Hashtag

    All right, OK, so I'm getting a little old. You kids with your Tweeter and your Bookface and your Instawam, I'm never going to catch up to you, I know that. I do, however, know what hashtags are for, or thought I did. (I got that far in my Twittering instructions.) It turns out, though, that the hashtag has another, newer use, and it makes me so happy.
    Those autogenerated YouTube videos that I was blithering about not long ago? The artist is always listed as #(artist's name); I noticed this right away. What I didn't realize (since previously you could only google letters and numbers; other characters were ignored) is that you can google, or rather Google Video search say something as obscure as #wonderlick (two of the guys from Too Much Joy who made one record 14 years ago) and boom, there are all their videos. Mind you, the two guys in Wonderlick grew up to work for Rhapsody and VH1, so every band might not work this well, but hey, it's a start. I'm finally feeling good about Google taking over YouTube!

You could look it up

    This isn't anything earth-shattering, and of course if it were a topic that interested anybody but me they could look it up just as easily as I did, but I was surprised. I really really liked broasted chicken in my gluten-eating days and was getting really peeved that I couldn't find any recipes for gluten-free broasted chicken. So, as I say, I looked it up, and found to my surprise that "broasted" is a registered trademark of the Broaster Company, and that company sells its equipment, but only to restaurants. Apparently, pressure cooking chicken with a load of grease is really really really dangerous (Imagine!) so we peons aren't allowed to try it.
    So now of course, the mission is to get some restaurant to make gluten-free broasted chicken. Hey, how hard could it be? I'll get some famous person right on it. Seriously, apparently the Broaster Company also supplies all the flour and spices, so it seems that they would be the only ones to approach. Really, I'll get around to it. Well, we'll see how my oven-fried gluten-free fried chicken turns out. If it's tasty, I'll just call it broasted. I don't think the Broaster Company reads my blog; if you do, ladies and gents, I promise not to try to sell it under that name.

Weather's too perfect

    Naw, not really. I just wanted to complain about the weather being too nice for a change is all. But although I'm not complaining, I wish it were just a hint warmer in the apartment. Or rather, I wish it felt a little warmer. If I would shell out for a dehumidifier, I would no doubt be much more comfortable. And more mildew-free.
    It isn't really a money issue. The dehumidifiers at Lowe's all seemed to weigh about a ton. Anyway, they were beyond my paltry lifting capabilities. I can get one delivered, but what would I do with it then. Handtruck maybe.
    I actually saw a dehumidifier at Goodwill the other day for $10 which I could pick up. Online searches suggest that it was very loud, but then I could turn it on and leave. The cats probably wouldn't mind. I have half a mind to go see if it's still there. Then again, there's always Amazon; they also helpfully tell you the product's weight. I can add it to my Amazon shopping list, right next to the quadracopter. Yes, they have drones for $40. Sign me up!

Cats: still a mystery

    I apologize to non-cat-people for having to mention a hairball to tell the story, but all I have to do is mention it. Amelia coughed up a hairball this afternoon. I threw a bit of a fit because it was on the carpet, but there was no major staining. Then she was vocalizing with her blue jay voice, which I always took to mean that she was unhappy. Then within five minutes, she was up on my lap purring like crazy. It was probably the loudest I've heard her purr, and I've had her for nine years. A big hairball fan? Likes getting yelled at? Just easy-going? It's a mystery to me.
    Speaking of happy cats, I sprayed all their squeaky mouse toys with catnip oil. So far, they show no sign of caring one way or another, although they like the toys fine. But at least I'm in there trying.
    Meanwhile in the tax world, the CPA returns from vacation tomorrow, so I guess we'll get all that settled soon. I'm hoping he can work with the Turbo Tax program and so assume. I can of course print off all these gazillion pages of forms but am hoping too that we are making lots of changes and then I'd have to print them off again. Well, maybe not; one can file electronically of course. I'm just having nightmare visions of waiting on reams of paper to print and having the ink run out on form 187B or something. Just tax season stress, no doubt.
    Recent dreams: Hillary decided that she didn't want to be President after all but rather to be First Lady again, so she threw Bill over finally and married me, somehow making me instantly the sure-thing frontrunner. And last night, I dreamed I was letting some Broadway stars stay with me and they inexplicably threw most of my possessions outside in a pile. I probably need to stop listening to old-time radio all night.

Mystery fireworks

    So last night, a fireworks show happened. It wasn't any event or historic date that I know of. It went on for ages. I was listening to a baseball game, so the muffled sounds might have been anything. Eventually, though, somebody else posted about it on Facebook, so I went to see. My ears were telling me that it was coming from the State Fairgrounds, and that turned out to be correct.
    Thing is, there was nobody there. That is, there was no audience. Just the portion of the show that I stuck around for was very impressive, and I think it had been going at least an hour and would go on perhaps another half hour. Also odd was that there would be long gaps such that I would think that it was over, but no!
    I found a reasonably dark spot on George Rogers Boulevard where the right lane was blocked off by traffic cones anyway and pulled over there with the flashers on. I took some pictures with the regular camera app on the phone but then switched to the quick burst photo app. This gives you a lot of nearly identical photos, but they're so cool that so far I've been unable to steel myself to delete any. They're not quite shareworthy; just cool, as I said.
    As far as I know, nobody ever found out what the show was about. I still think it was a rehearsal for something. V-E Day isn't far away. Or maybe they were working on the 1812 Overture and forgot to invite the Boston Pops. Could be!

I feel so rejected!

    My car got tossed a second time and for the second time nothing was stolen. As before, what I don't feel is rejected, just lucky, but it just seems strange. If you're going to go through somebody's car, why make it obvious that you've done so? It wouldn't have been difficult to put things back roughly where they were. Cars move, so nobody would be surprised that the objects inside move, too. (Dang poltergeists!)
    As with the first instance, it was a rainy night/morning. I'm assuming that a kid got caught outside in the rain, tried the car door, found it would open and got in, and then got bored. Then again, I nearly always keep the car doors locked at night. Two of the times I haven't, somebody got in and tossed my possessions. Maybe there's just some zeeb who wanders Olympia after midnight and climbs in all unlocked cars and throws stuff around. If so, whoever you are, thanks for leaving the glove compartment alone. And I think I'm inoculated from forgetting to lock the doors for another six months or so!

EVerybody's a critic!

    Went to Congaree National Park today, thinking that since the (Congaree) river is no longer flooded that the inundation at the park would have subsided, too. This was not the best piece of thinking ever. However, the weather was sublime and the air marvelous and even if you can't make a circuit due to flooding, you can still put together a nice long walk there. And the floody photos came out pretty well. I took one with the phone camera in panorama mode and accidentally left it there. The next photo, I didn't realize this and just held the camera as for normal mode. It chirped up with a message: "Unable to take panoramic picture due to lack of scenery detail." I mean jeez; everybody really IS a critic. Would be funnier though if I panned properly and still got that message. "This scenery is beneath me," says the phone.
    I am much more cheerful, possibly because of the absurdly perfect weather, though I can't say that the better mood has led to greater productivity. One odd thing: I missed probably the show for the ages last night at Conundrum Music Hall owing to being grumpy. For some reason, this cheers me up. Almost like I've been punished sufficiently. Darned Catholic upbringing. Then again, maybe it's just having better dreams that cheered me up. Had a truly horrible one night before last. You don't want to know.