Yes, yes, yes ... Bloglines is a winner ... a free online service that makes it oh so easy to keep up with, manage and share your favorite blogs and newsfeeds without downloading zippity. Say "good-bye" to Pluck or whatever aggregator you are currently using ... and start an office pool on how long it takes Yahoo, Google or MS to duplicate this service or snap it up.
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Folks at Boomer Death Watch seem a little too obsessive about being self obsessed but there's a lot of amusing material here and an occasional jewel like the 1969 Wellesley College commencement address of Hillary Rodham Clinton where she so sweetly says "we feel that for too long our leaders have used politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible" and much more that I don't understand.
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Today in Amherst at the Emily Dickinson Museum, revelers(?) will start a marathon reading of all the poet's work, almost 1,800 poems. The marathon, called "Can I expound the skies" after a line in one of Dickinson's poems, is a first-ever event that will run through Saturday. Emily, Emily ... I think I'll stay home, expound the rain and then just expound.
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Nothing so new here ... this Parkour phenom looks suspiciously like a revival of how we used to pass the time on Sconticut Neck some 40 years ago when we weren't dodging batteries fired from slingshots, hunting horseshoe crabs or shooting out windows with BB guns ... my right knee is still gimpy from jumping off of Paul's third floor roof. Wonder how long it will be before the guys at Urban Freeflow and Kiell discover the variant we developed of tossing furniture instead of ourselves.
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So I'm sitting here waiting for breakfast to cook (i.e. my toast to pop) and meanwhile a chainsaw-wielding robotic submarine developed and manned by Triton Logging is roving beneath Lois Lake in British Columbia chopping down a forest that was left submerged decades ago when the valley was flooded by a hydroelectric dam. I'm impressed. Ooops, there's my toast ... gotta go.
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Forget paperclick because all I really need is a barcode reader on my cellphone and some clever vendor with a little of everything or a path to it (I'm thinking Amazon or Walmart maybe Google) to turn the whole world into one giant mail order showcase. When can I get this?

If you have any money left over after getting your cat cloned (see item below) you might consider helping the mermaids at Weeki Wachi Springs. Or maybe you might choose to spend your money on something more useful.
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Genetic Savings and Clone is apparently now ready and willing to clone your cat if you have already chosen to participate in their gene-banking program ... and the cost is only $50,000. However, "animals and their clones don't always look identical" and "genetics and environment play a role in how an animal ultimately looks and acts" so "people are going to be disappointed that Fluffy neither looks the same nor acts the same". Hmmmm ...
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I remember getting warned about yellow snow when I was in the arctic several years ago but no one said anything about red icebergs. This may force me to completely rethink the landscape painting I planned to do this spring.
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Sharky & Jack's Bar & Grill might have the best cheeseburger on the planet but there are not too many other reason's to recommend the Clarion on Universal Blvd in Orlando ... unless you are want to meet high schoolers from Wisconsin. Myself, I took the trolley down to the Rosen Centre and hung out there with the State Troopers looking for kidnapped babies ... and about 1500 IT Security folk ... a much more upscale place to be while on my own very pleasant mini spring break from which I (we) have safely returned. Did I miss anything here? I don't think so.

Last day of Winter? Really? You wouldn't think Spring was less than 24 hours away by looking outside down toward the water but it does seem like another nice day for a walk along the beach or maybe at the sanctuary in the fresh snow. And a hot cup of tea.

Lily Connor is an Episcopal priest, the "Tentmaker" of this book's title, who is brought in as an interim pastor for a Boston parish where things aren't going right. The real mystery here, as far as I am concerned, is not about what was amiss at St. Mary of the Garden on the corner of Tremont and Temple and how someone could write a mystery set in Boston without once mentioning the Red Sox, but why I read this book in basically one sitting this afternoon ... and why I'm going to the library early tomorrow for the next story in this relatively new series by Michelle Blake.
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Really Bad PowerPoint by Seth Godin ... hmmmm. Can you think of anyone where you work who might benefit from reading this e-doc available at Amazon?
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Paul Cole? Fifth Beatle? Who is this guy? Only the man standing in the background on Abbey Road album cover, watching as John, Paul, George and Ringo cross the street.
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Size matters ... at least it does for the folks who use TinyURL, shorl.com, and MakeAShorterLink. It might matter to you too if you're "sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together". For example, http://tinyurl.com/3dj9q will get you Google News items on Danny Ainge ... it is Saint Patrick's Day after all ... and we all know size matters to Danny.
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R. Emmett Tyrrell, author of "Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House", and I can't be the only ones who think that Hillary Clinton might show up on the ticket with Kerry this fall. Hillary just recently announced her support for Kerry while Bill and other Democrats have just begun an Internet drive to raise $10 million for Senator John Kerry in the next 10 days. Hmmmm ... maybe someone else is thinking this way.

