Rain?

Lordie, it’s hard to sell newspapers! Or news websites… Local Play-Nooz has been whipping up hysteria over a HURRICANE (eeeeeek!) about to SLAM (yowwww!) Arizona and FLOOD PEOPLE’S HOMES AGAIN (auuuuugggghhh!).  They’re making as much hay as they can over Hurricane Odile, which is weakening as it passes over BATTERS Baja. This blather is great for sales just now, since folks are a little sensitized by the recent record rainfall. Three inches qualifies as “record” in Arizona…

And in fact, because the infrastructure isn’t designed to handle a real rain, three inches does max and overwhelm the roads and the drainage systems. There’s also the fact that Arizona homes aren’t built for rain, either. If your slab is at or below grade, then your door’s threshold is going to be….yup! at or below grade. My friend La Maya’s pretty office flooded during the late, great Deluge. It has a sunken floor and a pair of exterior French doors that look out onto an enclosed courtyard that lacks sufficient drainage to handle three inches of rain.

One of the few small mercies that have visited me of late has been here all the time: A slab built up about four inches above grade. I did get water on the patio, as I do every time it rains. But when I stumbled out, in a stupor, to see what was happening, it wasn’t anywhere near the door. In fact, the puddle rose less than it did the last time Lake Patio filled.

The other day Money Beagle, wondering whether changing habits and changing tastes signal the onset of decrepitude, mentioned a couple of alternatives to radio, streaming off the Net. One is Slacker and the other is Freegal. Checked them both out. Freegal I dunno about, because it requires you to set up a userid and password, which I hate and avoid when possible. Slacker, however, is free and uncomplicated. No annoying demands that you divulge your name (real or fake) and e-mail address. No advertising. And (so far) nonstop streaming of more music than you’d ever imagine existed.

Right now a bonanza of outlaw country is flowing into the MacBook’s tinny little speakers. There is, of course, a Slacker app, which I intend to download to the iPad. Then, I figure, a couple of cheap Bluetooth speakers in the Dog Chariot will free me from the vicissitudes of commercial radio and NPR’s endless talkathons. And begathons.

Actually, with this you could listen to the NPR shows you like on the car’s radio (assuming you have a superannuated car, like mine, that doesn’t have an entire computer lab in the dashboard) while letting the genre of your preference play as background.

Welp, it’s time to return some phone calls and then get back to reading copy. And so, to wyrk…