An incident

So on Monday I had to go out and finish all the stuff that was leftover from Friday, plus a little that was left over by someone else. I was on this unfamiliar route that someone else had done when I had a small dog attack. I shooed it away a couple of times but it just kept coming back and getting bolder and bolder. I don't know exactly what kind of dog it was, but it looked sort of like a rat terrier on steroids. Finally it got inside the radius of my hook and I started swinging. On the third swish I connected and it went yelping away on three legs.

The owner was mad.

"It doesn't bite." Let me make this clear: YOU DON'T KNOW THAT, AND NEITHER DO I. You haven't seen how your dog interacts with strangers on a regular basis. I have had to interact with thousands of strange dogs and I've picked up a few signs that help me figure out what's going on quite quickly. If a dog keeps charging me and won't scare away I'm going to escalate the situation.

"You only had to communicate with me." And how exactly am I supposed to communicate with you dog chewing on my ankle?

The bottom line is this: you must secure your dog. This is not a suggestion. This is a hard, cold fact of your life as a dog owner.

A second bottom line is this: If I'm walking in the street and your dog charges me, he has entered my territory and I can and will do whatever I have to to protect myself, and THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME.

It went into a shouting match because he was such a complete idiot. I finished it by telling him I was going to report it to my boss so his address would go on record as a "dangerous dog site" (we keep no such record) and that then I was going to report it to animal control. I did report it to my boss so she would hear from me first if he called in with a complaint, but I never intended to call animal control because I know that unless you utter the magic words "pit bull" they won't do anything. It shut him up, though.

Secure your dog. It's safer for me, and perhaps more importantly for you, it's safer for your dog.

This time you've gone too far

I'll make it a nice, "even" five posts for the day. Here's the video for Peter Gabriel's "Digging in the Dirt." Note the woman with the long black hair riding in the car. That's Francesca Gonshaw, who played Maria in 'Allo, 'Allo. She not only appeared in this video, she also collaborated with Gabriel in its creation. She's also an accomplished artist (the painting kind).

A couple of links

Since it seems I've been obsessed somewhat more than usual with musical things lately, here are a couple of decent things from Cracked.com on the subject.

Interesting: The 5 Most Famous Musicians Who Are Thieving Bastards

Hilarious: The 19 Most Hilariously Failed Attempts at Sexy Album Covers (probably NSFW)

P.S. That sure looks like Jane Fonda on #3.

On a lighter note...

Lately I have been kind of wishing they'd rerun the Britcom "May to December." I always really liked the character of Zoë Angel (the original one anyway--when she was replaced by that other chick I didn't really like the replacement much). Well, they're going to start rerunning it again on KLRN tonight. Cool.

The last in line...

Ronnie James Dio has passed away.

Eddie lives

I watched Eddie and the Cruisers today, first time. Not a fantastically great movie, but I enjoyed it. Made in 1984, and I was kind of amused that Eddie's ahead-of-its-time last album sounded pretty much like slick rock bands of the early-80s era such as Journey, Survivor, and dozens of others who came and went.

Various Artists - Fantastic Country Vol. 1 (LP, 1972)

This was an odd collection, and I guess they're all country, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them all "fantastic." Out of the 20 songs on it, I deleted 10 after an initial listen.

So here are the ones I deleted:
Jerry Reed - Amos Moses (because I already have a "best of" CD with this one on it)
Sammi Smith - For the Kids (one of those country songs for which have I no empathy nor sympathy)
Norman Luboff Choir - San Antonio Rose (does anyone really want to listen to a choir singing this song?)
Roger Miller - Hey Little Star (same reason as "Amos Moses")
Waylon Jennings - Lovin' Her Was Easier (nothing against Waylon and nothing against this song...it just sounded rather uninspired and didn't do anything for me)
Porter Waggoner - Carroll County Accident (maybe okay to hear once...or twice...but then meh)
Connie Smith - You Ain't Woman Enough (a Loretta Lynn song...anyone else singing it just seems silly and redundant)
Jimmy Dean - I'll Be a Hero (from the rapper of what is now "classic" country...does nothing for me)
George Hamilton IV - Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down (great song, one of my favorites...this version makes him sound like he's apologizing to his grandmother)
Hank Snow - Honey (one of those country songs that gushes with over-sentimentality...if that's your thing, good for you...it's not for me)

Songs I kept, which may be harder to explain:
Michael Nesmith - Silver Moon (about as country as Nesmith gets, I guess...I've never heard a song of his I didn't like...this one will go on my general favorites list)
Chet Atkins - Yakety Axe (a guitar version of Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax," fun to listen to)
Liz Anderson - Ode to Billy Joe (I don't know why I'm keeping this one...maybe because I don't have a recording of the original--that I know of so far)
John Hartford - Gentle On My Mind (already one of my favorite songs...now I'm looking forward to hearing more by Hartford...this one will also go on my favorites list)
Duane Eddy - Fireball Mail (country?...I wouldn't go that far, but it's fun to listen to)
Don Gibson - I Love You So Much it Hurts (I have sort of developed a "thing" for Gibson's voice)
Pat McKinney - Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves (which was a big hit for Cher, right?...anyway I've never heard of Pat McKinney but she has an interesting voice...very cigarette & whiskey but she can still belt out a tune)
Bobby Bare - Folsom Prison Blues (I don't think many country singers could pull off covering a Johnny Cash hit, but Bare manages it quite well)
Lorne Greene - Ringo (just for the sheer novelty of it)

Just for the Nesmith and Hartford songs, this was a good score.

Friday Night Video: John Hartford - "Gentle On My Mind"

Been working on ripping an old sampler LP from RCA called Fantastic Country Vol 1. It's one of those old samplers that my mother-in-law seemed to collect on which many (half or so) of the songs are famous songs but these versions are not sung by the ones who made them famous. For example, "Folsom Prison Blues" by Bobby Bare instead of Johnny Cash. Others are by the ones who made them famous, for example "Ringo" by Lorne Greene. (P.S. Would anyone else ever want to do this "song"?) Anyhow, my musical knowledge has increased slightly by cluing me in to the original version of one of my favorite songs, "Gentle On My Mind," which was a big hit for Glen Campbell. The version on this record is the original studio version by the song's writer, John Hartford. Here's a video of Hartford performing the song live with nothing but a banjo and accompanying himself on rhythm by clogging, or shuffle-tapping on an amplified piece of plywood.


This version sounds like it's pitched a step or so higher than the studio version on my record.

Seriously dangerous weather today

Well, I didn't get the route I expected. This time I skipped it and went straight to cycle 12--a combination motor/foot route. When the storm finally hit, it was so ferocious that we had to stop working. I picked up the guy on foot, we went to an Exxon and got some food & drink, called in and told the boss the rain was too heavy and the lightning too close for us to work, and sat there for about an hour. It seemed to be slacking off so we went back to where he had left off, and just as I was about to leave him there, it started again. So we parked on the street and sat there another 30 minutes, I called in again and said we still hadn't been able to do anything, we sat there about another 30 minutes and they told us to just come in. My immediate supervisor doesn't have the authority to call us in. Neither does her boss. It takes her boss's boss--the head honcho of customer service--to call us in. Fortunately he was a meter reader many years ago so it sometimes works in our favor.

So we actually worked about 3 hours and sat in the truck for 2 hours. We heard a tornado touched down somewhere along 1604 to the north of us. We were in the Nacogdoches/Thousand Oaks area.

Forty percent, shmorty percent

It WILL rain tomorrow. I know this because tomorrow is Cycle 11.

