The Legend-News
Random Notes
Here, there, and somewhere else.
The People's Front of Judea (which should not be confused with the Judean People's Front, or the Popular Front of Judea) is a rock band that is located somewhere west of the City of London (yes, that London). Their setlist contains songs from the '70s and '80s (with a bit of '90s). And they've performed the C.W. McCall epic "Convoy" to raise money for charity. So if you're planning a trip to England, plan it around one of their dates.
C.W. McCall didn't sing only of trucks and CBs. Several of his songs — "There Won't Be No Country Music (There Won't Be No Rock 'N' Roll)", "Glenwood Canyon", and "Silver Iodide Blues", just to name a few — show his concern for the environment. Cyberwest Magazine reports on environmental issues and the history of the American West.
In the "Hey, This Looks Really Familiar" Department, The Legend-News has discovered that Sing365.com has many pages of lyrics to the songs of C.W. McCall, such as "Wolf Creek Pass". Curiously, the C.W. McCall lyrics on Sing365 appear to be the same lyrics that you'd find here at C.W. McCall: An American Legend. In fact, except for the removal of minor notations, Sing365's lyrics are identical! Must be a coincidence. :)
Annual Report
Pretending to be a real corporation.
Wassup? TechRen Enterprises (the supposed entity that alledgedly operates this web site) continues to operate in the red. Actually, we're approaching infrared, but that's okay because hobbies aren't intended to be profitable. If they were, then the Internal Revenue Service would be auditing us.
Income. Ed. (the guy what writes most of this stuff) got a raise at his day job. He's estimated that in two years, he'll break into the six-figure area; of course, that would be six figures in Canadian money. Too bad that he lives in the U.S.A. :)
Personnel. Vice President in Charge of Operations, a.k.a. Lisa, continues her quest to do something other than technical support for the terminally clueless. Among her projects this year, she's painted flowery designs on a few bedroom walls and created a lot of sparkly Christmas ornaments.
Jon Bach wired our wireless network. He also discovered that learning Perl is an excellent way to waste time and claim that you're continuing your education during business hours.
The warehouse staff — Tesoro, Galore, and Scarlett Louise — continue to eat, sleep, and excrete 24/7. The slap-fights continue, however, as they strive to determine who gets to lay on the desk under the 40 watt high-intensity lamp.
Hardware Acquisitions. Ed. got a PowerBook (FireWire) and an external FireWire CD-RW. Now he can burn coasters faster than ever! And Lisa bought him an iPod as a tenth anniversary present. He's been plugged in to it almost non-stop, breaking only for an occasional nap and battery recharge. He says that he'll turn it off as soon as he's listened to all 60 hours of the music that he's downloaded.
Our Plans For The Coming Year. We have many changes planned for 2002, including (once again) a clean-up of C.W. McCall: An American Legend. However, the funds for our projects will ultimately depend upon the willingness of certain credit-card issuing banks to increase our borrowing limits beyond $500 secured, except for those weirdos at First Bank USA who seem to think that we need to buy a Mercedes at 9.99% APR, and have raised our limit appropriately. What we really want is a Saturn VUE. Now about that digital camera… [Update, 2012-05-01: I did buy that Saturn VUE, in 2002 October. It’s still in my garage. And several digital cameras have come and gone since 2001 December. — Future Ed.]
C.W. McCall Tour 2002. We've got the route; now we're just waiting for warm weather. (Something which cannot be seen from our office window at this moment, as it is apparently obscured by the snow.)
Until next issue, have a Merry Winter Solstice Celebration and a Happy New Common Era Year!
— The Underpaid Minions of TechRen Enterprises: Ed., Lisa, Jon B., Tesoro, Galore, and Scarlett Louise.
Song A’ Th’ Week
Words without music. Call 'em poems.
The night before.
Sing Silent Night
(C.W. McCall, Bill Fries, Chip Davis)
From the album
Rubber Duck
When the snow falls on Christmas Eve,
And everything's white
I sit by the window,
And remember another night
When Mama played the organ,
And we turned off all the lights
And we all stood around her
And sang
Silent Night
The organ is quiet now,
And Mama's gone
The sound of that Christmas Eve
Will live on and on
We sang all the old carols,
The hymns she loved to hear
And she played them over, one by one,
From memory, and by ear
And then she'd find the ancient album,
With its pages turned gold
And the crayon-colored paper star
I made so long ago
But brighter than any star
Was the love in Mama's eyes
As she said, "Merry Christmas, kids",
And she kissed us goodnight
And the organ's quiet now,
And Mama's gone
But the sound of that Christmas Eve
Will live on and on
The years have gone by now,
Since that last Christmas Eve
But the joy is still with me,
And the love will never leave
When Mama played the organ,
And we turned off all the lights
And we all stood together
And sang the last
Silent Night
The Legend-News is Copyright 2001 TechRen Enterprises. "I may be dead, but I'm still pretty." Thanks to Bill Fries and Chip Davis for the words and music.