If it's not Raven, it's crap...

Spent about 2 hours coming up with names for a cat character with an Indiana Jones vibe. The basic format being: US state name or  actually any geographic entity + cat pun + super common last name. The results were a mixed bag. A lot of them were really terrible. Here are some highlights (and a few low, low, lowlights). Just sub in "Jones" as the last name for all of them. Smith, Brown, Jones...whatever. It's pretty interchangeable, in my opinion. Catsylvania Purrsylvania Katzakhstan Catmandu (barely even had to change this one!) Catstantinopaw (quite a stretch) Catalina Island North / South Dakata North / South Catolina Catsatucky Arkatsas Oklahomeow Nepawda Meowsachusetts Meowyland (we tacked "meow" to the beginning of every state that starts with 'M') Felinida (probably the absolute worst one) Upaw Connecticat Whiskernsin (this was actually my personal favorite with Meowsachusetts as a close second. "Ermegerd! Whiskernsin Jer

Yesterday, I traded a copy of international bestseller, The Da Vinci Code for a well-worn double volume of science fiction novels from the 70s entitled Robot-Killer . It might seem like something of a strange choice, seeing as how The Da Vinci Code is the behemoth that it is. However, I was drawn in by the title (of course...it's a book called ROBOT-KILLER). Are they two books about people killing robots or two books about robots killing astronauts (as the cover art might suggest). Or maybe even one of each. I DON'T KNOW.

So, this is what the ol' bloggity-roo is going to look like for now. I might customize the template some more (particularly that beach/cave/cliffs business in the background), but that'll happen whenever I get around to it. I've had this on my to-do list for the past month and I knew I had to start somewhere. For whatever reason, the template doesn't (or doesn't *want* to) recognize the HTML fullpost tags, so I went back a few pages and added the jumps by hand. But with 700+ posts, I'm not going to click into each and every one. Quit living in the past. Hopefully, it'll be a bit easier on the eyes for reading. Blah blah blah. I'm going to bed. Real post to come tomorrow.

Whoa...and I'm super late to the party now.  So, I was going to add my "mustard" regarding one point to the NSA/Tempora/whistleblower/mass surveillance issue. It took me so long to add this, because of my reticence in (potentially) detracting from one important cause by dragging up issues from another important cause. There are few things worse than engaging in a discourse where someone downplays an injustice by saying that some other injustice is much worse. I had to take a step back for a moment to frame what I wanted to say.

(Source: Supa D's wall o' chairs) I'm still at a bit of a loss at what to do with my surplus of vacation days this year. It was one of the breakup side effects that only registered faintly on the outskirts of my mind during the worst part of the whole grieving process. Ok, if I'm being honest, it was actually one of my most immediate thoughts, i.e. "I'll have so many vacation days...I should just run away...far, far, far away from here." But that idea more or less squashed itself, since: A.) I don't operate that spontaneously B.) My finances were (and still are kinda) messy C.) "How 'bout you hide under the covers, cry for weeks on end, and drink wine straight out the bottle instead?" was just an infinitely more feasible plan and certainly within my means. And, you know, sometimes that's just what you've gotta do. Despite thinking that I would probably be doing that forever, it eventually started getting boring. So, then

Part of me is about 200% certain that I left my USB stick with Friday's show plugged into the computer at the station, which is just another reason why I can't have nice things (because I tend to just forget them places. Hopefully someone is not just like, "Hey, free USB stick" - not because I was particularly attached to it, but because it's got some shit on that I never got around to saving something else. I thought I was doing myself a favor by leaving my smartphone out of the whole process this month, but whatevs. Nothing I can do about it right now. I'll be in Berlin for a few days, so I won't be able to retrieve the audio until I get back. As far as shows go, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome of this one. I scrapped a good chunk from the playlist in the middle of the week to play some old Beginner, Fünf Sterne Deluxe, and Deichkind tracks to pay tribute to the Beats auf der Bahn Festival where they're all playing on August 28th. Iron