Our site was offline this morning because someone at our web host, Spry.com, messed up permissions on the server. It only takes a few seconds to run a chmod on a Unix box to make things right, but it took the folks at Spry.com waaaaaaaaay to long to take care of it. The site was throwing 500 errors this morning, and then the Spry folks stepped in to fix it. Thanks to their intervention, the site started throwing 403 errors instead. Gee, thanks fellas. And they won’t give me any answers regarding how the permissions got messed up in the first place.

Anybody know of a decent PHP host with SSH access? I can’t take any more of this.

We’ve upgraded the site to the most recent version of WordPress, 2.3.1., which has native support for tagging. New posts will have tags listed just under the title. You can click on a tag to find similar posts. For example clicking on the Old-Timey tag will find you recent posts about old-time country music. Tags are similar to categories, except that they are more fluid and often more specific.

I haven’t gone all the way back through the archives to tag old posts (there are over 600 of them), but this should make it easier to find things going forward.

I am not alone in thinking that a rock and roll band called The Embarrassment from Wichita, Kansas, is among the finest this country has ever produced. When that band splintered, the gentlemen continued to make great music with other bands. Guitarist Bill Groffier played in a great rock and roll combo in Boston called Big Dipper, who made some very good records with many of the same qualities that make Embarrassment records perpetually endearing. Not least of these are Bill’s thoughtful guitar playing and soaring harmony vocals.

So it’s a pleasant surprise to hear that Big Dipper are getting back together for a handful of shows to celebrate the release of a 3-CD box set. From RockTownHall.com:

Big Dipper is indeed reuniting for a handful of shows in April 2008 and the release of a 3-CD set. The release will include a 12-page booklet with liner notes by Scharpling and, most importantly, songs from the band’s first 3 long-out-of-print albums along with the requisit rarities, unreleased tracks, and even the original video for “Faith Healer”. I’ve been waiting a long time for this day, and I’ve been waiting a long time to have more than this grainy, 12th-generation clip that’s been floating around YouTube for some time as a visual record of the band.

Earlier this week, I had my iPhone set to random play, and Big Dipper’s gorgeous song Ron Klaus Wrecked His House popped up. I then briefly amused myself by singing ‘Ron House wrecked his Klaus’, in honor of the Ohioan who aspired to have a band ‘as big as, but not bigger than the Embarrassment.’ It all made the 45 mph headwind blowing through downtown Chicago a wee bit more bearable.

I am a dedicated Firefox user, and I keep my bookmarks toolbar loaded with the sites I visit most often. Most of the time, when you drag a bookmark down to the toolbar, Firefox will automatically create a link with the bookmarked site’s icon, along with a description of the page.

I like to keep a lot of stuff in my tool bar, so I usually delete the description, leaving only the icon. While you can easily change or delete the text associated with your links by right clicking the bookmark and going to its properties page, Firefox doesn’t provide an easy way to change the icon your bookmark uses.

This can be a problem if the site doesn’t have an icon. You’re left with an ugly image of a blank page, like with this PBS Kids link. It’s also a problem if you have multiple links to the same site. All your links to google pages, for example, will use the same ‘G’ logo. This annoys me, as it denies me my god-given right to cram my toolbar full of pretty colorful links. Like any good American, I decided to take the law into my own hands.
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The Cubs 99-year streak of keeping Chicago’s North Side utterly uncontaminated by World Series Championships has been extended by at least one more year. But rather than wallow in misery, let’s take a moment to celebrate the gents who brought both a National League Pennant and a World Series championship to old West Side Park. So here they are. Congratulations, boys.

The photograph is from the old Chicago Daily News archive, which you can browse through the American Memory Project.

Our friend Matt Bergstrom recently took a trip down the Chicago river in a boat made of trash. He had hoped to make it to the Mississippi, but the fates conspired against him. He’s posted a day-by-day account of his trip with some great pictures on his web site. We were so impressed with it that we named a new song in honor of the voyage: Mississippi Trashboat.

http://www.wurlington-bros.com/trashboat/

By the way, if you’re not already familiar with them, you should check out Matt’s beautiful series of paper models, Build Your Own Chicago.

http://www.buildyourownchicago.com/

The beloved Spindle in Berwyn, best known to non-Chicagoans from its appearance in the film Wayne’s World, is slated to be torn down to make room for a new Walgreen’s. From SaveTheSpindle.com:

The Plaza is now slated to be redeveloped and the current location of the sculpture is set to be re-purposed for a Walgreens store. Concerned citizens of Berwyn, Illinois are actively seeking to make sure the town does not lose this landmark and looking to work with city officials and the owners of the sculpture to ensure that the Spindle is not only retained, but also preserved and maintained for future generations of residents and visitors alike.

As you may have learned via an earlier post (http://www.tangleweed.org/blog/?p=292), my good friend Ken Harnage is an accomplished song-writer from the Washington, D.C. area.

Well, while diving into his pond recently, a subdural hematoma broke on him, causing bleeding in his head and pressure on his brain. He was air-lifted to the hospital and has had three subsequent surgeries. At one point they thought he would not make it, but today they told his wife Kris (aka “Fang”) that he will survive with no brain damage. He was aware of what was going on and made it clear he did not want to live if he could not “kiss, walk, sing and thrive.” When they pulled his respirator, he gurgled “Beer”. When Kris asked “What kind do you want?”, he said “F-R-E-E”.

Please raise a toast to the man who wrote “Your Trailer or Mine?” and join me in hoping for his speedy recovery.