New Edition Day

The URI! Zone turns 14 this month, and if mandatory primary education was a requirement for websites, it would be placed firmly into the eighth grade. For the coming year, expect to see numerous posts attempting to increase the site's popularity through slander and picking on the nerdy websites, coupled with the occasional embarrassing crush on websites of the opposite sex. I don't really know how you can determine the gender of a website (maybe "View Page Source" would work) but in my opinion, the URI! Zone is definitely a dude.

To celebrate the milestone of surviving for fourteen years without dying to lack of interest, lapsed domain registrations through really bad webhosts, and the possibility of a mass exodus of readers following too many posts about Alias, Les Mis, or having sex with day labourers behind 7-11, I have posted a yearbook picture of what I looked like in the 8th grade. Unfortunately it's not a one-to-one match, since I was actually 12 in the picture, not 14. This is probably because I was smarter worked much harder than my website.

The presence of a scanned yearbook picture should also clue you in to the fact that I finally purchased a new scanner, months after the old one exploded: an Epson Perfection V30 that's half the weight and twice as fast as my previous HP model. This means that everyone's favourite feature, "Stuff In My Drawers Day", can resume with impunity. I have some other possible features being focus-grouped right now, including "Crud I've Cleaned Out of Booty's Ears Day", "Pictures of Our Scrabble Games Day", and "Mensday Wednesday", where I talk about steak and boobies.

I also asked several notable souls in my circle of life friends to commemorate the Fifteenth Edition of the URI! Zone in some extravagant way, and they graciously responded by having babies: You can all welcome Alexandra Jean Morton and John Whittingham Wilmer, IV to world! The I-V on the end of the name means that John will probably end up at an Ivy League school, most likely Princeton. Congratulations to the new parents!

Thanks to everyone who has visited my site over the years! Because of your continued interest, "urizone" is much, much more than just a South African drug for yeast infections.

Museday Tuesday

As part of this feature, which I started in 2007, I compose a very brief work (under 30 seconds) inspired by a randomly generated title from an online word generator. The composition can be for any instrumentation, and could even be a purely synthesized realization that might not be possible to perform in the real world.

I work on the excerpt continuously for an hour and then post whatever I've managed to complete, even if it's a poorly constructed slum of a song supported by a foundation of droning double stops and abused tubas.

Acerbic: (adj.) sour or astringent in taste

This excerpt is written for abbreviated orchestra, which means that I had an orchestra in mind, but was too lazy to set up an actual full score in Finale, so I only used the instruments whose MIDI patch numbers I had memorized. It ended up being more shady than acerbic, not unlike a witch who was turned into a willow tree.

Random Chart Day

Because of declining readership and ad revenue from the URI! Zone over the past two years, we are discontinuing Saturday updates, and Sundays will be in black and white.

Traffic to the DDMSence homepage from freshmeat.

Technically, Booty is big enough to count as 1.25, but fractions of a cat are always messy.

Census Day

It's been over three years since I last held a census, and in that time, I've picked up lurkers from such exotic locations as Washington State, Alabama, and San Diego. Even if you have never posted before, take the time today to click on the "comments" link in the lower right and reply to my census -- I would love to know who reads or subscribes to my tripe so I can tailor future updates to your interests! (If you read the URI! Zone from a feed, you will need to follow the link from the actual site, which protects it from spam-bots).

1. Who are you?
2. How do you know me?
3. How and when did you find this site?
4. Where is your website?
5. What would you like to say to the rest of us?

To encourage replies, one random census-taker will be selected to win their choice of a prize:

Prize #1: A nearly pristine edition of Music Theory From Zarlino to Schenker: A Bibliography and Guide

This five-hundred page tome will make you the most popular know-it-all at the next Society of Music Theory conference and has a street value of $85. I will even pretend to be the author and sign it. Delivery charges not included.

Prize #2: A $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com

By accepting this prize, you will also know what it was like to be one of the underpaid millions who performed in in my undergraduate recital. FREE SUPER SAVER SHIPPING.

I will leave the census open for a couple weeks to catch all the people with babies that no longer visit daily. Thanks!

(Mostly) Off Day

In an unscientific analysis of yesterday's census, both of the initial respondents demonstrated their OCD by fixing a typo I had left in the census response template. I will occasionally make typographical mistakes alterations just to see if your on you're toes -- there's your warning.

