Homeward

It's been a couple of weeks where I've dreaded hearing the phone ring; however, the ringing phone brought a little good news this morning: my brother is out of Iraq and should be home within a week or two.

Rub-a-Dub

Doing some housecleaning; figured I'd post something while updating the template. Why this? Cause it's so damned funny. Enjoy:

Fear Itself

Couldn't have said it better myself.

How Can We Miss You . . .

If you won't stay away?

I realize the lure of an easy buck is a hard one to avoid, but why must another dinosaur rock act come back for yet another tortured album where they turn themselves into a big joke?

Take the Rolling Stones -- the Stones circa 1965? Hell yes! The Stones circa 2005? No thanks. They stink now. Their shows aren't interesting, their albums suck, and basically they leech more money out of their few remaining true believers and those gullible enough to buy into the "hype".

So of course, the Eagles see this and think "why not us?" Jesus. Just retire. Keep popping out the occasional solo album. Act like you've grown professionally and personally since your band last split up; you know, after the last "farewell" tour. Keep some self-respect. I say these things as a longtime Eagles fan; one who would prefer not seeing one of his favorite old bands turn into a punchline.

"We decided we better get some new product out, some new songs. We could rest on our laurels and play our catalog forever, but we're not a nostalgia band," said Joe Walsh. Really? This from a guy in a band that hasn't put out any signifigant new material in 17 years? You know, Joe, I would respect you more if you just came out and said it: we want to get paid. Saying it's for the fans or all about the music is disingenuous at best.

But in the end, fans will line up to buy the album, realize it stinks, and clamor for the Eagles to play the old stuff on tour; meanwhile, the Eagles keep playing somnambulant concerts while counting the cash from the new album. Nice work if you can find it.

Yahoo Can Bite My Crank

I haven't been able to access my e-mail for 24 hours. Whenever I try, I get a "Temporary problem accessing your mailbox" message. To fix it, the message helpfully offers up these nuggets:

• Click Refresh
• Log out then log back in

Of course, when these "solutions" don't work, you're hosed. I had the same problem earlier in the year, and all it does is causes my blood pressure to spike.

Yahoo's Customer Service is next to useless, offering up some great tips like clearing cookies and clearing out the cache, assuring me it's a "transient" problem. Hint to Yahoo: how about giving real answers and helping your customers out instead of hoping it will go away.

Any suggestions on how to deal with this? Other than bombarding Yahoo's customer service with complaints until someone gets up and actually tries to be helpful -- I'm already doing that. Failing that, any suggestions on other e-mail service options? Because I've just about had enough of Yahoo.