The Search

Generally, when I write "the Search" I'm referring to SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.  Today it's a bit more mundane.  Think "cucumbers."  Yesterday, as I was going through my clippings, I mentioned that I had found one mentioning that benighted vegetable.  I was going to add the clipping to my list, and wanted to link it to my previous cucumbric entries.  When I went looking for them I found that I had already used that clipping, and fairly recently at that.  Whether it's aging (who, me?) or simply the weight of accumulated blogitems, my normally steel-sieve mind had forgotten about it, despite the clever title and compelling subject matter.  If I, the perpetrator of this blog, can forget one of the roughly 400 blithers in this space, surely I can't expect my thousands of millireaders to remember all of them.

Google has been thoughtfully—well mindlessly, actually, but the service is free—monitoring these pages and showing me how many "hits" I get every day.  That is one way I know I have thousands of millireaders.  Perhaps I have sufficient charisma with the Google search robot to build a custom search engine.  I'm going to put in a horizontal line after a few more words and give it a try.

Google makes its money by offering paid advertisements that may appear on the search results page.  For example, when I type "Prius" in the search box, a slew of ads appears to the right of the results.  When I type in "PriUPS," the result is ad-free, presumably because nobody has been sagacious enough to purchase that from Google as a keyword.  I daresay "cucumbric" is doubly safe.  I don't myself do ads on this blog, with two tiny exceptions.  The main one is, of course, for my poor, un-exercised Corvette, sitting lonely in its garage and eager for a new home.  The other one is so tiny and insignificant that you'll never know it's an ad, but it did furnish me enough emolument to pay for a day's worth of chocolate.  I have nothing to do with the Google ads, and if one appears of which you disapprove, rest assured that I also disapprove of it.

Content

Having seen the movie Defiance, I immediately thought of Al Stewart's song Roads to Moscow.  I don't especially recommend the movie.  It probably got excellent reviews; I would know for sure if I actually checked.  But it was so cliché-ridden that I cringed as each predictable episode played out.  Credit, though, for the sound recording.  Very realistic gun shots! 

I do recommend Al Stewart's song.  I heard him perform part of it a long time ago.  He stormed off the stage in response to a number of equipment problems.  That was very disappointing since the Past, Present, and Future album was current at the time and Roads to Moscow was running through my brain (see "steel sieve," above) continually.  Al Stewart is the premier "story-song" guy.  Past, Present and Future is his premier story album, although I might be persuaded otherwise if his entire oeuvre were available to me. 

• His website is alstewart.com
• Here are the lyrics to Roads to Moscow
• And an exegesis of same

Worth your time.  I'll shut up now.

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NP:  "Roads to Moscow" - Al Stewart

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