I've managed to work enough hours this week to take most of today off, unless something should come up, so I plan to take full advantage. Other notable accomplishments this week include:

• Installing a new stereo in my car that doesn't hiss like a mellophone player in the Marching Virginians.
• Getting to the last mission in Starcraft II.
• Eating at Omia's, the local restaurant that really deserves more patronage for its cheap, good Greek and Italian food.
• Getting a bonus at work for spending a whole week in training.

Have a great weekend!

Weekend Wrapup

On Friday evening, we played badminton in the backyard until we were chased inside by the dusk-driven swarm of black mosquitoes. We have now used the badminton net a record-setting four times since setting it up in June -- normally it gets used once and then sits dormant in the backyard for the remainder of the summer until I get tired of mowing crop circles around the stakes.

I spent a good chunk of Saturday working, and then played some Starcraft II with Larry, losing game one horribly to a reaper rush, and winning game two against players who didn't know what do to after their initial strategy failed three times. In the evening, we had nine folks and their assorted spawns over for a poker game, during which I went all-in six times and knocked out my wife (not in a physical manner, but dealing with cards, which is what you usually deal in a poker game). I ended up fourth, and Kathy took home the $70 first prize.

Sunday was a quiet, sleep late day, although we made a quick trek to stop by Rebecca's parents' house in the evening. I also solidified my opinion that the Beltway between Tyson's and Braddock Road is now officially a worse stretch of road than the Beltway in Maryland, which was a hard act to top in and of itself. Lanes are now seven inches wide and contain more "no passing" zones than the basement classes at TC Williams High School. In addition, the orange construction barrels on the on-ramps are set up in an optical illusion pattern, not unlike the walls of the first corridor in Labyrinth, and you have to brace yourself for impact before you can discover that there's actually a lane hidden in the pattern.

How was your weekend?

Museday Tuesday

As part of this feature, which I started in 2007, I compose a very brief work (under 30 seconds) inspired by a randomly generated title from an online word generator. The composition can be for any instrumentation, and could even be a purely synthesized realization that might not be possible to perform in the real world.

I work on the excerpt continuously for an hour and then post whatever I've managed to complete, even if it's a poorly constructed slum of a song supported by a foundation of droning double stops and abused tubas.

Flinty: (adj.) unyielding; unmerciful; obdurate

This piece is written for kalimba, which is not a marimba, and assorted percussive sounds. A few clarinet harmonies decorate the later phrases, and the Mr. Businessman chord progression outlines the melody.

Memory Day: Eighth Grade Extracurriculars

As everyone who fell by the wayside in the ultra-competitive Christopher Newport University admissions process can attest, you MUST start your extracurricular activities in eighth grade if you want to have any chance of getting into college and avoiding a lifetime career degreasing the grills at Flamers. To carry on the eighth grade theme of this year's updates, here are the clubs and sports I was a part of in 1993.

Since there are 9 people on a boat in crew, a positive soul might suggest that being on the "Novice B" boat puts you among the top 81 athletes in the entire program. A pessimist might note that there is no one worse than you while on this boat. That is also future President of the United States, Jack Wilmer, on the lefthand side.

P.S. I am kneeling.

The only thing I can recall about the National Junior Honor Society is that there was a ridiculous initiation ceremony with candles and a darkened classroom, in which we were warned about the grave responsibilities that came with joining. As you can see from the serious nature of my visage, I took this serious responsibility seriously.

The Art Club was a club in name only. It consisted of people who had, at some point in there brief junior high career, taken an Art class and wished to meet after school to do more art. We never actually met though, giving this club an optimal effort to visibility ratio on college applications.

P.S. I am not flashing a gang sign.

The Literary Club edited and published the quarterly literary magazine, a $10 rag that actually used plastic binding sheaths instead of staples. I was probably there for the ladies.

The problem with band picture day was usually the high percentage of members who forgot to bring their uniform in. These polyester refugees from the 1970s were atrocious, and my jacket was so small that its size-ordered inventory number was 1.

