This is Kahlua. She and her Papa are the latest housemates. She’s nervous about her new surroundings, but she’s getting acclimated.

Thus, it has been a hectic week. I have people moving into my house and people moving out and a lovely visit from my Uncle Jay. That’s springtime for you.

If anyone is wondering, the upgrade from Palm to Winders OS has been an upgrade indeed. I have long been a Palm adherent, but the Winders platform is so much better integrated and the sucker can do so much more out of the box. I am expecting a card reader in the mail with the hopes that will permit me to swap data without syncs all the damned time. And of course the new kneetop computer, if it ever arrives, has an SD slot.

I made a play button (scroll down, you can’t miss it). Man, is that cool. I swiped the link code from Radio Dismuke. Thanks!

Also, I just found a bit of a workaround to whatever problem eMusic is having with its “add album to list” script. If you go to “view source” and search for “add an album,” you’ll find the link that controls this function. You paste it into the browser window after the “emusic.com,” and you go to the page. Spiffy.

Update: This is a heck of a way to spend an afternoon. But I figured out a better spot for the play button and found better code for “now playing” list. The only problem is that you have to choose whether or not the list represents V.I.P. members or non-subscribed listeners. I may at some point randomize the sucker or find a way to make it toggle.

I have added a mess of songs to the playlist and have deleted a whole bunch more, as per the Radio B.O.N.K programming formula. I have also added a new link category, “Playlist Via EMusic.” The JavaScript on the eMusic site seems to be broken, not allowing me to add a track to my playlist there. I hope it is fixed because I like the idea of keeping a playlist there to show what kind of fabulous selections are available there. But direct links to albums featured there and here is a good idea too. Check out Amelia Ray’s album. She’s a friend of mine, a former D.C. resident, and she’s awesome. I think she sounds like Betty Wright.

This conversation I had with my Dad last weekend still sticks in my head. He, my Uncle Pat and I were driving home from a yummy lunch of chips and margaritas at Mexicali Blues followed by a grocery trip to the Whole Fuds. The Creative was on mix and some rap song came on, and my Pops totally dissed rap music, saying that he didn’t think these guys actually had anything to say and that they didn’t do much writing or thinking. I immediately tracked down Sage Francis’ “Crack Pipes” and made them listen for the rest of the drive home. I don’t think it helped.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t adore everything hip-hop does. I’m only just now coming around to Biggie Smalls, and that’s just from hearing Artie Lange do his stuff on The Show. But I do have a couple acts who over the years have just stunned the hell out of me. I’m a cracker who loves Public Enemy (what the mainstream media used to call “disaffected white adolescents.” I never thought I was disaffected. I just thought “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” was a masterpiece.). I love Da Inner Sound Ya’ll (De La Soul). I think M.C. Serch is Sallieri and that Sage Francis is frickin’ Mozart. Have recently started listening to Them, who’s sort of a mashup of P-Funk and Andre 3000, you know, if that mashup rapped weird stuff. And you can bet your sweet bippy I’ve season passed “Ego Trip’s Miss Rap Supreme.”

I like hip-hop. I like that it has history and respect for its history. That’s why I like the ska so much. Later performers look back on guys like Desmond and Alphonso and they get down on their knees in song. Hip-hop has the same reverence for guys like Grandmaster Flash and Afrikaa Bambaataa. Music without reverence is just a product created for sale. Of course, there’s a lot of that in hip-hop. But there are also the gems, like Sage, who for me is the best rapper on the planet.

Anyway. It was an interesting little discussion, especially to be had with my Pops, who considers Blackstreet’s “No Diggity” to be some sort of masterpiece. It’s never dull talking to my old man.

Amendment: This entry is not meant to disparage the musical taste of my Father. He is actually one of the most knowledgeable people I know regarding the subject. He is, after all, the man who introduced me to The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Paul Butterfield, and The Black Keys, among countless others. Nope, Dad’s cool, and I can see his point about rap muzick. But there certainly is some good stuff out there as well.

Goodness knows I love Cyndi Lauper. But the “dance” “music” they played of hers at the outro on The Show today was just bad. I’m just saying.

Radio B.O.N.K. needs the following songs:

• Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing In The Shadows, The Rolling Stones
• Nights On Broadway, Bee Gees
• It Stoned Me, Van Morrison

I had Monday and Tuesday off from the day job, specifically to install FIOS and to fire Comcast. Mission accomplished. But once the install was done, there was left to figure out what to do with the rest of the afternoon.

How about buying a new smartphone with Mobile Windows OS?

I’ve resisted it for a very long time. I’ve been shopping and debating the upgrade. I’ve been praising myself for the incredible tricks I’ve been able to teach my old Treo 650. I could listen to the radio on it. I could interact with the Web on it and do e-mail on it. I had nearly mastered the sucker.

Then, one day, I Googled the following phrase, and everything changed: “Howard Stern mobile.” I wanted to see if there was an app that would allow me to listen to The Show via my phone. There was. But it required a .net platform, which means you need the evil Microsoft.

