This guy sees a sign in front of a house "Talking Dog for Sale."

He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the back yard.

The guy goes into the back yard and sees a mutt sitting there.

"You talk?" he asks.

"Yep," the mutt replies.

"So, what's your story?"

The mutt looks up and says "Well, I discovered this gift pretty young and I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA about my gift, and in no time they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leader, cause no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping.

I was one of their most valuable spies eight years running.

The jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger and I wanted to settle down. So I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security work, mostly wandering near suspicious characters and listening in.

I uncovered some incredible dealings there and was awarded a batch of medals. Had a wife, a mess of puppies, and now I'm just retired."

The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

The owner says "Ten dollars."

The guy says he'll buy him but asks the owner, "This dog is amazing. Why on earth are you selling him?"

The owner replies, "He's such a liar."  10:58:24 PM     Add a comment   

The last of the labor day travelers have made it home. The sun is setting before I go to bed. The World Series is almost here. It's fall in Alaska.  10:54:09 PM     Add a comment   

ESPN.com: "Now we've seen it all. A laugher turned into a nailbiter, which turned into a thriller Wednesday, and when the dust settled the A's had won their AL-record 20th straight game. Oakland blew an 11-run lead, then beat the Royals 12-11 on Scott Hatteberg's bottom-of-the-ninth bomb into the bleachers in right-center.

Geez, I'm all for high drama baseball games, and record breaking streaks, but why does it have to be the A's?  10:08:50 PM     Add a comment   

Hey, since I'm goin' analog, maybe I should dump the blog and buy a legal pad?  8:28:57 PM     Add a comment   

If I've said it once, I've said it a billion times: the Sony DSC-F707 is the first digital camera I've owned that gives me the same level of creative control that I learned to love with film cameras. The instant gratification of shooting digital is great, and the clarity of digital imaging is amazing, but sometimes you've just got to go back to basics.

All of this is my long, rambling, way of saying that I'm hanging up my sony for a week, or maybe more. I bought three rolls of Tri-X Pan for my 120mm Zenith, and some Ilford XP2 400 for my 35mm Canon, and I'm going to shoot all analog until I run out of film. It'll be like the good old days, only not quite as fun since I don't have my own darkroom anymore. Of course, I could convert my laundry room into a basic darkroom... Who really needs clean clothes anyway?  8:27:21 PM     Add a comment   

| The Guardian | Doctors crack case of man who 'dies' each time his alarm goes off: "Few people are fond of alarm clocks but Allan Todd has spent 38 years being terrified of them because he suffers heart stoppages and temporary brain death every time one wakes him up."

Sure, it sounds bad on the surface, but image the satisfaction of giving that doctors note to your boss when you show up late for work 4 times a week.  7:47:26 PM     Add a comment