"What a gorgeous day. What effulgent sunshine. It was a day of this sort the McGillicuddy brothers murdered their mother with an ax. Sweet old lady, I can see her now carrying the laundry home on her head." - W. C. Fields

I got another magnificent early birthday present today as well, a boxed CD set of all nine Beethoven symphonies by Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in celebration of his 100th birthday.

The recordings are not new, I have them on Deutsche Grammophon cassettes dated 1963.

It is said that Sony and Philips engineers developed the CD with the goal of an uninterrupted performance of the Ninth. Now a fifty-dollar iPod the size of a wrist watch will hold all of them with room to spare.

And just as Miss Scarlet had trouble with the Tarleton twins, I'll be awake all night trying to decide just which one is the handsomest.

We took the 9 year old to Blue Man Group last night. He wanted to take his Nintendo DS because he was afraid he would be bored. We said no.

Excellent concert. BMG has been around since the 1980s, but our narrow view assumed it was just a percussion extravaganza. With an amazing back up band and two lead vocalists, their "How To Be A Megastar Tour 2.1" is a combination of strong acoustics, vocals, and funny satire on pop culture, plus the amazing signature sounds of three mute blue men. One of the funniest bits was when they lock the lead guitarist in a glass box and use smoke to slow him down from his self-indulgent, over-the-top guitar riffs. He comes out the other side a better man, and a better guitarist.

more after the flip.

I can! Our old Toastmaster toaster oven died after only four years (or more accurately it's computer got brain damaged or possessed or something) and I needed to replace it.

At TennViews...

Hillary Clinton was on Saturday Night Live.

See the "Men Against Hillary Democratic Debate" video at Tennessee Guerilla Women.