keyboard crud

September 11, 2004


There's some weird crud inside the transparent part of the pristine Apple keyboard I'm typing on at the moment. I'm suspicious that the crud is actually tiny bits of sawdust from the Feline Pine I switched his majesty's litterbox to in order to avoid tiny bits of clay residue all over the house. The thing I don't get , though, is how does it get in there? Unlike the toast crumbs, cat hair, and little bits of organic potato chips, it doesn't fall out when I turn the keyboard over and shake it. It just stays there under the plastic like it's in some kind of display case for keyboard crud.

Just had to share that.

So, I've been blogging up a storm on stercus, my compost heap of bird related news. See, I still haven't got the hang of blogging. It's not that I don't have opinions about politics after all. I mean I am sick to my stomach that Bush has given away piping plover wintering habitat in Texas to an oil company, taken the marbled murrelet off the endangered species list specifically so that lumber companies can log old growth forest in National Forests in the Pacific Northwest, and a whole lot of other bird-unfriendly actions, but these seem like such minor things to be exercised about in the week that the death toll for our soldiers in Iraq reached 1000. That's just of American soldiers, not civilian contractors American or otherwise, not innocent Iraqi civilians, not British soldiers, not other coalition soldiers. Just American soldiers. So how can anybody in their right mind think the environment still matters? Maybe I'm not in my right mind after all.

In other political opinion, I think it's arrogant and premature of Governor I've Got Great Hair and Live in Utah to be so overtly running for president in 2008 when the Republicans haven't even re-elected Bush in 2004 yet. Besides that, I really really really want to know what the heck is so boring and awful about being governor of Massachusetts that all our governors lose interest in it before their terms are up. Weld went off to write novels in New York. Darn it must have been hard to be a closeted Yankee fan in the Massachusetts State House. Cellucci went off to be ambassador to Canada and never be seen again. Acting Governor Jane Swift found the prospect of running against I've Got Great Hair and Live in Utah so overwhelming that she didn't even run to be elected actual governor. Massachusetts doesn't have any provision for making the Lieutenant Governor the actual Governor when the Governor leaves, which seems to happen way more often than in states that have a provision for it, so we have Acting Governors quite frequently. Anyway, I don't think Governor I've Got Great Hair and Live in Utah made as big an impression at the RNC as he thinks he did. Everybody was too busy talking about that Arnold guy form California. Economic girly men indeed.

Speaking of conventions, which everyone seems to be doing. Why are science fiction conventions and online journaling conventions called [whatever]con while political conventions are abbreviated DNC and RNC. Of course I think D-Con is a trademark for rat poison, so the Democrats wouldn't want that. And Donk-Con sounds too much like Donkey Kong, one of the great video games of the 1980s and who wants to be so retro? R-Con and Reep-Con both sound too much like Recon so could easily be confused with a reconnaissance mission. And Rep-Con sounds like Defcon and we're like already at Defcon 4 or whatever.

Speaking of birds, it was great fun watching the Yankees hand the game to the Orioles last night. I had a full rich evening of baseball what with watching the Orioles defeat the pinstriped ones and then curling up in bed to listen to "just a couple of innings" of the Red Sox/Mariners game on the radio. Hah, I am powerless over baseball. I listened to the whole thing and consequently have not gotten nearly enough sleep. Manny Ramirez rocks! I'm sure Pajama Woman next door could hear me yelling "Manny! Manny!" at the radio. I kinda wish I'd seen the grand slam on TV but I was having so much fun curled up in my bed with the lights off and the radio on. One of the best things about being a grownup is that you can listen to the West Coast games when you're supposed to be sleeping and no parents come in to take the radio away (I hid it well in those days -- my little turquoise plastic transistor radio with the strange earphone that looked exactly like a hearing aid). Besides, it's not like I have to get up for school in the morning. Anyway, even though I impersonate a grownup pretty well, I still feel a guilty pleasure from baseball on the radio past my bedtime.

Now back to trying to get the crud out of the keyboard.

Today's Reading
Birds in the Bush by Bradford Torrey

This Year's Reading
2004 Booklist

Today's Starting Pitcher
Bronson Arroyo


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Copyright © 2004, Janet I. Egan