This Day In History: 03/07

Thursday, March 07, 2002

Dave McGarry has some new recordings up on his site, so check them out if you're interested . Army of Advisors and Tollway South are both well-done -- the rest are still in transit over my slow modem. It'd be nice if he could get a small group back together for some recording, as I still like a lot of his non-solo recordings the best. As for the remixes, Andy did a really great job with Back on the Ground, although the drums on 24 & 6 sound way too wooden and fake. I'm not sure I like the strings at the end either.

It's peculiar that all three composition faculty candidates are clustered right at the beginning of the alphabet. I hope the Search Committee wasn't using the Yellow Pages approach to picking finalists.

I was reading an FSU newspaper earlier that someone had left out on a bench, and wondered about the universality of bad student writers. Wherever you go, the student-run newspaper seems to be written by horrible Journalism majors who couldn't write their way out of a paper bag. Stories tend to be peppered with irrelevant quotations, trite observations, and a general lack of focus. Movie reviews tend to be the worst (even worse than sports columns). Every student movie reviewer tries to write like a hard-boiled movie hack and ends up with either a superficial analysis of nonexistant themes, or a third-grade book report. What happens to these students when they graduate? Do a significant number of them actually get jobs in the competitive market?

"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." - Frank Zappa

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Friday, March 07, 2003

I'm going to be getting a new cat sometime in the next few days (hopefully). The problem with kittens is that they get scooped up faster than horse turds in a parade. I found a listing for four kittens in the local paper and all of them were gone when I called two days later. To the left you can see two possibilities that I wouldn't mind having -- I still have to go through the motions of contacting the foster families and such, but I do know that they're available.

A few FSU composers (including myself) were published in the latest SCI newsletter, responding to an editorial by Karl Korte about the bankruptcy of a contemporary music recording label (Reflections on CRI and the Future, pg 1). My reply was tossed off in about fifteen minutes because I figured it would never get selected for print, but from the flabbergasted tone of the rebuttal and the ensuing discussion on the listserv, it looks like us student composers are naive and simple.

Here's a new MIDIfication of a video game theme: this time around, Saria's Song from the first Zelda on the N64.

    MP3, 633 KB

News updates are a little shorter than normal this week, because I want to make sure that I have enough useless material to last through Spring Break. That way, I can take a few days off if I so desire.

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Sunday, March 07, 2004

Today's update is a new round of kitty pictures.

Alias Season 3, Episode 14, tonight at 9 PM.

Yesterday's notable search terms:

    maryland jernegan, what the beatles prove about teenagers, because they bend, even their twigs are safe, businessman suit homeless man

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Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Cat Media Tuesday

Amber likes to sit on things and dangle her front paws off the end, as if she were sitting on the edge of some imaginary community pool that allowed cats. She also likes that rockin' red sweater I'm wearing, and goes out of her way to find it in the laundry basket when it's warm out of the dryer. Perhaps if I put my clothes away faster it would help minimize the cat hair, but my laundry generally stays unfolded for three to four days after a wash.
I think Booty may need an Intervention. It started out just on special occasions like birthdays and bar mitzvahs, but she doesn't know any Jewish cats, so the birthdays have been increasing. If I am to believe her, Amber is now 284 years old. Booty also gives two paws up for Ecco Domani Pinot Grigot.
When Amber is not sitting in my lap, or sitting on the couch, or running away from invisible demons with pink horns, she's curled up in the sink in the hallway bathroom (which luckily does not see much hand-washing traffic, since I don't use the bathroom myself and all my frequent visitors are dirty non-hand-washing heathens). You can see more pictures from this series here.
Last month, we all went over to Vu's house to help him store the last of his possessions so he could move to San Francisco and rent out his house. Up on his mantel, he had a psychedelic singing flower that reacted to loud noises, singing "You Are My Sunshine" to anyone who'd listen. The kids were attracted to this flower like a mix of Pavlov and Pied Piper. Every time they'd get bored, I would clap my hands again, starting the flower up. This would make them all turn around and come back. These are not cats, but they are just as cute. You can see more pictures from this night here.
This is a picture of the last snow storm we had, which dumped a foot of snow all over the Washington area and then melted the next day like a global warming advocate's wet dream (...). This is the "sun room" at my parents' house, which was one part of the standard "our kids no longer live here" improvements that took place after high school.
And because no Cat Media Tuesday would be complete without a video that looks just like all the other videos, here's a documentary short of Booty and Amber:
Booty gives Amber a Wet Willy (2MB WMV)

