2008 -- off with its head!

A grueling year in some respects, an excellent one in some others. Dragging the illegal regime in DC down as far as possible before we kick them completely out next year may have been the best part. I still remain astounded that they didn't move on Iran this year (either the economy got in the way, or Bush finally just got tired of taking orders from the Grey Man) and that Cheney is apparently going to leave without blowing off a nuke. I really thought there was danger of that this year. But, I suppose there's still 20 days. Would they dare now?

Meanwhile, though, there's a new year to greet, and as ever a winter to slog through before things really open up. I wonder how well I'll do at confronting winter better than I have in the past. I don't really feel like hibernating as much as usual this year. The rough beast awakens, slouching toward Belchertown? Perhaps. And if I do pack it in, there's always Barcelona games to get me through the darker days. The way they've been playing, it may be spring before I even notice.

Oh, yeah....

Why was I thinking of registering deadmanwalking as a new blog? Not anything to do with Sister Helen Prejean's admirable efforts, but rather an acknowledgment of how decrepit I feel physically. If 2008 had themes to note (and hell, every year does), one of them would be physical pain. That's one set of changes I'd like to be working on, for sure.

NP: Doris Day, "Christmas Present" (hey, it's on the TV, not something I chose)

Changes...well, one notable one, anyway

Oh, yeah, lots of 'em on tap for 2009. (Although I've rejected one, opening a blog at deadmanwalking.blogspot.com....good thing, because it already exists, and boy it is strange*). I've been working on one tonight, and in the small scheme of things it's a big one for me: Just after the new year kicks in at midnight, I'll switch my default e-mail client from Eudora to Thunderbird. That's fairly momentous inasmuch as I've been using Eudora without interruption on any number of Mac and Windows platforms since 1992. It was great software -- always stable and well-adapted to my e-mail needs, nicely hackable for customization if you cared to do a little research, and even now it could do the job for a while longer. But with Qualcomm's decision more than two years ago to discontinue traditional development on Eudora, it's one of those apps that's quickly becoming non-compliant with current Internet mail standards, I'm trying to get everything open-source anyway, and it seemed like time. I don't like to be stuck on something that hasn't been supported for 26 months now.

Besides, I can always install the Penelope extension for Thunderbird to get some of Eudora's feel, since further development (which does seem to be at a crawl) will be based on Thunderbird. So, best of both words here, maybe. But I felt this still needed to be noted: Eudora has been utterly central to my computing experience for the better part of two decades, and the old-geek part of me kinda hates to leave it behind. But that's computing: Adapt or die.

Hey, it's another rock eulogy post

And a late one at that -- I meant to do this last week, on the 15th anniversary of his passing on 12/4. But fans of the late, brilliant Frank Zappa would certainly recognize that this blog's name is a riff on one of his iconoclastic bits of weirdness (from the One Size Fits All album).

Zappa could be juvenile, puerile, and downright pointless at times -- and that's OK. In fact, those are all rock values to celebrate, wouldn't you say? I do. Of course, he was also an astonishing musician, a killer guitarist (personally the aspect of his career I miss the most), a composer of true inventiveness, a social critic of unerring accuracy, and that rarest of Americans -- somebody who said exactly what he thought and didn't give a damn whether people liked that or not. That's something always worth celebrating. So here's to Frank.

Wake up!

Guess I'd better get un-dormant here.......