Gazing at you I get the heat

This is -- for my limited life -- big. Next week is Chinese New Year, the big holiday. So stores are clearing out inventory. This includes HMV, a music/VCD/DVD store (what the HMV stands for is left to deduction, though the logo is the silhouette of Nipper listening to a Victrola). Combine that with a gift voucher I had and for the first time in my life I bought a lot of music. I mean, more music in one day than I've bought in some presidential administrations. That's what they get for putting things on the S$5.00 Or Less table. It expands my CD collection from about 20 to about 30 discs. It's the Purchase of Alaska of my music.

It's not modern music, mind, although it wouldn't be, since my musical tastes end about when they stopped using the sitar in non-ironic fashion, except for a little splash of stuff that was on Nick Rocks or was made by groups that started during the sitar era. But it's a few anthologies of swing or blues; some Glenn Miller; Billie Holiday; Hoagy Carmichael ... I don't know when I'll have the chance to listen to all of this, but it's plenty of stuff to listen to. I'm kind of dazed that I actually bought it all.

Trivia: Windsor Castle was underneath the flight path of Concorde into Heathrow Airport. Source: ``Windsor Castle,'' Anthony Holden, National Geographic November 1980.

Currently Reading: Mastodonia, Clifford Simak. Friendly cat-faced space raccoon builds roads into the distant past, enabling plucky Minnesotans to leave.