Box Of Rain

Box Of Rain - Grateful Dead - Album: American Beauty

Look out of any window
Any morning, any evening, any day
Maybe the sun is shining
Birds are winging, no rain is falling from a heavy sky
What do you want me to do
To do for you to see you through?
For this is all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago

Walk out of any doorway
Feel your way like the day before
Maybe you'll find direction
Around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you
What do you want me to do
To watch for you while you're sleeping?
Then please don't be surprised when you find me dreaming too

Look into any eyes
You find by you; you can see clear to another day
Maybe been seen before
Through other eyes on other days while going home
What do you want me to do
To do for you to see you through?
It's all a dream we dreamed one afternoon long ago

Walk into splintered sunlight
Inch your way through dead dreams to another land
Maybe you're tired and broken
Your tongue is twisted with words half spoken and thoughts unclear
What do you want me to do
To do for you, to see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain and love will see you through

Just a box of rain, wind and water
Believe it if you need it, if you don't just pass it on
Sun and shower, wind and rain
In and out the window like a moth before a flame

And it's just a box of rain, I don't know who put it there
Believe it if you need it or leave it if you dare
And it's just a box of rain, or a ribbon for your hair
Such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there

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This Must be the Place (Naive Melody)

Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody). It is from their Speaking In Tongues album.

This Must be the Place (Naive Melody)

Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb - born with a weak heart
(So I) guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground
Head in the sky
It's ok I know nothing's wrong . . nothing

Hi yo I got plenty of time
Hi yo you got light in your eyes
And you're standing here beside me
I love the passing of time
Never for money
Always for love
Cover up + say goodnight . . . say goodnight

Home - is where I want to be
But I guess I'm already there
I come home - she lifted up her wings
Guess that this must be the place
I can't tell one from another
Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time
Before we were born
If someone asks, this where I'll be . . . where I'll be

Hi yo We drift in and out
Hi yo sing into my mouth
Out of all those kinds of people
You got a face with a view
I'm just an animal looking for a home
Sharing the same space for a minute or two
And you love me till my heart stops
Love me till I'm dead
Eyes that light up, eyes look through you
Cover up the blank spots
Hit me on the head
Ah ooh

They are or They were.

There is an elderly woman who lives in our building. She always remembers to respectfully greet Monty and ask after him. I think she does some volunteer work, and this evening as I was walking towards the front path to our building, I found her sitting waiting for a taxi with a woman whom I have seen with her before. This younger woman sits in a wheel chair and seems quite friendly and perhaps developmentally handicapped. They both like Monty - I've run into the 2 of them a few times over the past several months.

The woman in the wheelchair, her leg - the first time I saw her - was in a metal device, bracing her leg, with metal pins entering the skin, presumably screwed into the bone. Imagine the worst device you can for pinning a leg back together. That's what she had.

Tonight her leg was looking better, I think the device had been removed. I asked her how her health was. She looked happy to have a chance to talk about it. She happily said "I got some good news today! They are going to amputate."

I blinked once and kept smiling, wondering what social world I had suddenly been thrust into, and what my options were. For a second I thought that maybe amputation was going to free her from infection, or pain, or give her the chance to walk perhaps with a prothesis. Then I ran out of ideas. She may have noticed my hesitancy to say anything else and to simply smile and stop blinking, and took my pause as a chance to continue: "Yes, they were going to amputate but told me they wouldn't. They say it is getting better and that I can move home now after 6 months in the hospital."

I recovered and said "Well, that's wonderful news for you to digest!". She'd likely already digested that news - rather it was I who was still digesting. I think I'd misheard her - I think I heard "They are" instead of "They were".

It was the oddest thing my brain had claimed to hear in a long while - "I got some good news today! They are going to amputate."

Gnaw gnaw gnaw

My little dog is whimpering insistently because he knows that I drove to the grocery store before and retrieved two containers of marrow bones, some still covered with meat, from the back of the freezer at the back of the store near the orange juice, and that when I got home I sprinkled some rock salt and pepper on them once I had arranged the 6 pieces in my well-seasoned cast iron frying pant which I was about to place in the oven which I had instructed quietly to raise itself to a temperature of 350 degrees Fahrenheit.



Soon I will retrieve a cooked bone from the hot iron.



He will wait for a while because I will contruct a heat-sink device from tin foil, place it in the freezer for 10 minutes, knowing that the heat will quickly leave the tin-foil wrapped bone.



He will then lay down, rest a paw upon one end of the cooled bone and his other paw on the other end of the cooled bone and begin to gnaw religiously upon this item until he stops a few hours later.

Scalpy scalp

Because Philogynist has the finest picture of a surviving old guy who was scalped by a warrior, I'm asking everyone to go there and observe and wonder.

Baked Beans & Coke

398 mL of baked beans in tomato sauce are to my right, and 355 mL of carbonated water, sugar/glucose-fructose, caramel colour, phosphoric acid, natural flavours, and caffeine are to my left.

I'm going to ensure that 753 mL of these combined items are in me in a few minutes.

