A Caney Creek High School dad is fired up because the Conroe Independent School District uses the book "Fahrenheit 451" as classroom reading material.

Banning "Fahrenheit 451" from a school curriculum. I despair. Words fail me.

Some would say it is, but I just can't stop watching it.
Here's the weekly youtube offering:
They're taking the Hobbits to Isengard!

Make sure to turn up the volume of your speakers.

I was contemplating changing my LJ look the other day. Today, I created a community (alder_hill, for all who might be interested), and was wondering why all the changes I made at the layout page didn't show up.
Blonde bimbo moment. Yes, I was changing this layout.

So, if change wants to happen, who am I to argue?

... oh yes, we do. It was all so innocent then!

From a link posted by athenais showing US adverts from the 1940s to the 1960s comes the image after the cut.

( this cut, so click already )

Yes, I know, I know. But I still laughed a lot!

Pavarotti

My brain is slowly melting into a puddle of neurons and goo. I never realized how preciously refreshing a bowl of cold water can be when the feet get plunged into it. Let there be autumn.

Mum's got a mobile now; dad bought her one as she'll be driving to my grandmother for two weeks on Saturday, something she's been planning to do since May or so. Her car doesn't have air conditioning (is it called air conditioning when it's inside a car?).
I wish I could go with her, but I've got things to do here and no valid ID card. One of the things I need to do is get a new ID card, obviously.

I don't know why people would go to southern Spain at the moment. It's summery enough here, isn't it? But then, I suppose here we don't have air conditioning and waiters who bring us chilled drinks to the poolside. I could do with a chilled drink and a waiter myself.

And finally, from the people who brought you "We love the moon", here's Looking for my Leopard.

I've noticed that whenever my parents are away for a week or more, there are two immediate, almost instinctual things I find myself doing. The first is to go shopping for foodstuffs, which I did yesterday (strawberries, cherries and apricots, oh my!); the second is cleaning up my place. To be frank, the second needs doing, anyway - this mess has accumulated in some parts since January, stacks of books and papers, CDs and notes and whatnot.

The musical background is live radio from all over the world over the net. I stared with Jamaica, progressed to Kenya, and am now in Iceland. I'm looking forward to hearing the news in Icelandic. I might choose a station in Texas next, or maybe Japan. This is so far beyond cool that it's hot.

Look, I promise you more philosophical and deep updates once I get used to having the whole of the internet at my fingertips. For now, I'm above the moon.

Which is what my friend Red said the other day about getting DSL, and which is absolutely true. There's so much to grab and try and taste, and I have to be very careful not to get sick of this. So, I take small steps, pick and choose from all the colourful sweets out there.
BBC Radio is one - Comedy, Drama, Music; you British don't know what you've got with your BBC radio, but maybe that's only my Anglophile's point of view.
Flickr is the other. I've been exploring that site, and my goodness, I love what people do there. I need to load up the battery of my camera and start looking for photo opportunities, and I mean really looking, do more than point and click.

And I will have a good opportunity to do that in the next week, because my parent's nomadic genes have struck again; this time, they and two friends are going on a trip re-creating one that happened fourty years ago, when two men from Germany went on a trip to Czechoslovakia one summer, and picked up two women hitch-hiking. They travelled together for a bit, and a few years later, the couples married.
Yes, I owe my life to the chance meeting of people on the road. Talk about perspective.

OK. I now have ICQ back (new number), I have MSN (finally), Yahoo (since I already had an ID there) and even AIM (shivers).
Want to talk? ;)

Ooooh, speaking of Yahoo - I can now use Flickr without worry!

Can you tell I'm excited by all this?

Boy, am I glad I have internet access at work!

We were incommunicado yesterday. No DSL, no phones, and for the first time my father was glad to have a mobile phone.
The phone issue was sorted by the end of the day. Seems the German Telekom (dumdumdum DEE dum) had messed up our phone connection way back when, and someone from our local telecommunication firm (Osnatel) had to come over and replug the plugs, or something. By the end of the day, we had telephone again. Hooray!

Now, DSL. Since we didn't want to have to pull wires all through the house again, we (=dad) decided on a wireless LAN router. And every computer can find it, which is good. My dad can also access the Internet through it, after some fiddling with settings, which is also good. My computer can find the router, and get a very handsome connection with it - but nevertheless, I am not online. Mum's computer can't even connect to the WLan network, even though it can see that there is a network it should be able to connect to.

Dad's calling the provider. I hope it's sorted by the time I get home.