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

5:57 AM: Mostly awake.		6:13 AM: Showered.
6:27 AM: At the stoplight in Herndon which either changes for you as you drive up to it, or recalcitrantly forces you to wait for five minutes.		7:45 AM: Apparently the sun isn't planning on coming out today.
1:31 PM: Driving home from work, listening to the new stereo that replaces my canceled XM account (they billed me for the next quarter anyhow, of course).		1:51 PM: Amber welcomes me home.
1:58 PM: A late light lunch.		3:30 PM: Additional storms gather out my telecommuting window.
4:43 PM: Surprisingly enough, I've actually managed to play my trumpet almost daily for the past three weeks. Fifteen minutes a day is still "daily", and on par with any music education major.		6:21 PM: In the basement doing home improvement projects.
7:41 PM: Just like last year's 12 of 12, tonight is Steak Night.		9:15 PM: Cats waiting for dinner (they did not get steak).

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

Friday Fragments

softer, weaker, slower

♠ With some unanticipated free time on Wednesday, I downloaded The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to the Kindle. Despite the numerous online reviews that the book is "soooo long" and takes 200 pages to get moving, I enjoyed it. I suppose a slower, more methodical reader that likes to read each sentence aloud and then chew them twenty times before swallowing the concepts might get bored before it gets good, but I found that the pace of the book was just fine. I started the second book of the trilogy last night.

♠ I can think of very few intentional trilogies that were high quality all of the way through -- most barely manage to bat 2 out of 3. Some trilogies should have stuck with being a unigy (The Matrix and Pirates of the Too Much Uncut Footage both come to mind).

♠ When I hire someone to ghostwrite my autobiography at the age of 63, I'll be sure to publish it as a single volume that's short enough to fit in a single binding, but just long enough that the Quentin Tarantino adaptation (View BU) has to be one and a half movies.

♠ I will also try to spend much of my adult life as a lion tamer, so when it comes time to invent a book title, the author can tell his friends that he is "ghostwriting The Whip".

♠ Plans for the weekend include a baby shower for my sister, which we'll use as an excuse to visit the breadbasket of Virginia and stop in at a Bed & Breakfast. I'll also be mounting a TV on the wall with my dad's help this afternoon, and may end up at Jazz in the Garden this evening, pending the influx of eight million thunderstorms which have anemically threatened the house before moving on without fury this week (not unlike an overweight bully who doesn't do cardio).

♠ Have a good weekend! Don't forget to respond to my census!

Weekend Wrap-up

On Friday evening, I picked up Rebecca at work and then took one of my once-per-century trips into DC for Jazz in the Garden with a contigent of Grinnellians. Because of the lingering storm clouds, the group performed indoors and piped their music out over loudspeakers, so it might as well have been a CD. From there, we went to an overpriced outdoor bar with damp patio furniture and then a restaurant serving Burmese food, aptly named "Burma Restaurant". I had a bowl of squid which had a delicious sauce to offset its rubbery texture.

We took the Orange Line home, driven by a novice drunk who reopened the doors four times at each station as if he were playing Whack-a-Mole on his console, and then accelerated out of the station in short bursts of speed followed by braking, like a fifteen-year-old in a parking lot. The leg from East to West Falls Church took over fifteen minutes, so the complete round trip from Sterling to DC and back was two hours in each direction.

I worked all morning on Saturday, and then had a delayed departure to our weekend in the countryside -- we had an economical wine tasting at the Barboursville Vineyard ($5 for 18 tastes), sandwiches at Stonefire Kitchen, and then spent the rest of the evening at the Inn at Dawsonville, a no-frills bed and breakfast which was easily worth its inexpensive price tag.

On Sunday, we went to the Binders' mountainside house for my sister's baby shower in the midst of yet another thunderstorm, and ate quiche while needlessly increasing the stock prices of the Baby Einstein corporation. We took the scenic route through the overwhelmingly beautiful downtown Manassas Park and arrived back home around 5 to feed the starving cats. We paid tribute to the laws of thermodynamics by sitting around at rest for the remainder of the evening, and I finished the second book in the "Girl With The" book series.

Stuff In My Drawers Day

Work was needlessly hectic last night, preventing me from writing a Museday excerpt. So in its place, here is a map I created in November of 1986 when I was 7.

Sick Day

Weird Search Day cancelled on account of sickness.

Review Day

There are no spoilers in these reviews.

The Boy Who Knew Too Much by Mika:
This Mika CD closely resembles the first, Life in Cartoon Motion, filled with rambunctious pure pop and cheesy falsetto, so if you liked the first, this is more of the same. A few tunes sound too much like the first CD's songs, and there are no stand out singles so far, but it's a solid CD.

