Johnny's in the Basement

Amazon has made it easier to link to pages, so I'm lyricblogging to test it out.

This is a book about a kid with a bottle cap collection. The Statistically Improbable phrases are "bottle cap collection," "more bottle caps," and "purple bathtub."

Mixing up the Medicine

This project has been sitting in my to-do list, for a while now - it seems sort of like cheating to have it be a "New Year's project" but I think that the blogging needs some jumpstarting.

I'm on the pavement

The full title of this book is "Lightning strikes reinforced concrete pavement (M.I.T. Dept. of Civil Engineering. Research report) (Unknown Binding)"

I can't imagine that lightning generally has much to do with pavement - but then I am not a civil engineer.

Thinking about the government

So anyway, what I'm doing is taking each line of this song and plugging it into the search box on Amazon. Then I am linking to the first item that comes up.

At least I'm linking to the first item that came up last October and November. It took long enough to get that ready - I am in no mind to go back and double check.

The man in the trench coat

One of the things that I notice with the way blogging works is that the more one posts, the less important each individual post becomes. While posting more often raises your profile, it also brings the new eyeballs to different items.

If you are someone who doesn't want too much attention (or at least too much of the wrong attention (whatever that means)), this can make the process a bit strange.

Badge out, laid off

I am writing now with an intention of posting this on New Year's day - I have a few days off, so this is something nice and big to do on my downtime.

Says he's got a bad cough

It is currently quite cold out. There's been a ghastly flu going around for a while, but I've managed to avoid it.

This book, by the way was hit number three in the last line, but the number one result for this one. The song I'm doing was quoted in it.

Wants to get it paid off

Generally I put Amazon links up because I'm talking about something and an Amazon link can often be as informative as a Wikipedia link. I will also put a link up because I find it amusing to. Like now.

I've gotten a tiny trickle of income from these links, and, with the times being the way they are, I think I shouldn't expect much more. But that's ok, this is a free service - so right now I'm still breaking even on it.

Look out kid

A while ago, I did one of those things where my blog text was analyzed for profanity. I scored low.

I think it was Kurt Vonnegut who, late in his career, said that he discovered that if he swore a lot all it did was give people an excuse not to listen to him. That's where I stand on such matters. If a swear word is supposed to have any power, it's in the power to shock. It isn't shocking if it's expected.

It's somethin' you did

This isn't the video. It's the script. They actually published the script.

I read (or saw. I can't remember now) a review that pointed out that as this sequel takes place a year after the first film, it should really be called "I Still Know What You Did the Summer Before Last."

I'd go see that.

God knows when

In order to get this to work the way I want it to, I start loading the posts in and adjust the time stamp so that each post is a minute apart. Then I save them all as drafts so that when they are finally ready, I can just change the date to the current day and let them all post. This way anyone looking at the blog can see the lyrics in the correct order rather than the "posted" order, which is backwards.

Of course, if you are reading this via RSS feed, you will get the posts arriving backward. Which is a problem if your reader is set up to read the oldest post first. So I might start posting just after the time stamp on the final post (which should be the one you read first) and post backwards.

This sort of thinking is one of the reasons I don't actually post as much as I should.

But you're doin' it again

One of the latest features that Amazon has to blow my mind with is a "Concordance" which gives you all sorts of stats based on the text. From it I learn that the most common words in this book are "Daddy," "Time" and "Ya."

You better duck down the alley way

"This boxed kit from the world's foremost authority on teddy bears, The Boyds Collection, Ltd., features a three-inch fully-jointed plush Boyds bear along with a 16-page paperback book featuring full-color photos and uplifting verse to comfort and inspire anyone who is feeling down."

Result number two was a Cher album.

Lookin' for a new friend

Among the things that I haven't had much time to deal with are all of the new settings and widgets that function as a means of slowly turning Blogger into some sort of fake MySpace/FaceBook thing.

Theoretically, I can add a doo-dad to the side that will not only give you the names of all the people who are willing to publicly declare that they enjoy reading this blog, but will also show their photos in an array of tiny mug shots.

I haven't worked up the courage for this.

The man in the coon-skin cap

You know, it's been ages since coon-skin caps were in fashion. Same with pince-nez glasses.

Perhaps soon both will be hip simultaneously! That would be a look.

In the big pen

Here is what seems to be the world's biggest pen. It's twelve feet, eight inches long and you can write with it. With the help of a winch.

Wants eleven dollar bills

Now is that eleven singles, or one bill in an eleven dollar denomination?

I'll bet there's a big argument on some web forum about just that thing.

You only got ten

I have to say that of all the titles I've seen for published proceedings of governmental arts policy conferences, this has to be the most dramatic I've seen by far.

Maggie comes fleet foot

Chapter three of this bad boy is an essay on "The Ethics of Encores." I am curious about this.

Face full of black soot

I have to say I was worried about this one.