reformatting web sites
Urgh. Thak think reformatting web sites not so much fun as, say, comping guitar takes. Maybe need web site designed more like Orc and Pie.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
painfully slow
Ok, so progress is painfully slow but the site revamp is moving forward. I'm going to try a unified blog/news/songs page for a while and see how that sits. Some of the links and stuff may be a little dodgy for a few days.
The latest song will be up by the end of the week. In the meantime, here's a little dittette (is that what you call a real short ditty?) featuring Ben on guitar, bass, and banjo, with me on organ: the Worried Man Blues. It's kind of weird in that it belongs to a style of music I'd never thought I'd ever play (so much for fortunetelling). Other oddness with the track involves the fact that it's an internet collaboration (yay OMF!) and the fact that some of the guitar is one take looped, which is mighty odd for such an organic, folky tune.
The latest song will be up by the end of the week. In the meantime, here's a little dittette (is that what you call a real short ditty?) featuring Ben on guitar, bass, and banjo, with me on organ: the Worried Man Blues. It's kind of weird in that it belongs to a style of music I'd never thought I'd ever play (so much for fortunetelling). Other oddness with the track involves the fact that it's an internet collaboration (yay OMF!) and the fact that some of the guitar is one take looped, which is mighty odd for such an organic, folky tune.
Friday, February 06, 2004
Caution! Banjo Approaching!
Caution! Banjo Approaching!
"Apostrophe's (sic!)" is the song I wrote for R.A. Rosenberg's Art-in-Progress party this year. It'll be up soon, featuring a swanky banjo part by Ben, who has recently shown a disturbing capacity for learning new instruments. Disturbing in a good way, of course.
In other news, David Hasselhoff is finally standing up and demanding the recognition he so richly deserves.
"Apostrophe's (sic!)" is the song I wrote for R.A. Rosenberg's Art-in-Progress party this year. It'll be up soon, featuring a swanky banjo part by Ben, who has recently shown a disturbing capacity for learning new instruments. Disturbing in a good way, of course.
In other news, David Hasselhoff is finally standing up and demanding the recognition he so richly deserves.
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
polysyllabic
On some of the music technology sites I read, those of us who...how can I say this...have no objection to polysyllabic words sometimes take a lot of flak, as there are certain breeds of musicians and engineers who pride themselves on communicating in grunts. Granted, they're usually mighty poetic grunts, but there you go. Luckily, the grunters are for the most part cheerfully funny about the whole thing, as are the SAT-word slingers. Last week, someone prefaced a reply to me with:
At any rate, I saw this one lobbed at somebody this morning, and I almost choked on my coffee:
I'm not sure I'm smart enough to get into a conversation with some who can use the word "ameliorated" in a sentence but my humble opinion...His humble opinion, of course, was intelligent, informed, and correct.
At any rate, I saw this one lobbed at somebody this morning, and I almost choked on my coffee:
Originally posted by **********:It's a kind of xenophobia.Hee hee. Score one for the hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobics.
Woh. Easy on the vocabulary, dude. That's more syllables than I see in an entire week. Are you saying they're afraid of hunky women on horseback?
Quake
Until I can get commenting enabled here, I guess I'm stuck forwarding readers' comments manually, which in a way is itself fun. A certain individual, who some years ago used to delight fans at football games with cheers of "Gimme an S!...Gimme a P!...Gimme an A!...Gimme an M!" and so on (note, this was *years* before the internet), writes:
So now I know. And yes, I'm familiar with the Quake I engine. Very much so, in fact--it makes me throw up. Yoinks!
So, I read your 2/1 blog update. I noticed you said: "Some had a LAN
party with unknown (to me) first-person shooters," so I wanted to make
sure and mention that the only FPS we played, Quake Team Fortress, is
pretty much the Quake I engine (with modifications so you can play on
teams and do capture the flag). I have to believe you've heard of Quake
I, whether or not you've heard of or played QTF.
So now I know. And yes, I'm familiar with the Quake I engine. Very much so, in fact--it makes me throw up. Yoinks!
Sunday, February 01, 2004
Spa
Hurrah, last weekend we did a lightning tour of Chicagoland; this weekend the Buffalo region got the treatment.
Last Friday night was at the Chaos Lodge in Bloomington, IN, where we kept our pal Tymme up late before he had to go to a cave rescue course at 5:30 AM. We finally got to meet Sharyn, who seems like a natural match for Tymme thanks to the Ys. Besides the alphabetical compatibility, she's mightily cool. She was brave enough to go to the Runcible Spoon with two of Tymme's weird longtime friends (whom she just met at 1am the previous night) while Tymme was crawling about rescuing caves. Or something.
Then to Michigan City, for Mexican food with my 91-year old Grandma, who is as feisty as ever. Jen, Buster, and Dan joined us as well. I mostly got what I ordered, and a lovely time was had by all.
Saturday night was the impetus for our trip--R.A. Rosenberg's annual 'art in progress' party. Both Marg and I had submitted work for remote presentation before, but this was the first time we made it in person. Repeat visitors here may remember that RAR's party is what got me started on this website in the first place. Wow, it was nice to be there. Fantastic presentations all around by writers, visual artists, musicians, and people working in fabric or jewelry. Sometimes it shocks the hell out of me to realize what talented and interesting folks we've managed to meet over the years. Of course, it's a good kind of shock, like winning the lottery of life.
The party ended at about 2:30, and we all conked out. The party went three ways the next day: some had a LAN party with unknown (to me) first-person shooters, some went yarn shopping, and a few of us went to Paradise Spa.
