Silflay Hraka

Or so I assume

A new song is wending its way up Scotty M’s nighttime chart.

Peanut sitting on the railroad track,
His heart was all a-flutter.
Round the bend came the L&N
Toot toot!, peanut butter!

We repeat the verse four or five times, singing more quietly and softly each time, except for the “Toot toot!”, which remains as loud and as shrill as one can possibly make it, until we’re just mouthing the words. It’s actually part of a larger song, called “It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More,” though we never sing the other verses. Until I googled it, I didn’t even realize there were other verses.

Ngnat likes it as well. She’s also much better at timing the final train whistle than Scotty is. He doesn’t even bother, really, instead filling the silence with an enthusiastic hissing, as if the engineer had decided to stand on the brakes at the very last minute.

She’s also created her own version.

Peanut sitting in the middle of the road,
His heart was all a-flutter.
Round the bend came a mini-van
Toot toot!, peanut butter!

She gets it honest. I’ve done the same thing for years, sometimes without thinking. One day, many years ago, after what seemed to be an inordinate number of flyovers from the Marine air base across the river from the Methodist camp I worked at, I rewrote Angels We Have Heard On High in under five minutes. Would have sworn I’d inflicted it upon the blog before, but I can find no record of doing so, so here it is.

Airplanes we have heard on high
Noise is filling up the sky.
Look there goes one overhead.
God I wish it would drop dead.*

Che-eee-eee-eee-ry Point, Send your airplanes elsewhere.
Che-eee-eee-eee-ry Point, Send your airplanes elsewhere.

Geek. Geekgeekgeekgeekgeekgeekgeek. But damn, was it popular, there for a while, among the Methodist pre-teens. Not quite as popular as the Old McDonald Indian chant, but that’s not the type of thing can be transcribed.

Probably for the best, really.

*Not very patriotic of me, I realize. I must plead the callowness of youth. Were I doing it today, I’d rewrite it to “knocked me out of bed,” or something equally innocuous.

Real-Life friends of Hraka redefine cool, over at The Technology Tar Pit.

If you are not using sage on Firefox, you are just not cool.

Yes, it’s kind of a geeky cool. No surprises there. Did you think I hung out with super models?

From LTC Bob, our avifaunalist in Iraq.

This evening the command of Multi-National Corps-Iraq transferred from the US Army III Corps to the XVIII Airborne Corps, from Ft Bragg. LTG Tom Metz, the III Corps commander and his staff head back to Ft Hood. LTG John Vines and his staff from Ft Bragg take over command and operations of MNC-I.

For the occasion, the Al Faw Palace here at Camp Victory was lit up for the first time in over six months ? not sure when exactly they did it last, but one of the guys who works for me has been here that long and never seen the lights on. The Transfer of Authority ceremony was held in the rotunda of the palace.

He attached this photo. I’ve checked around to see if there was another photo of Al-Faw at night. Didn’t find one, so I figure there’s at least a smidgen of journalistic value there. Plus, it’s pretty.

Other MNF-I pictures can be seen here, and there’s a profile of the new commander, LTG Vines, here. There’s not a great deal of coverage on the handover in the press. A fairly standard treatment of the story can be seen at the Mercury News site, and a photo of the handover ceremony can be seen here. No idea if LTC Bob is one of those pictured.

Bugmenot login for dfw.com, for those who may be blocked: bogusname@yahoo.com/bogusname1

Update: Yahoo has the same picture here, with no annoying registration.

A Friday song, for the newly discovered plethora of Fishbone fans out there. It’s “Ma and Pa,” which takes a depressing subject, in this case divorce, and makes it cheery and upbeat, a feat ska manages to do at a much higher rate than other genres.

Unsurprising, really, given the afterbeat stress the genre practically requires. A ska band could cover Ben Fold’s “Brick,” and people would be out the floor dancing, telling each other how happy the song makes them.

As always, the extremely erratically posted Friday track will only be around for a while, so enjoy it while you can. Those who might wish to purchase a Fishbone greatest hits album will find one here.

This man is destined to rule the world. I don’t know why I feel this. I just do.