I’ve Never Been to Paris…

…but if I ever make it there, I hope it sounds just like this CD, and I hope I can take it all in à la Papa Hemingway in A Moveable Feast, Moleskine and all…

Sick Sunday Night Unwind, 01.29.06…

What a way to spend Sunday! Started feeling really rotten yesterday evening. Got home from our usual Saturday stuff, and went to bed. Well, went to “couch,” so as – hopefully! – not to pass it on the lovely and gracious “Mrs. Just Charlie.” I slept for an hour, was wide awake and freezing for two hours, slept for two hours, then wide awake for three…you get the idea. Got up this morning and went to church, baptized, kind of preached, then headed off to a funeral this afternoon.

Just now back from the funeral, and I now have a fever of about 100.7. So, I’m pretty much packing it in for the evening. Maybe I can sleep…

Anyway, I’m unwinding right now to the Verve Music For Lovers series by some of the great names in jazz from over the years. Pretty good unwind stuff, and especially with Valentine’s Day right around the corner…

At this very moment, Astrud Gilberto is telling me in her own inimitable way that It Might As Well Be Spring.

A cup of Sleepytime, a real girl from Ipanema, medicine about to kick in…who could ask for anything more?

SofaSpud?!?!?!

And then there was that unfortunate foray into hip and happenin’ names for the blog, like… SofaSpud.

SofaSpud?!?!? What in the world was I thinking?!?!?!

Wow! A BlogSpot Blast from the Past!

I’ve been poking around in my archives, and I found the very first post I ever posted – waaaaaaayyyyyy back in April, 2002!

The very first post was this profound and earth-shattering bit of writing…

well…i’m on…now what? that’s the question i’ll be trying to answer in the days ahead…along with other ones that come to mind…i’ll rant…i’ll rave…i’ll wander around in my head and in my world…and i’ll try to make it worth my time…and yours…stay tuned

Notice the hip and happenin’ all lower-case style. Notice the title of the blog. Notice the tagline…

from the heart for the mind…from the mind for the heart

Wow! Those were the days!

From that late April night almost four years ago, we’ve been from A Boy and His Stuff, through Straddling the Gap, and finally(?) right here to Just Charlie.

In the words of Jerry Garcia, who undoubtedly stole them from Gary Lamb…

What a long strange trip it has been!

Killing Off the Faulty Feeds…

I just checked out some of the forums over at WordPress.com, and several people seem to have had the same problems I mentioned earlier when importing Blogger blogs to WordPress.com. The responses seem to be pretty snooty, along the lines of…

Well, you did back up your template and settings, didn’t you?

Well, yes, I did, in fact, back up my template and didn’t expect any permanent damage to my settings. So there!

But anyway, I’m still having a hard time getting the many feeds (why do I have so many feeds, anyway?) to all synch up, so…I’m killing off all but one for right now.

I know it’s a huge inconvenience, and I really appreciate all you who graciously subscribe to my feed and who check in from time to time, but if you don’t mind, could you make sure you’re subscribed to this feed:

http://charphar.blogspot.com/atom.xml

BTW, that’s the feed you get if you mash that “Sub with Bloglines” button over to the right.

Thank you.

Thanks a Pantload, WordPress!

Some of you know that I’m toying around with the idea of acquiring my own domain name, and moving Just Charlie to WordPress.

Most of you are also familiar with the free blog hosting site at WordPress.com (not to be confused with WordPress.org, where you download the program, etc.).

Anyway, I had set up a blog over at the .com version, and last night I decided to play around with it a bit and see about importing all my Blogspot posts over there. Easy procedure, no problems. Until I clicked on my Blogspot blog and discovered a message, put there by the WordPress import/export procedure that said my Blogspot blog was inactive but the reader was being redirected to a “much better” blogging service or something.

I discovered today that that import/export procedure also screwed up my feeds and everything else! Man! You talk about hacked off! Now, I’m perfectly aware that I gave the WordPress thingy the “permission” to do whatever it took to import the posts, but I don’t remember any warning or anything that advised me that my Blogspot posts would be gone and my site and feeds disabled.

So, some of you may not get this message, because the feed you’ve graciously subscribed to may not be working properly. So, heartfelt apologies to y’all, and a big fat razzy to WordPress.com!

(One note: Even having railed on the WP.com folks, I still think I like the WordPress software a lot better, and when I do finally make the move to a new domain, etc., I’ll probably go ahead and switch to it as well.)

"Mammy" Speaks…

Heard on the news this morning that Hattie McDaniel, who made a pretty good name – and a pretty good living – for herself playing mostly domestic help (which being translated means “a maid”) has recently been honored with a US postage stamp. The news anchorette this morning mentioned that McDaniel had sometimes been criticized for her acquiescence to playing “stereotypical” characters that somehow demeaned African-American women. Hattie’s typical response to all that is priceless…

I’d rather play a maid than be a maid!

Great quote from one of my favorite actors.

“Mammy” Speaks…

Heard on the news this morning that Hattie McDaniel, who made a pretty good name – and a pretty good living – for herself playing mostly domestic help (which being translated means “a maid”) has recently been honored with a US postage stamp. The news anchorette this morning mentioned that McDaniel had sometimes been criticized for her acquiescence to playing “stereotypical” characters that somehow demeaned African-American women. Hattie’s typical response to all that is priceless…

I’d rather play a maid than be a maid!

Great quote from one of my favorite actors.

Out and About Today…

I woke up this morning with a hectic schedule. I planned to head out to the Y early to get my workout in, and then make it to the Serene Bean to meet with some of our folks for prayer.

When I got up, I headed to the old computer to check mail, etc. and discovered that “Customers in the Canton, Georgia area are unable to connect to the Internet because of a network outage.” So off I went to the Y. I got through with my workout, showered, jumped in the truck, got on the road only to find a massive traffic situation between Canton and Woodstock. I was late to the Bean, only to find out that none of my people showed up anyway. (Note to self: I’m not sure, but I think praying scares ‘em )

Still no Internet at home, so off to run some errands. As I was leaving Office Depot, who should I run into but the one, the only KenBob! Long time, no see! We exchanged some pleasantries and agreed to try to have lunch tomorrow. Cool!

I’m back at the Bean now, using their WiFi on a pretty obsolete notebook computer from the church. Still, who am I to complain? It beats having no Internet at home, right?

By the way, we got the lovely and gracious “Mrs. Just Charlie” one of those cool little D-Link USB Wireless adapters for her pretty obsolete notebook computer and it works like a charm – even though the USB ports are not even 2.0 – on her notebook and the old Toshiba from the church.

Some thoughts about and from the Bean, regarding pens, people, and other such stuff later…

Stupid Criminals, Chapter 78,324…

If you’re going to be a drug dealer, it’s probably not a real good idea to advertise online. Just a thought…

Link via Techdirt