Friday, January 14, 2005

del.icio.us

del.icio.us

Here's a great time killer for ya...
if yr not familiar, del.icio.us is a way to categorize and share your bookmarks online...
the front page is a constantly changing list of links people have recently added...
when I'm through with my regular daily sites I hit del.icio.us and spend some time looking at random sites that look interesting...

check it out!
I bet you'll find something on the front page that is interesting,
and that you've never seen.

Battlestar Galactica Blog

Battlestar Galactica Blog

Since Battlestar is on the list of things I'll be talking about here, and I just discovered this blog, and I think tonight is the American premiere on SCI-FI, I thought I'd link to it...
be sure and read the Richard Hatch diary...
it's good.
touches on his struggle to continue rather than re-imagine BG,
and his first appearance as Tom Zarich. It also proves I'm not imagining things. Even he says he's a better actor now, and he attributes it to stuggling for so many years after his initial success on the original BG. Anyway, good strong honest stuff.

Have a seat...

RIGHT ON!
this is brilliant stuff!
just discovered this site, and this is the most interesting entry on the front page right now...
I WANT MY GODOT CHAIR!
really though, go to the main page and check out some of the other ideas/products/pieces there...
very cool.

Today's Oblique Strategy

Oblique Strategies:

"Question the heroic approach"

So today, I'll be asking for help. Whenever I think I might need it. I have a tendency at work to make assumptions and move forward. Today I'll curb that, slow down a bit, and ask questions.

look for The Oblique Strategy of the Day to become a semi-regular feature...

they don't know what they're missing...



WHOOHOOO! Theater is all the way down at the bottom!
right under tennis, and, uh, HORSEBACK RIDING!
there are more people who would list HORSEBACK RIDING as their favorite activity than Theater...
I notice also that they have playing music, but not listening to music on the list...hmmmm....

Thursday night-THE BLP POWER HOUR!!

argh!
Blogger just ate a long post about the BLP power hour read-through...
and my theories on Lost, and how pathetic Quaid looked on The Daily Show...
grr...
sum up:

BLP Show: Funnier than even I thought! Kelly sounded GREAT and Wendy Chicago is brilliant!

Lost: Compass? hollow earth?!? Locke didn't give the kid drugs...Island causes hallucinations...manifestations of the Id...echoes of forbidden planet...better be answers in the end....

Daily Show: Quaid looked more like a pathetic middle aged man than I do.


Thursday, January 13, 2005

THE BIG NEWS!

The Daily Howler

"Note to Gregory (pet name: Stretch): When a president lies in the face of the people, that is the day’s biggest news."

if yer not reading the howly, like daily, then shame on you!

I'm not blogging the social security scam...
suffice it to say folks a lot smarter than me (Talking Points Memo, Atrios, etc) are doing a fine job of documenting the shrub's LIES on this one... They've already taken our present, and now they want our future...
I think the only reasonable response is a hearty, "FUCK YOU!"
Educate yourself on this issue. The facts are out there. Make sure your reps and senators have the same facts. It's important.
And now I'll shut up about social security...
if the crazies are right it'll all be over in 2012 anyway...

Wednesday - FOK - MATHLETES - VERONICA MARS

Below you can hear a few seconds of last night's Fist of Kong session.
It was fun, but I had just got home from work and had some problems concentrating.
Playing free improv is great fun, but if you can't get your head in the game it can be VERY frustrating. Every time I would lay out to listen for a bit I'd find my head wandering and being everywhere but in the room, in the moment...
Fist of Kong is usually just Charlie and Danny, but occasionally, and hopefully more often, they expand out to a larger group...it's mostly fire music...high energy free jazz in the "new thing" tradition...Last night we had Rose Lange (viola), Jim Otterson (guitar), Me (tromobone), Tom Zermeno (percussion, voice), in addition to Charlie (sax) and Danny (bass).
Nice group. We recorded the session on the Mini-disc. But we're having a problem with playback right now (hopefully just the headphone cord) so it'll be a while before we drop it to CD.

Next up - The Mathletes - we had our first (short) practice for the BLP Power Hour...
worked up:
"Walk on the Wild Side" which Walt will be singing, as "Biff"
"Brazosport" to the tune of "Galveston"
and
"By the time I get to Sweeney" to the tune of "By the time I get to Pheonix"

tried to audioblog from practice, but I guess I did something wrong...
still playing with that...
it's o.k. cause Joe decided to start playing some danged smashing pumpkins song when I started recording...so I was probably just gonna delete it anyway...

going to keep experimenting with the audioblog feature...
should be able to present y'all with snippets from things I'm working on as they are in progress, or little bits of practices or sessions as they happen...
looking forward to playing around with it.

Got home and watched the latest Veronica Mars before bed...
it's not Buffy, but it's not bad...some advancement on the main story...
some interesting twists...and the cute witty girl saved the day, as usual...

