Hammer Mill Days

Strangest thing. For a moment there, it seemed like time was slowing down, maybe even stopping. And my watch... it's running ... backwards . Oh, hello, blog-o-files (or, more properly, big-green-blog-o-files). What's happening in your corner of the world? I can tell you, fairly briefly, what's happening over in our patch. Pande-freaking-monium, that's what. The reason is fairly simple. We've got a new album on the verge of release - a little collection named International House , available on or about September 30 - and the assembly line is moving as fast as any sane person might imagine possible. That sucker is on fire , man... cranking out discs like greased lightening. I've never seen the man-sized tuber's root tendrils move that quickly. And Marvin (my personal robot assistant) is putting his robotic arm in a sling, handpainting all those awesome disc covers. (Each one meticulously lettered with a nylon-bristle paint brush. Painstaking!) Will they be dry...

Okay, now this is getting very strange. This is reminiscent of what my wife and I euphemistically referred to back in 2000 as the "election show" - the recount fiasco. Only this time the meltdown is happening before the voting begins. Holy jeebus - here we are in the midst of an economic train wreck that any fool could have seen coming from about a hundred miles away, and just as our bonehead president is about to close on a bailout deal, Admiral John McCain melodramatically "suspends his campaign" two days before the first presidential debate and declares that he is going to apply his renowned financial acumen to the negotiations. Next thing anyone knows, the congressional Republicans are bailing on their president's plan, raising additional provisions (like their perennial favorite, another capital gains tax cut) and digging in their heals less than a day after their leadership indicated a deal was at hand. Mission accomplished, admiral! Is it just me, or does...