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Mi Dispiace Per Tutto

January 31, 2011 8 Comments

Men used to wear loafers to the beach. Now they wear sandals to board meetings. Time marches on, I guess.

I don’t get around much anymore, myself. Two children and three jobs and no money might explain it — but it doesn’t. Picture the Intertunnel. All the stuff that’s in it. It’s grown too small for me, no matter how gargantuan it gets. It’s becoming two mirrors pointed at each another. Small and infinite.

I love it so, anyway, the Intertunnel. I saw it as a kind of meritocracy. Say what you like, and see if anyone pays attention. Credentials for sitting still didn’t apply. It’s more roped and branded now. Still light years ahead of newspapers, TV, and magazines, though. It’s gone from anarchy to a sort of Schedule C organization. At least it doesn’t have an HR office and mandatory golf outings yet.

I said I was sorry up at the header. I should get back to that. Lots (lots) of people email me, and mention me on their websites, and say kind things about me (or at least notice me), and I often don’t see them right away, and the formal informal Intertunnel protocol escapes me a lot. Hell, regular manners are often beyond me.

I often get a little tickle when I’m directed one Interplace or another, and discover bits of me there. Someday, I’m hoping I’ll walk into an second-hand store and find one of my pieces of furniture for sale in it. It will be sort of the same thing.

I’m grateful for my readers, because no man writes for no one. I have no idea who’s using my Amazon box to buy things, but people do, and I’m grateful for that, too. People that visit my website buy my furniture, too, and that’s how my children get fed, so I’m grateful for that, too. I’m grateful for a lot of things right now. And I appreciate that people link to what I write, and wish I had time to reciprocate properly, and knew what the hell “properly” is in the first place.

I have no idea if Pundit and Pundette are the General Motors of opinion or are an Internet lemonade stand. Mi dispiace –again– because I didn’t know they existed. Like I said, I don’t get around much anymore. But they seem pleasant. Of course they seem pleasant to me; they talk about me. I put them in my pathetic blogroll, so they can rub shoulders with people that haven’t written anything in four years but I haven’t the heart to erase, or I just haven’t noticed they’re dead yet. Sorry. I apologize for saying I’m sorry again. Forgive me. Oops, I regret that last act of contrition.

I’ve grown weary of the Two Minutes Hate available over wide bands of the Internet. It was easier to avoid when only one side was doing it. Having the Two Minutes Hate rebuttal is just Four Minutes Hate. A lot of people could use a good, sound ignoring. Nothing else will work on them, anyway.

Someone tell a joke, or post pictures of Grace Kelly instead of Helen Thomas.

Thanks in advance,
Sippican

It’s Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart’s Birthday, Bitches

January 27, 2011 2 Comments

The Bobby Orr of music was born in Salzburg on January 27th, 1756. I see all you haters going on about Beethoven, the Wayne Gretzky of G clef, calling him the shizzle over Wolfie, but sheezy, a deaf piano player? Mozey had all the sick beats, and could bust rhymes to get all the fine dime brizzles.

Pure ballin. Admit it. If Schroeder had put a bust of Brahms on his piano you’d all be headsprung over Brahms Third Racket, not Beetlebrow. Gettin your beats from Peanuts? What’s next, learnin geopolitics from Family Circus? It’s Mozart, dawgs! And don’t gimme any of those musical v you know, the Bach bunch. Ringo Starr married the only Bach worth mentioning.

I’m hooking you up with Lacrimosa — Old Skool.

That’s what I’m talkin about. Shit’s deck, is what I mean.

Wolfie was all about the beats. Let’s pour out a 40 for the playa that could pour out Symphony Number 40. Let’s drop it like it’s hot.

So pants at half mast for Chrysostomus’ sake today. Drink ten Red Bulls and try to keep up with Amadeus, like Heifetz done.

Off the hook, nomesayin?

Sippican Cottage. Hammond It Up Again

January 26, 2011 5 Comments

Sippican Cottage has become the Intertunnel’s appendix, mostly useless, flaring up occasionally, but dammit, someone has to be your go-to catchment area for Hammond organ music.

We would be remiss if we didn’t include the song that’s “the most played song in the last 75 years in public places in the UK,” as well as the “most-played record by British broadcasting of the past 70 years.”

Let’s neck under the bleachers!

Wishin’ and Hopin’ and Thinkin’ and Prayin’ Won’t Help– In 92 Percent Of Major American Cities, It’s Already As Cheap To Buy As It Is To Rent

January 26, 2011 1 Comment

Trulia is a real estate listing search site. It has lots interesting data on it. You can find or perform lots of analysis with the information they offer — besides just plain poking around, which is plenty fun. Homely Real Estate agent thumbnail photos! Collect ’em, trade ’em with your friends!

Trulia calculates a  Rent vs. Buy scenario for the fifty largest cities in America by population. They take into account the usual costs of homeownership, too, like property taxes and HOA fees and the like. They offset those costs with the tax advantages available to homeowners. Their most recent conclusion? In 72 percent of the fifty largest cities in America, it’s more affordable to buy than rent. And in another 20 percent, it’s so close that you might want to buy anyway.

They’ve got another interactive chart where you can see why everyone that writes for the New York Times thinks buying a house is stupid and prices have to fall eleventy thousand percent before you’d have to even think of dirtying your hands doing things a doorman does. If you never go where the subway doesn’t, you get some interesting ideas of how the world works.

Me? I’m not interesting in living in any of those places. And if I lived in Los Angeles or San Francisco, I wouldn’t buy green bananas, never mind a house, but Trulia doesn’t measure insane governance. But the dirty little secret is you have to live somewhere, and you can’t live with mom forever. The ultimate denouement of the destruction of the housing industry and the degradation of mortgage financing is not going to be supercheap housing if you just hold off buying long enough. It’s going to be no house, high rent, or eventually mom’s going to have to spring for a bigger mailbox to hold all those AARP newsletters when you’re both receiving them.

Mr. Smith Might Go To Washington, But Mr. Patel Goes To London

January 25, 2011 3 Comments

Some inquisitive bloke has mapped the city of London by the frequency of surnames, and produced a nifty interactive web doogizmo to see who’s who, where. If you move the slider at the top left, you can see the map with the first to fifteenth most common name for the areas displayed.

I know a lawyer that does nothing but get permits and arrange financing for motels, gas stations, and convenience stores in New England. He has a big, rubber stamp that reads Patel, too, to save time filling out forms.

London Surnames

Month: January 2011

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A Man Who Has Nothing In Particular To Recommend Him Discusses All Sorts of Subjects at Random as Though He Knew Everything.

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