Here's the thing... I think I'm an addict. I'm addicted to narrative. Comic books, TV shows, Novels, doesn't matter how I get my fix so long as I get it... I want convoluted continuity and twists and characters and witty dialogue and the whole bit...I NEED STORIES!!! so I find myself watching a lot of TV (more than when I actually had an antennae or cable hooked up), reading a lot of comics, and getting my fix wherever I can. So far I haven't started pawning stuff to buy narratives, but it's only a matter of time before I'm some kind of story ho...
Is there such a thing as narratives anonymous?

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

a few seconds of Fist of Kong

this is an audio post - click to play

News from The Roanoke Times -Rodeo in Salem gets unexpected song rendition

News from The Roanoke Times -Rodeo in Salem gets unexpected song rendition

Next season on Ali G.
via Fark.

Borat is gonna get his ass beat one of these days.

Building a solid-state mini-ITX Linux recording studio

Building a solid-state mini-ITX Linux recording studio:
"This simple embedded Linux project builds a dedicated music recording and editing computer that uses a CompactFlash card instead of a hard drive, to eliminate hard disk chatter. The project is simple because it starts with an embedded Linux distribution: a 'Live CD' released last week by the Agnula Project. "

any of you real tech-heads out there want to build me one of these?
I'll even sign a maintenance contract for support...
since I know nothing about linux and probably never will...

Daily Kos

Daily Kos: "This morning, the Supreme Court issued a widely anticipated decision on the constitutionality of the federal sentencing guidelines. While details are scarce at the moment, it appears that the Court has declared the guidelines largely unconstitutional, holding that they can no longer be considered mandatory."

This is beautiful news!
Let's hear it for an independent judiciary!
hip hip hooray!

Tuesday night - car trouble, the mathletes and more

So, I go out to my car at lunch yesterday. Just going to move it to the closer parking lot. But, alack and alas, I left my lights on. So the danged thing won't start. After work my team lead agrees to jump start my car. Well, we try for about 20 minutes and get nothing. Then we wave down the parking lot security guy and he tries. Somehow, this time it works.

I get home just in time to catch Tom watching the new ep of Battlestar Galactica. Another political intrigue ep, very little action. It did however forward some major plotlines and feature the return of Tom Zarek. Tom Zarek is a former terrorist who is now trying to become a legitimate political leader, and he's played by Richard Hatch. That's right. Richard Hatch. And he can act. It's actually amazing how good this show is. Especially when compared with the original. They are playing with some big ideas here, and there are some genuinely interesting characters. Up next in the cue was Stargate Atlantis. They used an imminent wraith attack to give us a clip show. Better than your average clip show I guess. Incredibly cheesy at points, but I laughed out loud at Dr. McKay several times. I was entertained.

Then it was time to load up and head to Mathletes practice. Ya know what? The Mathletes are starting to function and feel like a real band. Last night we whipped through everything we know in about an hour. I haven't had this much fun being in a band in a LONG time. Until recently we hadn't practiced regularly in MONTHS. Joe and I were both in Puppet Liberation Front and Baal and we never seemed to find time to practice. Well now we're playing at least once a week, learning new songs, and trying to book gigs. It's great. Hopefully we can keep it up even when Medea kicks in full swing.

Tonight I've got a session at my house with the extended FIST OF KONG and then more Mathletes practice as we start to prepare for THE BLP POWER HOUR!! WHOOHOO!!!


Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Monday night - TV NIGHT!!!

yup...caught up on some d/l'ed tv last night...
watched the new episode of "Huff". Great cast, and some funny moments on this show...but it's a real downer...more than "Six Feet Under"... I almost decided to stop watching it after last weeks "Cancer Christmas Special". It's just one outrageous catastrophe after another. When my favorite character on a show is a coked up lawyer, that can't be good. Especially if my second favorite character is an overbearing mother. Watching this for the performances mostly as I can't seem to care much about most of the characters...

next up was "Boston Legal". Caught this once accidentally at my mom's house, and I was hooked. Spader and Shatner! This may be junk food but, mmmm, is it tasty! and this week they added Candace Bergen (Candace is interesting to me not just because she's a great actress with spot on comic timing, but because she is Edgar Bergen's daughter. I went through a ventriloquism phase as a kid and spent many hours studying with my Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen "learn to be a ventriloquist" records...) So, anyway, if you've got time to kill you coul do alot worse than watch this show.

Then I watched the first two eps of this season's "24". Never watched the show before, but it seems like it's going to be quite a ride. I am sure lots of folks have more interesting things to say about it than I do... So I'll let them.

Then I finished watching "Mystic River". Great acting, real complexity, and still didn't really grab me... Eastwood's pictures are always so understated...which is good theoretically, it's just, well sometimes it makes it hard to have the emotional grab the story should have...
that said this could have had a real afterschool special/movie of the week/melodrama thing going so it could have been A LOT worse... If it's in your netflix cue it's worth watching, it's just, well, not that exciting.

all this fine viewing was only interrupted by Charlie and Shari coming over to borrow some drums for a recording project they are working on, that I for one CAN NOT wait to hear...