June Carter Cash - Press On (1999, CD)

I'm pretty sure that at one point in my life, if anyone had asked, I would have said--and believed it at the time--that I would never buy a June Carter Cash album. Boy, was I wrong.

I'm five songs into this one and man, it's fantastic. This is real country music. Real pared-down, honest and unpretentious. Much of it so far sounds like it was recorded in one shot with only a few seconds break between songs for her to say a few words about the next song.

Totally recommended.

A post about nothing

Here's what I'm listening to tonight. A big star from the 80s who I still like to hear now and then. First five in the list:
1. Sara
2. No Spoken Word
3. Wild Heart
4. Some Become Strangers
5. How Still My Love

The last couple of days at work were pretty rough, due mostly to a bone-headed management decision. Today was easy, however, got home today about 1:00. Took a long nap, ripped some CDs, paid some bills, ate supper, caught up the checkbook, now working on my second pipe.

Last night I noticed a movie on Sci-Fi with Bruce Campbell called My Name is Bruce. I tried to record it but they were running 3 1/2 minutes late so I missed the ending, therefore didn't watch any of it. Netflix to the rescue. This staggering their schedule so that shows never actually begin on the hour for which they are scheduled really annoys me. One of these days I'm going to tell them where to stick their satellite dish and watch nothing but DVDs from then on.

Anyway, it reminded me of another old movie called They Call Me Bruce? Anyone remember that one? I remember renting the videotape back in the 80s because my sister had seen it at the theater and said it was really stupid. I have learned that if my sister says a movie is stupid, I'm very likely to think it's very funny. I remember being quite amused at this one, so to Netflix I went. For lack of anything better to post, here's my current Netflix queue.

'Allo, 'Allo: The whole series. I'm currently on season 3 and have 13 more discs to go for the whole series. They showed this on KLRN a long time ago, but they never showed the whole series. I always preferred Maria over Yvette.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2: A hilarious movie.

The Great Dictator, To Be or Not to Be (original and remake): I don't remember where I read about these, or maybe I saw something about them on TV, but I added them all at the same time. The first with Charlie Chaplin, the second with Jack Benny and the third with Mel Brooks; all comedies.

Judgement at Nuremburg: Must have been added at the same time as the previous. I think I had just seen something about the Nazis that mentioned these movies.

Smilla's Sense of Snow: Don't remember why I added this one, but it looks like a decent movie.

Lidsville: The complete series, 3 discs. Just to see what it's like now that I'm not a kid, and also because I'm sure my own kids will like it.

The Lost Boys: Haven't seen it in a while, and it's still one of my favorite vampire movies. My son will probably totally dig it.

Danger Mouse: The whole series, 9 discs. This was a great show.

Ergo Proxy: The whole series, 7 discs. Anime. Saw some previews on another anime DVD I rented.

Black Lagoon: 4 discs. More anime, same as above.

Witch Hunter Robin: 6 discs. Yet more anime which I've heard good things about but never seen.

Dead Snow: A relatively new zombie movie that looks good.

She's the Man: I'm pretty sure I added this one for my wife, but I'll watch anything with Amanda Bynes.

Nosferatu the Vampyre: Another version of Nosteratu which is supposed to be pretty lame, but I want to see it for myself.

The Simpsons Movie: Never seen it.

Fire and Ice: Did you know this movie is finally on DVD? It had vanished from the video market for many years because of some kind of copyrighting conflict or something. Another great one from Ralph Bakshi.

Frazetta: Painting with Fire: A documentary about Frank Frazetta.

Mighty Mouse: the complete series, 3 discs. This is the remake from the 80s by Ralph Bakshi.

My Name is Bruce, They Call Me Bruce?: As mentioned above.

The Adventures of Pete & Pete: the whole series, 4 discs. I saw a few of these when we first got satellite TV and thought they were great. I'm getting them for myself and because I'm sure the kids will love them.

The alphabet of eldritch doom

I actually tried to do this once. This is as far as I got.

Azathoth, the Daemon Sultan,
An atomic chaos, seething and molten;
It dwells beyond all time and space,
Where amorphous flautists around it pace.

Up Hatheg-Kla wise Barzai climbed,
To see the realms of gods sublime;
But Barzai vanished, because he found
That what goes up might not come down.

Cthulhu, in his submarine night,
Awaits the day with malicious delight,
When he will rise from his aqueous tomb
And bring the Earth a diluvial doom.

Deep Ones, born of the Innsmouth clan--
Not quite fish, but not quite man;
Uncouth, unkempt, and thoroughly crude,
In the ocean depths they spawn and brood.

When twilight over Inquanok falls,
The great bell rings and the viols call.
The tales are silenced, and the singers go dumb;
The rites must be kept, lest a strange doom come.

What curious secrets must hidden be
With no mouth to speak, nor eyes to see.
Only silently clutch, and tickle, and taunt,
And fly from Ngranek, the dreaded Nightgaunt.

In Ulthar, a strange thing happened one day:
None of the cats wanted to play.
They only slept in the houses, and dozed in the parks,
And the house 'neath the oaks remained quiet and dark.

Something I just noticed. The directory that this file is kept in his been migrated from computer to computer for so long, many of the files still have only 8-character file names!

Stupid people: they are everywhere

The set-up:

The punch line:

You forgot "songs about my Mexican girlfriend"

Heh.

Yeah, I'm still around. Had a great school choir concert tonight, my daughter being in the youngest group. The high-schoolers were awesome, even though that last piece seemed to last at least 17 minutes.* NOTE: It's rude to bail out just because your kid's group is finished. Stay for the whole thing, or stay away. Although I must admit it was nice when all the riff-raff left before the last group. Made it a lot roomier and quieter for the rest of us.

Here's a very cool song in two versions by Indonesian musician Anggun (Anggun Cipta Sasmi). First in English, then in French. The videos are also completely different. The last one fits my "hot chick singing in French" niche quite nicely.





*Obscure classic rock reference alert.

Catching swarms

I like to make posts like that one yesterday when I said I didn't have much to say anymore because it means I'll suddenly have a whole bunch of stuff worth writing about (cough). So anyway, this post about catching bee swarms at Seguin Photo Blog sparked some memories.

My dad has been a beekeeper for at least my whole life; I can't remember a time when we didn't have raw honey to eat--as opposed to the pasteurized stuff you buy at the store. Many years we had so much we couldn't eat it all and sold some of it locally.

He never advertised himself, but word got around and we would occasionally get a call to catch a swarm of bees that had appeared in someone's front yard and had them all freaked out. We had a fairly low-tech operation; we would catch the swarm clump in a toe sack, tie it shut and take it to the empty hive we wanted to put them in, then duct tape the sack opening to the crack on the breed super (the box on the bottom of the hive).

Anyway, one day we got a call and went to this house to catch a swarm that had alighted on a tree branch in the front yard. The people wouldn't even come out of their house. So we geared up and went to catching the swarm. About that time I saw a familiar face peeking timidly through the screen door. It was someone from school who I didn't like very much because he was always picking on me. We caught the swarm and went on our way.

The next day at school he had to ask me about it, so I told him about catching swarms. He just couldn't believe we did that kind of thing. Of course the Big Question is: Don't you ever get stung? Sure, I told him, but after a while you get kind of used to it.

It must have impressed him. He never bothered me again after that.

Stuff

Local area readers who are customers of you-know-who might be interested in this little statistic. My department's accuracy rate for 2010 through the end of March was 99.85%. My own personal accuracy rate was 99.83%. So I guess that makes me one of the slackers.

I prefer saying that my error rate was 0.17%. Sounds more impressive that way.

