I caught her whisper
She is sitting cross legged on soft silky carpet
I laugh, numb with love

That was my submission to the Poetry in Motion contest, where you can make little word magnet poems for a $100 prize. Maybe because it’s February, the word choices were romance-heavy.

Giuseppe Garibaldi, who united Italy in the 1860s, was asked by Lincoln to run the army during the US Civil War. Garibaldi said he would if Lincoln officially declared that the aim of the war was to end slavery. Lincoln replied that he couldn’t at that time, and so Garibaldi moved on to other things.

While researching this entry, I’ve seen how much things could have changed had Garibaldi gotten involved in the war. There’s an anti-catholic page about him, the white supremacists seem to like him (why, if he was so anti-slavery?), the French hated him, the English loved him. Had he led the Federal troops, would France have jumped in on the side of the South? Would England have then jumped in on the Union side to counter? The Papacy would clearly have denounced the North (indeed, the pope was the only world leader to recognize the Confederacy). A whole different world history, perhaps, hanging on a yes/no question.

Hmph. I whine about Junior High and suddenly people are tripping over themselves to come see me. I feel like Urkle. < whine > Defamation? Did I do that? < /whine > Wecome wetlog readers!

Patience, Randy, patience… not all of us have a way-keen digital camera like you do. I have arranged to borrow one tomorrow and hope to have a complete virtual tour up by the week-end. A nice one, on caliber with this site, maybe.

Viva la Cola! Even though Havana Cola proudly claims to be “the original Key Lime cola” right on the can, my co-worker Paul (host of World of Beverage -- where happiness comes in a bottle and refills are free.) claims that this tastes the most like Coke of any non-coke he’s tasted. More so even than Australian Coke. “In 1898, during the Spanish American war, Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders brought to Cuba the first bottled cola. To toast the liberation of Havana, cola and rum were combined with key lime juice for the first time. The result was the “Cuba Libre” (free Cuba). Today, Havana Cola® brings back the taste of key lime and cola to celebrate the spirit of the Rough Riders.”

"That idiot on wetlog made a serious error of judgement with his pathetic weblog junior high portal. The moron must be a couple of ten-sided die short of a gaming convention if he thinks that an ill-written, unintelligible piece of crap like that is going to even border on witty. Neale must have some major self-esteem issues. He’s probably impotent."

I for one enjoyed Weblog Junior High, complete with rudeness, ugly language & images, and all that. And, just like junior high, I got left out.

Digging into Lance further, I was hoping to find out what the hack a Nekot is. The cookie page says “Take a break from the daily grind with the subtle sweetness of Lance’s Nekot® cookies with peanut butter . . . While you snack, try to solve the mystery of the word Nekot®. " Sneaky Lance people.

Mmmm…. Toastchee. Lance Snacks has finally established a web presence. According to the nifty animated gif at the top of their page, we’re expected to consume about 3000 calories a day of between-meal snacks. I can’t afford to buy that many honeybuns, but thankfully, they’re giving away free samples of their new sugar wafers. Sugar wafers make great coffee stirrers, you know.

I’m pretty sure I used up at least a month’s worth of luck today. This morning I received word that the potential country home is now my country home. I’ll go tomorrow morning to fill out the papers. Wait… not mine, really, as it is a rental, but as they say, possession is nine tenths of something or other. Apparently many peoiple looked into it, but I’m the winner. Then I had lunch out with many of my coworkers, and my boss picked up the tab. After work, I picked up a pair of choice hockey tickets (Toronto at Atlanta on Feb 29). Then, to round off the day, I made it all the way through the Who Wants to be a Millionare questions. And this was even more of a fluke than the first time I did it last month… I managed to place four teas in order based on the countries that made them famous moving from West to East starting in the United States. Hopefully, I’ve got a bit of luck left in me, because I now have to wait by the phone for three hours tomorrow for Regis to call and invite me to New York. Of course,it’s a bit more complicated than that, but I’ll be waiting by the phone like a good boy. (No fair calling me and pretending to be Regis. Really.) For those of you interested, I’ll be posting more specifics about the house over the next week. Hopefully I’ll be able to borrow a digital camera and all. I’m very excited about the whole thing.

My luck continued this morning. When I went to sign my new lease, I found out that the house has several well-producing peach trees, several more prolific pecan trees, and (if I’m good) I can even get a kitty to live with me. All three were pleasant suprises. I then went home to wait by the phone for Regis to call and… nothing happened. No call today. I guess I’ll just have to try again. Sigh.