Blogging From Space

Anousheh Ansari is a space tourist, currently on board the International Space Station. Check out her blog from space. It's fascinating to see space travel from a civilian's perspective.

Don Walser's Final Yodel

Don Walser, the Pavarotti of the Plains, died on Wednesday at age 72.

One of my first memories of Austin, Texas was, shortly after I moved there in 1995, heading down to 6th Street, stopping off in a little sports bar called "Babe's", having a terrific cheeseburger, and listening to Don Walser, the Yodeling Cowboy, play western swing from a barstool for tips.

I remember thinking to myself..."I can't believe I'm actually being paid to go to school in this town. This is amazing!" We spent 7 years in Austin and I saw Don a number of times in different venues, but I'll never forget that first night I heard him yodel. I knew then that I was (at least temporarily) a Texan.

No where else but Austin could a guy like Don Walser end up touring with both Johnny Cash and the Butthole Surfers! If you haven't heard Don Walser, check out Melissa Block's story on NPR about him and visit DonWalser.com.

Avast, me hearties!

Tomorrow (Sept 19th) is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Are you ready? If you need to bone up on pirate, try this handy educational film. Afraid you might need a reference on the go? Check out this book.

Never Buy Music Again

Last week I discovered The Hype Machine, a daily music blog aggregator. Subscribe to their RSS feed in a podcatcher like iTunes and you'll never have to buy new music again...but you might have to buy a new hard drive to hold all the mp3s you're downloading.

In 7 days, I've received 1031 songs, 5.5 Gigabytes of free music through this aggregator. The music ranges all over the board -- from the Monkees to Public Enemy. There's truly something there to suit everyone's fancy...the only problem is deleting the stuff you don't like to save disk space!

She opened government to everyone

Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73.

She died at home surrounded by her family, the spokeswoman said. Richards was found to have esophageal cancer in March and underwent chemotherapy treatments.

The silver-haired, silver-tongued Richards said she entered politics to help others - especially women and minorities who were often ignored by Texas' male-dominated establishment.

"I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone,'" Richards said shortly before leaving office in January 1995.

I wonder what the world we live in today would have been like if Richards hadn't lost the Texas gubernatorial race to one George W. Bush.

Ridiculous Guitar Talent

My brother sent me a link to this amazing guitar player...

Tell ABC to Tell the Truth about 9/11

ABC is preparing to air a "docudrama" on Sept 10 & 11 that has serious distortions of the facts as reported by the 9/11 commission. While I appreciate that "storytelling" sometimes requires poetic license, I believe it is reckless for them to air this film in a way that many people will accept as fact without any acknowledgement that many of the scenes are contrary to undisputed facts. Click on the link below to find out more about the film and to let ABC know that they owe the public an accurate account of the "Path to 9/11".

Kirk Does Camelot

What if Star Trek characters could be 'beamed down" into the Camelot dance routine in Monty Python's Holy Grail?