Then a new beginning ventures in

[austin_dern]

I interrupt my tale of phone-buying for one cute and one baffling thing. The baffling thing first: I just moments ago got a phone call from my brother, the one with the new job in Massachusetts, who was glad to get me because he ``didn't have much time''. He started to talk about getting something called a Nonsense List about things going on in New York City, and then the call died. He phoned back reporting he'd got a ``call failed'' message, and this does seem to satisfy the general specifications of a failed call. Anyway, he had found information about a comic book convention going on in New York City this weekend, and wanted to be sure I might be interested in it before he went to the trouble of e-mailing it. He got a Blackberry through work recently, and hasn't entered all his data into it, but did reportedly spend Thanksgiving comparing it to my other brother's Blackberry.

He didn't need my address, you understand. He just phoned to make sure it was all right to e-mail me. I'd say he was turning into our father, but our father's never done something so odd.

The cute thing: I made contact again with the folks at the Popcorn Park Zoo, and got through to the person who handles lost membership cards and the like. There were a few moments of oddness, such as when she asked what it was I had lost. I had a general idea, sure, but what specifically? Well ... the stuff you get at the start of buying support for an animal. skylerbunny had some idea what might be expected, but I could speak only in the vaguest terms. But I believe she knows what I don't have and will be sending that out soon.

And as she mentioned, I had received (besides the 2010 calendar) a card from the adopted Cocoa. The card isn't autographed, but it did come with a photograph so that I now know what he looks like. I don't know when I'll be able to get there and see him in person, but now I know what to look for. So I've got that to smile about today.

Also it turns out my wireless printer scans in color or black-and-white, depending on which of two buttons you pick without saying explicitly ahead of time how the choice matters. Also you have to plug it in to scan, so the wireless part is only for printing, not for unprinting.

Trivia: A survey in 1334 found France's Hyères saltworks produced between eight and eleven thousand metric tons of salt per year. In 1892 the saltworks produced ten thousand metric tons. Source: Salt: Grain Of Life, Pierre Laszlo.

Currently Reading: Options, Robert Sheckley. I liked some of these elements in other productions, notably It's Garry Shandling's Show. I'm not sure why it's not working other than that Sheckley can slather on things that might be more effective in sprinkles.

(Editorial note: I don't quite believe the lyric, from Golden Dawn's ``Seeing Is Believing'', as the lyrics web sites all give it, sine it doesn't really sound like that to me and the lyrics sites all copy each other, but I can't come up with a better transcription from what I can find on the Internet.)

Comments

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

song lyric sites are some of the scuzziest you'll find on the Internet outside of DVD region-coding-breaking tip sites and porn

...and music download sites originating in Russia.

The last time I used lyrics.com, a long time gone, I had no fewer than 30 pop-ups invade my screen before I could even read the words: each one I closed opened more, like the fabled Hydra. That was back when I would ride the net bare-back, no protection from virus' or spyware, just counting on my good sense to avoid the trashy areas. What I try to do now is find a site that has guitar tabs, or an old midi site [just used one of these to find lyrics to "How 'Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm?"
(After They've Seen Paree) for a post]. But I don't see any of these for the McCain song.

Finding lyrics was one of those 'take for granted' things the net was always good for (like using imdb.com for movie info). It's frustrating not to be able to do this with any sense of security or reliability anymore.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Guitar tab sites are the gold standard of lyrics sites. They don't have nearly every song but what they do have is not just right but well-behaved. But, yes, pity they don't cover everything.

Songza is a serviceable backup, at least for reasonably popular songs, if you don't mind doing the transcription yourself. That's tougher for the psychedelia tunes that I like, though.