Tonight is rehearsal for The Mathletes/BLP Power Hour band. Should be interesting...
I'll blog more about the show soon. It's gonna be a hoot.

and if we're done in time I'll be getting my sci-fi fix with the latest eps of Stargate:Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica...

WHOOOHOOO!

The New Republic Online: Labor Pains

The New Republic Online: Labor Pains

And yet only Nader would even mention repealing Taft-Hartley...



There is power in a factory, power in the land
Power in the hand of the worker
But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand
There is power in a Union

Now the lessons of the past were all learned with workers blood
The mistakes of the bosses we must pay for
From the cities and the farmlands to trenches full of mud
War has always been the bosses way, sir

The Union forever,defending our rights
Down with the blackleg,all workers unite
With our brothers and our sisters from many far-off lands
There is power in a Union

Now I long for the morning that they realise
Brutality and unjust laws cannot defeat us
But who'll defend the workers who cannot organise
When the bosses send their lackeys out to cheat us?

Money speaks for money,the Devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone?
What a comfort for the widow,a light to the child
There is power in a Union

The Union forever,defending our rights
Down with the blackleg,all workers unite
With our brothers and our sisters together we will stand
There is power in a Union

Monday, January 10, 2005

No matter what they say...

Daily Kos :: The CBS Memogate Report--an insider's perspective

he'll always be A.W.O.L. to me...

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | N Korea wages war on long hair

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | N Korea wages war on long hair:
"It stressed the 'negative effects' of long hair on 'human intelligence development', noting that long hair 'consumes a great deal of nutrition' and could thus rob the brain of energy" via William Gibson

damned hippies!

I knew there was a reason I preferred short hair...and now I know it's because I'm a good socialist...
YAY!

WRAC 130.Section 11 (Spring 2005)

WRAC 130.Section 11 (Spring 2005)

This is a class I would take...
Comic books, Le Tigre, Bikini Kill, Frank Capra...
and PUBLIC ENEMY!

ahhh...
one day I'll go back,
get my PHD and then I'll make kids
read Frank Miller and listen
to the Dead Kennedy's...

well, I can dream, can't I?

Monday Mornin' Blues (in the afternoon)

So, had a good weekend...
Friday night The Mathletes played at the axiom...
I really enjoy playing bass, even if I'm not very good at it.
It's all old school punk rock 8th notes on the tonic as far as I'm concerned.
A few of the mathletes tunes have bass lines Joe wrote and makes me play,
but when I don't get any guidance, it's 8th notes on the tonic...
Jenni didn't make it out this time, and it looks like we'll be Jenni-less for a while.
She's taking classes to become a music teacher and it's taking a lot of her time...
but it's going to take her further in the direction she wants to go,
so it should be worth it. I drank a lot of tequila at the show. My role in The Mathletes is "dumb rock guy" so I wore my leather jacket, and drank cheap tequila from the bottle onstage...
it helped...

Saturday I worked with Aileen on some music for her dance piece coming up at SUPERHAPPYFUNLAND in Feb. She did a great tape cut-up of some Harry Nilson songs then I put that in ACID and layered a few other things on it, and edited out some bits of silence...
the result is funny and a little unnerving... can't wait to see what she does with it.
Then I went to John Duboise's wedding... It was a nice short service in a small church with the oldest pipe organ in Texas... Tina looked beautiful, and they both seemed to be having a great day. The reception was at The Firehouse. The Medicine Show played, and I would link to them but I'm being petty because nobody told me we (they) were playing, so I didn't bring my horn...
it's weird always being welcome to play with a band, but not being considered a part of the band...think I'm taking a break from that for a while... I need to concentrate on playing with people who really want to play with me and who consider what I do an integral part of the whole...so no Medicine Show for a while...last monday when I went to play with them it was pretty danged unsatisfying...and not just because there were too many people on stage.
Called it an early night and was in bed by midnight or so...ahhh sleep...

Sunday I went to my folks out in Deer Park to borrow some gas $$$. Despite getting my first real paycheck in a while I'm still broke. That's what you get for paying back rent...well, that and not evicted. When I got home Charlie and I talked about some Last Bastions future plans and then we had TDU practice. Ryan showed up this week, but no Jo Bird...we'll probably never get all our ideal musicians there until we book a gig... Maybe I'll call SUPERHAPPYFUNLAND today and see what we can do... The New TDU is much more psychedelic and less soulful/funky...but that's o.k. We're definitely approaching more of the 70's Mile's feel that we were initially talking about trying to hit with the last line-up...
had my dinner and then went with Charlie to play Poker at Joe Mathlete's. Charlie lost first. He's never played cards for $$$ and looked very confused much of the time. I knew I had to be at work this morning...and I was drinking the tequila again...so I was out next...
We were playing hold 'em and they were allowing re-buy-ins... Which I don't like one bit...makes it less about skill and more about who is starting with the most $$$...not that it mattered to me...I couldn't even really afford the $5.00 I lost...hehe...

so, minus details of girl chasing (unsuccessful as usual) that was pretty much my weekend...
and now I'm at work writing this, because well, it's better than working (and I'm all caught up)

blah...