"Bingo Jed had a light on"

The man who wrote "Big old jet airliner" the well-known Steve Miller song is dead. Paul Pena, the Genghis Blues guy passed away. I wasn't a big fan, but I has just finished reading about the tragic death of Falco- Hans Hölzel in a traffic accident in 1998 only to find out PP died immediately after.

As I mentioned, I wasn't a big Paul Pena fan but he is single-handedly responsible for one fo the best misquoted song lyrics of all time, right up there with "the ants are my friends, they're blowing in the wind", "'cuse me, while I kiss this guy", or "when a man loves a walnut" and we owe him a thanks for that alone.

I love misquoted song lyrics, I consider them on of my hobbies, along with Engrish.

I also thing Falco was brilliant- beyond just being an 80s icon, he was one of the first white rappers, without having to be a totally pompous, sexist Vanilla Ice goofball. He also wasn't copying black rappers, he just rapped because that was his style- IN GERMAN, no less. All of these horrible German gangsta rapper copycats who try to sound American have a thing to learn from old Falco.

I named my Linux server "Falco" - my wife refuses to give into my demands to name our first son "Falco", at least my server can proudly bear his name. Or maybe we can get another cool cat...

house-hunting 101

Came across this questionnaire on a website for first-time home buyers.

Wants and Needs

- Price range
$450,000 or less, if I can find it. half a million smackeroos, and I still have to fix it up. ohmigod. doesn't that get me an estate with an 8-car garage and private steambath with helipad in New Brunswick?

- Building style/design
not butt-ugly and completely surrounded by concrete, like some of the houses I've looked at.

- New construction
no. i can't afford it and why pay extra taxes to the government?

- Remodeled
no. well-kept.

- Fixer upper
yes- i want to increase the value, but not have to do major repairs or renovations.

- Minimum # bedrooms
2-3

- Bathrooms
1-2, not counting the suite downstairs, they must have their own place to poop.

- Family room
?

- Fire place
meh.

- Office/den
yes. i need somewhere to hide.

- Hardwood floors
hell, yeah.

- Swimming pool / Spa
yes. and a pleasure-garden filled with nubile young love-slaves. purely so that they can appreciate my flowers and fan me with palm fronds, of course.

- In-law quarters
if by "in-law quarters", you mean "basement suite", yes.

- Workshop
absolutely. Builder Bob be in da house! now where do i plug this reciprojigsledgamasawbigbadmofo in? wahahahaaa! ow!

- Central air conditioning
and a wet bar in every room, stocked with the finest champagnes and fine stinky unpasturized cheeses smuggled from europe in my cheese mule's secret luggage compartments.

- Parking facilities
the street is good enough for my friends. nothing but the best for the car owners in my life. more room for my pleasure garden.

- Yard size
big as possible. my own private fiefdom to fence and dig up as I please. arf!

- School district
yes. ah must edumacate my chilluns.

- Work locations
the whole damn place will be a work location until I am happy with it. you will never see me without sawdust on my clothes.

- Special zoning or location
must be zoned HCS-01 (hippies, coffee and skytrain close by).