Also, I don't know if this link will work because it was part of an email, let's try: news release. From the Libertarian Party, that is. WTF? Kinky Friedman? The dude is a total collectivist. Every time I get one of these "Big L" emails it just increases my contempt for them.

nothing much

I seem to have fallen to the same malady as El Capitan. Oh, I still check into plenty of other's blogs regularly to see what's going on, and I still read a lot of the same blogs that I count on for real news (as opposed to the MSM version). I gave up on just linking to good posts a long time ago, for the most part, and not having anything much original to say here, I decided there wasn't much point in wasting time on it.

So I'm not really quitting, but this blog probably will only be used for the occasional "I'm still around" post, like this one, and for the rare interesting or weird bit of stuff that happens to me in real life.

I had written a Christmas-themed post for The Hunter Chronicles but then decided to put off posting it until I had worked on it more, and got a little stuck on it. I'm going to try to write something before a whole year passes since the last post, but I'm going to save the Christmas post for later. The main character has continued to evolve in my mind, however, and I think there will be a new revelation or two before too long.

I have not actually stopped blogging. I have just turned to different pursuits. For example, I spent about 4 hours yesterday writing a post about "Amazing Grace" for The Hymnomicon (check the right sidebar for all other blog links). The Hymnomicon is primarily for the interest of the majority of my FB friends who are members of the same church as I am and who I all actually know in real life. But of course it's still a public blog and open to anyone who wants to visit.

I don't remember why I did it, but some time ago I had added Tokyo Gore Police to my Netflix queue and I watched it this past week. A very intricate plot, with many unexpected twists and turns and a completely surprise ending, but not nearly enough gore. Also the sexual symbolism was tastefully understated and not at all gratuitous.* BTW, if you feel the need to G00gl3 some images from this movie, be warned that the one above is just about the only one that even comes close to being SFW.

Also caught that new live-action version of Blood: The Last Vampire this week and I think the original anime was much better.**

*irony: the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning

**not irony

Also they spell "license" wrong

quattuordecillion

Bloglines is down so I've just been clicking through the links that pop up at the top of Dictionary.com.

Oh yeah, I just remembered. I got hold of some Mountain Dew Throwback the other day at our local grocery/meat market. They're pretty good for stocking relatively obscure soft drinks. That stuff is fantastic. Once I run out of it, I'm never going to drink that other Mountain Dew swill ever again. I might have to go in tomorrow and buy whatever they have left. I'm going to stash one can of it away so that it can be the last thing I ever drink on my deathbed. It's just that good.

Or Vulcan. No, not that Vulcan. The other Vulcan.

A couple of hours ago I thought I had thought of something that would make a halfway-decent blog post and provide a modicum of activity here but now I've forgotten it.

Well, tomorrow is Fiesta Friday so it's a paid holiday for me. Oh yeah, tomorrow is also Talk Like Shakespeare Day, according to my company calendar. A shame that it's a holiday. I'd like to stick that one in their faces, forsooth.

I heard on the radio that some of the people who were inconvenienced by the Iceland volcano are wondering who is going to compensate them. Total WTF. They want to be compensated for a volcanic eruption? Talk to Hephaestus, baby.

A great information website for anyone interested in jazz...

apassion4jazz.net

Check out this etymology page. But the language may be NSFW, if you have any co-workers who like to hang over your shoulder and read what's on your screen.

Vampire facts

This is something I've actually devoted some serious (or "serious") thought to. Check the link to Dinosaur Comics.

Indulging another obsession...

I doubt if anyone here will be terribly interested in this--I have created it mostly for FB friends who are members of the church I attend, but I have created yet another blog to focus specifically on my interest in hymns and hymnals. Check the right sidebar for links to The Hymnomicon.

I tried creating a name that would fit, but everything I tried had already been taken. So I had to make up another name. I don't know..."hymnomicon" does have a certain ring to it.

Still getting ghost comments

Anyone else?

I apologize in advance for the "blueness" of this post

In case the previous post piqued anyone's interest, here's what happened...

I was going along minding my own business when I saw movement a few houses ahead of me on the other side of the street. A woman--I'm pretty sure it was a woman--came out of a house and walked a few doors down to knock on someone's door.

The first thing my brain said when I saw her was, Whoa!

The second thing my brain said was, Whoa!

Okay, I think she may have been wearing some derivative of the "French maid's" costume/lingerie, but with a few yards of extra material in the bosomical area. And high heels. Her legs were naked.

Although she wasn't technically naked (which, by the way, is not always the best kind of naked), I have chosen this word specifically for the appearance she presented. By which I mean that everything from her ankle up to her crotch--including about an inch of under-butt--was totally bare. I thought maybe she had dashed outside for some important reason because she thought no one was on the street, but when she saw me she peered at me and slowed down.

So no one answered at that door and she went back to the original house, but instead of going back inside she stood outside and said hello to me. I said hello back. "It's humid, isn't it?" she asked, fanning herself with her hand. "Yep," I answered, while desperately hoping that my eyeballs wouldn't implode.

The third thing I thought after seeing her was: Clydesdale. As in a horse that could pull a beer wagon all by itself. She looked like she could straddle a tree trunk and snap it clean in two with nothing but thigh power. And she must have been at least 6 feet tall, even without the heels.

So I went on my way, studiously fixated on where the meters were and nothing else. But the image of the woman has been burned into my mind. A mocha Valkyrie; she could easily suckle two babes with one arm and effortlessly plow a path of carnage through a horde of berserker Vikings with the other.

Thank you for allowing me to share this with you.

Work haiku for today

Rain, mud and fire ants.
Walking, walking, walking still...
Door-to-door hooker?

Busy week

On the way home today it suddenly occurred to me that it was already Thursday. Not a sensation I'm accustomed to. Because of after-work activities on Tuesday and Wednesday, the week seemed to go by quickly.

Anyway, I got those hymnals in this week that I bought via eBay. The one pictured above was published in 1897, which makes it my oldest one. It's in amazingly good shape for such an old book, not much yellowing of the pages, even. It has some mildew smell, like an old book that might have been safely ensconced in someone's garage or some place like that for many decades.

Took a glance at one of the Mennonite books and saw many songs I'm familiar with. One interesting thing about it is that some of the songs have the words in both English and German. The covers are a dark brick-red color; at some point the spines were tastefully reinforced/repaired with maroon duct tape that matches the covers, which made me smile. When I was a kid and our congregation couldn't yet afford to buy a bunch of new hymnals, we fixed the spines of the old ones with regular silver duct tape which didn't really match the beige covers but still held the books together for several more years. I still have one of those old books, complete with duct tape, on my shelf. The music is written in the familiar (to me) 7-shape system. On many of the songs, they didn't bother to print a time signature, but so far it seems to me that all the ones they didn't print the time signature for are in standard 4/4 (or possibly "cut" time). It has an introduction that tells the process by which the book was published; apparently there are (or were) two main branches of the Mennonites who used two different books, and at one point they got together to create a book they both could use. It goes on to say that they went out of their way to preserve the original words from the original writers whenever possible, which increases its value to me personally. It was published in 1969.

The book pictured at the top, "Songs for Young People," is a Methodist book put together by E.O. Excell, whose name I have seen many times. Most of the songs were still very new at the time of publication--songs which have since become old standards. Fortunately their original copyright dates are printed with each song, except for a few that must have been "old" at the time and aren't dated. One odd thing about this book, which I have never seen before, is that the pages are numbered as well as the songs. In every other hymnal I've seen, only the songs were numbered. Some of the songs have piano notation instead of four-part harmony, but, as I once told my dad, I can fix that.

