I’ve gotten more than 10,000 hits today, the bulk of them coming in via last night’s Sullylanche, directly or indirectly. Normally, when I get a big new influx of traffic like this, I make a special effort to live up to my sub-moniker of "hyperactive blogger," posting as much new material as possible, so as to give the new visitors a reason to become regulars. Unfortunately, although I have several new political posts swirling around in my head, my brain has turned to mush this evening and I have no motivation to actually write any of them. (Stay tuned, though, for thoughts on Pennsylvania’s implications, Hillary’s 9/11 exploitations, and my Obama-fatuations!)

Meanwhile, I find myself strangely unable to think of anything non-election-related that I particularly want to blog about. The Pope’s visit to America? Interesting and important, but I haven’t been following it so I don’t really have anything to say about it. Time magazine’s Iwo Jima/global warming cover? Meh. Seems like a tempest in a teapot to me (notwithstanding that my grandfather was a Marine in World War II, and I revere what those guys did… but still, who cares about a stupid magazine cover?). The Yale abortion art project? It’s a fake.* A judge telling J.K. Rowling her books are "gibberish"? What’s to say, other than "Heh"? (Can you tell I get most of my news from Drudge?) And nothing’s really caught my eye in the world of sports, or any of my other pet blog topics. (Although, hey! fUCLA’s Kevin Love is going pro! I’m shocked, shocked.)

So, I’m turning it over to y’all. What non-election-related topics/items should I be blogging about? Serious suggestions are welcome, though I’m thinking especially of frivolous stuff. Like, have you seen any interesting "news of the weird" type stories lately? How about funny YouTube clips? (A sequel to my Captain Vegetable post, perhaps?) Suggest something in comments, and maybe I’ll post it out of sheer desperation! ;)

In the mean time, and in the spirit of utter randomness, here’s yet another Makem & Clancy YouTube clip, of yet another one of my favorite songs to sing to Loyette: "The Mermaid."

(New readers who wonder why I’m posting a video of Liam Clancy and the late great Tommy Makem — or who they are, for that matter — click here, and for more, here.)

*UPDATE: Upon further review, the Yale art/abortion thing may not be fake, after all. Or, it may. The university says she says she didn’t do it. But she says she
never said that, and that she did it, and that the university is lying.
But the university says she told them she’d say that if they said she said
she didn’t do it. (Got all that?) So, who’s lying? My money’s on her. It’s all part of the "art." Regardless, the whole thing is disgusting and pointless.

Last month, I blogged about Sara Crowther (née Alpsan), Becky’s high-school classmate who is competing in an online contest that could result in her getting to sing on-stage with Rascal Flatts (and getting backstage passes and all sorts of other cool stuff). If Sara gets into the Top 10*, she’ll be eligible to be hand-picked by the band — and she stands a really good chance if that happens, as she’s pretty clearly the best singer of the bunch.

At the time of my previous post, she was ranked #14. Votes, views and comments from the Irish Trojan crowd helped boost her to #12… but now she needs a final push before the deadline at 11:59 PM tomorrow night. That’s where y’all come in (again). Vote for Sara! And while you’re at it, leave a comment, pass on the link, etc. Pretty much any activity gives her "viral points" that help her climb up the charts. As she explained on the previous post: "you can vote once every 24 hours as a member or once every few hours as
a guest. … If you create a member name your vote counts for more and you
can rate the reviews as helpful or not which gets more points."

Anyway, here’s her video:

Thanks, everybody! Good luck, Sara!

*Actually, it may be enough to get into the Top 11, or even to stay in the Top 12, according to rumors that one or two of the current Top 10 are actually ineligible due to age and/or residency requirements. But regardless, Sara needs our support!

It's a beautiful spring day here in Knoxville, with forecast highs in the upper 70s. But, better enjoy it while it lasts; a wintry blast is coming, and by Monday the high will be around 40. Yikes!

Andrew Hiller on this story: "It’s time to stop barking, and start listening. An invitation to a national conversation on dog race." Heh.

As the owner of a big, black dog, I am personally offended by the prejudice against said dogs, and I hereby demand that all the presidential candidates immediately and personally reject and denounce the dog-racist sentiments which CNN has bravely shined a light on… and if any candidate does not do so within the next five minutes, I will consider him or her to be presumptively a dog-racist! :P

And here's the UT student paper. It notes that Pat Summitt is two championships away from tying John Wooden's record. Hey, this could be my opening to root for the Lady Vols without being disloyal. :)

The News-Sentinel front page.

