rundown rundown

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I finished straightening out my iPod/iTunes, having gone through about 18000 tracks. It's good to be finished.

I discovered the Auburn Trail, or rediscovered it. It was the Auburn Line until about 90 years ago, and now it's a walking trail, interrupted only by the Erie Canal and some homeowners who blockade the path with piles of branches and brush in an attempt to annex this public thoroughfare to their back yard. Now I understand that the big ol' piling in the middle of the canal where Knickerbocker comes out was the railroad bridge. I walked on another part of this same trail just over two years ago when we moved here and were living briefly in an apartment. All in all, it's 24 miles long, or 42, or something like that. I'm already forgetting the stuff I've looked up about it. Because it's late.

Sarah finished school today. My schedule will now shift to a later stratum of time for the summer. But I'm still tired, and I skipped my stretches today just to get through LJ. Also missed the nap I usually take, and probably some other stuff. I gave two quotes on potential jobs today. It'd be nice if one of them would work out. It's good to earn some money.

I spent some time talking to a technician from Sony about why the Reader software opens on my computer but then doesn't open a window or in any other way make itself useful. The Reader they sent me to replace my other one seems to have the right sort of battery life, anyway.

Say, I was going to post about this separately, but I'll just toss it out and then go brush my teeth and lie down for a few hours. WFMU is going to present a bunch of Firesign Theatre Radio Hours. They have an informative post about that right here. With some audio clips (music only, as far as I've found so far). Note the links to streaming shows: two of them are up so far. I put a link to that in my toolbar where I'll see it when I'm awake.

Speaking of music, here's a link from bOINGbOING to some Jay Ward music cues. I have a bunch of these on my iPod, having carefully transcribed them from VHS tapes of the show. Great stuff.

I reposted a handful of links to Fischerkösen animated ads (dating as far back as the 1930s in Germany). This 2006 comment from Making Light has links. I hope they're still good.

Right. I'm off now.
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Y me

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Today was the first day of having to get Sarah organized when I go to the Y for my fake miles. Before I could ask her, the phone rang: Lulu was asking if she could come over and have lunch at their house. Problem solved! I made sure there was a parent home (turns out nobody answered the phone because it's on the blink) and proceeded Y-ward.

I set up first on one of the cardio machines with its own TV screen and pushed the button until I saw the World Cup. As a soccer dad, I now find one sport interesting (apart from dog frisbee and figure skating), so I watched it on Univision with the captions off, as they tended to cover up the ball. When I finished there I went to a bike where the game was visible on ESPN, where the screen was bigger so the subtitles, over which I had no control, only covered up the names of players who were getting a card.

By the time I'd reached my usual quota of three miles, the game had twelve minutes to go. What the hey. I kept pedaling. It reached 90 minutes and the still scoreless game was given four more minutes to play. When Donovan scored his goal, I gave a silent clap.

So this is what I've come to. Pedaling an exercise bike and responding involuntarily at the sight of 'my' athletic team scoring a goal. Perhaps I could also have poured my bottle of water all over my head while shouting 'hoo!', but I only think of these things when it's too late.

Also, I ended up going six 'miles.' I weighed myself on the way out, and for the first time since I've started, I was below 218. I've been as high as 220 on that scale, so 217 is very encouraging.
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follow-up: crazy German animated ads of the thirties

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Okay, I'm not so tired now, so here's a slightly longer Fischerkösen post, edited from a comment at bOINGbOING:

Watch on YouTube

A great animated ad (from Hans Fischerkösen, in 1930s Germany) for a grocery store chain based in Köln, with pigs inspecting the pork and happy sausages peeling off and diving onto the conveyer belt to be sliced up. [Note: Vaguely racist images of third-world peoples are included at no extra price!] ps: That fly's not getting any sausage. They're using cellophane, the wonder material!

( more Fischerkösen after der jump )

wait a second

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Did the house just shake a little?
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