Final Grade: B

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson:
I vacillated like a flagellum on whether or not to read this book, based on the reviews that said it was great by the end, but took a long, long time to get there. The book IS very long, but an easy read -- I could see someone quickly getting bored of it if they don't read very fast, but it kept me entertained until the momentum become inexorable. The bigger problem is that the author introduces eight million characters with similar Swedish names, and it's hard to "flip back" to the family tree when you're reading on a Kindle. The mystery is satisfying, and the scope of the book gives plenty of room for the characters to grow, but you definitely need patience.

Final Grade: B+

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:
I've had this on my shelf on loan from my parents for months now, and never put it on because I didn't think I'd like it. I was mostly right, as is often the case when I analyze myself. On the plus side, the atmosphere of the movie LOOKS great, and the tone of the movie is effectively dark. On the minus side, it's still far too long, but barely manages to get in all of the critical plot points before ending -- it ends up being more of a "Greatest Hits Road Trip of the Book" movie than a movie.

Final Grade: C+

Friday Fragments

the stage was surrounded by screaming groupers, probably there to see the bass player

♠ This has been an incredibly long week, during which I was sick and still working, so I really have nothing new to report, other than the fact that the census ends on Monday, and people who comment after Monday at 6 PM will not be able to win the cash prize, which in my economic opinion, is very fiscally irresponsible of you and highly deserving of this horrible single sentence paragraph.

♠ In non-BU news (Byews), Rebecca has finally left the T-Shirt business to go back to school for physical therapy, so if you were hoping to get further discounts on soft dryer-unsafe shirts hanging off of anorexic androgynous models, you are now officially too late to the party.

♠ The problem with living with chicks is that they have so many articles of clothing that cannot go in the dryer that a drying rack is a necessity (thanks, Larry). Gone are the bachelor days when I could just get everything one size too large and haphazardly throw it all into the dryer on HIGH HEAT ROUGH AND TUMBLE RUMBLE -- now I have to pick through the damp clothes to extract this cotton sweater or that fuzzy kitten.

♠ Disclaimer: I have never actually put a cat in the dryer.

♠ Disclaimer #2: There has been one in the washing machine, but she went in herself and it was not turned on.

♠ I have no set plans for the weekend, although I'll probably take off pretty early today since I'm already hovering around Overtime Land and it's the end of the pay period. If anyone has mischief planned that would be augmented by the presence of an Asian, let me know!

♠ Have a great weekend! Only six more weeks until Kelley dies in basic training!

Great Idea Day

a bailing bucket for my constantly overflowing cesspool of ways to optimize society

It occurred to me while driving out to Anna's on Saturday night that there's an underutilized segment of property in Virginia's arsenal -- the noble rest stop. Constantly under the threat of budget cuts and men with bad aim, the Virginia rest stop gets a nice little chunk of money for upkeep, but then only gets used by dirty foreigners from Maryland on their way to North Carolinan NASCAR events.

The obvious solution, then, is for more Virginians to use rest stops as picnic venues. Why pay a ridiculous sum to rent out a wasp-infested pavilion and Port-o-Potty at your local city park when the inviting fresh cut grass of the Manassas Rest Stop could be yours for free? There's plenty of shady areas for frisbee golf, top notch facilities, and a ubiquitous series of vending machines if Aunt Ida conveniently forgets that the family reunion is "potluck" again.

Sure, it might be a little loud, but no one can hear anything over shrieking kids anyhow, and the fact that there are usually rest stops on each side of the interstate means that you can "accidentally" direct your unloved in-laws to the westbound location while having a merry eastbound bacchanal. Just watch out for people with unusually wide stances and you have the perfect, free venue.

Census Results Day

Congratulations to Anna Ahlbin, who is the winner in the census bribery random drawing! I am presuming that she does NOT want a copy of Music Theory From Zarlino to Schenker: A Bibliography and Guide and will send her the $10 Amazon.com gift certificate shortly.

The total number of census replies is very close to the results of 2007 census, which means that although readership has decreased, the loudmouths have stayed behind. Notable in their laziness were readers like Brianne, Kim, and Dan Shiplett, and also my Dad, who has not commented on the website since 1996.

