I was sitting at the PC, and started to get nostalgic about Blogstream...the site it's own spellcheck doesn't recognize.
I have been posting on this thing called facebook (another word spellcheck will not accept) for a while now...since the first of the year... and I suddenly realized that there are times when you need to feel the pleasures of verbosity...when the thoughts you want to express exceed the limited character count of the "What's on your mind?"section...when you have to say more than LOL or ROTFLMAO...
But, this is not one of those times.
The other side of the coin is that I always had to sort of plan stuff for Blogstream...at least for me. As much of an Improv guy as I am, a Blogstream post always had to be approached as if I were writing a newspaper column...or at least a letter to the editor, that didn't sound like a screed from a crazy person...
You will notice that I try to use proper syntax and punctuation, and rarely use all caps... unless I'm yelling at you.
So I will be back on Blogstream in the near future...but for now, I have just heard a "bing"which means someone has commented on something I posted on facebook...
...gotta check it out!

It has been just over a month since I last posted here, noting how I am now on FaceBook.
As one of my friends once said, FaceBook can be a "massive time suck" if you let it, and I can see how.
There are applications where you can build a farm, or a zoo, or join the Mafia. All are virtual, of course (although I'm not sure about the last one.) Each activity has one thing in common; the more "friends" you have playing along, the more successful you are in the game.
I don't play any of the games.
Still, it allows me to post a comment right off the top of my head, without worrying about structure or wether it is of interest to anyone.
It is a step up from Twitter, but not actual blogging like here on Blogstream. As a matter of fact, if I had been typing this on FaceBook, I would have exceeded my character limit three or four sentences ago.
If blogging is art, Facebook is a quick sketch...Twitter is finger painting.
But it does demand a certain discipline of thought...making me come to the point directly--some recent observations have been;

*****
It is as cold as hell here in Orlando...as a matter of fact, it is 45 degrees where they are holding the Winter Olympics, and only 41 degrees here. Global warming? Actually, yes...since warming and melting of the polar ice caps throws more cold water into ocean currents and more cold air towards the equator...the question is not so much why it is colder, but were the cold is coming from.

*****
The music channels on Direct TV have now dropped feeds from Sirius and XM...replacing them with something called "Sonic Tap". It is still different types of music, but without having to pay announcers. Radio untouched by human hands (or contaminated by human speech). Welcome to another step in the "I-Podization" of broadcasting.

*****
FaceBook is like any big city, in that there are parts of town where you just don't want to be. As an example, I am amazed as to how many Pro-Hitler pages there are. Most are written in what appears to be Serbo-Croatian, but still...the most bizzarre issue, person or practice, of which, you would think, nobody would support, has pages of fans.

Actually, the one person who was doing FaceBook like posts, long before there WAS a FaceBook, was Larry King. Do you remember his column in USA Today? Stuff like "It's Manny's Steakhouse whenever I'm in Miami...is there a better contemporary writer than John Updike?...I like this Giants over the Cowboys this Sunday"... stuff like that. Actually, I should probably check to see if Larry King is on FaceBook...maybe I could be his friend.

I have just finished putting myself on Facebook...something I had been warned against doing by my brother the cop (not to be confused with my brother the shrink, who would likely ask why I felt the need to do so...)
As I wrote on my "wall"; curiosity trumps apprehension.
So here I am frantically trying to put something on the Blogstream, so that when my Facebook friends come calling, there will be something more recent than a meandering post about a nice little dog from last September. It's rather like cleaning up your place before the cleaning lady comes.
Not that I have any friends, or anything.
Actually, I have asked about 3 or 4 people to be my friends. If you tell the Facebook gods where you went to high school, they can tell you how many of your classmates are part of the cult.
I went to a really small school, 220 in my graduating class, yet there are people I supposedly shared classes with, who I swear I have never heard of.
So it should prove interesting to see how many virtual friends will now come bursting into my life.
The thing about Facebook, is that it's sort of like virtual Amway... people who don't know you, will try to be your friends because they know people you know...or people your friends know but whom you've never heard of...because the more people you know, the more will know you...you know?
(reading the previous sentence out loud does not help to clarify)
I guess the ultimate irony is that I have spent the last 4 years trying to hide my identy on blogstream behind a series of pseudonyms.
I have even written posts about how I am changing my pseudonym!
But now, my real name is out there on Facebook...
To save you from doing the whole Google bit, you can just click on this link to see my Facebook page.
It is much like Blogstream, in that you have to become a signed-in "member" to see my profile...but, since I suspect I am the last person on earth to have signed on to Facebook, that shouldn't be a problem.
Maybe you will want to be my friend?

