Absent Artwork

A webserver I've been borrowing from a friend in Tampa SINCE 2001 seems to have forsaken me, which is why there's so many little red x's in little red boxes right now. And no header. And no background. Nada. Almost all of the artwork I use on my various sites was stored there.

However, as I'm too lazy/busy/pick your favorite excuse to move my files or redesign this page...it'll look like this for a while, most likely.

Blue Boy

Having trouble sleeping, so I'm trying something a little different before I go out and invest in a bunch of hot tea varieties.

A generous snort of scotch whisky, Isle Of Jura, aged 20, not too peaty, just enough bite to make my neck snap a little after each sip.

I anticipate some success with this method, but don't intend to make a habit of it.

And it won't be nearly as tasty as Friday Night's libation was.

This bad boy:

I wasn't even aware that the good folks at Johnny Walker made a blue variety. My Unofficial Brother Frank, Lord And Keeper Of Scotches, was given this recently when he ticked off a rather important birthday. It's a $200 bottle, and he was kind enough to pour me a few fingers of it while we sat and talked about cats and books Friday night.

I have a few decent bottles of my own...nothing worth more than $50 or $60, though. And let me tell you: there is a mammoth jump in quality from $60 to $200. This was so smooth it almost made me cry.

Must make wealthy friends before I turn 40...must make wealthy friends before I turn 40...

Roo-t of all evil?

I deeply appreciate the myriad of unique and unusual forms of life on this planet.

Especially in tasty, convenient stick form.

50 Days And 2 Words

Tonight marks 50 Days since my last cigar.

To observe this, for no reason whatsoever, I have developed a nasty cough.

Yeah. That seems fair.

Anyway...

I have decided there are two words that we have all deemed archaic that I would like returned to general useage.

The first is lollygag. This was a perfectly good word, fun to say and everything, which was cast aside around 1954 or so. It's a perfect dichotomy of a word: the latin-root lolly, which is international for lollypop (something pleasant) and the middle-upper-nigerian/venezuelan suffix gag, which is self-explainatory (something unpleasant).

Sample paragraph: "I say, refrain, you ruffians! Do not lollygag around at my storefront, blocking the path of any patrons who may wish to part with their sheckels and purchase my wares! Begone!"

The other is jackanapes. You can still find it in fresh use today, but only in historical fiction, typically set in the turn of the 19th to 20th century. Another one that makes you smile when you say it, fed to the wolves of change during a secret Merriam-Webster Meeting on the Oxford Campus in 1937. It comes from the cockney-adopted-by-the-wealthy-english-root jack, or man (with the modifier -an, to infer there is more here than meets the eye) and the lower-norwegian descriptor apes, meaning to ape around, apely, like an ape.

Sample Paragraph: "That man is an ungodly jackanapes, as was his father before him. Sweet Tapdancing Christ how I wish he would find someone else to bother! My patience runs thinner than your mother's bathtub gin, I daresay!"

Okay, I'm done. Back to work now.

I effing Love This Schaffer Guy