Still can't shake this flu; temperature still three digits. So I slept most of the day. And now I've settled in by the television to treat myself to two straight hours of Cops -- one hour on Court TV and another hour on Fox.

That ought to get my mind off my ill health.

Less congested in the Dakotas? Maybe I should bring my sinuses there. I made it to the docotr yesterday afternoon and the strp test came up negative. He said to me, "You just have a flu bug, you big jerk."

Well, he didn't actually say the last three words. For some reason I always infer an additional three words to my doctor's advice. Like when he was telling me about the various things I'd need to do to control my hypertension he sternly warned me to, "Lose weight, you fat bastard." Again, he didn't actually say the last part, but I heard it.

I've been asleep since about 6 p.m., so I may be awake for a while. (And sleeping with a fever I have the craziest dreams -- too disjointed to even report.)

I hate to blog with "hat in hand" (so to speak) but I'm calling for photos.

During the festivities at Spumoni South we posed for some photos with the Lemoncello and Orancello shotglass-equivalents. We also did "chins" versions of those shots, too. I don't remember seeing any of them. Thanks in advance if they turn up.

I've been busy working days and last night and will try to tie up loose ends before leaving to teach in North Dakota next week. As Nebraska is an order of magnitude less congested than the east coast, so North Dakota is an order of magnitude less congested than Nebraska. Hopefully it will be a nice change of pace. Tarka will appreciate the cooler temperatures.

When I left Ohio on Tuesday, Mojo was suffering from strep. Now I think it's my turn: fever, head pressure, aches. Maybe it's just a flu virus, but in any event I'm going to the doctor later. Right now I'm under two blankets and I still feel cold.

I have to say I agree with your sentiment there, John. I purchased Via Voice from IBM several years ago with the intention of talking to my computer whenever a bright idea struck, because they don't stick. Unfortunately, my Ozark accent confused the program and it totally fouled up anything I tried to say. Supposedly VISTA will be much more voice oriented and more browser objects will be aural in the future, but IBM told me they didn't think that they could ever get a machine to orient to a southern or hillbilly voice. . .*sigh* They offered me my money back, so I can at least say they were fair.

I am a frenetic multi-tasker. That's one of the (many) reasons the long drive on I-80 is so difficult for me. Someone needs to develop a way to blog and drive at the same time -- all the good conversation ideas hit you while you're on the open road. Especially when there's no one with you to actually reality-test the brilliance of your original insight. So there I was today, tooling across the wide and vapid expanse of Pennsylvania, the Jeep's rear speakers blasting Led Zeppelin, my jaws slowly gnawing a giant wad of beef jerky, my mind wandering on every imaginable subject.

I had lots of great ideas for blog posts.

And now that I'm home, I've forgotten all of them.

It was definitely a rule violation. Mojo and I had spent a busy morning shopping at Target and fussing at the house. I thought we'd get some lunch before heading back to Strongsville to watch the Mets and Indians on ESPN play a spring training game.

Mojo made me drive past the McDonalds because it had no playground. So I drove to the next cluster of shops. There were several fast food options here: a Breugger's Bagels, a Quiznos, a Panera. Surely Mojo would like something. There was even a small pizzeria which I considered a last resort -- foraging as I was in one of the many strip malls that leaven the pasty flavorless heart of Wonder-Bread America, I considered it a meta-physical certainty that the pizza there would be mediocre at best and likely much worse.

But of course, Mojo didn't want a sandwich. So I walked dejectedly into Capri Pizza. The lunch special was two slices and a drink. Perfect. I would feed Mojo while fighting down a slice of my own.

But a strange thing happened when we got the food to the table. The pizza was good. Not Ohio good; Brooklyn good. I couldn't believe it. I got another slice -- sicilian. Good stuff. I congratulated the guy behind the counter on a job well done. I took a menu. Because we will be back.

I had broken the Ohio Pizza Rule (which is itself authorized by an increasingly destabilized constitution of NYC-snobbery). And for it I was rewarded handsomely.