Search hit

Got a search hit today on "what did voltaire mean by a multitude of books is making us ignorant". Which led to one of my very early posts, when this blog had a different name and I didn't really know what I was doing yet (ahem).

I still think my oblique comment that I used for the post title is one of the best explanations of what he meant.

Did not get rained on today

This is what is known as a reverse jinx. (see previous post)

I'm sure I'll get rained on tomorrow.

Forecast is for 50% chance of rain

But what they don't know is that today is Cycle 11 Day, which means we have a 100% chance of hard rain all day long.

Vintage Thrash

Today I ripped Zen Arcade from vinyl. I had previously ripped it from my old dub tape, but this is one that I wanted to rip from the original vinyl for the better sound quality. Been listening to side 1, the only side I've finished so far, and it sounds excellent!

I started encoding my mp3s at 320 vbr (variable bit rate) instead of a straight 128 like I used to. The top end of the treble gets lost at 128. Something I recently noticed, apparently because all this listening is improving my ears. I don't plan on re-ripping any records that I've already done to change the encoding, but I will be re-ripping select CDs (favorite pop/rock and all jazz CDs) for the better sound quality at the higher bit rate.

I tried an experimental rip on one of my old inherited records that is banged up pretty bad: that is, I played it wet by running distilled water onto it with a syringe. Didn't help. Some of these old records are just too messed up.

Campout

This weekend we had our first Cub Scout campout, at a local place (private property which belongs to the pack leader) which is just about opposite from us on the other side of the Cibolo Creek. We knocked out several belt loops & so forth, the kids had a basic introduction to Dutch oven cooking and learned how to make "foil packs" and "omelet in a bag."

The foil pack is made as follows: tear off a good-sized sheet of foil and lay a big cabbage leaf in it. Squeeze a decent-sized glop of hamburger meat into it and smush the meat down so it basically coats the entire inside of the cabbage leaf. This creates a sort of cabbage & meat cup. Fill the cup with assorted vegetables; we used diced potatoes, onions, carrots & bell peppers, add a little salt & pepper, then cover it with another cabbage leaf. Then seal it up in the foil very tightly. The whole pack goes right into the coals of the fire. I think it was cooked 10 minutes, then flipped over and cooked for another 10. Allow it to cool for about another 10-15 minutes, then carefully peel open the foil and eat it right out of the foil. Not everyone--including myself--ate the cabbage, just the insides, but it was quite good although the vegetables could've used a little more time so they weren't so crunchy. My son tried the cabbage, made a bad face and said he didn't want to eat anymore of it, although he scarfed up the insides like nobody's business, and then one of the adults told him the cabbage would give him "superblast-farts" so he ate several more bites since he's such a big fan of flatulence.

The omelets were made by using the larger (quart-sized, I think) ziplock baggies. Put however many eggs you want in the bag, seal it and smush them around to break up the yolks and mix the yolk & white together, then open it again and put in a bunch of other stuff, like crumbled (pre-fried) bacon, pre-fried pan sausage, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, diced potatoes, salt & pepper, etc., then squeeze all the air out and seal the bag one last time. Drop the whole bag into boiling water, let it cook a little while, then lift the bag partially out of the water (pliers worked well for this) and smush it against the side of the pot with a big spoon to flatten out the partially-cooked eggs and ensure that they continue cooking evenly, let them cook a little longer until done. Take the bag out and let it cool for several minutes so it's cool enough to hold, then open the bag and eat right out of the bag. Very good.

My son also got to fish for the first time, unfortunately he was one of the last in line to get to do so and by the time he got down there the hole had been fished out. He and one other kid who was last didn't catch anything, although all the other kids caught small bluegill and one kid a small bass. However we're going to get another chance to go fishing next Saturday with a church group and he might get a chance to catch something then. He said it was great fun even though he didn't catch anything, so that's good. He didn't have to tie on the swivel and all that, but he did learn to bait his own hook (with earthworms) and he learned how to cast with a standard Zebco 404. I started out with a 202 as a kid, but I thought the heavier line on a 404 would be a better idea in case he somehow managed to snag one of those bigger catfish.

The cheap tent I bought at Walmart acquitted itself well. We didn't have rain, but we did have an extremely heavy dew with big drops falling off the tree we were under and we stayed dry and warm. I do plan on getting a bigger tent before the next time so we'll have room for ourselves and our gear. I had to leave most of our gear outside but since we packed light I covered it all with a raincoat and it was fine.

I am quite exhausted from not sleeping well--just a sleeping bag and nothing to cushion it underneath. Other than that, well, my son had more fun than I did, but I guess that means it was a success.

Oh yeah, almost forgot one funny thing. One of the ladies who is a troop leader is a member of the same church congregation as I am, so she's familiar with my song-leading. She was trying to lead the Cubs in "My Country 'Tis of Thee" but was pitching it very badly so she suddenly and unexpectedly drafted me to lead it in her place. I think there was about 10 seconds of dead silence from all the adults when they suddenly realized the guy who never talks was singing, and singing quite well (if I do say so myself). We also covered music to get a music belt loop, and our den leader who was giving the talk misidentified one song that I had to correct him on: he said "Cat's in the Cradle" was by Cat Stevens. I couldn't let that slide, and had to point out that it was Harry Chapin. I think this may be why that happened. Let this be a lesson: never trust mp3 tags from bootlegged music.

Oh yeah...

This post at Gun Rights Examiner by David Codrea reminded me of something. A few weeks ago I had to take both kids to our local doctor for bad and persistent colds/sore throats that they both had. You know how the waiting room at a doctor's office always has magazines lying around? Usually something to with golf, or maybe Time magazine and that kind of stuff. At our local place, I passed the time by catching up on a few issues of Guns & Ammo.

The people who run Transguide are morons

So I'm heading south on 281 today, getting on in the Bitters area, and I see two different Transguide signs warning that there will be construction on IH35 northbound at Eisenhauer starting at midnight Saturday. I'm wondering to myself why construction way over there should be so important to people traveling south on 281 on a Friday afternoon, and just as I reach my exit, I see that construction ahead has brought traffic to a standstill.

So, to recap and belabor the point, why is Transguide warning about something on a completely different highway going in the other direction some 30 hours in the future instead of warning travelers about a serious traffic delay only minutes away dead ahead of them?

I think a much more realistic use of Transguide would be to move all the signs to entrance ramps and have them alternately flash "ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE" and "SUCKERS!"

I was going to read it, but...

via Oddee

Oops

Well, I just discovered that I won an auction for some hymnals. Five of them. For some reason, my brain had the impression that this was a collection of 5 different hymnals. Not so. It's 5 copies of the same.

Oh well, I'll buy them and add them to my collection, even though I don't really need five copies.

So...anyone out there need four Mennonite hymnals? Just pay shipping, and they're yours.

The opposite of genius

I wrote before about straight connections and how some are very well done, almost professionally so, and some are just thrown together--either way, they amount to someone trying to steal water.

Today I found one that was not well done at all. I would have liked to have taken a picture of it, but the vicious dogs chained in the yard alerted the people who were living there, and all kinds of scummy-looking characters were climbing out windows to see what had them in an uproar, so I decided to just keep moving along.

So how was this one put together? A garden hose and duct tape.

Crocodille?

click to enlarge

I've been indulging one of my more obscure hobbies lately: that is, collecting old hymnals. So I've been checking eBay and keeping track of a few which I plan to bid on.

I have no idea why "crocodille boots" is a "related search." As expected, it goes to a list of crocodile boot auctions. Also unknown is why it's spelled "crocodille."

