Sometimes the "Duh" factor in news headlines amuses the heck out of me.

Seen this morning at ABC.com:  Arctic Ice Melts Faster As It Gets Warmer

Gee.  You think?  Good thing they're on top of this earthshattering news, for I'd never have figured that out all by myself.  

However, they do provide a marvelous service by publishing photos such as this one from NASA:

This was snapped on Tuesday.  Look at all the galaxies, each composed of countless stars, yet God's Word assures us:

    Lift up your eyes on high
    And see who has created these stars,
    The One who leads forth their host by number,
    He calls them all by name;
    Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
    Not one of them is missing.   (Isaiah 40.26)

Fluent as Dmitry is becoming in English, sometimes it takes me a minute
or two to figure out what he's getting at. Case in point:  this
evening we were having a chat on my bed (actually, Dmitry was
monopolizing the conversation, alternately telling me about all the
cool games due out for Christmas and griping about the controller for
the upcoming Playstation 3...."What's it supposed to be?  A boomerang?"), and during one especially intense burst of enthusiasm he exclaimed, "I'd be in the fifth sky!"

Fifth sky?   Fifth.  Sky.  Hmmmm....

AH!  "You mean, you'd be in seventh heaven?"

Oh, he replied.  Yeah.  That's what he meant. 

I'm gonna parrot my sister, Elaine, by griping about the heat today....it's 102° at 5:00 p.m.! 

Folks, that's bad enough when it's July or August, but when it's late September?

It's miserable.  Mercy Maud, do I hope the relief the weatherpeople have been promising shows up. 

Remember Cow Sponge?  The ska group Charles played with some?

The ol' gang's breaking up as age takes its toll.  Charles is now
in college at Lubbock, and he emailed me today that Joseph leaves
tomorrow for basic training at Great Lakes Naval Base. 

Scary, how fast they grow up. 

Correction:  Joseph's not in Cow Sponge, so the band lives. 
Guess I'll have to stick with getting sentimental over Joseph and
Charles spending hours at the club, swimming. 

The Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog is out! 

My, my, my.....what a plethora of pithy choices they've provided for us.

For $1.5M (yes, million) you can have a private concert by Elton John. 

[sternly]  Just one, though, so you'd best get a move on . . . you snooze, you lose.

If that seems a smidge on the gaudy side, perhaps something for the
home?  And nothing will bring a family together like a Family
Photo Booth:

Twenty grand and you'll never see the small fry again; at least, not in
the flesh.   Not to mention, they (the photos, not the small
fry) make terrific party favors.

Speaking of small fry, N-M has the perfect present for Benjamin!

Grand Empire Railroad, his very own, private railroad:

Somewhere between model trains and bullet trains lies the ultimate dream of the railroad enthusiast:
a riding-scale system in his own back yard, complete with locomotive, cars, caboose, station, and 1,000
feet of track.

By jingo, if his Gran only had $200K, her Benjamin Bunny would be riding high. 

According to the news, today was the 42d day in a row of above-normal temperatures. 

You know, that is just so darn rude. 

For Alex's birthday we sent him a gift certificate to Texas de Brazil,
which has a restautant in Memphis.  Now, Alex and Beth do not
actually live in Memphis, they live in Cordova, a ways outside of it.

This evening they decided would be a good evening to go to dinner.

So off they went, only to find a sign on the restaurant door:  "Closed for Private Party". 

I simply hate it when restaurants do that! 

An irritating thing about the Yahoo! Music Engine is how one purchases
tracks.  Unlike Rhapsody, where one can gather tracks into a
playlist and then buy them at one time, so far as I've been able to
determine, one can either buy an entire album or single tracks one. at.
a. time.

That's a lot of individual 79 cents charges to my credit card. 

I've searched the help site, and emailed them asking about this, but never received a response.

Other'n this stupid oversight I like it fine, but this hiccup is
driving me batty.  There are several songs I'd like to buy from
two or three albums and burn onto one CD, but it'll entail multiple
single chump change charges, and I'm reluctant to do that.  May
just say "to heck with it" and buy-and-burn-em via Rhapsody, even
though it'll cost a bit more.

Dolphins as trained killers? 

This world is getting just too weird for words, that's all:

Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

Now, don't go asking me to point you to the website, for I'm not going
to, but this was one of the funniest  -  in a pathetic sort
of way  -  occurrences I've seen in ages.

There's a blog I check now and again, and the most recent posting is
the blogger's comments regarding a couple of negative personality
traits sometimes seen on the internet.  No names were given, mind.

Well, doggone if someone didn't indignantly protest, "Oh yeah, like everyone's not gonna know you meant me!"

Absolutely serious, he was. 

What noodle would do that?  I mean, if I'd thought for one second the blogger had me in mind when making that post, I'd rather have a root canal than publicly acknowledge it.