My old physics buddy Carl Drews sent me the following email:

It’s April 23, and your last blog entry is April 11.  In that time interval: Iraq has finished falling to the American-led coalition, the Shiites have made their first pilgrimage in a generation to Karbala, the SARS virus has spread, Scott Peterson has been indicted for the murder of his wife and unborn son, Holy Week has come and gone, and my daughter Isabel has lost her first front tooth.  People need to know your opinion on these things!  Interested readers are clicking on Refresh again and again, hoping to read Kevin’s latest thoughts.  So won’t you please please please comment on something?  Anything!

OK, our Mesoptamian campaign confounded all the pessimists; religious freedom is great; I’m not sure how much SARS has spread versus how much China has fessed up to how widespread it already was; while a terrible crime, I’m not sure why the Petersons get so much attention when too many others get none; Praise the Lord; a mixture of “I hope Isabel didn’t freak out at the loss of her tooth” and “aww, how cute”. In four years my daughter will be driving, the thought of which freaks me out.

I’m still as busy as a one armed cashier at Wal-Mart at my place of employment. After more physical labor than I’m accustomed to, my back yard is now a third re-graded but still a sea of mud. I just got the requirements for getting a building permit for a new deck and the fact that it requires six copies of the plans gives you an idea of the hassle that looks to be. Baseball season has started for my son and technically construction continues on our room annex (six months and counting). And that’s only part of the stuff that fills my time – not only do I not have any time to write my blog, I have too little time to read other people’s blogs. But who’s complaining?

Okay, that’s the name of a great blog by local boy Tim (boy in this case is just an expression). He covers the philosophical inconsistencies of the left, a topic sparked by a comment by yours truly (philosophical inconsistencies of the right are left as an exercise for the reader); a BBC correspondent furious at the bias of his organization (maybe he’s a dedicated Lilek’s reader); and he asks the important question, Do Iraqi’s hate their government? He notes that some peace protesters here hate their’s with far less repression (last time I checked, we haven’t hanged anyone for waving to enemy troops like they did in Iraq.

I comment a lot (time permitting) over at Archpundit. While we disagree on a lot of subjects, I think we have intelligent discussion, not a serial contradiction with insult as happens too often on the web. So if you’re looking for more of me, or even better, a different view than mine, head over and check it out.

Amidst all the war talk and worry, life goes on. The daffodils are blooming, the pears are budding, and somebody came here searching for Donny Osmond Armpit. Google is a powerful tool, allowing anyone to track down specific information on the internet; sometimes though, that power can simply be abused and this is a classic case. For the love of pete, why would anybody in their right mind do that? If whoever ran that search is reading, get help. And hurry.

Somebody found my blog the other day by searching for Tropico Wicker Ceiling Fan. And the amazing thing is (no, not that they mispelled Tropical and wound up here), but I’m the only result on Google or Yahoo when you search for those four words. I’m the only webpage in the known universe with those four words together. 

PS yes, they do make wicker ceiling fans.

At least, in the Blogoshere Ecosystem. Given the focus this blog has put on intestinal bacteria, and it’s important and beneficial role in the human gut (another subject I’m over acquainted with), that’s not all bad. Still, I aspire to be a significant microbe, so I have my work cut out for me.

Link via that playful primate, Charles Austin.

I can’t compete: Barney, the White House dog, drew millions of viewers to the White House website for his Holiday Webcam show (warning: direct link), according to CNN (Warning: terrible puns).

Lileks can compete with gnat-cam; but if people turned into Trooper-cam (my dog), all they’d see is either close-ups of spots where other dogs have done their business (lots and lots of tree trunks) while he’s on a walk; the view out our front picture window as he keeps vigil; and the view of his tail while he’s curled up under our bed or on the couch while he’s sleeping.

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit ran a selection of his email today, and by the looks of the small excerpt he provided, he could run one of the best blogs around just by running reader email. I guess it just goes to show you, those that have, get. It also demonstrates to me what a genuinely nice guy he is based on his replies to the couple of dopey (compared to the one’s he published) emails I’ve sent him.

James Lileks publishes a bleat every weekday that should be read by every man, woman, and child in the world. He consistantly delivers great humor, insight, and interest; often his work is outstanding. How he does it should be under intense scrutiny by all the J-schools. Instead, the profession is too busy scratching it’s head over why people are getting less of their news from the news media and more from late night comics. People, its not hard – your product is lousy. The editor of USA Today commisioned a study and discovered that half their stories contained at least one error — and those were factual errors that could be easily discovered. A writer for AP was canned when it was discovered he made up quotes from made up academics relentlessly in his stories. And it’s downhill from there. You want more readership – syndicate Lileks in every newspaper, and watch your sales go up.

I was embarrassed to discover that I hadn’t linked to Susanna Cornett in my permanent links after she so kindly linked to me in her blog after I gave her a heads up on story she’s covered in her blog. So sorry Susanna, and I’ve taken care of the problem. I didn’t want to leave such a fine, must read blog off my list.