Tricks

Still working on that Holst LP. It's quite aggravating, because I'm sure I played this thing only 2 or 3 times and I don't know why there's so much noise on it. The extended very-low-volume passages are the worst, because the tiniest little pop stands out terribly. I did learn a new trick, however. After zooming in on a pop or click, I maximize only that split second ("maximize" is Goldwave's term for "normalize," that is, boosting the volume up to 100% for that passage). Then I smooth out the click, which is basically sort of like redrawing the sound wave, then I use maximize again to "de-maximize" it back to its original decibel level. More painstaking, to be sure, but it works. Unfortunately, even doing this there are some soft pops that I can't dig out, but right now I'm listening to it at an increased volume level so I can pick out the noise; I think that when I listen to it more casually and I'm not actually trying to find the noise, I probably won't notice the ones I couldn't dig out. There were several places where I just had to say "that's close enough" and forget about it.

I might have to buy a CD of this someday.

Superman would lose

link

Values

Now, I don't support Nazism. I learned long ago through playing Wolfenstein 3D that Nazis are bad for the environment. So if given the chance, I would fight a cyborg resurrected Hitler in a roof-top kung-fu battle to the death, because that's just how I was raised, with my midwestern values.

Sometimes the dude is hilarious.

A question for music lovers

Okay, I'm still working on cleaning up that LP of Holst's The Planets. I am at a quandary. First, I realize this isn't "classical" music but rather...uh...neo-classical or something like that. But the problem is this: I know that it is incorrect to normalize these pieces individually, because that will destroy the contrasting dynamics from piece to piece. For example, track 1, "Mars, the Bringer of War" is generally at quite a loud volume (peaking at -0.73dB according to Goldwave) compared to track 2, "Venus, the Bringer of Peace" (peaking at only -13.79dB). So if I leave them all at their original volume levels, the dynamic contrast will remain correct. However, if I leave them that way, I can't even hear "Venus," for example, unless I turn my volume up to about twice what I usually set it at. So I'm leaning very strongly toward normalizing all the tracks just so I can hear the soft ones, even though this goes against what little musical purity I have.

Maybe I should compromise and bring the soft tracks up to only 50% maximum or something, so there is still some dynamic contrast but I can still hear the music without having to crank my volume up to 11 (metaphorically speaking). I am open to any good ideas or even half-baked opinions on this.

That's an expensive free upgrade

I got an automated call tonight from Verizon, with a message that went something like, we are calling to notify people in your area of free upgrades due to this & that & the other thing, one of the upgrades being high speed internet. I didn't really expect anything out of it, but I stayed on the line anyway just to see what they had to say. So when I got to speak to a living person (who didn't have a funny accent, btw), she brought up my account.

Her: So let's see...You are eligible for an upgrade to unlimited local and long-distance calling for $49.95 a month.

Me: That's the only upgrade?

Her: [silent pause]...yeah...

From the tone of her voice, it seemed that she realized how stupid it sounded and didn't expect me to bite. I told her I wasn't interested, and her "Okay, thank you" sounded like "I don't blame you."

So, Verizon users, there is still not even a whisper of a possibility of high speed internet in this area.

Printer update

I finally got around to buying a new printer today. I went with Brother on the recommendation of several people, and got their least expensive plain monochrome laser printer, the HL-2140. Thanks again to everyone for the input.

You know, I'm almost certain I used to own some other electronic appliance made by Brother, but I can't remember what it was.

I am a source

So how many times do I have be referenced before I become a respected source?

1. LAW (the band) at Wikipedia (I have tried to edit this to refer directly to the individual post but it keeps going back to the general blog url)

2. Dardick tround at Wikipedia

and now...

3. The Styx song "heavy metal poisoning", what are the muffled words spoken just before the song starts? at Yahoo Answers

Cthulhu Akbar!

source

What the...?!

Man, how many times in the space of 15 minutes does someone have to try the same search phrase before he figures out that my site doesn't have anything about it (600+, apparently). I wonder what or who "JARL" is, anyway.

Cinema!

When you don't revisit your Netflix queue very often, you sometimes forget what you've added to it.


Hoo boy. You know, when I searched for this one I just did it to be silly--I never really expected them to have it. I was really surprised when I saw it was part of their inventory. This was one of my...er..."favorite" "so bad it's good" films (well, "films," since it was shot on videotape) from the videotape rental heydays of the 1980s.

After I found this one I quickly tried Shriek of the Mutilated but unfortunately Netflix doesn't have that one.

The last one I got from them was Billy Jack. First time I've seen that movie since the 80s. Still cool, but a lot of bad acting from the bit players.

Making a spectacle of myself

Had an eye exam today because I've been feeling some eye strain and it's been 6 years or so since I last updated my prescription. The doctor recommended I have that pupil-dilation exam because 1) it was included in the cost of the overall exam and 2) I'm 46 years old and have never had it done before. The good news is, my eyes are perfectly healthy. The bad news is, she said it would wear off in 2-3 hours and it's now been nearly 4 hours and I still look like a belladonna freak.

Something new today, though. She told me that my right pupil is slightly larger than my left. I was not surprised at this, but curious as to why no other optometrist I've ever seen in my life had noticed it before. I wasn't surprised because I've always felt that my right eye is more sensitive to light than my left. I guess this explains why.

Turns out my prescription didn't change much, and she recommended I keep my current spectacles for a backup in case I break my new ones or something.

Had a curiously interesting conversation with her (male) receptionist about the origins of our last names and families (he is Polish, or according to the doctor, "half Polish" which kind of cracks me up). Somebody else in the office had a cellphone ringtone of the first few notes of "The Entertainer" and for some reason he asked me what that song was. I told him the title and that it was a classic old ragtime piece by Scott Joplin. Strange how a semi-obsessive interest in music can impress some people. Of course I do have an album which includes that piece.

It also turned out that whoever supplies Walmart with frames had some kind of snafu at the factory and they were dumping a bunch of frames cheap. So I got some $64 frames for $9. Now that I have a new prescription, I can get some free safety glasses thanks to my employer. I won't have to wear my nice new glasses for work.

In other news, today I received a CD of Open Office. Already tried out the spreadsheet and it looks really nice. Not totally identical to Excel, but it will open my old Excel sheets and I won't have to resort to that p*r*t*d CD of Office anymore.

Will the last one out of Lockhart please turn off the lights...

Lockhart humor in Real Life Comics.

A retraction

I may have, in the past, at some point intimated that Diamond brand matches are the worst pipe lighting matches in the world. Vastly inferior to my favorite old Ohio Blue Tips--which by the way I heard that they have disappeared because they were bought by Diamond...

Anyway, I would like to retract that statement. Penley brand matches are the worst **** pipe lighting matches in the world. I am about 3/4 through a box of 250 Penley kitchen matches and I have already had THREE matches break in half and fly flaring onto my shirt.

I think these are some matches that my wife got at Dollar General. I gotta st0p and get some more Diamond matches tomorrow before I catch myself on fire with these **** things. Penleys are made in India, according to the box label. I think Diamonds are still made in the U.S.

I wish I could still get Ohio Blue Tips, though.

I think I'm about at 6 7/8

7 stages of blogging.

All things are vanity

I've been in one of those phases during which I think: 10,000 other bloggers have already added their two cents so why should I bother? I don't know why I'm even bothering to make this post.

I have been keeping fairly busy with real-world stuff, and am having a horrible time trying to de-pop that Holst LP. I don't know why there's any noise on it at all, since I'm pretty sure I played it only once when I bought it.