And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified.
One could certainly ascertain that if you're in a barn and in a secluded area with a lamb and you're behind her and your pants are down by your ankles, then an unnatural sex act is probably occurring
Obviously, Brokeback Mountain lost because it was a 'rural' film

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Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Memory Day: Beach Sunrises

Six years ago when I was pretending to learn about composing in Florida, I would open each weekend by visiting a local nature preserve or state park. One of my earliest trips was to Marsh Sands Beach, a small east-facing beach on the Gulf of Mexico that was just fifteen minutes outside of Tallahassee (a straight shot down one of the main roads). Although this beach would ultimately be remembered for the low-tide island I claimed (Briland), watching horseshoe crabs hump, or training Chompy not to be crazy, in the beginning it was just the perfect place to catch the sunrise.

I normally wouldn't give a rat's ass about sunrises, and I'd be one of the last people to scale Mount Gobacktobed just to watch a sunrise at any other time in my life, but there was something very unique about having my own personal ocean sunrise in my backyard, surrounded by all manner of flora and fauna.

More and more often as the months went by, I'd wake up at 5:30 on Sunday morning just to catch another sunrise and walk barefoot on the beach. I remember the time a large bouquet of plastic red roses had (quite poetically) washed ashore , and the time I stumbled across a couple of high schoolers asleep on the beach (apparently having spent the previous night doing some beachbum canoodling).

Of course, there would always be obstacles between me and my sunrise. Since every road between Tallahassee, Sopchoppy, and Doubleyoutieffasaki was barely more than a dirt road, I often got stuck behind local dairyfarts driving fifteen miles per hour in their '80 Dodge Darts, missing the sunrises by mere minutes. Anyone who has ever seen the sun crest the horizon in a kaleidoscope of artistic synonyms knows that it's not quite the same if the sun is already up when you get there. Despite these hurdles, I had plenty of sunrise shots (including the ones you see here) stored away for the memories by the time I left Florida two years later.

On my last sunrise trip in April 2003, I brought Booty along with me in a carrying case. I was getting her accustomed to riding around in the car so she could take her first road trip back to Virginia in a couple weeks' time.

Booty didn't give a rat's ass about the sunrise so we went home.

Off-duty Northwest employee charged for release
Dirty car windows become artist's canvas
Don't let grandpa get away with it

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Friday, March 07, 2008

Friday Fragments

immensely satisfying as long as you're illiterate

♠ I haven't made any more progress in Warcraft, because I've spent all my online time playing Warsong Gulch, which is obviously the most entertaining portion of the game. When you reach the endgame, you can either spend eight hours in a cave waiting for people to eat and drink, or you can do twenty-minute pick-up games where you get to beat people up. The latter is much more rewarding.

♠ My Warcraft time will probably decrease since Rebecca's returning from Guatemala this Sunday. Also, Super Smash Brothers Brawl comes out for the Wii on the same day, so I'll have to have a Wii-party sometime soon.

♠ EBGames actually has a useful discount right now -- if you purchase Super Smash Brothers Brawl with the coupon code 'nintendo', you get free overnight shipping on the order. Usually gaming retailers throw in useless extras that only seem like a good deal. It's kind of like the two free eggrolls you get with every Chinese food order.

♠ I've never understood the appeal of eggrolls. They're bland and tasteless, and you might as well grab a soggy newspaper off the front stoop, roll it up tightly, and take a nice big bite out of it.

♠ My house has a stoop, but there are never newspapers on it. The paper delivery man can barely hit my driveway from his car without running into my mailbox. As compensation, he makes sure that whatever fast food he's eaten for breakfast transfers from his fingers to the newspaper bag. Booty and Amber always lick the bag whenever I bring the paper in.

♠ This bag licking phenomenon now applies to any plastic bag in the house, especially bags in trash cans. It's a little weird at first, but I'd rather my cats be dirty baglickers than pee on things or drag their butts across the floor.

♠ Aren't you glad that humans don't wipe their asses by floor-scooting? Although, it would make dinner parties quite exciting for all the wrong reasons.

♠ This weekend, the plan is to do some Europe planning, some grocery shopping for my almost empty fridge, and some poker. If it's warm enough, I might even reopen the basement for the springtime. Sunday is also Mark Connor and Larry Newdorf's respective birthdays. Happy Birthday! Have a great weekend!

