Strange books

I was searching on Amazon for a beard trimmer, and included in the results were these:
Earn Extra Money In Your Spare Time Selling Beard And Mustache Trimmers On-line by James Orr and Jassen Bowman (Audio CD - 2007)
and
The Guru's How To Earn Extra Money, Godfather Principles and Accounting & Finance for Beard And Mustache Trimmers Businesses 3 CD Power Pack by Raul Z Thomas (Audio CD - 2007)

I have to think there is some automated script gone mad here.

July 4th

Today is the day when, in the words of Apu from The Simpsons, you "celebrate your country's independence by blowing up a small part of it". Our local fireworks display starts at 9pm, and since about mid-day, there have been occasional detonations, crackles and screamers. I expect we'll get the same for a few more days or (if last year is a guide) even occasionally for a couple of months.

My dog, Dylan (http://picasaweb.google.com/animoose/Dylan), hates it. He retreats to his crate, which is his normal place of safety, with his tail tucked right down. As the bangs get louder, he will shake and pant with fear, and look for other hiding places (the shower, closets). He's not the only dog in the neighbourhood who gets like this. Some people on our street have a big, bouncy Chesapeake retriever, who turns into a nervous wreck today. It's very sad to see. If we could just have one official display, it would not be so bad. Poor guys.

Isaac Guillory

It was nice to see a posting on metafilter about Isaac Guillory (http://www.metafilter.com/62569/Isaac-Guillory-performs-in-Berkeley) with links to videos of him in performance. He was a fine musician and a very engaging person. You walked way from his performances feeling the world was a better place.

I noticed that one of the comments on the videos was by bzeliotis. He was my guitar teacher in Cambridge around 1991-92, and he refers to a concert we were both at.