Woke Up In Ybor City

Eventually blogs settle down and take a personality of their own, their multi-topic rambling relegated to a cached memory. I know bloggers who have settled on golf as a primary topic, others who have chosen cobra decorating and the trumpeting of obscure films as their daily/weekly subject matter. I look back on my early posts and smile and frown - the laughably optimistic first film script idea, the adventures of Roy the Superintendent, the walks up and down the stairs of tall buildings, the flower fields, the furniture, the separation, the basketball, and the lists. And the utter consistency of my preditable pattern - two rambling and not re-readable posts followed by one keeper, to be anthologized in some future book. 33.3% isn't so bad. I guess I'm writing this to say I don't know if Blueprint Blue has ever had or will ever have a personality. I hope it does get one. I think I have a personality though. It's a good one.

A few updates: I saw The Hold Steady live again on Monday night. It was an amazing and joyous show, one that climaxed with pogo-ing young people on the tiny Troubadour stage. For a band that sings almost exclusively of drugs and misfits and drinking and trouble and violence, their fans sure are a well-scrubbed clean-living bunch. And yes that includes me. Here's their new video.

I am immersed in solving puzzles to find secret treasures. Yes, I am talking about Secrets of the Alchemist Dar! You're surprised - isn't that a little outsider/nerdy for you, AF? Sure, I am not a fan of fantasy and science fiction. I do not like video games. I have never seen an episode of Firefly and doubt its quality. I think animation is cute and all but why not use real people? But give me a crudely written book with ridiculously detailed drawings that hold clues which, if figured out, will yield locations at which secret treasures worth between $12,000 and $300,000 can be found and I'll be up until the late hours figuring out if a 4x8 grid is more likely than a 5x5 and why the theme this time seems to be circles and not squares. And why, if a doth is supposed to be half-dog and half-moth, does Pook look almost exactly like a dog with after-the-fact moth wings attached to his flanks?

As most of you know, John Hollinger's list ranking the NBA's players from best to worst is partially available on espn.com. The Timberwolves have the 6th best and 6th worst players in the league! I'll let you guess who those two might be. The full text requires a financial investment so I direct you instead to freedarko's list of the most "freedarko" players in the NBA. To understand what that descriptor truly means, I suggest reading this freedarko-related McSweeneys piece and this fascinating discussion (be sure to read the comments) on NBARS (NBA racial semiotics).

Finally, I want to commend my former employer for replacing their leader (Roy from the first parag.) with a militaristic but seemingly brilliant new leader with no school district experience whatsoever. Somehow I think it will work. Good luck Dave.