Gorillas in the Midst

First, I want to note that Lydia had her surgery yesterday. It went fine, technically. Obviously, more on this soon. Thank you very much for your support. It does cut into blogging time, though, so I'll be brief.

An important holiday. But then you knew that, didn't you?
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You may have noticed some slight changes in this blog. That's because I've finally switched to the new Blogger, powered by that gorilla of search, Google. It allows for an easier way to indicate labels. It also allows me to edit every post I've ever done (some 800), rather than the last 300. I probably won't spend a lot of time on retrospective stuff, but each day I post, I may add tags on an old post or two, so that in a couple years, I'll have tagged the whole thing. Or not.
I knew that the way I did the transition would throw out the categories of bloggers I visit, because I had done the same transition on the Friends of the Albany Public Library site. (BTW, if you're in Albany, vote Yes on the school and library issues, Tuesday, February 6, from noon until 9 pm.)
However, since the links needed to be revisited anyway - add some, delete some - I'm OK with the chaos, for the short term. Think of the blog as having one of those annoying Man at Work signs on it. Some guy in overalls from Buffalo is musing about his move to the new Blogger.
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Philip Glass, the big magilla of minimalist music, turns 70 today. I had a girlfriend who HATED his music, and when we broke up, I went on a Philip Glass marathon - not recommended. My favorite Glass recording is this one.
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Former guerrila (!) leader Fidel Castro's dying and Miami's throwing a party. Seems unseemly, somehow.
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Governor Spitzer, the big gorilla politically around here, releases the budget today. Let's see if he keeps those high approval ratings.
Sheldon Silver, the powerful Speaker of the state Assembly, has been like a petulant child, because none of the three finalists to become Comptroller (replacing Alan Hevesi, who resigned because of the "Driving Mrs. Hevesi" scandal) is an Assembly member. A committee interviewed 18 candidates, including five Assembly members. Frankly, picking a legislator would have been business as usual, and "business as usual" in Albany has been dysfunctional as long as I can remember. Let it go, Shelly.
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Get that tobacco monkey off your back. NYS specific, but with some useful data for all.
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Baseball player Tony Suck, who played as though he were wearing a gorilla suit, based on the stats from his brief career.
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Finally, Dennis the Menace - "Gorilla Warfare"