Those Brits take their pub names seriously! It’s perfectly OK to go down to The Goat and Compassess to bend your elbow with a draught of Watney’s, but when the pub wants to rename itself to the Dog and Doughtnut, well, that’s just a name too far. Striking a blow to corporate chains and foux atmosphere: it’s a good thing.

Monday for lunch I ate at a new Chinese buffet in town with Kim. It was mighty tasty, and had about a billion items including Peking Duck. I’d never seen that on a buffet before. A good gorging was had by all, and contrary to popular wisdom, I didn’t get hungry again right after (now there’s a stereotype I haven’t heard in a long time… I guess chinese food’s gotten more filling since the 70’s). In fact, I still haven’t gotten hungry. It feels like hunger might arrive by evening, so there’ll be dinner tonight.

Adent fans of Man or Astro-man? know that they did music for Space Ghost Coast-to-coast and Mystery Science Theater 3000. Astro Science Reverb 3000 has made available several virtual 7 inch singles with MP3s you can listen to yourself. Collect them all!

Shame on me for letting another weblog (no – two weblogs) beat me to posting about the Athens/Atlanta band Grand Moff Tarkin. Athens is rather famous for its theme bands (Man or Astro Man? and Servotron Robot Allegiance are two examples. And I suppose you can add The Dictatortots to the list now, too.) and for a while last year, Grand Moff Tarkin was at the top of the heap. Fronted by local legend Jim Stacy as Darth Vader, the band put on as good a show as I’ve seen here. The photos on the Tarkin site say it all.

My ISP’s FTP servers were down for over a day. Once again, I had a less-than-satisfying customer service experience with them. But, for the present, it’s all working again.

Blurring the line between reality and entertainment
One of my cast members recently returned from New York (where he saw a preview performance of the upcoming Man Who Came to Dinner revival with Nathan Lane). He brought back the flyer pictured here, thinking it was cute because yes, there are lots of roaches in New York, and roaches also have a small role in The Man Who Came to Dinner. I finally got around to going to the website mentioned on the flyer, www.bugmap.org. It shows a photo of the bug, mentions how nasty it is, and displays a map of the US showing areas already infested. There is a blank where you can enter your zip code to see when the critter is projected to spread to your neck of the woods. I did so (the map already showed it in southern Georgia), and was let to a trailer for am icky-bug disaster movie premiering next week on the USA cable channel. Nowhere on the flyer is there any indication that this was promotional material. Fooled me. I still won’t watch the movie, though.

Goodbye little darlin’, we’re parting
Parting don’t always mean goodbye
Although we have to part
You’re always in my heart
Goodbye, little darlin’, goodbye
          -Gene Autry

You WILL experience the Ninja Burger difference! Guaranteed delivery in 30 minutes or less, or we commit Seppuku. Wonderful, wonderful stuff here. You can print out a job application if you feel up to it.

Words fail
buildings tumble
the ground opens wide
light came down from heaven
she stood before my eyes
she’s actual size, but she seems much bigger to me…

He which repents him not of his Marriage, either Sleeping or Waking, in a Year and a Day, may lawfully go to Dunmow and fetcha Gammon of Bacon. Mmmmmm….. a gammon of marriage bacon….