy canes.

Do you know the Klingon Proverb?

http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2008/01/06/

Why it's still Christmas

Because I haven't finished painting this year's ornaments.

Most years I only do one or two (sometimes none) but this year I managed to paint eight. Too bad the tree is coming down soon.

Happy New Year!

Hope '07 was a good one, and '08 better still!

This Weekend

This was leaf pickup weekend, so I spent quite a few hours friday and saturday raking up the leaves from our oak and maple trees.

Good thing I didn't wait until today, because this is what it looks like now: