Dreamin' 'bout my bundle of joy

I have been at times accused of being excessively literal. A shock, I know. My wife complains about it, my friends joke about it, my eldest daughter emulates it to often entertaining and other times painful result. It's not that I'm incapable of understanding nuance or comprehending a metaphor or figure of speech. It's just that I like to err on the side of caution and going with the most literal reading of a request or directive is the most defensible position. Context of course has it's place in this and I don't gravitate towards contextually illogical interpretations unless it would be more entertaining to do so. While I am fervently a rationalist, a good laugh is almost always a worthy endeavor.

Let me give you an example of just what I mean by excessively literal. I daydream. There is nothing unusual about this in and of itself. But if I'm daydreaming about, say, a new table saw then my daydream stalls unless I know the maximum ripping capacity of the saw in question and what accessories are readily available. If I'm daydreaming about a particular home media solution I stall until I can check what the available interfaces and supported software are for that solution.

And yes, my daydreams generally revolve around building furniture or setting up a home media server. You are not surprised by that.

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Through my window from the sky flows a lullaby

I don't know what is going on this year, but I've been seeing tons of dragonflies. I don't know if there are significantly more active this year or if I'm just noticing them more than I have in the past. Anyone have any idea if there's been a large increase in them or in the distribution of their food sources? Not that I'm complaining, dragonflies are very very cool critters.

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Music is life

Just ran across a kick ass podcast I hadn't seen before, though it's obviously been around for a while: NPR Live Concerts from All Songs Considered. Bob usually does the intros, which are brief. Some of the newer ones are actually video podcasts from the All Songs studio. Excellent shows by bands like Bjork, Tom Waits, The National, Iron and Wine, Gogol Bordello, Spoon, Wilco, etc.

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And when I have some words this is where I'll sing them

Waxy has been posting on the Whitburn Project spanning chart hits from 1890 to 2008 (Billboard research for uber music geeks) and has this pithy line: Using the Whitburn data, Tom Whitwell generated a tag cloud showing the top 100 commonly-used words in song names. Dianne Warren should write a #1 hit called "Love my Baby Blue Heart: A Girl's Night Song." Someone should write that song and submit it for the American Idol songwriters competition. Hell, I might do it myself. 4/4 120bpm in C and you've probably got a shoo-in.

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Pack and get dressed

Just had a 10 minute seminar on How To Exit The Building. I am not kidding. And there was one guy who had quite a few questions. Mostly about how to tell what on the map is a door. And where on the map does he sit. I'm glad I wasn't having to answer these questions.

It was stated that we should note on the map which exits had stars on them, as other doors would be locked during fire drills. Really? I'm pretty sure that's not just illegal but stupid as well. I am the backup playground supervisor so if our PM isn't around I grab the log sheet and make sure everyone is present and accounted for and has their line buddy.

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There's a house on my block that's abandoned and cold

The housing market isn't just in trouble in the U.S. Interesting story out of Shenzen (just across the border from Hong Kong) is almost identical in substance to many I've read about Southern California recently.

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