One of my favorite email newsletters is Mullings by Rich Galen. It's usually political, as that's where Rich makes his real money, but now and then it's just a random stop in his brain. It's one of my favorites for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that Rich actually responds to his email - even the meaningless, little, snide comments that I send him. But the primary reason is that I just love his writing style. Here's a sample:

• In the "What's New" section of the August edition of Popular Science there is

Blogging will be light [read: non-existent] for the next week as I will be on a trip that I don't want to go on, in a city that I don't want to go to, taking a class that I don't want to take, learning stuff that I'll never be able to use out side of my current job, which I don't really want, for a company that I don't want to be working for.

Should be a good time, no?

What the devil is going on in advertising these days?!? I've been seeing some of the most unusual combinations of products and music in commercials lately. The two most glaring examples are Cadillac using Led Zeppelin's Rock & Roll and the B-52s' Roam hawking Clarinex of all things. (Granted - this was from their album Cosmic Thing, which was hardly as cutting-edge-out-of-the-mainstream-and-loving-it as their older stuff -- but still, it's the B-52s!) It should be noted, also, that Clarinex previously used the Overture from The Who's rock opera, Tommy.

Next thing you know we'll have Peter Gabriel [……]

It's official - and it's been proven by an ultrasound! We're gonna have a baby in the spring!

OK - so it's a horse...

But it's gonna be our first miniature horse foal. Should arrive somewhere at the end of April or the beginning of May 2004.

I've been hashing this out in my head for a while now, prompted mostly by some posts by my friends Moose, Sockmonk and Bishop. [Ed. note - The specific posts are linked below.] So, since I have a little time at the moment, I'm going to try to make some sense of my otherwise random thoughts. I'll likely tick some people off, but...

When a number of my friends and associates, all historically Protestant, started investigating the Orthodox Church one of them came to me and asked what I thought about it. My answer then was, and [……]

Just some minor items that don't really belong anywhere...

I've been just horrible about not writing anything for the last few days and even then, nothing of any substance. But I am making a vow to myself (and anyone else who might actually read this thing) that I will be posting more regularly starting Monday. [This weekend doesn't allow time as SWMBO, Thing 1 & Thing 2 are involved in a horse show and the vast majority of waking moments will be spent at the Horse Park.] I have a few posts that I've been formulating in my head for [……]

Well - I'm quite disappointed in the absolute lack of response to the first poll. I figured, given the general dementia that runs as a common thread among my friends, that I'd at least get a hit or three on it. Oh well...

This thing is getting out of control! :-)

Yesterday I added a Random Quote block on the right and I just finished setting up my Office Cam. I'm not sure I'm pleased with the placement of it, but it'll do for now.

It's a LEGO Vision Command that my sister gave me. (OK - it's actually a Logitech QuickCam that's been repackaged into a LEGO framework - but it's still cool looking.) She originally got it for my nephew but the software wasn't compatible with XP so she asked if I wanted it. You can combine it [……]

I've turned on the poll feature of the system. Polls may appear from time to time when I have stupid stuff to ask about.

This first one is about a comedy line I read on the TopFive list. I immediately understood it because I am the product of a misspent youth but I realized that others with a different background may not get the joke. So I was just curious.

Please take a moment to vote by going to the Home Page.

I've added a Currently Reading block to the left side. I'll be putting the titles and author information of any books that I'm reading at a given time along with a link to it on Amazon.com. I'm hoping that this will serve as a bit of self-accountability to make me read more. I've been slacking recently in that regard.

Along with that comes a new Book Reviews topic heading where I will post my thoughts on the books once I'm done with them. Again, this is mostly self serving but, then again, so is the rest of [……]