Here is a rough procession of the external process, how I arrived at the current graphics for my banner. The inspiration was a visit with my dear friend, the candy-bearing Christina. She came over to catch up and check out the Obama 30 minute presentation, American Stories, American Solutions, on network TV Wednesday night. The ad campaign rolled out in Errol Morris’ Zoom blog for the NYT also left an impression with me. See his efforts to seduce centrist undecided voters to loving Obama as much as the rest of us… People In the Middle For Obama.

Substituting the words, “A Dream,” for “Hope,” is a conscious nod to the fulfillment of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Had A Dream” speech. Growing up, my birthday would often coincide with MLK Jr. day. Perhaps one of the greatest gifts I ever received was the hope that America will continue changing, my optimism. In 2009 my birthday again falls on Martin Luther King Jr. day. The day after that, January 20, is Inauguration Day. I am wishin’ and a-hopin’, hopin’ and a-dreamin’ that America elects a President Barack Obama.

Continuing with my idea of gluing the head of the Statue of Liberty as depicted on coins onto the bodies of angels… This time its the Statue of Liberty’s golden coin head atop the modern British statue, “Angel of the North.” “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Using my time consuming Gimp photoshopping abilities, I have finally created a new banner for my blog. Thanks to my sister for sailing through the choppy torrents at Pirate Bay and finding the Gotham font. I have wanted to show my support for Barack Obama on the banner for some time now but was waiting for the right idea at the right time. Waking from a nap earlier, I realized that I could use the already-altered images of me with the Obama cake, and that it should be titled, “Strange that we need,” as the earlier version, “Strange We Can Believe In.”

In the image I am wearing my purple and white striped Coogi zip-up sweater with lime green trim, my yellow and green wristband, and underneath I have on the East Coast L33t teeshirt. Arielle got that made for my birthday a couple years ago and I love it. If you save this photo and use Gimp to reverse the colors, the flag overlaying the third image of me turns red white and blue. Because I still felt the need to continue imaging for hours after the banner’s creation, I also have the image in this post.

The green sweatshirt is promotional apparel for Cambridge’s last independent donut shop, Verna’s. That place has sweet donuts, and I usually buy a dozen of them as well as sugar cookies every Sunday. The brunch team needs sugars in the blood at that hour. My sister actually protested the purchase of this pretty sweatshirt on the grounds that it was frivolous. I don’t call people out as wrong casually, but in this case she clearly ain’t right. Local businesses need support so that they can survive in this rough economy, as does Barack Obama in the telephone booth knife fight that is the last two weeks of a Presidential campaign.

To all right-leaning conservatives reading my blog… donut get fooled again. Barack Obama is the hope of a new America.

This is a group of banners I made for the header of my blog. The image of the satellite is of “Arthur,” from Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station where all the big dishes have names from Arthurian legend like, Guinevere, Tristan, Isolde and Merlin. The dish bearing my namesake was the first and is also known as Antennae One. It was built in 1962 where it continued operating until this year. The 1,118 ton physical structure is being dismantled and transported to Medley Communications Centre in Herefordshire, England where it will again be used to look up. In the meantime I hijacked the satellite transmission to put out 3rdarm.biz.

The winds of change are blowing hard. I believe we are about to vote in the first black President. All the blood, racism and blues in our history are finally coming full circle to deliver the hope of a new America. Together we can remake our country in the image of our better angels.

This is not exactly what I look like right now, but I am very sick. In fact, this is a strange and horrible (wonderful?) potato-head dog that the amigos in the kitchen at work made for the (sick) pleasure of all involved. The past few days I have been very sick and trying to claw my way back to feeling alright by drinking large quantities of orange juice, taking mas y mas medicina. On Friday I called out sick to work. There is no such luck this morning.

Here’s hoping everyone else enjoys their Sunday in good health. For my part, to escape looking and feeling like this dog-faced boy, my throat will be hooked up to a Ghostbusters (sick-busters) -style backpack filled with orange juice, antihistamines, Luden’s Cherry throat drops (useless… but tasty) and eventually a thick sludge of Nyquil and Coke Zero as we get to scraping the bottom and I return to bed. I’ll be washing my hands in warm and soapy water often, sanitizing every few seconds, for the folks back home.

To keep warm, I’ll swaddle my head with my finest hat of avocado…

The Pumpkin Cat, not quite as cute as a pup suckling its mother under the title, “Puppy Barnacle,” yet somehow more appropriate for ‘Tocktober than a picture of my hindquarters. (‘Tocks, as far as Cute Overload is concerned, is an abbreviation for “buttocks.” It took me days of meditation to conclude that this is what ‘tock meant, as a definition on the web is hard to find. If I’m wrong about that, go ahead and call me an asshole.)

I almost cried at brunch today. It almost happened right in front of a repeat customer (from the night before) wearing a tiara. She was on her way out to go show her husband a painting she’s loved for years and had just told me it was her birthday. The Lord was with us, and he said, “Ace is a good boy.”

The reason I almost cried is that I have been under a lot of stress lately. My sister is staying with me and I think a lot of the uncertainty in her life (in the midst of transition) has been rubbing off on me, making me more sensitive than usual. That’s not the whole reason. As a team we had just killed it. Everyone on brunch today pulled hard than I’ve ever seen, and as Captain I got emotional.

Earlier in the morning, the Lord gave me his beloved drug rug, which I have admired for years, and even bought a flannel shirt because I thought it looked like that ole drug rug. The drug rug was almost the hair on the camel’s back that made me cry in public, on a Sunday when everything felt right.

It was the first cold Sunday of autumn, and the drug rug will be crucial for the coming days in the cave, hibernating. When I returned home I parked the car and lingered a moment for a good song on the radio. The Pink Floyd played, “Free Four” from the soundtrack Obscured by Clouds. I stared out the windshield and watched God’s time pass.

My main man Barry from the Upper Crust brought in his lovely lady and friends to the East Coast Grill for brunch to celebrate the birthday of Earl, and I waited on them. A cake and cock candles were given to the hostess by Barry for after the meal, but she forgot to mention them to me. Unfortunately I did not see them in the refrigerator and they were not on the cake when I carried it out to Earl for his birthday.

Fortunately, I am a wily captain of that old brunch, and in minutes returned with the cock candles embedded in a honey-drenched, firmly packed mound of cornbread: a veritable “moist muffin.” Without song, or any sound, indeed silence itself, I delivered this glistening nugget, these flaming penises. And I said to him, “Earl, it’s your lucky day…”

Unfortunately, though the Biz has not been updated in a week, I have not been relaxing on a hiatus. To pay off insurance debt, I have taken over webmaster duties for the East Coast Grill’s website. Plus my sister has moved back to America and I am helping her with logistics. There is plenty of material I am holding back from my blog, so please bear with me and I will get it up as soon as possible. Until then, please help yourself to the new East Coast Grill photo galleries…