The counterpoint exam was a piece of cake. Now I've just got to fix the problems in my three-voice project draft which I got back today. I think I try too hard to be clever in the assignments and it comes back to bite me in the ass in ways that aren't always easy to fix.

They've been tearing down a building behind my apartment for the past couple weeks, and thoughtfully gave me a rich coat of demolition dust for my naked car. After waiting for the rain which hasn't come all month, I finally broke out of miser mode to get the $4 "EZ" wash yesterday. So of course, it rained last night. And this morning, the yard crew was out bright and early, mowing up leaves and sending great billowing clouds of dust across the parking lot.

Raking must be part of the more expensive maintenance package our complex didn't order.

"To become famous and get chicks." - composer's reason for studying composition

I finished the last of my Comps exams this afternoon. The essays weren't too difficult -- it was just a matter of being complete without being able to use of specific examples (I guess some people might have an encyclopedic knowledge of examples to cite but I just stuck with naming composers and the occasional title). The biographies were pretty straightforward although I dated most of them by half-century rather than specific years. There was one name that I had no idea about and couldn't even recall reading about ever. Since only last names were given on the exam, I took advantage of the loophole and wrote about the saxophonist/composer jazzer of the same name. There were two others that I didn't know much about: one was a vocal polyphony guy and the other was an early 20th century French composer.

Jim recommended a book, An Outline History of Music by Milo Wold, which is a perfect study guide for exams such as this. It goes period by period and provides capsule information about style, notation, form, composers, and theorists. Though not enough to learn material, it's a great refresher course and very concise (about 200 pages).

Sometime in the past couple days, the corroded lip of the garbage disposal pulled away from the sink drain, leaving a nice inch wide gap for water and assorted food scraps. Last night, it finally overflowed in the sink cupboard, oozing brown carrots onto the floor and solidifying two large boxes of dishwasher soap. Luckily the maintenance guy was here within fifteen minutes of the call and replaced the entire disposal in about ten minutes, free of charge.

Good thing everything in the apartment is so modular.

This is the turkey I made for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. While cramming its posterior cavity full of stuffing so it could be roasted, I noticed something that I probably always noticed but never really thought about -- when they package the bird for public consumption, they ram its legs up its own ass so the bird has no wiggly parts when it's shrink-wrapped.

It's not enough of a humiliation to be raised and killed for the sake of some unappreciative family's tasty treats. They also tell the birds, "After your dead we're going to kick your ass with your own drumsticks" and then turn the bird into some macabre avian Cirque du Soleil performer. I'm surprised that they don't poke the wings down the neck cavity, but I guess it would look too much like someone spelling the M in YMCA.

Here are two more things that I've learned while hosting, shopping for, and preparing holiday dinners this month:

1. I am incapable of cooking any stove-top recipes involving boiling milk without having them boil over. Water-based recipes behave perfectly, like a seven-year-old driven into a beauty pageant by domineering parents, but whenever there's milk involved, it always boils over and crusts onto the stove in that split second my attention is elsewhere. Then my stove and sundry cooking experiments smell bad for the rest of the week.


2. I hate getting shocked by my car whenever I get out in the Winter. It's a tame Honda Accord. The most shocking thing about it should be that there's both an FSU and VT sticker in the back window.

Today's update is short because time is short and I am shorter. I will make it up during the rest of the week -- I promise! I already have a theme picked out for Tuesday through Thursday.

Newsday Tuesday

New Zealand students may use text-speech on exams
New Zealand's high school students will be able to use "text-speak" -- the mobile phone text message language beloved of teenagers -- in national exams this year, officials said. New Zealand's Qualifications Authority said Friday that it still strongly discourages students from using anything other than full English, but that credit will be given if the answer "clearly shows the required understanding," even if it contains text-speak.

I think they're fooling themselves if they really believe that the teacher base will be able to grade and understand text-speak just as quickly as plain English. Allowing online abbreviations in exams also destroys the lifelong student tradition of padding the length of essays through a clever mix of synonyms, prepositional phrases and 1.0001 inch margins -- where's the fun in that? To ease the transition into a completely chaotic miasma of communication, the Authority published a list of twenty-five rules for which there will be no Xceptions. Here are some examples:

1. Emoticons like :-) are not suitable replacements for discussions of emotions and feelings.
2. OMG HI2U is only a valid greeting in a personal letter. Business letters must still use 2 whom it may concern:.
3. WTFBBQ should be limited to situations where there is a literal barbeque being described.
4. For all variations of ROFL, please spell out the suffix phrase to avoid confusion. Example: "ROFL my ass off and peeing in my pants" instead of "ROFLMAOPIMP".
5. Never abbreviate the phrase "If you see Kay", to avoid unintentional vulgarity.

Candidate gets no votes -- but he voted for himself
Randy Wooten figured he would get at least one vote in his bid for mayor of this town of 80 people -- even if it was just his own. He did not. Now he has to decide whether to file a formal protest. Wooten got the news from his wife, Roxanne, who went to City Hall on Wednesday to see the election results. "She saw my name with zero votes by it. She came home and asked me if I had voted for myself or not. I told her I did," said Wooten, owner of a local bar.

