Soldier Ant 

John Tolva has been spending time with Les Paul, and it sounds like an amazing experience:

He is obviously physically well; Les Paul plays two sets every Monday night at the Iridium club in NYC. But what strikes you is how mentally sharp he is. His stories do not ramble but arc right when they should. His tinkerer's mind grasps technology concepts that elude people half his age. And his ear -- despite hearing aids -- detects the textural differences between pianos made a few centuries apart.

Like there was ever any doubt: LeeAnn and I have decided to keep Kirby. It's really not been any decision at all -- he's such a polite and gentle dog. We actually made the decision a couple weeks ago, during the holidays. I was waiting to write something up here until I got a decent picture of him. These aren't great, but they certainly show how relaxed he's become around us.

Healthwise, he's doing great. His last trip to the vet was for a dental cleaning and neutering. No problems with either, and he's almost ready to start long walks again in the evening. (He's been on limited excercise until the stitches heal.) There was indeed a tumor on one of his testicles, but the biopsy showed it to be benign. Whew.

In fact, his last lingering health problem is a persistent infection in his left ear, and I think that yesterday brought a breakthrough in that area, so to speak. When I woke Kirby in the morning to let him out with Dozer and Polly, I found his ear coated with the foulest brown wax (hard, plasticey and pea-sized stuck in the fur around his ear) and a slick of oily gunk around it.

It looks like, all these weeks, he's been plagued by a thick cap of wax that was holding captive a stagnant pool of green mucous and bacteria. Yuck. The daily earwash we'd been giving him finally loosened the whole mess out of there. (Thank GOD! We were just preparing to take him for another round at the Vets. I haven't mentioned it here yet, but Kirby's health woes are quickly becoming our financial woes.)

So we think he's going to be alright. His hearing has certainly improved today.

So I just noticed the trailer online for V for Vendetta and it looks... interesting. I know that hopes are generally low (I myself was less than pleased with some of the more 'Transporter 3'-like action shots) but I'm willing to give it a shot.

Each of our three dogs has, to one degree or another, exhibited food aggression. If you're not a dog person, let me explain: it's an aggressive (snarling, growling or - at worst - biting) stance that a dog will take over his or her food bowl to warn others, be they human, canine or feline, to back off and stay away.

So here's what I'm wondering: I've never seen a dog exhibit water-bowl aggression. Even our Miss Polly, who is by far the worst of the lot with the food thing, has no concerns whatsoever about sharing her water-trough with the others. Doesn't even bat an eyelash. I've seen her and Dozer face-down in the water bowl at the same exact time. (He always lifts out and drips all over the top of her head. It's a mess.) Do you suppose dogs have some rudimentary instinctual scarcity model for food that doesn't apply to (generally abundant) water?

A bit of British maritime history, the Maunsell Towers (with pictures!):

The Thames Estuary Army Forts were constructed in 1942 to a design by Guy Maunsell, following the successful construction and deployment of the Naval Sea Forts. Their purpose was to provide anti-aircraft fire within the Thames Estuary area. Each fort consisted of a group of seven towers with a walkway connecting them all to the central control tower. The fort, when viewed as a whole, comprised one Bofors tower, a control tower, four gun towers and a searchlight tower. They were arranged in a very specific way, with the control tower at the centre, the Bofors and gun towers arranged in a semi-circular fashion around it and the searchlight tower positioned further away, but still linked directly to the control tower via a walkway.

A baby-faced Kiefer introduces his grandfather's (onetime Canadian premiere Tommy Douglas) Mouseland, an animated illustration of how, politically, we are all screwed.

So my bizarre enlarged heart syndrome must be a familial malady. Now my brother's trying to save a couple of dogs out in Arkansas. (He's there on a job. He moves around a lot.) The pups are two sisters - black and.. lab-ish and they look really cute. I was worried for a while there, because it sounds as if rural Arkansas is no place to be a dog (but friend to the chicken!) But Brian and his buddies onsite are looking out for them, and his fiancee Lisa will be on the scene come Friday. And you just don't mess with Lisa.