I've also been re-familiarizing myself with some music notation software called Melody Assistant, which is one of the few programs I use that I actually paid for after using the trial version, and the second music notation software I ever bought--the old one being for Win 3.1 I think and it didn't work very well anyway. I bought this one because it is able to use shape-notes (7-shape system) instead of just conventional round notes. The software seems quite complicated to get the hang of, but I'm getting better at it, and once you figure out what you're doing you can print finished scores right out on your own printer. I am not a composer (not officially) but I have harmonized a few hymns, set music to a few poems, and studied the harmonization of literally hundreds of hymns. I'm currently working on converting a piano score for an old hymn to four-part a capella harmony.

I am now on vacation for a full week plus two weekends. I didn't take a real vacation last year, and I was starting to feel the burn-out. My ideal vacation is to go nowhere and do nothing. I'm sure I'll be running around the area here a little, but the kids are in school and my wife will be working and I'm just going to relish whatever peace and quiet I can get.

Oh man...

This just killed me. Check out the last picture. I was LOLing until tears ran down my face. Probably proves I have a cruel streak in me.

My brush with fame

Check out the anonymous comment.

Album cover artwork

I think this is a totally cool idea, but this particular execution of it is--to me, anyway--somewhat disturbing in certain instances.

10 Creative Album Cover Artworks at Oddee. Warning: NSFW.

Makes me want to give it a try, but avoid those certain man/woman pairings. Check it out and you'll see what I mean.

Oh, what the heck...

Here's one screen cap of Ol' Squinty-Eyes himself. This look is saying: "You shoulda never ****** with me."


From Barquero.

Pseudo-random links

This was going to be my regular Monday post this week but I got side-tracked by computer problems. Now that I'm back to ripping albums I probably won't be doing this thing anymore, for a while at least.

A brief overview of weird stuff falling from the sky. Yellow mice?

Thief-acrobats with 18 DEX in New Jersey. And they made all their saving throws.

Socialists can't spell.

Online cryptid coloring book.

Texas: Cradle of the Dogs. (I heard something on the radio this week about some other scientists whose research shows that dogs were actually domesticated first in the Middle East).

Barquero

Just wanted to mention that I saw a movie last night that you might want to see if you're a fan of westerns and pipe-smoking. Barquero, from 1970, starring Lee Van Cleef. Also starring Forrest Tucker as a jovial yet ruthless mountain man.

Van Cleef will be a featured pipe smoker at my other blog sometime in the future--I keep finding so many cool pictures of him smoking a pipe that I keep putting it off--so I'm not going to post any pictures now.

In Barquero, Van Cleef plays a hard-bitten barge operator at a remote spot on the Rio Grande who gets caught between a group of sheepish settlers, who he doesn't particularly like, and a gang of murderous outlaws, who he truly hates. Lots of great pipe-smoking action as Van Cleef puffs away on a Peterson in between shooting bad guys.

I will not describe the end lest I give away a spoiler, but the ending scene I found especially enjoyable: pipe smoking, a muzzle-loading rifle and long-distance shooting--three things I like the most!

It's raining outside

But that's not unusual.

It's raining and cool. On Saturday. Which means I'm not outside working in it for once. Heh heh.

I was still having some computer troubles yesterday, but I spent several hours on it last night and I think I'm pretty much back to normal now.

Some good news, for a change

I got my new record-cleaning stuff in today, so I'm going to start ripping vinyl again!

It's called Gruv-Glide.

Ghost comment

A few days ago I clicked on "publish" to approve a comment, but for some reason Blogger "rejected" it instead. Now every time I go to my dashboard it says I have a comment to moderate, but when I click on it I go to "no unmoderated comments." Lost in cyber-limbo somewhere, I guess.

P.S. I still hate daylight saving time

Well, I think I'm back. That was a scary couple of days. Once I got the machine up & running again, I tried a full restore from my backups but it didn't sit well with the computer. So I started over once more and this time I'll be doing some "manual" restoration (that is, re-installing from scratch) plus selective restoration from my official backups. And a lot of updating.

I don't really know why the crash occurred. I guess it's just one of those things. Anyhow, I had my Official Worst Route Ever today, which is a cycle 11 in the area of Harry Wurzbach and Rittiman. This is my regular route and like I said, it's very bad. It's been worse for the past six months or so because every time I've gotten it, it has rained. The City has been in some of the alleys (it's all alleys) spreading fill dirt because they turn into mini-creeks when it rains. So I was slogging through a lot of mud today. Fortunately, a few weeks ago I went and bought some knee-high rubber boots because I knew the next time I got this route, it would rain. By the way, I predict it will rain again on April 17. That's my best guess, because I'm not sure exactly what day I'll get this route again next month, but I'll update you as the time comes closer so you'll know with utter and complete certainty that it will rain that day. Anyway, the boots did a good job and were more comfortable than I thought they'd be. Of course, I was still covered with mud by the time I finished.

But when I got home I found that my wife had been cooking and baking and we had a big feast for my son's birthday (which is tomorrow) with grandparents as guests. I gave him a Wolf Scout cap & belt that I picked up last week for him, and I intend to bring home a small CD player tomorrow. I think I might also burn him a Deep Purple CD so he can practice "Smoke on the Water."

The management did something smart for a change, and changed our clock-in time to 7:00 AM instead of 6:30. This is a good thing to do, because DST really screws with outside workers and this way we won't have to be reading meters with a flashlight for the first hour (only half an hour or so now). Once sunrise gets back to a more reasonable time next month we'll go back to 6:30.

So now I'm having a pipe and trying to decompress from the stress of having a large computer-shaped paperweight on my desk. Sheesh.

Computer problems

The last thing I did yesterday was install Power Point. Suddenly the computer started getting all kinds of weird problems and when I tried to reboot everything came to an end. For a while it didn't look like even the system restore disks were going to bring it back.

I have backups this time, but I lost about 30 mp3 albums that I hadn't backed up yet. Other than that, it's just the major pain that this kind of thing always is.

And I sounded awesome

Both of my kids are in the same music class, although they are in different grades. So they are both practicing with their recorders at the same time. My daughter asks me how to play that ending whistle part from the Spongebob theme song (G-A-B-A-B-G).

My son asks, "Daddy, can you play that guitar part from 'Smoke on the Water'?"

And for the first time in my life, I found myself playing that famous guitar riff on a soprano recorder.

The things I do for my kids sometimes.

Friday night video: El Perro Del Mar - God Knows

Here's one from the Scandinavian Gold sampler from Amazon which is still available as a free download. Creative yet primitive video. I'm not sure how the Three Stooges' evil cousins fit in.



Here's an actual photo of the Sarah Assbring, the singer.


P.S. "...melancholic twee pop?" Who thinks up these ridiculous sub-sub-sub-genres?

P.P.S. Albatross, I somehow managed to delete your comment instead of publishing it. I don't know how that happened. I'm sure I clicked on "publish."

The recession and Texas

Interesting news at The Whited Sepulchre.  Read the whole thing and note the point made after the list.

Their formula takes into account projected job growth and housing prices. Here's the list:

1. (tie) Washington, DC-Arlington-Alexandria
2. (tie) Austin-Round Rock
3. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
4. (tie) Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington
5. (tie) Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown
6. Denver-Aurora
7. San Antonio
8. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy
9. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana
10. Kansas City (Missouri and Kansas)

Skip this rant, since it doesn't really contribute to the argument in this post: Seeing Washington D.C. ranked as the most recession-proof enclave on the planet should come as no surprise, since our system requires all the tax, stimulus, lobbying, porkulus, and kickback money to go there first so that our Lords and Masters can take their cut off the top. Look at the huge pay increases given to Department Of Transportation employees, for instance. The number of employees breaking the $170,000.00 per year barrier has increased by 1,680 % in just two years, while the rest of us struggle through a recession. Nice, recession-proof work if you can get it.