Funny you should mention the roll of yellow tape, I almost pulled one out today. After this weekend's conference a fellow attendee and I were driving east on I-80 when he announced over the radio that he needed to take the next exit to "cut the cord," a local euphamism for brunz activity. I parked upwind of the gas station rest room "just in case." His lengthy visit caused me to consider pulling out the aforementioned roll of yellow "Do Not Enter" tape to distinguish the hot zone but in the end (no pun intended) it was safer in the car. After he was done, and we were both driving again, he got on the radio and suggested that the toilet might have stretch marks, immediately reminding me of a similar conversation a little over a week ago. Indeed, I couldn't resist asking if he had taken a photo of the prodigious log for submission to Rate My Poo but he was unprepared for his date with infamy.

Thanks to Ellie for reminding me that I hadn't shared all of the electronic photos shared with me in Spumoin South. We found some photos that we hadn't seen of Joe and Jessica's wedding, and a photo of the elusive Frylock with the Wonderdog. Looks like we're going to have to get a photo-quality printer. Thanks again to everyone for sharing your photos.

The sauce bottle to the left of this post is a special one. Spontaneous Combustion Hot Sauce is one of the early first hot sauces that we enjoyed. In fact, was the first bottle of many habanero sauces of many that our merry band finished in a recently favored bar-b-q restaraunt. Unfortunately, as a group we've seen that restaraunt, as well as far too many of our favorite bar-b-q restaraunts, close. We-b-smokin', Smoke Pitt and Buster's we shall miss you.

I don't know a thing about garbage disposals except what I read online since I never had one. While researching your sprayer problem I found tips on maintaining your garbage disposal half way down this page. Although I suspect mineral deposit buildup on the spring in your spray head that opinion might only prove why I'm not a plumber. I hope that you're ready to visit hardware stores more than once a day as I've noticed that as soon as you fix one thing something else breaks. Your worst-case scenario, a replacement, should be relatively quick and cheap. Be glad you don't live here, a very old and formerly small house that had one small addition after another. There are water pipes, sewer pipes, and electrical condiut everywhere. I expect to find water or sewer pipes connected to electrical conduit some day.

It was just a matter of time. Not a question of if, but when.

A little earlier I was cleaning some of the stuff we've been using in the kitchen. I pulled out the spray hose thing from the sink faucet to squirt some water on some things I was washing. I depressed the little lever, the main faucet cut off and the spritz action began.

So far so good.

Then I released the little lever. It kept spritzing. I tried to pull backward on the little lever. No change. I slapped it. banged it on the side of the sink. Still spritzing. Turned the water off and on. Spritz.

I turned off the water. Unwilling to be defeated (as in, "unwilling to be mildly defeated") I extended the hose and unscrewed the cap to the little shower head. It came off easily along with the little lever from the back. As I caught the two loose pieces in each palm a third component announced itself -- a white cylindrical piece of plastic that forms the inside of the nozzle. It slipped out smartly and rolled directly down the throat of, hey what's this, the garbage disposal.

I never had a garbage disposal before (wasn't even aware I had one now). Therefore I never had anything useful/valuable fall into one. Yet somehow, I knew better than to shove my hand in after it. So I got out the spaghetti-tongs and after a few minutes of playing "Operation" (as in, "removing my own funny bone") I retrieved the wayward hardware.

But the faucet is still stuck in spritzer mode. With the lever removed I can see all too well the little rounded button the activates the spray head. Maybe if I get some needle-nose pliers I can back it out -- if I can get a grip on the damned thing.

It didn't take long, but there I stood, like Uncle Vinny at the ladder-head tangled in half-lit Christmas lights, quietly muttering to myself: sonofabeetch.

If Airport Guy decides to use that hot sauce, they're going to have to put yellow warning tape around his ass the next morning.

Still need vidoes of fiery cataclysm? Set up a toilet cam -- you'll at least catch the smoldering aftermath.

Emergency response indeed -- I suspect it was a habanero pepper that first caused a desperate responder to bark out: secure the perimeter!

Guido and I used to bombard each other with hot sauce gifts (another reason I normally trek to Kosters -- though it doesn't seem quite the same under new management). While I was still at the Law Journal (wha? about 10 years ago?) I had a bottle of Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally sauce that I kept on my desk. A few sprinkles of that stuff could make a typical deli gyro into something extraordinary.

BTW, I'm sitting here in my front window taking in our new view of our new street. I'm drinking coffee from a mug with a volcano image on the side. The volcano is dormant until you add hot liquid -- then the ash cloud fades and a lava explosion is revealed. Take it as another hot sauce warning.

(Oh, and there's a dinosaur in the scene as well; when the cup gets hot, the eyes turn red. Way cool.)