WhimsyLand

While I was waiting to either find BAP in a local bookstore or give up and just Amazon it, I was staying busy doing techy research on VOIP PBX.  We all know that Vonage can hook you up with a phone that works through your broadband connection, but I was looking for a company that had a zillion servers in Kansas somewhere that would answer my phone, articulate the phone tree in the Queen's English, and connect to a VOIP phone in my office.  It turns out that Packet-8 does just that.  You order 2 or 3 VOIP phones that are connected via Ethernet.  Then when someone dials your number, they hear "Press 1 for Jeff" and it comes to my phone.  The whole thing has a web interface that lets me transfer my extension to the phone in my beachside condo in the Caymans.  Yeah, sure.

Other things done while waiting for BAP?  Received an invitation to get the NY Times daily.  Apparently, now-a-days, they transmit the entire paper to a printing press in your area and some poor schmuck gets up at 5 AM and gets it to your door in East Jesus, Wyoming.  Also, an application for yet another credit card with the AWP logo emblazoned on the front, and probably frequent flier miles every times you submit to a major litmag.   A solicitation to subscribe to The Sun, which I know nothing about except they run poetry, essays, interviews, fiction and photography.  They cite a number of noted people who gush about the pub, but I've never heard of any of them, so my guess is it was a waste of postage.  The Academy of American Poets thanked me profusely for renewing my subscriber level, which is well worth the bucks as I usually end up on their contributor page just under John Ashbery.  Then, there was the mystery check for $180 from ChevronTexaco.  Yes, it's apparently one word now.  I'm wracking my brain to figure out what I did to earn a modest sum from one of the top 5 oil companies in the world.  Said something nice about them in this blog?  Hardly possible.  My part of the settlement in a class action suit?  Maybe, but I usually throw those long documents from legal firms in the trash.  Hmm.  If I figure it out, I'll get back to you.

I did receive a nifty catalog of Viking River Cruises, whereby I could save $700 per cabin on any trip to Europe, Russia or China.  Also, a current PC Magazine titled "How To Hack Everything".  That reminds me that NPR was supposed to have a guy on yesterday talking about hacking plants.  I don't know if that means improvising your own Rocky Horror Show or what actually, but I was sad that I missed it.  I also received the HMC Electronics Catalog with such wonderments as a $2,000 "intelligent soldering station", whatever the hell that is. 

Best of the bunch was the Dean & Deluca catalog.  Ah, what decadence.  Fresh this month:   The Circle Cake (tm) which consists of a Miro-esque side frosting circling a NY cheesecake between two layers of dark chocolate, $120.  Sicilian almonds toasted "to perfection", dipped in dark chocolate and cannelitti, with a thin sugar shell, packed in a vase, $110.  Butter cookies with frosting on which is inscribed "Thank You", 18 cookies in a really nice tin, $58.50.  Dia de los Muertos cookies, a "traditional Sardinian treat", made of almonds, cinnamon and honey, $48.50 a box.  Skull Boy, Pumpkinhead, and Nosferatu Marzipan figures, set of 3 for $32.  Penguin Cookies marching from their metal box, "lovingly decorated", and only $55 for 10 ounces.  A whole lobe of foie gras de moulard, yanked out of the still throbbing carcass of a Canadian duck (poach or steam until buttery in a light broth), only $120 for a 1.5 pound slab.  One pound tin of D & D Karaburun Iranian caviar, $5600.  Smoked organic salmon, California quail, New Zealand rack of lamb, maple-cured Berkshire ham, Tunisian olive collection, red pepper and feta strudel, whitefish roe, elk tamales, English digestive pinch pots filled with black sea salt or anise seed, Imperial Torte Mignon Double, ... oh, you know, just what your grandma spread on the dining room table on T-Giving.

OK, hopefully, I won't have to stall another day.  Tomorrow, either a report on the new APR or some news about BAP.