"Just 50 feet and it will be Spring". Well ... not really ... unless your idea of Spring is wall-to-wall people blocking the view to the garden dispays at the Boston Flower Show. I'm thinking this is one of those things that maybe you do every 3 or 4 years and certainly not on the morning before a snow storm arrives. OK there were fabulous flowers pretty much everywhere and I did enjoy wandering through the vendor area which was not crowded at all. One last thing ... I was disappointed that flower arangements had not been judged because the judges' commentaries on the displays last year were hilarious and I expected the same this year. I'm going to forget Spring for now and go for a walk in the snow that just started and looks very promising.
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And who really is the highest paid public employee in Rhode Island? Is it the URI basketball coach? A Common Cause request for information on pay for public employees to 137 state and local offices across the state has resulted in a 44 page report that makes for entertaining reading.
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Good grief ... now there's Hardball Times to read. Who are these guys? How can I possibly find the time to keep up with all this baseball chatter? I've added a link for Hardball to the menu and dropped Bronx Banter link for it's mother ... All-Baseball.
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Different thinking styles ... are you Logical-Mathematical, Linguistic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalist, Existential, Musical, Spatial, or Kinaesthetic? Do you even care? Do you think this online test from BBCi can really tell? Seems that at least for today, I'm musical. And you?
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Bootleg Beatles 2004 tour is underway. Apparently they've "performed before royalty at Buckingham Palace, they packed the London Palladium and they've shared stages with Rod Stewart, Bon Jovi, David Bowie, Iggy Pop and other top recording artists". And during their "remarkable" 24-year career, "the Bootleg Beatles have spread their love of the Fab Four's music across the globe". OK ... that's great ... so why have I never heard of them ... and I don't see any dates I can catch them here. Darn. Maybe next year. Or maybe in the UK.
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Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags -- tiny devices that broadcast data about any object in which they're embedded -- have been proposed as a way of improving inventory control in San Francisco's library system. A librarian writes that "RFID allows a person to pass a wand over the shelves, and the wand will beep when it finds a book out of place. Of course, RFID would allow one to wand a dormitory to find out which rooms contain library books. Or, maybe, we want to know which dorm rooms do NOT contain library books. For the really paranoid, we could equip a helicopter to fly over the city, to look for library call numbers relating to WMD."
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Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Good questions. All of them. Don't have a complete answer but I do at least know where I've been this morning ... Gauguin at MFA Boston ... only U.S. stop for this exhibit. Love this stuff ... paintings, wood carvings, wood block prints and Noa Noa (buy your own copy at Amazon) ... was a super Japanese postcard show at MFA also ... all for free because the parking meters are broke on the side streets near the museum and someone at the door gave me a free ticket.
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At Home Plate has an interview with Bill James, Boston Red Sox special consultant and one of the pioneers of baseball statistical analysis, as well as a founding member of SABR (the Society for American Baseball Research).
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In case you don't have enough things on your mind .... I'm thinking 243 Ida could have just about have ruined my Valentine's day plans.
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"The U.S. Navy plans to begin testing a prototype for an unmanned underwater glider with a flying-wing design in March, according to the Office of Naval Research" and reported by Wired News. It will be used to "follow marine animals without disrupting their behavior". Well I will certainly sleep better knowing that.
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Macromedia/Flash gets serious with Breeze which promises to allow us to "Collaborate, Communicate and Train Online with Ease". Looks promising in the extensive but dull overview provided ... is it affordable?
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Links to baseball blogs/discussion (Sons of Sam Horn, Baseball Musings, and Bronx Banter) that look good have been added to the menu on the right.

Gum Blondes

Wonder why Ted Tihansky didn't suggest bubble gum as a medium when I studied portrait painting with him several years ago? And where's Ted now?

News Feeds ... absolutely yes; but News Readers ... hmmmm, I'm not so sure I need a tool that takes the function of a browser combined with a favorites list and strips out the pictures. Am I missing the point or wouldn't I rather browse to a nicely designed web site with an easy to read CSS/javascript RSS extraction or a blog with the same. However, still worth looking at this easy to deploy and use reader from Pluck that integrates with IE and deciding for yourself.
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A friend just wrote about recently attending a Proprioceptive Writing workshop. "PW inspires increased focus, imagination, and self-knowing ... is enlightening, mind-expanding and fun." Sounds dangerous?
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It's been months since release of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" so J.K. Rowling chat as part of World Book Day which you may have missed could provide a welcome bit of reading.
Read the chat transcript ...

Spring training reports on top of some of the great winter trades only make me more ready for another season of ball and especially for another hot summer of first class up close action in the Cape League. Cotuit Kettleers at Lowell Park are a must see.
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Easy to deploy/use commenting SW for blogs and websites which allows visitors to leave instant feedback on the site. Nice. Now all I need is some visitors.
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Stage direction from O'Neil probably didn't get too specific about what Erie Smith should be smoking when he first comes out on stage and it seemed to me that Brian went for something a little out of the ordinary in yesterday's matinee. Fun performance.
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