I do not feel very inspired today so I can't really think of anything important to write about. Hope that sits well with you. Hope you can handle that. Hope you're alright with all of this. Hope this isn't too much of an imposition on you.

Mine, all mine.

I left my work today and went down my elevator that I made and walked out through my lobby onto my sidewalk which I constructed, crossed my road which I built, entered my car and drove out along my roads through my city and picked up my wife and my mother-in-law and drove and passed through my traffic jam which was a good one and drove past my highway which was full of my vehicles. Then as I pulled into my side-road, my policeman let me through because I've blocked my main road to my traffic because of my festivals and then I went through my parking garage door, parked in my underground lot which I built, went up my elevator, entered my condominium, played with my dog, made my family dinner which was my rice and my curry and my chickpeas and went for a walk with my dog onto my grass and then later I got my hair cut at my haircutter and sat in my haircutter chair and discussed my topics.

We've got one already, thank you.

I have used a simple and unassailable position with telemarketers for the last several years. When they phone me, and ask if I am Mungo, etc... I ask who is calling. When they begin their solicitation, I interrupt and state firmly, 'I'm sorry, we do not accept telephone solicitations on this line'. I have only once had someone try to argue with me that I should accept them. Most have nothing to say to that and hang up apologetically. I try to be respectful, no-one loves being a telemarketer I'm sure.

Yesterday I got a call and was feeling a bit talkative. Debbie Smith from Alliance, calling on behalf of Bell Canada called. It went a bit like this:

Telemarketer: Hello, may I speak with [Mungo]?
Mungo: May I ask who's calling please?
Telemarketer: Uhh, this is Debbie Smith calling from Alliance.
Mungo: Calling from where please?
Telemarketer: Alliance.
Mungo: Let me just write this down. This is Debbie?
Telemarketer: Yes. That's right.
Mungo: With an 'h'?
Telemarketer: Yes, Smith is with an 'h'.
Mungo: No, Debbie I meant. Is the 'h' after the 'e' or after the 'd'?
Telemarketer: Umm. I'm calling from Alliance, sir.
Mungo: I'm just writing this all down on that yellow paper I was talking about with you earlier, never figured it would be yellow after all. [discordant pause] Where's that?
Telemarketer: We're in London sir.
Mungo: I've never been to Alliance. What's it like?
Telemarketer: Oh, it's nice here.
Mungo: What about London?
Telemarketer: Pardon me?
Mungo: You mentioned Alliance is nice, I've never been. I've been to London though. You like it there?
Telemarketer: Yes, it's nice. [really uncomfortable silence]
Mungo: Uhm... so what are you calling about Debbie? I haven't been to Alliance.
Telemarketer: Yes, I'm calling from Alliance on behalf of Bell Canada.
Mungo: How's that?
Telemarketer: Sorry sir?
Mungo: You mentioned on behalf of Bell - we already have one thank you.
Telemarketer: I'm calling on behalf of Bell.
Mungo: We've got one, got it last month. It's quite nice really. [thoughtful pause] Where's Bell?
Telemarketer: They're all over the country, sir.
Mungo: Never been there myself. [uncomfortable silence]. Ever been there yourself?
Telemarketer: Thank you very much for your time today sir.
Mungo: Not at all, it's been really nice chatting with you today, will you be staying in Bell for a while?
Telemarketer: Thank you sir. [click]

Google Book Search

I was working at Extend Media in Toronto as a developer when a guy I worked with told me about Google.com. I remember spending some time thinking about the Goooooogle search results snippet at the bottom of the page, and not much else.

I've been thinking about their project to digitize all books in to a searchable catalogue. Right now, only 5% of all books are in print. But imagine if all of Stanford Library and comparable collections around the world were digitized. Amazing.

It would be a catalyst to transforming the research world, the scientific world, and all of humankind. Unlike http://mungobah.blogspot.com.

Good Camping, Good good good good good.

The three of us returned tired and triumphant from our backcountry camping trip and have plans to do nothing at all until we return to work on Monday.

Good food, bad sleep, good fire, bad hellhole, good site, good chipmunk guard, good water, good food, good sun, good stars, good company, good books, good canoeing. Good good good good good.

Memories of the Wonko Web

"And somewhere on this good boffo stretch of coastline lay the house of this inconsolable man, a man whom many regarded as being insane. But this was only, as he would tell people, because he was. One of the many many reasons why people thought him insane was because of the peculiarity of his house which, even in a land where most people's houses were peculiar in one way or another, was quite extreme in it's peculiarness. His house was called The Outside of the Asylum. His name was simply John Watson, though he preferred to be called - and some of his friends had now reluctantly agreed to this - Wonko the Sane. In his house were a number of strange things, including a grey glass bowl with eight words engraved upon it. We can talk of him much later on - this is just an interlude to watch the sun go down and to say that he was there watching it... He had lost everything he cared for, and was now simply waiting for the end of the world - little realizing that it had already been and gone."

Oh it has been such a long time.