"I got a strawberry Turkish Delight. It was OK, but I wouldn’t betray my siblings for it." Are You Gonna Eat That? recently moved to her own website, and I recommend her. I should probably figure out how to add a "blog roll" to deadfile, but then I'd have to face the usual dilemmas about who to link and who to read in secret, etc.

On the way to work this morning I picked up a breakfast burrito at the Blake's Lotaburger nearest my house (sausage, red, $3.72 with tax). I'm said to say it was mostly flavorless, with potatoes that had clearly been frozen and had the texture of cooked and then dried linguine, and not enough sausage. The red wasn't bad, and the eggs were pretty good. It's clearly a handheld, meant to pass through a truck window and be eaten on the way to a jobsite, not messy but fillng, and a little bigger than my increasingly middle-aged apetite could comfortably handle.

Finally, let me say that I'm not a fan of weblog posts that follow the pattern of my first paragraph above; or worse, just consist of a one-sentence summary, a link, and a paragraph-long quote. I realize that these are one of the two or three canonical weblog posts (others being journal-style amateur offerings and full-length newspaper articles in draft or disguise). I just find them flavorless, along with headlines that say "Bad Things to Happen Right Away, Experts Say" or "Our Prejudices Proved Right Yet Again: Think-tank."

I'm back from a week in Seoul. Right now I'm so tired and my "to do" list is so long I doubt it will merit a post by itself, which is a shame. Tougher than Tokyo and further away.

James Killus says, among other things, that science fiction writers may have been a bit optimistic in predicting space colonies to follow closely on the heels of the Apollo landing. He doesn't mention flying cars, but then he's a science fiction writer, not a Popular Mechanics editor.

I like Killus a lot, but I've never read any of his books. When I read his weblog posts I sometimes find myself thinking "I bet I could do that, but I'd have to work at it." I suspect it's not work for him.

PS: I disagree with him; I don't think Science Fiction matters.

I made it through the wedding unscathed, but being around all those people, most of whom had recently flown on airplanes, etc. was too much for my poor immune system. A week ago I started feeling pre-sick, but I had guests in town, so I toughed it out for a couple of days. Thursday morning I put the last of them on a plane and went to bed.

This has turned out to be one of those NyQuil-killing colds: not just sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, and fever, but also a swollen throat, earache, infected eyes, chills, sensitive skin, etc. Not to mention the usual consequences of taking too much Vitamin C.

I wrangled a prescription for penicillin, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Yesterday I broke down and went to an actual doctor, and he prescribed sulfamethoxazole and gave me a couple of samples of other things. Today I'm about 50% and can once again imagine that I will not always be a burden to society.

One of my great fears living here in Santa Fe is that as the town grows it will turn into an ordinary town in a great location. Or worse, that it will grow into an ordinary town in an ordinary but formerly great location. That it will follow on the heels of Albuquerque, as it in turn follows on the heels of Phoenix.

Yesterday while driving down Cerrillos Road I noticed that there is now a Starbucks with a drive-in window on Cerrillos that is within (without a drive-in window) sight of the one on Zafarano. Both are within sight of the Albertsons on Zafarano, which also contains a Starbucks.

I don't know what to think of this; the words "nameless fear" come to mind, though.

I moved from Los Alamos to Santa Fe last August, and shortly thereafter tried to change my address. The state of New Mexico doesn't make this easy in the usual way: they don't update driver's licenses, for example, until they expire. Which meant that if you renewed your license tomorrow and moved the day after that you'd be carrying a license with the wrong address for either four or eight years.

I found this out by going to an MVD Express, a for-profit company that claims to cut wait times by processing state Motor Vehicle Division paperwork faster than the state, for a moderate additional fee. Instead I found a long line, no clear path to the right window, and a bunch of long faces. I bailed and decided I'd just bluff as needed for the next ten months.

Last month when I renewed my driver's license I decided to do it in Los Alamos, where there are no MVD Express locations but where the lines are typically quite short. I don't know why the Los Alamos location of the Motor Vehicles Division does this well when the Santa Fe location doesn't: is it the relatively small population of Los Alamos County? Is the Los Alamos MVD better staffed? Do they attract more diligent, qualified staff? Does it have something to do with the size of the tax base in the two counties? I don't know.

Regardless, I got in, done, and going in about fifteen minutes.

So when I needed to get a marriage license I tried the same thing: we printed out the paperwork online and took them to the County Clerk's office in Los Alamos. At five after eight on a summer Friday morning I found only one person in the temporary building, and she happened to work there. She was friendly and helpful and conveyed the idea that she was interested in helping us get our license completed and filed correctly.

As we were leaving I asked her about the difference between Los Alamos and Santa Fe counties. She said she couldn't really speak for Santa Fe, but she lives in Rio Arriba and does all her official stuff in Los Alamos for the same reason.

So there's your tip: if you have a choice, there's a big difference between Santa Fe and Los Alamos counties.

Q: What's up with giant Confederate flags?

A: Go read Confederates in the Attic and all of Faulkner's stories dealing with the Snopes clan, but especially Barn Burning and then ask me that question again.

The New York Times actually lists 31, but you don't need to go to Jemez Springs.

Low can rock when they want to.

They just don't want to very often.

John McCain could very well pick his running mate over the long weekend; the New York Times says the short list consists of Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, and someone named Mitt Romney. The article goes on to list several other men the Times considers to have an outside chance.

Certain people I hear from on a regular basis are already beyond nervous about McCain; they'll absolutely bust a gut if he picks Romney.

This is one of the funniest things I've ever seen:

I'm not sure I could explain it if my life depended on it.

Why are there no shows like this on American television?