This woeful tale of small-town drama has an unexpected twist: the wife apparently didn't think anything was amiss until she talked to her husband, which means that obviously she didn't vote for him either. No doubt someone was in the doghouse that night!

Evolution Day

When I was growing up, my dad took so many pictures that their value is depreciating faster than the US dollar. The current rate is roughly ten pictures for 1 yen, and it's sure to sink further now that I've discovered another bin full that were never scanned or added to albums.

Here are some long lost pictures from various Band Parents' Days since 1993. Like rings in a tree, you can tell how old I am by how long my hair is and how round my glasses are.

Tenth Grade, 1993: Our marching band had some ridiculous uniforms with capes hanging off just one shoulder (capes are why people in band are so popular, and the half-cape lets you pretend you can fly, but only to the left).	Twelfth Grade, 1995: This was, quite possibly, the worst can-can line ever. Not to mention that the flag corp uniforms look like a tragic industrial stapling accident.
Freshman Year, 1996: The thick winter coat is misleading -- I weighed 108 pounds here.	Sophomore Year, 1997: The crew cut could never be seen this year, since it was always hidden underneath the classy crew cap, and I never went anywhere without this classy thousand dollar Members Only jacket. That's Jason Mirick in the background.
Junior Year, 1998: The crew cap was replaced with a white VT hat this year, because I am into peer pressure, and because you're supposed to wear college gear at the college, just in case people can't figure out that you go there by seeing you in class or in the marching band or in the dorm. That's Kelley Corbett in front of me.	Senior Year, 1999: This was the first year I had hippie hair. My long, wavy locks were almost one inch long! The circumference of my glasses shrank to zero once I started wearing contacts too. That's Rosie on the left.
Fifth Year, 2000: Remember when I could part my hair? Me neither. Wearing that warm-up jacket, I could pass for a very Asian Randy Bird.

Friday Fragments

bisecting the month of November like a slightly busted compass

♠ Not enough people posted an embarrassing high school story yesterday. I had planned to illustrate them all with cutesie Post-It note art but it's really not worth it unless I hear some more incriminating details. If I don't, maybe I'll just have to make an animated graphic of Katie Lucas falling over with a shotput and put it in the banner at the top of the page.

♠ Do you remember the good old days when there used to be an animated llama in the banner? Right about now would be when Turkey Llama made an appearance, since Thanksgiving is right around the corner.

♠ The Fifth Annual Month of Thanksgivings is running smoothly, with the first of three dinners happening this Sunday, replete with bacon-wrapped scallops and cheddar cheese soup. This is my favourite BU-initiated tradition since it combines both friends and eating (but not eating friends). Pretty soon I'll be able to put up my grotesque blue Christmas lights and pipe XM Holly through the sound system continuously.

♠ Following the merger of XM and Sirius, a stealth-change to the channel lineup occurred on Wednesday, with most of the XM stations gutted to make room for Sirius stations. UPOP was replaced with BBC 1, an actual UK station. On the bright side, this means I get to hear funny British accents, less world music, and never again have to change the channel while . . . Ted . . . Kelly . . . talks . . . over . . . every . . . song. On the bad side, the new morning guy is just as annoying in a different way, and they opened their inaugural day by playing Miley Cyrus -- I guess the idea that Sirius' playlist is narrower and more mainstream is true. I had already planned on cancelling my account when it ran out next March because UPOP was starting to suck.

♠ Speaking of sucking, Day Tours Unplugged sucks for ripping off Paige. I promised her that I would link to that entry so I could boost her Google rank, much like the time Mike (of Mike and Chompy) tried to Googlebomb "Adam Carolla sucks" from his blog. This effort mostly failed because Mike is incapable of spelling Carolla in a consistent fashion -- a Corolla is a car (and Blue Ribbon is a beer).

♠ Speaking of homophones, someone recently discovered my site by searching for "dirty homophone jokes". Ignoring the fact that he might have been searching for homophobe jokes and had a typo, can anyone think of some good dirty homophone jokes? I can't think of any naughty body parts that sound like other words (although my ass sounds like a frog if I eat too much dairy).

♠ Have a great weekend everyone!

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

7:35 AM: Amber decides to wake Rebecca up.		7:51 AM: Obligatory post-shower shot.
8:04 AM: Breakfast in an exceptionally sunny kitchen.		9:05 AM: Practicing the FIFO-queue approach to optimizing a Costco visit, showing up twenty minutes early, rolling through the doors as they open fifteen minutes early, and returning home just as the mobs arrive.
9:56 AM: Following a grocery run.		9:58 AM: The cats did not offer to assist with the groceries.
10:15 AM: Playing Skyrim, one of the first games in a long time that's fun rather than addicting.		11:36 AM: For particularly long gaming sessions, Booty likes to gain weight and then stimulate the blood flow in my legs with a lap dance.
1:00 PM: Leftover ham for lunch.		3:39 PM: Trying to convince Amber to go rake the yard. You can't tell that I just did this last Wednesday.
4:30 PM: Rebecca arrives home from school and makes sure to get in a shot, so it doesn't look like I am single.		7:57 PM: Big burgers at Red Robin.

