I want my hour back.

Well, at least I got a little housecleaning done yesterday. Figured out why the belt on my Kirby wasn't turning the brush or allowing the fan to turn (answer: hair) and proceeded to vacuum the carpet. (Discovery: it's blue.) Took care of the usual mess of recycling, garbage, dishes, laundry, lather, rinse, repeat.

Been working hard on my Arabic, took the day off from that yesterday but today I'm going to start practicing writing. A friend sent me an Arabic calligraphy workbook that I'm dying to try out.

And: some more time in bed.

23 (no, not the movie).

I'm moving away from posting on Flickr (and don't get me started about Yahoo). There's a really nice European-based service called 23 (http://www.23hq.com/) that I've been signed up with for several months. You can visit my 23 page here:

http://www.23hq.com/asher813

Brad Delp

You've probably already heard the news that the lead singer from Boston has died.

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=187756

Who doesn't remember their first Boston album? (The ONLY Boston album for a long time!) I played mine until it was gritty and scratchy. I loved that the band managed to fuse a progressive-rock sensibility with the infectiousness of pure pop rock. But Brad Delp's vocals really took the music someplace nobody else could go. Think about that line, "I closed my eyes and she slipped awaaaaaaaaaay!" It's burned in your brain, isn't it?

Light Reading

This is a question-and-answer drill. The examples follow the pattern of, "Do you have Arabic clothing? Yes, I have Arabic clothing. Where did you buy it? I bought it from Baghdad." The reader on the cassette speaks Egyptian dialect, pronouncing the j like g and the dh like z.

You can't buy this type of course (called FLAMRIC) in a bookstore; I purchased it out-of-pocket (for around 500USD, if I remember) from the Defense Language Institute in Monterey just after I left the service. Officially it was only for sale to active-duty personnel but they didn't ask me for ID when I mail-ordered it. I don't know whether DLI still publishes these courses or not.

It.

If you tagged me for an LJ meme, I'm not ignoring you. I've just been super busy.