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Every time I turn around, the world is losing another icon of my youth, and this time it was Scotty: James Doohan dead at 85.

If you were a Trekkie like me, there’s nothing I can add to this moment, so here are some links to celebrate his life and work:

StarTrek.com’s tribute article from last August.

Doohan emotional farewell at September’s convention.

Wikipedia’s profile of the actor, including a mention of his early work in devising the Vulcan and Klingon languages on Star Trek.

Profile on the Star Trek Wiki.

Profile on the Internet Movie Database.

Scotty on Flickr.

And we close with my favorite Scotty quote of all time, from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: “The more ya over-tink the plumbin’, the easier it is to stob up the drain.”

Words to live by.

For the second evening in a row, I’ve been preoccupied with Flickr — except tonight I’ve done less browsing of other people’s pictures and more uploading of my own. It gets especially addicting when I’ll upload one, and before I can get the next one posted, someone has already commented on or bookmarked my previous one — it’s like instant gratification!

And one positive side effect of this exercise is that it’s making me appreciate my extensive photo collection (over 10,000 shots with our Sony in the 30 months that we’ve had it!). The cloud photo above is one that I’ve had on my hard drive since last November and completely forgotten about.

So go check it out: There are more pictures of Molly and Schotzy, including a bath-time picture of Schotzy that I don’t think I’ve ever posted before.

Earlier today I was composing a multi-part post, but then I figured I’d upload a few photos of Molly to Flickr while I was thinking about it, then I get caught up in going through my archives, and it was Goodbye Productivity for the rest of the evening. (I only got through February of this year of my photos.)

I got about 10 modified and uploaded, then I started browsing the tags on Flickr, starting with Sheltie and Pomeranian and Lubbock and Buddy Holly and the GoGo’s and the most popular Flickr categories — and, well, long story short, found bunches and bunches of cool stuff, and got lots of ideas of stuff I need to upload and scan.

So that’s why I haven’t posted more tonight. This could definitely become an addiction for anybody (you have been warned).

Anyway, about this picture here: It’s not often that a good picture of me is taken, but this is one of them (you should see the ones that didn’t make the cut), so I uploaded it to Flickr, along with some other stuff, so check out my gallery.

Also: This guy on Flickr (from Lubbock!) did a cool little morph of his school pictures, from first grade through high school. It’s pretty neat; I need to do that too. I’ll need to harvest a lot of photos from my mom’s albums next time I’m there, but I’m sure the pictures are there …

We had rain again, two days in a row, so I took some pictures, since a downpour of rain is a darn sight more picturesque than our usual downpour of blistering hot sunlight. Of course, you can’t see it very well in this picture, but stop whining; this picture looks better than the ones where the rain is clearly visible, so this is the one you get.

About an hour before the rain started, we dragged the weed-trimmer and the edger and several hundred feet of electrical cord around to the front to do some badly needed maintenance. This just happened to be the same time that the yard crew showed up to work on the yard next door. By the time I got the cords untangled and Karlyn got the yard edged, the five of them finished the front and back of our neighbor’s yard, and the head of that crew asked if they could do our yard too. We told them no, that we had just edged and were about to trim, and that we would mow the next day.

As I swept up the yard trash we had made so far, I began thinking about how they probably needed the money, and about how miserably humid it was, and how fast the storm clouds were moving in, and how fast they worked, so I went back to the head guy and asked how much he would want just to do the front, and he said $15.

Sold American.

I had told him that all we needed was just the mowing — no trimming or hedge clipping — but apparently that part never made it past the language barrier, because they did it all, and in the time it took me to take our equipment around back, they had finished. Seriously, they attacked the yard like a swarm of beneficial locusts, and did a really fine job of it.

Best fifteen dollars I spent all year. Plus, like I said, they needed it more than we did.

But you don’t want to hear me yammer about yard work, so check out this list of the ten best TV sitcom sidekicks. Can you guess which actor made the list twice?

(Via Z-Filter.)

The new Harry Potter book comes out at midnight tonight, but if you can’t wait that long to buy it (and more time to actually read it) to find out the big secrets, then go to Stallman.org, and click on the “plot information” link.

Mr. Stallman divulges, as revealed by his anonymous source, the identity of the “half-blood prince” of the title, and the identity of the major character who is killed.

Of course, you can never be sure about rumors like these, but the name of the victim aligns with information that I have previously heard, so I tend to believe it.

You’re welcome …

Why I’m Not Posting Tonight: Because I’m busy scanning stuff, that’s why.

This is some stuff I’ve been meaning to scan for a long time — some print-media “mashups”, as such things are called now, that I did compulsively in the late 80′s.

Meanwhile check out this great post on our modern mashup culture, with the best post title I’ve seen all year: Mashups and Quodlibets Have Driven Us Apart – BBC in Hot Water for Huh?

Pretty cool, huh? When I get a chance I’m going to put that picture, or one similar, into my page header.

In case you’re just tuning in, that logo in the picture was a birthday present from The Spook in May.

It’s always handy to have a friend in metal fabrication.