I'm at the UT bookstore on my lunch break, and the Lady Vols national championship t-shirts are out in force.

Brendan, Loyette and I will be walking in the Knoxville March for Babies, sponsored by the March of Dimes, later this month. The march raises money for research to help babies born with health problems. (Here’s a more detailed blurb about it.) If you want to make a donation to support us, and more importantly the research, you can do so here.

I linked yesterday to a YouTube clip of Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy singing "Rambles of Spring." That’s just one of a whole new treasure trove of Clancy/Makem video clips that have been recently uploaded to YouTube. You might recall that I posted a bunch of clips last August, after Makem’s death, but a lot of new videos have appeared since then. Here’s another one, a real oldie but goodie, showing a much younger foursome singing "Brennan on the Moor" in 1963:

That, incidentally, is — like the Kingston Trio’s "M.T.A." — one of my favorite songs to sing to Loyette. Hey, just because I’m a lawyer doesn’t mean I can’t teach my daughter a "good, healthy disrespect for law!" Hee hee. Actually, I just like singing it to her because it’s fun, bouncy and repetitive. No doubt I’ll regret this when she gets a little older and, just like I did when I was little, starts bursting out in bawdy Irish songs at inappropriate moments. :) History repeats itself in the new generation…

In an e-mail this morning about possible travel plans for the Fourth of July, I referred to Loyette as "a six-month-old," then added: "OMG, she’s going to be six months old!! That’s DOUBLE her current age!! She’ll be going to prom and heading off to college before I know it!!
AAAAHHH!!!! :)"

This brings to mind the Blue Plate Special last Friday, when I was holding Loyette in the back of the room, "dancing" with her to the old-timey bluegrass music — and a vision popped into my head of our father-daughter dance at her wedding someday. Argh! Why must I think these things?? The pre-nostalgia is killing me! :)

It is my sad duty to report that Pug, my goldfish, has passed away.

Pug had been showing increasing signs of listlessness in recent days, so it’s probably fair to say that it was “his time.” We think he probably died sometime this morning or early afternoon; he was discovered floating amidst his fake plants this evening when I tried to feed him.

He was given the traditional burial at sea, and afterwards we played Confutatis (from Mozart’s Requiem) in his honor.

Shortly after Pug’s nautical burial, Becky, Loyette and I were walking Robbie on this pleasant spring evening, and we (well, Becky and I, at least) found ourselves musing about what an eventful time in our lives Pug witnessed. When we first got him, way back on May 30, 2007, I was a brand new law-school graduate, just starting to think about the daunting prospect of studying for the bar. Becky, meanwhile, was a mere nine weeks pregnant — and we’d only known that she was pregnant for less than a month. Loyette, for her part, was not quite an inch long, about the size of a grape. Oh yes, and our apartment was still full of unpacked boxes from our big move to Knoxville a mere nine days earlier.

Flash forward to today: Loyette is 3 months old, and a true master at the fine art of grabbing things and putting them in her mouth. Becky’s a mom, and a damn fine one. I’m a dad, an experienced law clerk, and an honest-to-goodness lawyer. (Is that an oxymoron?) Our once box-filled apartment has become a comfy home, as, more broadly, has the once unfamiliar city of Knoxville. And Becky and I are both way more “domestic” than we ever could have imagined back then, having settled very comfortably into our roles as parents.

From inside his watery home, atop the side table next to our couch, Pug saw all these changes in our lives. And he saw them while braving the hungry stares of frustrated cats who could never quite figure out how to pry open that darn tank. Pug may have been a neurotic fish (thanks to those cats), but he was a good fish, and we bid him a fond farewell. Swim in peace, Pug. May you find comfort in that great fishy palace in the sky sea.

For the second straight year, I let IrishTrojan.com expire this morning. BrendanLoy.com was unaffected. I have now renewed IrishTrojan.com. It may take a while to start working again, but in the long run at least, all is well.

Why/how did this happen? Basically, I’m an idiot. Actually, it’s a bit of a long story, but I don’t really have time to tell it right now, as I’m in the car with Becky, Loyette, Auntie Barb and Auntie Marissa, heading to The Lost Sea in Sweetwater. More later, maybe.

On an unrelated note, GO XAVIER!! BEAT UCLA!!

…the silliest-looking police car ever.