Have some cool ideas now for squeezing more floor space. But it will have to wait until some more inventory turns over. When people stop buying it kinda' forces you into business hibernation. Just keep the dust off of stuff until they come back.

Let's go back to what this is all about. Old Abraham agreed to mutilate the sex organs of his offspring for eternity in exchange for a piece of worthless desert. Talk about a raw deal... Anyway the twelve tribes are back to being the king of the hill and daring anybody to knock them off. Gee, like nobody's ever done that before. They've all been mutilating sex organs for generations making a whole bunch of angry men. What would you expect to happen? For the muslims, this happens at puberty. For others - it's the first thing that happens after their first gasp of air. The two most traumatic times in a man's life and we celebrate by taking a knife to their manlihood. Gee, no wonder everybody's twisted.

Fueling them on are the people with the weird dreams. Hey we all have weird dreams. So what? I dreamed I was cavorting naked with Cameron Diaz, but that doesn't mean a heck of a lot. I encounter people every day who hear divine voices but I'm not sure I'd pick up a gun and do whatever they tell me. But there are places where this is all considered normal.

Israel's latest move has had the effect of creating a leadership vacuum for Palestine. Bonk! If there's anything that has been learned over the last 100 years of wars and dirty tricks and stuff it's that you don't create a leadership vacuum because somebody will come along and fill it. It's never who you expected. More often than not it's a meglomaniac that talks about kicking butt for transgressions real and imagined.

The British are stepping in to their first military operation since the Falklands. Now that we've mopped up the worst of the Afghan forces we'll sit back and let the Brits try out a few of their smart bombs and get some combat practice. Operation Ptooey or something like that. Named for an arctic bird. You see these guys have had a lot of arctic training. I can only shake my head in disbelief. Everybody wants to be in this war. Hey the more, the merrier, right?

Stopped in at the local Indian market (that would be a 7-11 to those from elsewhere); and decided to try a little ginseng extract with my coffee. Oh about six vials. Buzzzzzzzzzz.... The day isn't going by any faster but all the reeds are arranged.

I've let slide a lot of the absurd news lately because it seems to be hitting from all sides. Here's one... Remember the kid who flew a Cessna into a - what was it? Florida? highrise and sympathized with the Taliban or some such. Now his mom is suing the maker of his... get this... zit medicine. It's all their fault. The skin creme apparently makes you pick up microwave transmissions from aliens. OK, I made that part up. The mom claims the creme made her son crazy and delusional. Psssttt, mum... hate to tell you but you're right - it's chemicals that did this. But it wasn't the zit creme. Hormones. Coincidentally that's what caused the zits.

This guy walks in - early 60's, long white hair. Wants to rent out my store room. You see the store room has a large safe in it. Then he starts telling me about the bankruptcy and the messy divorce. He ran the local gun store for 50 years. Then somebody drove a truck through the door and pulled a Terminator. Then he moved. Now he's out of business. Hint to the ex-wife: are you freaking nuts? Just walk away quietly. He's got a hummer - the real one, desert camo and all. Enough guns to arm a small country. This is a serious white anglo-saxon protestant we're talking about. Needs a business address because the county won't let you keep a federal fiream license without a store front. Now I realize that my home page graphic implies I might have some second amendment sympathies, and I already knew this guy by name - but I'm picturing mums walking in with their pre-teen kids for clarinet lessons and this crazy man is selling M-16's down the hall. Well OK you can't buy those legally anymore but you get the picture. Had to let this opportunity pass.

It was an earthquake, that's for sure. About 1.2 on the Richter scale. How did I arrive at that number? It was just enough to briefly rattle the snares on the snare drum. No swinging chandeliers or anything like that. 2.0 would have the bass guitar resonating. 1.4 would make the Victrola needle vibrate enough to make a very rude sound emanate from that device. No, it was definitely 1.2. But high frequency. So it was more likely a larger earthquake, further away. Thanks to the web, it was magnitude 1.9 - 1 mile ENE of the Geysers. Not bad for a snare drum, eh?