Bob, the other half of the Twinz of Terror: “May be good blog fodder if you need some.”

Okay, okay, Bob, your point is well taken. The bomb squad doesn’t come here every day and I lead a pretty boring life. So here’s what others are doing:

This is The Beautiful Gay and The Beautiful Renee in San Francisco over the Memorial Day weekend. Click here for more.

And it turns out that Tim is a singer and composer. There’s a link to his livejournal over on the right. He has interesting things to say when he writes in it. Which should be more often :-). Anyway, I was gonna put his latest song out on this but at 5MB it is just too big. I can downsize people’s huge photos but music is another story. Maybe he can make us a clip, hint hint.

Finally, the Marquis writes to tell us that Nuclear Dave is off at explosives camp this week. I didn’t even know there were explosives camps. The GG was once made to cut grass with a scythe for several days to atone for the offense of setting off a smoke bomb at boy scout camp. Maybe explosives camp would’ve been a better “fit” for him, as all the overprotective, self-involved parents say these days. I guess the idea behind explosives camp (besides “boys will be boys”, that is) is “if ya can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” Anyway, nDave graduates from high school this spring. If he hasn’t already, but no one sent me an announcement or pics so I dunno. And he goes off to U of Rochester in the fall. And this is what The Marquis has to say about explosives camp:

Anne & I took Dave to Explosives Camp today. We checked him in & waited around for dinner. During dinner the UMR Professor (a pot belly Aussie, affectionately known as the “Mad Bomber”) leading the camp explained the week’s agenda:

Monday – “We’re going to the school’s test mine & blow some shit up!”

Tuesday – “We’re going underground in a real lead mine, lay a wall of charges, go around the corner & blow some shit up!”

Wednesday – “We’re going to a limestone quarry, lay a much bigger wall of charges, go across the pit & blow some shit up!”

Thursday – “We’re going to a fireworks manufacturer, learn how to make fireworks, make fireworks, design a $2,000 show & blow some shit up!”

In between these activities they will get briefed by a member of the White House’s bomb squad, do a rock & roll pyrotechnics show & have a pool party.

We’ll pick him up Thursday night & watch the fireworks show. Before we left, Anne counted out Dave’s ten digits & told him & the camp administrator that she expected to see ten on Thursday.

GrokgrokgrokGROK!!! I wanna go blow some shit up too!! grokgrok frook grfok! Excuse me a minute. (Froggy! Watch your language or I’ll go get the soap. It is not okay for you to copy the Mad Bomber. Laundry basket. Pronto! I don’t care if Moley is there. Go anyway.) Sorry about that little outburst.

Yay for feedback! There are people who read this stoopid blahg grok grok who are pretty fluent when it comes to technology and they had comments to make about Volcano Mama and her Internet Tips. grok grok Excuse me a minute. (Froggy, I wasn’t talking about you and no, you can’t use Garage Band right now. Go play on the highway.) Sorry about that rude interruption.

Karen wrote, “um, aren’t ‘application’ and ‘program’ synonymous?” Dum de dum de dum. Hmmm. Good question. Didya do any research before writing that, Volcano Mama? Well, Vmom was thinking along the lines that a “program” is a generic term for a set of instructions for a computer to follow. “Application program” aka “application” is a set of instructions designed for a more specific use. Whatis.com says it pretty well. Vmom thought her intended audience might get confused by “application” alone. Say what? Application? For what? A spot in the assisted living facility? Get the drift?

Then the Marquis (or maybe it was the Grand Poohbah, I wasn’t sure) wrote, “If you subscribe to either MSN or Yahoo as an ISP they provide their own proprietary browser.” “I stand corrected,” says Vmom. “MSN and Yahoo *can* be browsers and are obviously useful to some people as such.” But again, Volcano Mama’s intended audience might get confused by that. They don’t have time for anything more than about one or two mouse clicks. In general, Vmom is not a terrific fan of proprietary software on the web, but that’s just her not-so-humble opinion, inspired in part by what the gang over at WCC has beaten into her rather one-dimensional brain.

Volcano Mama’s intended audience is people who want to use the Internet for very specific purposes. Like emailing their grandchildren or reading someone’s stoopid blahg. They want to get on there, do their business and get off quick. No news sites or flash videos, thank you very much. They do not have time to fiddly-diddle around learning all of the various complexities of using computers and browsers and surfing the Internet. They are too busy going to water-ex and taiko drumming performances and foreign films and classes at the college and visiting their friends at Tendercare and eating corn chowder at Penny’s and reading the newspaper down by the waterfront and cogitating about improvements to their properties. So Vmom is trying to keep it pretty basic.

Anyway, yay for feedback! Keep it coming. One of these days, I’m gonna get off my you-know-what and install WordPress on this here blahg so I can turn on some comments and y’all can comment to your heart’s delight and get into flame wars with each other and the whole works.

And finally, Sam and I were certainly on the same wavelength yesterday as she also mentioned the sound of wind in pine trees in her blahg. Except she didn’t call it a swhooooshing noise, she called it susurration. Her vocabulary wins!