Irrefutable

So I ran into a "disgruntled" customer today who was angry that it was so hard for him to use the water cutoff. He had to use the company cutoff because the leak was between it and his customer cutoff. The company cutoff is this weird 5-sided thing that you need a special wrench for. So it went like this.

Me: "Oh, yeah, you need a special 5-sided wrench for that."

Him: "He [his plumber] had one! But he had to stick copper shims all around it so he could get a bite."

"He had to stick copper shims in it?"

"YES!!!"

"So...it was the wrong size...too big."

"NO! It was the right size! Your cutoff is too small!!!"

I wasn't about to argue with that kind of logic, so I just gave him my standard "I understand, sir, but I'm not authorized to do anything with hardware, call [number redacted] and they should help you."

In other unrelated news, Corey Haim is dead. The Lost Boys is still one of my favorite movies. I also like Silver Bullet.

10 more albums #70

All Amazon free downloads except the one noted. Lots of "world music" this time around.

Music from Israel (2009)
Music from Brazil (2009)
Cumbacha World Music Sampler (2009)
20/20 World Vision Sampler (2009)
Minty Fresh Sampler (2009)
Music from Croatia (2009)
Owl City - Ocean Eyes (2009, CD)
Paper Bag Fall Sampler (2009)
Pressure Sounds (2009)
Ghostly Essentials: Avant-Pop One (2010)

Recently I downloaded several "Music from such-and-such-country" samplers from Amazon. Most of them don't really give you a good idea of traditional music from that country; rather, they are generally westernized pop music in whatever language that country happens to speak.

Anyhow, the Music from Israel sampler is pretty good--I like it a lot. Only one song in in English, but this whole collection is good. I give it an overall good score of 2.4,* and none of the songs got less than 2. Songs added to my general favorites list are:
Miri Mesika - "Tipa Tipa" (Little by Little) (female singer)
Aya Korem - "Shir Ahava Pashut (A Simple Love Song)" (female singer)
Dani Robas - "Masheu Hadash Matchil (Something New Begins)" (male singer)
Shay Amar - "B'osher Ve'Be'Oni (In Wealth And In Poverty)"
Who'd'a thunk that Hebrew would sound so cool in westernized pop songs?
Final verdict: it's free--go get it.

The Music from Brazil sampler didn't score so well, getting a solid 2.0 overall. But nothing deletable and four new ones for the favorites list. The songs presented are, to my ears, variously a mixture of pop, countryish, rock, rock/rap, and jazzy pieces. Four instrumentals out of the 14 songs included. Be aware that if you download this one, read the comments. The songs were not tagged properly and the artists weren't even identified. Thanks to a couple of commenters for supplying all the pertinent information. The new favorites are:
Gilberto Monteiro - "De Lua e Sol" (instrumental featuring the accordion and guitar)
Escurinho - "Lá Vem a Onda"
Paulo Moura - "Terezinha de Jesus" (jazzy instrumental)
Banda de Boca - "Samba da Bahia" (cool harmony vocals, a Latin beat that percolates)
All vocal songs in Portuguese.
Final verdict: it's free, so why not? At least start with the four I mentioned and go from there. Note: the one by Escurinho is what I referred to as rock/rap, but it also has singing with a hard rock beat (not hip-hop). I don't know. I guess I just prefer rap in Portuguese (and Japanese, but that's another story).

The Cumbancha World Music Sampler is apparently mostly African, but at least one song has a Spanish (or Portuguese--I can't tell the difference) title and one has a French title. It gave it a good 2.5, with four more new favorites and nothing scoring lower than a 2. New favorites:
Kailash Kher & Kailasa - "Kaise Main Kahoon (International Version)"
Sarazino - "Noticias del Enemigo"
Kimi Djabaté - "Kodé"
The Idan Raichel Project - "Ôdjus Fitxadu (With My Eyes Shut)"
Final verdict: it's free, and it's good enough to pay for.

20/20 World Vision gets an even 2.0. One song for the favorites list: "Quando Das Um Pouco Mais" by Sara Tavares (a Portuguese pop song). Also one for the jazz list: "Miles from India" by John McLaughlin. The rest are mostly twos with a couple of ones but nothing that really jumped out at me. Final verdict: download only those two favorites mentioned, skip the rest.

This is Minty Fresh, Volume 2 didn't fare so well, with a 1.7 overall. A collection of pop/rock/alt-pop/rock or whatever. Two new favorites, though: "L'amour, L'amour, L'amour" by The Prototypes (which is in French) and "Post It" by The Aluminum Group. The rest were mostly blah, with one song worth deleting. (Note: this is not one of the world music samplers, it's just a regular sampler). Final verdict: probably shouldn't bother, except maybe for those two I mentioned. Warning: I apparently (something I just recently discovered) have a thing for chicks singing in French, which may be the only reason that first one made the list.

Music of Croatia did pretty well, with a 2.1 overall. One instrumental and all the rest vocal pieces. Only one one, the rest twos and threes. New favorites are "Dalmatino, Poviscu Pritrujena" by Oktet DC and "Davno" by Sasa Bulic (the instrumental). Probably not suitable for the ears of the average pop fan, but then if you're an average pop fan you probably aren't reading this. Final verdict: download it if you're interested in music from other countries.

Owl City - Ocean Eyes. I didn't rate these songs because it isn't one of the samplers, but a CD I actually bought from yourmusic.com. This whole album is absolutely immaculately produced electronic pop, so I mostly like it. However, there is some autotuning going on so be warned. There's one song, which I don't recall which one at the moment, but it has way, way, WAY too much autotune--so much that it hurts to listen to it. Not quite as horrendous as "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus, but still pretty bad. (And how do I know about that Cyrus song? There are some things that are better for you not to know.)**

Paper Bag Records Fall '09 Sampler gets only a 1.5 overall. One rap piece that was deleted, a bunch of ones but two songs that made the favorites list: "Miracle" by Sally Shapiro and "Invisible" by Winter Gloves. This is another of the regular (not world music) samplers of various rock, pop, rap and such. One piece, "Dancer" by Woodhouse has more autotune vocals but I added it to my "chill" list.*** Final verdict: you probably shouldn't bother with this one, either.

Pressure Sounds gets a 1.8. Mostly twos and a couple of ones. This is a sampler of reggae from various parts of the world. Nothing for the favorites list. Final verdict: definitely do not bother. Unless you're a reggae fan, in which case YOU MUST HAVE IT!!!

Ghostly Essential Avant-Pop One is quite nice, and I gave it a 2.1 overall. Heavy on the chill with this one, with 6 tracks added to my chill list. Three general favorites: "Two Dots" by Lusine, "My Radio" by Solvent (which is also going on the chill list) and "Half Asleep (alternate version)" by School of Seven Bells. If for some odd reason you want to hear examples of what I might consider "chill," check out tracks 2, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 11.

Album count: 710.

*A re-explanation and revision of my own personal rating system. Scale is mostly from 1 to 3. A 1 is for songs that I don't particularly care for. Songs that get a 2 are okay, but nothing too special. A 3 means I'm adding it to my general favorites list. There is also a 4 and 5 for truly exceptional songs that really hit me in the gut, and a 0 for songs that I delete after downloading, or probably should delete but keep anyway for instructional purposes. (That is, so I can sit down and say: "Here. This is an example of a song that sucks," and hit the play button.) So any album/collection that gets higher than a 2 is on the good side, less than a 2 means I don't think much of it. If this is too vague for you, tough.

