"It’s a celebration, bitches!"

Well chill’uns, I’ve all manner of little things to talk about but nothing to really sink my teeth into so prepare for Short Attention Span Theatre.  Stream of consciousness — ACTIVATED.

First off, Dave Chappelle of Chappelle’s Show fame is in early negotiations to star in the film adaptation of Memoirs of a Super Freak, the autobiography of — you guessed it — Rick James.  My first thought upon hearing this was "holy crap, who better to choose than the man already famous for parodying good ol’ Rick?"  Well, the problem is this: unless this ends up being a comedy it might end up a tragedy.  Dave does a great job of making a fool out of Rick, but can he pull it off in a straight role?  Is Prince’s life story the next in Dave’s list of movie projects?  "Game… blouses."

Ray Charles has croaked — not a surprise really.  I suspect that recently, for live appearances they had been propping up his corpse behind a piano and putting on a CD.  We made a point to see him at Jazz Fest about five years back under the assumption that it might be the last opportunity to do so.  We were right.

Coincidentally, Ronald Regan recently joined the choir invisible too.  Could there be a link in here somewhere?  A deadly love pact?  Was one impersonating the other?  Was Nancy having geriatric three-ways down on the Reagan ranch?  A little antiquated jungle fever?  I bet the welcome mat at her back door is a bit dusty, if you know what I mean.

Y’know, I bet if Ronald Reagan and Ray Charles were running mates on the "Belly-Up" ticket in a bid for the White House in November, I bet they’d stand a great chance at winning.  After all, a pair of stiffs has infinitely more personality and less potential to do increasing damage to the country and our international standing than any of the other clowns thumb wrestling for the honor.

I’d vote for them.

Finally we are having the electrical work done on the house.  I’ve been assured that it will be a mere six or seven hours to complete the job.  That’s a mere six or seven hours in Louisiana.  In the summer.  With no power.  Joy.  It’s worth the trouble as I am upgrading the paltry 65-Amp service to 200-AMPs.

The old power system was nicely efficient… if you only had a refrigerator and a single 60 WATT light bulb on at the same time.  C’mon — I’m Captain Technology.  I can draw more than that just making toast.  So, the old system gets upgraded… that and our insurance company pretty much told us that they were not going to renew our homeowner’s insurance is we left the old fire hazard in place.  No, really, we had a choice.

The screen for the wHoReS: Walk-In Theatre was completed last week and was given a test-run last weekend.  I declare it a quality bit of engineering, and a beautiful surface to watch movies in a 12′ wide format.  The wHoReS engineers are currently working on a scheme to broadcast audio on the FM band so that we can individually bring tuners and headphones and have the volume as low or loud as we like without disturbing the neighbors.  We at the wHoReS strive to bring you only the highest quality entertainment.

Recently I have been accused, rightly so, of being a "kitchen geek".  All because I bought one of these.  I’m telling you if you use coarse salts like rock, sea or kosher when you cook, this little gem is fantastic.  One-handed operation, holds a fair amount of salt and it looks snazzy too.  Worth every penny.

On that note, watch Good Eats.  It’s a downright entertaining, and more importantly, educational show that doesn’t preach or pander to you like you’re an idiot.  Alton Brown is a weird little monkey like I am, and comes up with some wacky shit that really works.  I’ve picked up a number of really great techniques from the show that I have integrated into my day-to-day cooking regimen.  Wonderful.  I’m a freak.

Thus endeth my ramblings.  Stay alive, and safe journey.