Writing... or Typing?"That's not writing - that's typing."  --Truman CapoteI’ll have one existential tailspin to go, please.January 8, 2015  by Admin  About fifteen years ago, I spent about nine days in London. I got a Tube Pass, which requires you to get a little ID card to go with the Pass, just in case you are stopped by the Tube Police. I think Tube Passes are one of the reasons why London is (or at least was) simply littered with photo-booths. Certainly, it seemed you could find a photo-booth in just about any Tube Station. Anyway, the photo-booths had gone all digital since I had last entered one (in 1990 – oy. I am old). It used to be, you got in, you paid your money, you looked like a dork for approximately 30 seconds, you got a four photo assortment of said dorkishness for your Pound Sterling.With the new digiboxes, you went in, you sat, it took a digiphoto, you checked it out, assessed whether or not it was good enough to make four of, and go on with the process. (They used to take four different shots. Now they only give you four copies of the one shot – it must be hell for those kids who made collages of themselves and their friends all making dorky idiots of themselves in four different ways per trip to the photo booth). Then, a teddibly, teddibly uppah-claaahhs English woman’s voice says, “When you are happy, press the green button.”I found myself wondering, “Happy? What does happy have to do with it? If I’m feeling slightly blue or mildly irritated, do I have to sit here until I eventually get happy? What do the clinically depressed do? Never get a photo? Are they forced to get daily return fares whenever they take the Tube? What is the matter with this country? If I am never happy again do I now live in this photo booth? What is its address, anyway?”I suppose it is appropriate that my Tube pass ID bears a photo of me smirking.Filed Under: daily life, personality quirks of the poor and obscure, technology Tagged With: rer, rerunsCovered in GreatnessOctober 4, 2014  by Admin  Among the many things I love are well-done cover songs.  I don’t love slavish recreations – what I love is when an artist takes a song (the more iconic or seemingly tied to its original style and arrangement the better) and makes it something completely different, but equally great (or better) than the original.  Because I’m a giver, here are some of my favorites, in no particular order:“Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” – The Indigo Girls: Yes, I love acoustic music, and this song strips back the Elton John classic to something simple and spare.“Comfortably Numb” – Dar Williams with Ani DiFranco: Not only does this take the trippy original to an entirely new place, according to Williams, she wanted to work with DiFranco on this tune, but schedules weren’t working out. Then, “…we sent the files off to her and she added her