**By the way. D*mn. That song could drill a hole through glass if focused properly. I mean, what the h*ll? Do people actually enjoy hearing that cr*p? There is absolutely nothing whatsoever wrong with Miley Cyrus' real voice. This song is evidence that either a) she is even more vapid than she appears, or b) her producer is possessed by a cacodemon from the deepest pits of the Abyss. Or both.

***"Chill" is a genre I partly adapted from an existing genre and partly I redefined for my own purposes. Mostly instrumental although not exclusively so, it generally has too much of a well-defined beat to be ambient and too up-tempo for new age but still tends to be somewhat down-tempo and relaxing. Late at night when I just want to read some blogs, smoke a pipe or two and chill out, I put something on that will fill the space without intruding too much--I load up my chill list.

Monday Maunderings

Selected links to help you pass time on a Monday.

The devil you say: Pew study reveals that the Internet makes news a shared experience. "They seem to access news when the spirit moves them or they have a chance to check up on headlines," the report said. "They send e-mail, highlight news stories in their tweets and haggle over the meaning of events in discussion threads."

"Thank God it didn't rain crocodiles." Unexplained stuff falling from the sky is probably my favorite Fortean phenomenon.

Deny all knowledge--destroy all reports. "This stance was adopted so defence officials would not have to publish the information in response to freedom of information (FoI) requests or pass it to the National Archives."

Come over to the dark side of awesome. (via Hell in a Handbasket)

Record grooves under an electron microscope.

Focus and aim for the head

Nothing important to post. Just that old-timers may remember how I've posted a couple of studies of some anime shows that I like, especially Hellsing. There was that one about the "guns of Hellsing" that drew so much traffic that it wrecked my bandwidth when I was over at Eponym, and which I later moved to this blog but then eventually deleted because I got tired dealing with all the fanboy comments.

Anyhow, I've begun taking some screen caps and thinking out another study on the anime series Bleach. There's one of the first screen caps above. No guns in this one, since guns don't play a part in this series. This one, rather, will be on the swords, especially the sword belonging to the character pictured above.

And that's about all. It will take me some time to go through some DVDs and take some nice screen caps to illustrate the development of his sword (it changes as time goes by).

Like I said, nothing important.

Friday Night Video: Cocktail Slippers - "Go Get It"

A recent sampler download had a song by this group on it. I went looking for a video of that song but apparently it's not available. So I picked this one instead.

When I reflect on the many groups who were popular during my formative years, I sometimes think I got cheated. Both this and the other one ("You Do Run") are going on my general favorites playlist.

Ignore the gratuitous prop-guitar smashing at the end. It's just silly.*



*I don't know who they think they are, smashing a perfectly good guitar.

"...this shattering blow of audible speech"

An interesting newspaper article from April 27, 1928, via Silent Orchestra (Facebook page). Click here to view a graphic reproduction at G00gl3 news.

The most alarming thing on the horizon is the production of a number of hasty and poorly executed talking pictures, which after the first flush of novelty has worn off, will leave the public disgusted and disillusioned. This will be an easy and expeditious way of killing the golden goose. It is all too likely to happen and to lead to a serious set back to the talking film.

In my opinion, they accurately foresaw the future of film but not for the right reason. I think that the silent movie was an aberration and that the talking film went further to restoring story-telling to a more natural method. After all, the precursors of film: theater and even more ancient "'round-the-fire" story-telling relied on the spoken word. Silent film wasn't a protection against bad movies, it was just the first step in killing the art of story-telling.

Good article, though. Scroll up and read some other articles to compare how different and detailed newspaper reporting was 80 years ago to how it is now, when even newspaper articles are written in soundbites.

A two-pipe night

Been a rough couple of days. Tuesdays are always long and exhausting for me because of extra stuff I have to do at night. Also it seems that the universe is conspiring to dump on me somehow every Tuesday and make it even worse than it should be. This time it was a route that I am not familiar with, was all alleys, all the alleys were still flooded, and whoever has been doing that route has not been putting the lids back on the meter boxes. So all the boxes were choked with mud. Also all the lids behind a strip mall at one point had been stolen. They like to steal the big lids to turn it at the metal salvage place.

Today when I got home I put up a new dog trolley, my most professional-looking and bad*ss trolley yet. Ninety feet long, made from 3/16-inch galvanized cable. Eye bolts that would hold a dump truck. We'll see if it can hold a 30-pound dog. Then I replaced all the skirting on the house that the dog knocked down while on her temporary short trolley.

After six months, my cop-boots were in terrible shape. I call them cop-boots because my employer got us a good deal on the same boots that all the emergency services people wear. They were excellent boots, but they were tattered. Anyway, I'm going back to W*l-M*rt for boots now, because their $35 boots last just as long as those special $120 (which I got for half price) boots did. This time, however, I put new insoles in them right off the bat, because I know from past experience that the soles of these boots are too hard. I couldn't find any black leather waterproof boots that weren't also steel toe (steel toe are too heavy), so I got the old suede kind I used to get. But this time, I sprayed them with suede protector right away. We'll see if this helps them stay in decent condition longer. As you might expect, I go through footwear like nobody's business. My other new thing in footwear lately is that I bought some knee-high rubber boots for when it rains, so I won't have to drag my regular daily boots through the water. It doesn't do any good to wear waterproof ankle-high boots when the water goes halfway up to your shins. The waterproofing is still important for everyday wear because heavy dew can also make your feet wet, and wet feet will ruin your whole day.

A company email yesterday revealed that the board of directors are all in a tizzy because the weather experts are predicting a wetter than normal year this year because of El Niño. Therefore, less irrigation will be needed, less water used, and (horror of horrors!) revenues will be down. Rather than cut down on their yearly supply of ivory back-scratchers, they are asking all departments to figure out ways to cut expenditures by 10%.

I just squeaked in under the wire this month with 18 errors--max allowed is 19 or they start getting upset.

All this to say: it's a two-pipe night.

The bell curve

So my daughter comes home from school and says she's having a problem with math.

"It's probabilities," she says.

"Cool!" says I.

"It says what if you have two six-sided cubes numbered 1 through 6 on the sides..."

"Wait a minute. Why doesn't it just say 'dice.'?"

"I don't know."

"Okay, you realize they're talking about d-sixes, right?"

"D-what?"

"Six-sided dice."

"Yes, Daddy. I know that."

"Okay, from now on we're going to refer to dice like this: 1d6. The first number means how many dice you have, the 'd' means it a die, and the last number is how many sides on the die. Okay?"

"Okay....?"

"What's the problem?"

"You have 2d-sixes and..."

At this point I glanced at the book and saw what was going on. "Too bad it's not 3d6," I said. "That's what you use in Dungeons & Dragons."

"???"

"For character ability scores."

"???"

"Like strength, intelligence and stuff."

"Oh. Anyway..."

So we had some fun learning about the bell curve--or at least I had fun teaching her (something her "teacher" doesn't seem quite too skilled at), although I still think it would have been more interesting with 3d6. Or even more interesting with 4d6 and you get to discard the lowest one.

Monday Maunderings

Quick links for your perusing pleasure.

The Resistance

Garfield Minus Garfield Plus Cthulhu

In the midst of commentary on the MSM meme that D&D makes you nuts, James offers a totally awesome desktop wallpaper worthy graphic of more polyhedron dice than you can shake a Wand of Wonder at.

The Journalist's Guide to Firearms Identification

First run of Venture Brothers action figures announced. Sorry, Dr. Girlfriend is not yet available.

Supermodels ain't what they used to be.

The awesomeness that followed...

Texas sunset at Seguin Photo Blog (wallpaper worthy).