See more 12 of 12ers at Chad's site!

Stuff In My Drawers Day: ICQ Chat Logs

Not a lot happened on November 14 in any of my past logs to warrant an "X Years Ago Today" post, but I did stumble across these ICQ chat logs from the year I lived with Kelley in East Ambler Johnston. He was usually on the road representing his cult, so we mainly used ICQ to leave messages for each other. Apparently, I was home ALL OF THE TIME because I was a Computer Science major, which also made me his personal secretary.

--------------------------------------
     ICQ History Log For:    
           101330505  Kelley
 Started on Thu May 10 16:06:02 2001
--------------------------------------

My memory is poor, but I'm pretty sure that Melody was the girlfriend and Shac was the friend, but the frequency of phone calls towards the spring semester suggests that both of them wanted a piece.

Bonus Transcript:

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

How I Met Your Mother, Season Eight:
Somehow, this series has managed to perfect the space-time continuum stretching technique originally perfected by my undergraduate "Roman World and Early Christianity" class, stretching a time period and storyline so thinly as to actually stop any sense of progression. I have no idea how this isn't the final season, but initial screenings of the NINTH (and Final) season on TV suggest that it will move even slower than this season, stretching a three-day wedding weekend into an entire season. As always, there are laughs to be had, and it's a little lighter than the failed attempts at seriousness tried in Season Seven, but you're mainly going to watch it to get to the end, not because it's a superb show.

Final Grade: C+

Homeland, Season Two:
Season Two was slightly less believable than the amazing first season, especially a plot device based around the conceit that WiFi communications have an infinite radius. I disprove that theorem every time I walk to the front of the house with my laptop. The season ends in a way that provides plenty of fodder for Season Three, while still wrapping up existing storylines nicely.

Final Grade: B+

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh:
My expectations for books by bloggers-become-writers has drastically decreased over the years. Sometimes, the books end up being expensive shovelware of free existing blog posts. Other times, the author loses their blogging charm in the transition to printed book. (Or, in the case of Dad Gone Mad, they'll send pictures of their penis to women on the Internet and then immediately close down their blog when it becomes public).

With that caveat, I did enjoy this book based on the blog of the same name. Although there is familiar material, the book is well produced, and the combination of funny memoirs paired with MS Paint images translates nicely onto its big, colourful pages. I'm impressed by the way the author can easily distill childhood innocence into universally relatable words and illustrations.

Final Grade: B+

Quiz Day: Me Me Me!, Part III

Part I | Part II

How much you know about me? Hover your mouse over the right column to see the correct answers.

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

8:14 AM: Awake, later than usual.

8:15 AM: Opting to remain in bed for a bit longer.

8:34 AM: Soft-boiled eggs for breakfast.

9:00 AM: Morning computer time.

10:24 AM: First rake of the season.

11:09 AM: Yard cleared and tomato plants destroyed.

11:16 AM: Booty patiently waits for food.

11:58 AM: Lunch in the productivity zone.

2:11 PM: Amber helps Rebecca prepare her work presentation by rolling around on smooth papers.

5:24 PM: Respawning as Junkrat.

6:30 PM: Dinner at Chuy's with Rebecca and Michelle.

9:38 PM: Watching Idiocracy with the family.

Comments Fix Day

I just fixed the "An invalid character [32] was present in the Cookie value" error that was preventing people with a space in their name from posting comments. The side effect of this fix is that you'll have to re-enter your name for your next comment, but it will then get remembered for 30 days as usual. Let me know if you run into other issues!

Memory Day: Snapshots

This picture was taken almost ten years ago today, on November 15, 2008.

This was the first of 3 hosted Thanksgiving Dinners (two for friends and one for family), back in the days when I was still expending way too much effort making fresh cheese soup, eating Totino's pizzas for dinner, and playing Mario Kart with FSU people on a weekly-ish basis.

In order of when I last saw these people, from most recent to least: BU, Rebecca, Michael, Jessika, Marc, Sam, Annie, Mike. Surprisingly though, I have seen them all in 2018.

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

12 pictures of your day on the 12th of every month

6:21 AM: Showered and ready for the weekend.

6:38 AM: Good morning!

6:42 AM: Ready for the neighbourhood walk / trash pick-up and obsessed with the moon.

7:19 AM: Reading 10 consecutive books until Rebecca wakes up.

7:59 AM: Bagel for breakfast.

9:00 AM: Off to Riverbend Park for a hike with Marc. (Maia is at the grandparents this weekend).

10:34 AM: Power-washing the sidewalk around our house, part 2 of 3.

11:31 AM: Treadmill time while watching The Peripheral.

12:18 PM: Ham sandwich for lunch while rereading Warhost of Vastmark.

4:24 PM: Up late from an afternoon nap.

5:17 PM: Dinner at Ford's Fish Shack.

6:33 PM: Getting ready for bed.