If you've never been to a Korean bath/spa, you're missing out. It's like this: you pay your money to the nice lady at the front counter. Everybody gets a locker key, a robe, and two towels. Boys go to the right, girls to the left. Just inside is a little room with tables. Off this room are a locker room and two doors--one darkened and silent, one steamed up with vague water sounds from behind it. You put on the robe and go through the steamy door, beyond which you are presented with the following delights: a bank of nice, powerful showers (which one is admonished to use before going any farther), an enormous frothing whirlpool tub, a holy-crap-really-frelling-hot tub, and a holy-crap-really-frelling-cold tub. There are also more doors, leading to the dry and steam saunas. The next several hours of your life go as follows: sit in the whirlpool for a while. Transfer to the sauna for a while. Exit the sauna, and with much trepidation charge into the ice cold pool, most likely cursing under your breath. Practically levitate out of the cold pool to the boiling one. Stay as long as you can stand, and get back in the whirlpool. Repeat as long as you llike, with whatever variations you deem necessary.
When one grows weary, the darkened door mentioned above comes into play. This leads to what Christine refers to as 'the nappy room,' and I have to assume that on the women's side it's the same as the men's and by this she means a dark, cool room with comfy chairs. It is not storage for British diapers. Have a nap, go back and soak some more. Ad exhaustum. Whee!
After the Spa, we went to a nice little brunch at the home of Marg's college roommate Maryanne. Met some neat people, caught up with Maryanne a little, found out about Klein bottles, had some really yummy food.
Alas, it was now very late and we had to leave to drive to Nashvegas. Sigh. At this point, the weather--which had cooperated so well for 48 hours in Chicago--became rather unpleasant. We passed a wreck about every three minutes on the highway, winds were high, visibility stank. Of course, if you're reading this you've figured out the end already. Home safe. We later heard from Tymme that shortly after we passed through the area, I65 was closed for a while:
Ok, so now that I've filed that weekend report one week late, I'll see if I can catch up on the next one, tra-la.
Last Friday night was at the Chaos Lodge in Bloomington, IN, where we kept our pal Tymme up late before he had to go to a cave rescue course at 5:30 AM. We finally got to meet Sharyn, who seems like a natural match for Tymme thanks to the Ys. Besides the alphabetical compatibility, she's mightily cool. She was brave enough to go to the Runcible Spoon with two of Tymme's weird longtime friends (whom she just met at 1am the previous night) while Tymme was crawling about rescuing caves. Or something.
Then to Michigan City, for Mexican food with my 91-year old Grandma, who is as feisty as ever. Jen, Buster, and Dan joined us as well. I mostly got what I ordered, and a lovely time was had by all.
Saturday night was the impetus for our trip--R.A. Rosenberg's annual 'art in progress' party. Both Marg and I had submitted work for remote presentation before, but this was the first time we made it in person. Repeat visitors here may remember that RAR's party is what got me started on this website in the first place. Wow, it was nice to be there. Fantastic presentations all around by writers, visual artists, musicians, and people working in fabric or jewelry. Sometimes it shocks the hell out of me to realize what talented and interesting folks we've managed to meet over the years. Of course, it's a good kind of shock, like winning the lottery of life.
The party ended at about 2:30, and we all conked out. The party went three ways the next day: some had a LAN party with unknown (to me) first-person shooters, some went yarn shopping, and a few of us went to Paradise Spa.
If you've never been to a Korean bath/spa, you're missing out. It's like this: you pay your money to the nice lady at the front counter. Everybody gets a locker key, a robe, and two towels. Boys go to the right, girls to the left. Just inside is a little room with tables. Off this room are a locker room and two doors--one darkened and silent, one steamed up with vague water sounds from behind it. You put on the robe and go through the steamy door, beyond which you are presented with the following delights: a bank of nice, powerful showers (which one is admonished to use before going any farther), an enormous frothing whirlpool tub, a holy-crap-really-frelling-hot tub, and a holy-crap-really-frelling-cold tub. There are also more doors, leading to the dry and steam saunas. The next several hours of your life go as follows: sit in the whirlpool for a while. Transfer to the sauna for a while. Exit the sauna, and with much trepidation charge into the ice cold pool, most likely cursing under your breath. Practically levitate out of the cold pool to the boiling one. Stay as long as you can stand, and get back in the whirlpool. Repeat as long as you llike, with whatever variations you deem necessary.
When one grows weary, the darkened door mentioned above comes into play. This leads to what Christine refers to as 'the nappy room,' and I have to assume that on the women's side it's the same as the men's and by this she means a dark, cool room with comfy chairs. It is not storage for British diapers. Have a nap, go back and soak some more. Ad exhaustum. Whee!
After the Spa, we went to a nice little brunch at the home of Marg's college roommate Maryanne. Met some neat people, caught up with Maryanne a little, found out about Klein bottles, had some really yummy food.
Alas, it was now very late and we had to leave to drive to Nashvegas. Sigh. At this point, the weather--which had cooperated so well for 48 hours in Chicago--became rather unpleasant. We passed a wreck about every three minutes on the highway, winds were high, visibility stank. Of course, if you're reading this you've figured out the end already. Home safe. We later heard from Tymme that shortly after we passed through the area, I65 was closed for a while:
The roads were AWFUL! We had ice storms in Bowling Green and the roads got worse as I went North. I-65 got closed down for 3 hours but fortunately, the guys I was caravaning with had ham radios with them and they got the heads up in time to take side roads around the mess. STILL, it took nearly 6 hours to do a 2.5 hr trip! UGLY! And despite my driving reputation, I was driving super carefully and still spun out on I-65. It didn't faze me any except to curse despondently "Aw, MAN! Don't hit the barrier -Don't hit the BARrier!" Fortunately, the car listened and I scrubbed off enough speed to simply end up pointing the opposite way in the unused lane.
Ok, so now that I've filed that weekend report one week late, I'll see if I can catch up on the next one, tra-la.