Are you descended from the royal house of David? If so, these guys want to hear from you so you can get invited to the first Davidic family reunion in over 2000 years.

We can’t go this year, but it sounds like the Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm in Glen Rock, PA could be quite fun. Who knows, maybe Boann’s Banks might host a similar event some day.

I’ve written this weblog for a bit under three years, writing a bit most every day to create a snapshot of my life as it happens. I’m not the only one to do this, by far. Some people skip the whole writing bit, though, and just go for the snapshot.

Have you been to see the humanclock lately? He’s got to analog clock working like a charm, and of course the original digital version is better than ever. This is exactly the kind of hobby website I love to see.

A recently-discovered comet should be visible to the naked eye for the next month or so. I was just thinking the other night how lucky I was to have seen two spectacular comets back-to-back (Hale-Bopp and… the other one. I forget its name.) in 1997. I was in one of the best places in the country to observe the heavens (the middle of the New Mexican desert) and could step outside my front door to see comets with multiple tails spanning almost from horizon to horizon. And some people never get to see such things. This one won’t be as spectacular as those, but I’ll be looking at it as it goes by just the same.

Over the weekend I moved some files around from one computer to another at my domain hosting company. They’re good people over there – adept, responsive, and cheap. Due to a timing fluke, my two accounts over there were split up onto different computers, so I moved them all together, where MovableType can more easily manage them all. Because of the move, this site may have been inaccessable for a while, and any email sent to the ericwagoner domain on Saturday may have bounced. It all appears to be better now.

This month’s Car and Driver contains what may be the best car review ever: a skewering of the Cadillac Escalade. “There are lots of things on which you could spend $49,990. This is one of them. "

The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival just wound down in Aspen. Entertainment Weekly sent special correspondent Space Ghost to report from the scene.

We flock to you like dull, useless knives to a steel And when it rains it pours I said when it rains it pours And you act like meat you’re bound to get cut I guess that seems so sad and it’s not even your choice I’ve got rosemary in one hand and the bedpost in the other well, so what. I bit off a little bit much I almost choked on it go home and get your car young man and meet me at the back door I have plans to chill that faggot looking shirt right off of the front of your chest

I can’t explain why the song these lyrics came from affects me like it does. It’s from the Atlanta band Smoke’s second album “Another Reason to Fast”. When I look at the lyrics written down like this (as I hear them anyway; I don’t know if they’re correct), they don’t amount to much. But the way Benjamin Smoke, the band’s late front man, sings them, they pierce my being. Of course, he could sing the phone book and have the same effect. And then there’s the cello and coronet that complement the vocals so well. You can listen to the first minute or so in realaudio format here, and see if you agree. The other songs on both albums are just as good. Everyone else I know who has listened seems to feel the same way. I’ll have to keep my eye out for the movie about Benjamin. Certainly one of the indie video stores in town carries it.

NPR’s series Present at the Creation talked about overalls this morning. Coincidentally, I wore a new pair to work today. Besides the report and pictures, the site has four songs about overalls, including Bing Crosbys “Who Threw The Overalls In Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?” You can’t sing that one today: “It’s an Irish trick, that’s true/ I can lick the mick that threw/ overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s chowder.”