School covers up students with smileys
Cow-power
I fell in love with a female assassin

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Monday, March 07, 2011

Weekend Wrap-up


At the base of the South Point Falls around Mile 63 of Skyline Drive

Wine and a woodfire at the cottage on Brightwood Farm

Rebecca gets trampled by stampeding goats during a rainy breakfast hour. We also mucked some donkey stables.

Warming up in the breakfast nook with an introspective copy of Walden. He was determined to know beans.
High school basketballer dies after game-winning shot
"May cause drowsiness" too confusing for modern medicine
Mexico female police chief flees to US

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Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Memory Day: Snapshots

This picture was taken in 1983 at Point Lookout, Maryland. You can see the single-minded dedication with which I approached the menial task of filling up a bucket from the Chesapeake Bay and dumping it on the sand -- skills I later applied by winning in public school.

A year later, mysterious space plane still in orbit
George Washington-shaped Chicken McNugget nets $8100

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Thursday, March 07, 2013

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

Skyfall:
Obviously I'm not the target market for James Bond movies, because the only other one I've seen in its entirety was Goldeneye. If you're invested in the Bond mythology, there's a lot to like here. If not, you've got two hours and twenty-two minutes of meandering plot stitching together a few great action sequences and explosions.

Final Grade: C

Justified, Season Two:
The second season of this Kentucky hillbilly show improves upon the first. It replaces some of its quaint charm with more gritty action, but still keeps a fine balance of humor and drama. A midseason episode about a courtroom evacuation is very well-written and suspenseful, and there are some great guest roles by additional LOST alumni, who appearently ended up in Harlan County after the island started jumping through time.

Final Grade: B+

Breaking Bad, Season Three:
This was another season that was more intense than good, and built up to a nice conclusion even though the pacing of its "slow burn" could use some work. Something about this series feels sterile, and I usually watch with a detached interest rather than an eagerness to see what happens next. There's also a horrible episode, "The Fly", that tries way too hard to be artistic, and which the collective Internet believes is the best episode ever written. Since I measure "best" by whether or not I fall asleep during my first viewing, I politely disagree with the Internet. (See also, the game LIMBO).

Final Grade: B-

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Friday, March 07, 2014

Random Chart Day: Buying a Space Heater

  • Important Requirements
    1. Hot: Has sufficient heat output to quickly heat up a room. Hot enough that you can't hold your hand against it, but not so hot that your shoes will melt next to it.

    2. Quiet: Just loud enough so that you don't forget it's on and burn down the house when you leave the room. Does not sound like you are perpetually next to Niagara Falls.

    3. Well-Engineered: Will not break down after two months. Does not require you to push eighteen buttons for the single setting of heat that you prefer.

  • Chance of Finding One That Satisfies:
    1. Just 1 Requirement: 100%

    2. 2 out of 3 Requirements: 10%

    3. All 3 Requirements: 0%

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Monday, March 07, 2016

Weekend Wrap-up

On Friday night, we stayed in with some Wegmans sushi and Squatch Ale. Unlike the rest of the world, we didn't start the next season of House of Cards, as we have too many shows in various states of incompletion to get through first.

Rebecca was off taking a continuing education Physical Therapy class in how to touch people this weekend, so I spent most of each day working on Sparkour. We did, however, get out on the town at least once each day. On Saturday evening, we picked up some Bon Chon chicken and went to the Smiths', where we played Settlers of Catan and helped them isolate their mysterious beeping sound that only emanated once every 14:55. (It turned out to be the backup battery on their telephonics).

On Sunday evening, we had dinner at Clydes in Reston, with an incongruous outdoor view of ice skaters and Christmas light, and then went home for a rare game of Hearthstone and some TV time.

How was your weekend?

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Wednesday, March 07, 2018

Topanga Day 2

Having kosher fishy meals for lunch at Fish Grill in Malibu, after hiking 2.5 miles in Corral Canyon.

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Monday, March 07, 2022

Easy Photos Day

Ian eats our house.

Sick day activity book (mild stomach bug).

At the Algonquian playground while Rebecca teaches yoga anatomy.

Ian is old.

At the Sterling Community Center's grand reopening.

tagged as day-to-day | permalink | 1 comment

 

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