Grief! Thanks to Jayvee’s infinite capacity to make friends with viruses, we both have yet another head cold. Already! If he weren’t the Joy of My Life, I’d do my best to avoid him.

Landlady’s latest fit was rushing around the house with a cloth reeking of disinfectant and wiping off all the doorknobs. At least it wasn’t personally directed at me. It certainly didn’t help discourage Jayvee’s latest buddy, though. Sniffle.

There’s a Danyl Johnson mania sweeping the web and I’m thoroughly immersed in it, created a new Pre-X Factor webpage today which lists links to every video and MP3 I can find. It certainly provides evidence as to why this young man’s meteoric rise to fame has taken place. Even the photo on the page is a very solid clue.

Meanwhile, Little Payday tomorrow, hurrah!

Sniffle.

I’m listening to Anna Russell telling the story of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, one of the funniest recordings ever made. I’m sure even Wagner would have laughed at it.

Earlier I watched “The King and I”, part of TCM’s day-long Yul Brynner feast. A fine film and I much enjoyed seeing it again. Brynner really was splendid, as is Rodgers & Hammerstein’s music. (Naturally, already in my BearShare archive.)

The whole time Facebook and Twitter were being monitored and, of course, still are.

By the way, Wagner’s Ring is not in my BearShare archive.

I spend so much time writing on Facebook that I have no energy left for blogging, not to mention more important things like finishing the Dragons book I’m working on with Maryse. Maybe I should just login to FB every other day? Once a week? [shudder]

As if Weirdo wasn’t enough weirdness for this house, Landlady has been having some most peculiar fits recently. Change of life?

She asked me evening before last how late I go out to the front porch and smoke. I said, “usually about 9:30″. Well, she was concerned that if I went out at midnight, the neighbors might notice. ??? If I were to go out that late, highly unlikely, I really don’t think a neighbor would notice at all.

And a few days ago she accused me of spying on her sons “and they don’t like it”. I just said “you aren’t making any sense” and went out to smoke (way before midnight).

What’s to spy on? Elder Son constantly sits at his computer playing the same war game he’s played for over a year. And I rarely see Handsome Son except when he’s out washing and polishing his beloved car. Granted, I do cast frequent glances at him then, especially when he does it shirtless. But he hasn’t shown any sign of objecting, even when I photograph him.

The closest I get to what might be called spying is checking Handsome Son’s web pages. And I really don’t think that qualifies.

On the other hand, not long ago Landlady caught me adding cheap whiskey to my water bottle and all she said was, “I caught you.” “I’m an alcoholic, get used to it,” I said. “Did she take the bottle?” Weirdo asked. Thank goodness no. I really don’t want to search for new living quarters.

I probably should get on the waiting list for one of the old folks buildings. But I’d miss the boys so much. I really would.

I read that Brad Pitt is filing lawsuits against people who post naked photos of him. Not much chance he’d find mine but, okay, I’ll take it down anyway. Dunno why he’s so bothered by it. With such a beautiful body, why deny folks the pleasure of seeing it?

Last evening I was trying to get a streaming television website to work. Jayvee said, “That’s so retarded, You’ve got a tv right there.”

I missed celebrating the anniversary. I just looked at my ancient passport and discovered I arrived in Honolulu on August 2nd. Twenty years ago. Not bad for what was intended as a two-week visit.

Well, I walked out on another film yesterday. Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”. It was a stunning film, very well made but just contained too many images I’d rather not have in my memory (and wish I didn’t). Like a man being beaten to death with a baseball bat. And Brad Pitt’s character was so loathsome it was no fun to watch him. Definitely not my kind of movie, despite his presence.

Now this is a totally different kind of image:

[deleted, since Mister Pitt would object]

I went to Ala Moana Shopping Center yesterday, first time in town since Sunday. I can buy almost everything I need at the local shopping center, a five-minute bus ride instead of an hour. I was looking for a small printer and an external hard drive but in the end decided I’d rather have money in pocket at the end of the month, so will wait until payday.

The Sunday trip was to meet Helen and see “The Time Traveler’s Wife”, such an awful movie I walked out before the end. It was more fun watching the people outside the theatre than that boring movie. Lunch at Dave & Buster’s was yummy, though, as always.

Up to 3,493 tracks in the music collection now, down to 9.4GB disc space. I discovered that you can display the track number within an album, so that makes putting things in order much more foolproof. Best thing is to just wait until an album is fully in the library, then transfer them to a playlist by track number. Panther the Music Librarian.

On BearShare you can set up a long, long list of things to be downloaded and I often do that when heading for bed, let it work through the night. It doesn’t, however, download things in order, skips around. So if you download several different artists, your library list is often in scrambled order. No problem sorting them out.

But if you download an opera, what a jigsaw puzzle of sound you have! Sometimes the act is mentioned in the title, but there’s no way to know which track within the act comes first, etc. More often, not even the act is in the title.

I’m sure I have a totally scrambled version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Invisible City of Kitezh”. It’s my favorite work by him, but I haven’t heard it in over twenty years so not much chance of putting it into accurate order. I might do better with “La Boheme” and “La Traviata”.

Those and the Thomson-Stein “Four Saints in Three Acts” and “The Mother of Us All” were downloaded during last night. Just sorting them into folders took quite awhile this morning.

And I’ve been connected to the Kert Anthony network for 1 day, 13 hours and 15 minutes. Oh yes, I think we can mention addiction about now.

A reader wondered if their mamas might object to me posting photos of their sons here. They do know about it and don’t mind. I think they’re even a little bit proud, as well they should be, having brought such good-looking young men into the world.

This one’s mama probably wouldn’t mind either.

Yasufumi, you sweetie …

Talk about becoming addicted. I discovered a truly amazing website this morning called BearShare and I’ve been downloading music from it all day. A fantastic archive of recorded music, all free after a simple registration (email/password).

For years I have looked for the only solo album recorded by the Grease Band, Joe Cocker’s backers. The entire thing is on BearShare and I’m now listening to it for the third time. Nothing compared to the marathon I described in the Hyde Park Gate tale when we played it nonstop all night and a neighbor finally knocked on the door, said he didn’t mind the music but could we please change the record.

I love it. By far my favorite album of the Sixties.

And very much to my surprise, it gave me the strongest, best acid flashback I’ve ever experienced. Shouldn’t have been a surprise considering the many hours I listened to it while indulging in that beautiful drug.

I also got Paul Kantner & Jefferson Starship’s “Blows Against the Empire”, another most treasured album from the Sixties, along with collections of tracks from Cat Stevens and Donovan. Even several works by Virgil Thomson.

(Like I said, an incredible collection.)

Thank you, thank you, BearShare!

[Have to say that Grease Band's "Laughed at the Judge" is my favorite recording, from any decade. In the huge bedroom at Hyde Park Gate the bed was on a platform at one end of the room, with a little staircase leading up to it. I was sitting on the steps, totally absorbed in "Laughed at the Judge". Patricia said, "Albert's getting physical". What bad trip manners, my dear Patricia, but quite accurate.]