DON ROSS IS COMING. Be there or be square, or possibly an oblate spheroid. Friday, January 28th 8 pm St James Hall, Tix $20, Info 604-736-3022, www.roguefolk.bc.ca. Two time champ of the US National Fingerstyle Guitar competition, first Canadian ever. His intelligent, accessible and impassioned playing is like a drop spilled from the cup of the gods.

Read a bunch of first person accounts of the tsunami last night. Talked to David yesterday about how it seems to be diverting attention from what’s happening with homeless and marginalized people in Canada, and I owned as how I don’t think it’s an either or situation. Nobody expects a tsunami; I don’t think anybody deserves one. However, he did get me thinking bout where my priorities are in terms of social justice and welfare, and I guess currently it’s the nasty trifecta of drugs, alcohol and mental illness as components to homelessness. I also remember telling David that homelessness is, as of yet, still very much a man’s issue. Did anybody hear that the first Iraq veterans have turned up in homeless shelters? I don’t see Bush talking about that much, he’s too busy trying to gut Social Security.

hair today

A picture is worth a thousand words. Thanks, Brooke. Brooke is very pleasant and intelligent, neither of which attribute is particularly well limned in this pic. Nor am I entirely sure what the signal is. I will have to ask her hubby, when next we meet.

It’s picture day at work. One of our colleagues is ill, so we’re going to take a picture of our Lunch Bunch and put it in a nice frame and send it to her as a very late Christmas present.