The respondents tended to fall within two degrees of BU separation, cleanly delineated into the following arenas:

1. People I Am Related To
2. People I Went to School With
3. People I Worked With
4. People I Met Through Other People
5. People Who Play Warcraft

A number of these fine folks have blogs of their own, which you should give a visit to -- all are linked from the original census replies. Thank you for responding! It's always nice to know that you have an audience.

No Update Today

Review Day

There are no spoilers in these reviews.

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson:
The second book in The Girl trilogy, I enjoyed this one more than the first, because the mysteries of the plot were more related to the main characters -- like many good books, this one deepens the concepts of the first book, rather than spreading in breadth. It's a little slow to start, notably the nine million pages about shopping at IKEA, but this makes a pivotal scene that much more jolting, and the book doesn't lose any energy from there to the end.

Final Grade: A-

Sherlock Holmes:
There was a choice between this and Hot Tub Time Machine, and I ultimately chose this because you probably can't go wrong with Robert Downey Jr. AND Rachel McAdams. (Additionally, Rob Corddry from the other movie is rapidly approaching Jack Black levels of obnoxiousness). This was a fun little caper of a movie, greatly assisted by Robert Downey Jr.'s characterization of Sherlock Holmes. It won't change your life, but it's an entertaining two hours.

Final Grade: B+

Burn Notice 3:
The third season of Burn Notice feels like it's lost a bit of focus, but it still has a few high quality episodes mixed into the bunch, along with tons of cameos from other USA and Showtime stars. The formula is starting to get old, but I'm not really watching for the cutting edge drama and plot twists.

Final Grade: B

Vocabulary Friday

A few snapshots of our recent two-player games of Scrabble. Thankfully, for the meta-game where you invent a story with the words on the board, BONED and VULVA were in different games. I like the cut of your jib.

It should also be noted that VULVA was one U away from being VUVUZELA.

Booty Day

If you were to embark on a round of self-esteem lowering word association with my cats, some of the words that might come to mind as you think of Booty might be "EAT", "FAT", and "SPANX" (only the last of which would get you a high score in Scrabble).

Much of our daily routine is devoted to preventing a continuous 24-hour intake of food -- had the Macondo rig been spewing kibble instead of oil, Booty would have been a fast, cost-effective solution to the problem. We've moved her mealtimes from 6 AM and 2 PM to 2 PM and 10 PM so she doesn't wake us up in the morning (as much). When mealtime rolls around, she'll knock small trinkets and remotes off of tables, or shred paper products (like bills or paperback books) until we acknowledge her starvation.

To handle the off hours when we're out of the house or trying to sleep, we relied on a child-proofed cabinet -- a plastic latch that allows the cabinet to be opened about two inches, after which you must push down on the plastic tab to open the door the rest of the way. (It should be noted that this wasn't originally for Booty or even a child in search of Mr. Yuck stickers -- it was installed for a previous food-addicted cat, Sydney, who once ate a jar of vitamins).

Sometime during our Puerto Rico trip in March, Booty finally learned how to beat the plastic latch, and a few times since then, we've come home to empty food containers and telltale signs of binging, like atomic fatcats or honking. Last week, she decided that she would make music all night long by clicking the door open an inch and then letting it slam shut. This reminded me of any given jazz concert where the conga drummer finally gets to solo, but isn't quite sure what else he can do after he puts his elbow on the drum for a few minutes.

Since then, I've replaced the dinky plastic lock with two industrial magnets, which are so strong that they can pull the door closed from about a 40 degree angle. So far, Booty has been unsuccessful in thwarting this new deterrent (although I have caught her studying the principles of Mag-Lev trains in the basement). We shall see how long the current peace lasts.

How long will it take Booty to get to the food?

1 week (3 votes, 75.0%)


1 month (1 vote, 25.0%)


1 year (0 votes, 0.0%)

The magnetic fields will destroy your brains and your credit cards first. (0 votes, 0.0%)

Museday Tuesday

As part of this feature, which I started in 2007, I compose a very brief work (under 30 seconds) inspired by a randomly generated title from an online word generator. The composition can be for any instrumentation, and could even be a purely synthesized realization that might not be possible to perform in the real world.

I work on the excerpt continuously for an hour and then post whatever I've managed to complete, even if it's a poorly constructed slum of a song supported by a foundation of droning double stops and abused tubas.

Lissome: (adj.) Agile, nimble, or active

This excerpt is written for selected percussion instruments wrapped around a creamy brass quintet center, and articulated with a banjo patch.