So last evening, I was at the compyooter with my new Treo 700wx, trying to get the thing to sync, cussing a lot, then realizing that I had to select the “usbswitch” program, then first installing and trying “SiriuCE” in many incarnations and failing, then installing SiriusWM5 and having instant success. It is beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. I have also installed the Live365 software, and it is pretty damned gud as well, and there is also a web portal that allows you to log in to your XM account, though again, it appears to require .net.

Dad was down this weekend and had said they have an extra Treo with WM, and he offered it to me, but it’s probably locked for Verizon, and I’m generally very happy with my Sprint service. He and my stepmom have not been happy with theirs, partially why I was dragging my feet. But I think that to really love a Treo, you have to love installing and trying new apps. They’re just not half the geek I am. I’ve been generally ecstatic with the thing—especially as I’m at my day job plugged in to the Howard Stern Show. And the nice thing is that many of the things I had to find apps for with Palm, this thing does out of the box.

There is a downside, though: It may mean that the eee PC I’ve ordered can’t stay a Linux machine as I’d planned. How useless would it be to have a laptop with which you can’t sync your smartyphone?

Verizon FIOS is installed, and it is good. That is all.

Let’s review some recent history.

In June 2002, The Current President called for new leadership for the Palestinian Legislative Council. It’s on his Web site. He said: “I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts.”

In January 2006, they had elections, and 74 of 132 seats went to Hamas, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement. The Untied States of America insisted that the Palestinian people have democratic elections, and they did, and a group that the Untied States of America calls a terrorist organization was granted legitimacy via parliamentary majority.

The reaction of the Untied States of America was of course inflexible and weird. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a party could not “have one foot in politics and the other in terror. Our position on Hamas has therefore not changed.”

The ongoing debate regarding to whom we speak and to whom we do not is absolutely stupid. And also perhaps hypocritical. But certainly stupid. Of course we’d rather not do business with this organization. But please don’t forget that Hamas was legitimized in the PLC at the insistence of The Current President.

Also remember please that when President “The Only President In The 20th Century To Have Ever Achieved Any Measure Of Peace In The Middle East” Carter met with Hamas, he wasn’t being seditious, as the Republigoats worked hard to depict. As per Carter’s book, Peace Not Apartheid, peace in the region is only achievable if a neutral third party, namely the Untied States of America, is involved. This policy was continued through President Clinton. The current administration flipped it, disengaging from the peace process and snuggling up with Ariel Sharon. In fact, one of this assclown administration’s primary motivations for invading Iraq was get leverage in this process. Nice going.

These people. Do not know. How to do. Foreign policy. And I’m including Hillary Clinton, who continues to try to score on Mr. Obama’s statement favoring diplomacy by turning it on its ass, in “these people.” This country needs a president again who understands the Reagan-era phrase “trust, but verify,” who doesn’t insist that diplomacy is some carrot we waggle in front of an adversarie’s nose and that the only way to get anything done is to wiggle one’s balls and to beat one’s chest. This Current Administration is a savage, and it’s my opinion that a Clinton II administration or a Mcain I administration would be just as bad in varying degrees. I am so utterly glad that Da Man will be crossing a milestone today. Let’s close this thing down, let’s nominate Mr. Obama and get about the business of making sure that John McCain doesn’t get to put his finger on the button. Baby.

My recent push to fire Comcast—a move that begins in earnest tomorrow with Verizon FIOS’ first visit(no, second, first they install at the street)—has forced me to a revelation about modern tech and an unintended consequence of such. In my 20s, I converted to a cordless telephone. In my 30s, I converted to a mobile (cellular) telephone and shortly thereafter fired my landline. My house has not had a landline in perhaps five years or so, and not one tenant has complained. More and more, mobile telephone users are considering that phone, not the one tethered to the homestead, to be the main line.

However. With this trend in my home has come the obliteration of a major control center that the homes of my youth possessed, enjoyed, and probably took for granted: The big corded phone in the kitchen. That telephone was the center of communications for a household. There were a plethora of doodled-over notepads there and a bucket of pens—so if one was hunting for a scrap of paper for a grocery liszt, one always knew where to go. In some homes, there was a big corkboard with frequently called numbers, emergency numbers, and the all-important telephone number for your local favorite pizza joint. Right there by the telephone. And you didn’t wander the house talking. You stood there, had your converstation, and hung up, and the telephone stayed there tethered to the wall. Which was wonderfully convenient because one never had to spend 14 minutes wandering the house turning over comforters and couch cushions searching for the blessed mobile or cordless phone unit prior to placing that vital telephone call.

With my new package deal from FIOS comes a landline. So I had to shop for a new telephone. And all this occurred to me while standing in the aisle at my local Target store. So of course the kitchen got a corded phone. It’s just amazing, how you can eschew old tech for newer tech, then newer tech even still, and realize that maybe in some instances, the old tech was better.

Geez. Spend a weekend watching Battlestacked Galactica and looks what happens to me.