For the past week, I have been dog-sitting, and doing little else.
I'm not complaining, since this is the dog;



"Buttons" is a really smart, good natured Shi Tzu, aound 8 years old. At 20 pounds, he is an XL for his breed, and, like most small dogs, is very sensitive.
Rather than pack up his food, dish, and 17 toys and take him and them to my house, it was decided that I would pack up my dish, clothes and toys and move them to my parents' house.
Mom and Dad live less than five miles east of Downtown Orlando. Aside from being notably bigger, their house also has a few things my home does not, such as an in-ground pool in the back yard and nearly every channel Direct TV offers.
The TV itself is about the size of my car.
While my house is more audio oriented, in keeping with the dingy Irish pub decor, theirs is centered around the concept of televised sports. In addition to the Football and Baseball packages (wanna see the Phillies and Padres? No problem!)they also have all the usual suspects, when it comes to showing movies. HBO, Cinemax, Encore, Showtime, IFC, Sundance...and the permutations of East, West, High Def, and HBO in Spanish.
At my house, I had dumped the cable and have an antenna...
...and, for me, that's a good thing.
If it weren't for the need of the little dog to go for regular walks, I might have never left the house in Orlando.
I could easily see myself living in a bathing suit in one room, watching hour after hour of movies I wasn't really interested in, pausing only to step out the back door and jump in the pool for a few minutes. Then, dry off, make a sandwich, and sit in front of the Giant TV again, remote in hand.
A perfect life, you say?
Possibly for some, but not necessarily for me.
For an entire week, since I took most of last week off from work, I didn't read anything but the newspaper. I didn't listen to any music, apart from the music channels on Direct TV (some were really quite good...I especially liked the "First Wave" channel--who knew I was nostalgic for late 70's punk?).
But I didn't go anywhere or see anyone. I was living in an electronically artificial world.
Unlimited TV is very addictive...and, as my friend in Los Angeles calls it, a "massive time suck".
Finally, on Tuesday night, I turned off the TV.
I made sure Buttons had pleanty of food and water, got into my car, put the top down, and went for a ride.
As the sun was setting, I took the long way, 15 miles, to my house in Altamonte. This meant heading north on 17-92 instead of east on I-4, and stopping at every light in Winter Park. I took a left at Maitland Blvd, heading into the southwest corner of Altamonte Springs where I usually live...when the rains came.
I had run into a regular car wash of a storm, crossing over the Interstate, and my hair was plastered to my skull when I pulled over near the RDV Sportsplex. By the time I was able to pull the top back up, the rain had started to let up.
I went around behind to RDV, past the water treatment plant, and pulled into my own drive way. I gathered up three newspapers wrapped in plastic bags, and unlocked my own front door.
Stripping off my clinging shorts and soccer shirt, I jumped into my own shower, and turned on the hot water.
I stood there for around a half an hour, thinking deep thoughts.
When I got out, I wrapped myself in a towel, and walked to my own TV...notably smaller than I remember...and turned on Channel 9's subchannel showing weather radar.
There it was, the storm cell I had been caught in.
It was no more than a mile or two across, but glowed deep red, orange, maroon...and right over my house.
The rest of the Tri-County area was clear.
I wanted to point out the irony...but there was nobody to talk to.
Well, at least I had something to tell Buttons when I got back.
He was a good listener.

I had a day off, so I went downtown.


Going into Downtown Orlando, for me, is an easy 10 minute ride westbound on Interstate 4. Easy, that is, unless people are trying to get to work, in which case, using I-4 is a bad option, and the trip along the side roads can take closer to half an hour.
But today, in one of the great little ironies of America, was Labor Day, so nobody was going to work.
For me, this meant an ideal time to go into "the city" in the top-down Miata, park at a meter and walk around. Safe, free parking is generally unheard of in Orlando, but the meters run about a buck an hour...still cheaper than the parking garages (unless you can get some store or restaurant to validate). At 8:30 in the morning I pulled off at the Anderson Street exit, went east about a mile, and made a left at Rosalind. With a good choice of spaces at that hour, I pulled over and parked right in front of the Walt Disney Amphitheater on the shores of Lake Eola.

I was there to get a picture of the dead fountain.



Lake Eola lies in the middle of Downtown, and the fountain lies in the middle of Lake Eola.
Before there was a Disney World, there was an Orlando, with a lake in the middle of the city and a fountain in the middle of the lake.
The fountain has been photographed thousands of times, and it as much a symbol of the city as the Liberty Bell is for Philadelphia or the Space Needle is for Seattle. It is incorporated in Orlando's official seal and is on the city's street signs.

Built at a cost of around 162,000 1957 dollars (equal to $1.2 million today), the fountain looked like a giant turquoise space ship had dropped out of a science fiction movie of the era and landed in the middle of the lake. When installed, it's numerous spray patterns were syncronised with ever changing colored lights.
Yet, over the years, heat and humidity had begun to take a toll, with most of the lights burning out and many of the pumps shutting down. Despite a quick refurbishing in 1988, the special effects became progressively less impressive. This year, all you could see was a single spray shooting out the top, with ordinary white lights offering some illumination.
Now, you don't even see that.
In August, for the first time in over 50 years, the fountain was struck by lightning.
Ill omens aside, the most amazing thing is not that the symbol of the city was fried...it's that the City can't afford to fix it.
According to City Commissioner Patty Sheehan, there is good news and bad news.
"The good news," Sheehan is quoted as saying, "is that we have a $1 million dollar insurance policy (on the fountain). The bad news, is that there's a $500,000 deductible."
Personally, I think it's time for some famous groups with deep pockets to come forward.
It makes sense that the Walt Disney Amphitheater should overlook the Walt Disney Fountain...but I would much prefer Magic Owner Rich DeVoss to kick in the money. It seems only fair, since the City is currently building a brand new home for his basketball team.
I would even be willing to call it the "Amway Fountain", if that's what it took.
Ok, not really...absolutely nobody in town would call it that.
But nobody's going to tell DeVoss, either.