Anyway, you can see that I’ve been dabbling in page redesign in recent days, but I’m still not satisfied; my graphics program keeps artifactifying my graphics, so I’ve got to replace it — or better yet, to metal-logo-ize it. The whole design process is also slowed down by the fact that I’m trying to figure out PHP and CSS files, after years of trying to get the hang of HTML.

Anyway:

We watched Brat Camp tonight; it’s not bad. It’s interesting to see how they go about de-programming juvenile delinquents.

At least it’s beter than the new season of Big Brother; it’s as if the producers said, “This year we’ve got to get closer to 100% Barbie-and-Ken saturation in our contestants!”. Actually, that’s not quite true: The Arab-American guy adds a nice to the show, a nice change from the rest of those model-bots. Unfortunately, he’s already been nominated, and just might be the first person kicked out tomorrow.

Back now to the pictures: This is the table I cleaned last week (click to see it bigger). I’m not posting this photo to show off how clean it is, since you didn’t see it when it was a towering mess; I’m mostly just showing you this to show off what a geek I am.

Finally: I don’t know what the name of this game is (the name shows up in Asian characters), but it sure is cool. It’s slow but it’s sweet.

Just like me.

Anyway: Go get some sleep.

As promised yesterday, I listened to Willie Nelson’s new reggae album Countryman, and now I’m reporting back.

It’s pretty entertaining — but then I’ve always been fond of the reggae and ska beats.

Country music is another matter: I could lose my Texas citizenship for saying this, but I’ve never had much of a taste for the twangy arts. When I was growing up, we considered the music of Porter Waggoner and Ernest Tubb to be for ignorant hicks and old people. Now that I’m grown and I no longer have such rebellion issues, I just don’t find anything appealing about Nashville’s current ghost-written crossover-pop output, just like I have no interest in the work of Britney Spears or the Backstreet Boys.

(I do have a fondness for some bluegrass, strangely enough, although I prefer it in small doses.)

Willie Nelson, on the other hand, is the exception to every rule. He has the power to do whatever he wants, including, apparently, writing intelligent country songs. This new album includes nine Willie originals, and they’re all excellent specimens of well-crafted country songs: Very melodic, and embodying the classic country themes of loss and longing.

The reggae beat, on the other hand, as lovely as it sounds, doesn’t quite fit in at this pity party. The words say, “You left me a long time ago”, the music says, “Don’t worry, be happy.”

It doesn’t quite fit.

On the other hand, Willie has whipped up a couple of songs of apocalyptic heartbreak — “Darkness on the Face of the Earth” and “I’ve Just Destroyed the World” — and the tropical beat provides a weird sci-fi soundtrack. When you’ve got lyrics like “The stars fell out of heaven and the moon could not be found / The sun was in a million pieces scattered all around”, reggae sounds strangely appropriate.

This collection also includes two authentic reggae songs (covers of Jimmy Cliff standards) and Johnny Cash’s Jamaica-inspired “I’m a Worried Man”, but the rest of the album is basically Hank Williams-caliber C&W with a Kingston band backing it up.

But it’s definitely worth a listen, especially if you like country or reggae or both.

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Anyway, here are some more notes on the subject:

Last night, Jay Leno said, Willie Nelson has recorded his new albums with reggae musicians — ya think there was any smoke in THAT studio?

Ha!

Here’s the review in the Washington Times, and I agree with how the reviewer summed up the CD: “If he had performed ‘Countryman’ with real conviction and an eye toward invention, not just to scratch an itch to conquer uncharted territory, Mr. Nelson would have had something.”

At a recent Nashville gig with Bob Dylan, Nelson forgot to plug new album.

Must be all that glaucoma medication.

Here’s Willie’s official website, but it’s funny how there’s no information on the new album,or any way to order it on the site.

Looks like a lot of his folks are fending off that old glaucoma monster …

Reggae: Jamaican Reggae Archives, The Reggae Source, BobMarley.com, UK Reggae News, Reggae Riddims database, JimmyCliffOnline.com and the Reggae Festival Guide.

Wikipedia’s entries on Willie Nelson and Reggae.

Bluegrass: I mentioned that I like some bluegrass, and here’s the bluegrass I like the best: Run C&W, an early 90′s country supergroup (including Bernie Leadon of the Eagles and Russell Smith of The Amazing Rhythm Aces) that specialized in wonderful covers of old Motown hits.

“Willie Nelson takes Reggae turn, mon.” And Walmart pressures his record company to take the cannabis leaves off the album cover.

I just got a copy of the album at a really fair price, so I’ll let you know how it sounds.

In other psychoactive news:

Company pulls pot-flavored suckers off the market.

(Via Look at This.)

“Hemp dog treat high in nutrition.” Get it? It’s high in nutrition — get it??

Teens more likely to try marijuana in the summer.

Idle hands, meet devil’s workshop.

North Dakotans back hemp as industrial crop for state.

And what post of mine would be complete with the Obligatory Iceland Reference?: A Stoner’s Guide to Reykjavik.

Turn your doberman into a poodle.

Ha! He looks so proud!