Red Zeppelin
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Monday: March 01, 2004 - NBA Jam (SNES)
The SNES NBA Jam fantasy is over. Although I will most likely play it with live people, there is no longer any thrill whatsoever playing against the computer. Even on the hardest setting, I was able to win 140-16 tonight. In my last game, I was ahead 62-0 at the end of the first quarter. I figured I'd play the rest of the game with my eyes closed, since I already had a headache. When I opened my eyes before the 4th quarter I saw that it was 58-64 and made a deal that I would only shoot from half-court if I could keep my eyes open. I agreed. I didn't make any shots the last quarter but neither did they, thanks to my stifling defense. My original goal was to hold them scoreless for a game but my roommate David and I did that my senior year of college, ultimately winning 294-0. No really, 294-0. We were aiming for the elusive 300-0, where the computer does not even touch the ball, but they did manage to take it once and we had to settle for stealing it after they touched it. Alas, it was too late--the precious seconds that David needed to hit the last two 3-pointers was lost. I am proud to say that I scored none of the 294 points.
I turned in my Atonal project today after a Photoshop fiasco, where it only printed out certain layers instead of the whole "picture". I also took Chompy to the dog park. There weren't many dogs so I took her on a tour of the woods. I did my best to get us lost in the hopes she would remember the way out, but fortunately we didn't get lost because she made at least two semi-serious wrong turns. To her credit, though, she did navigate a good dozen directions properly but the two she missed could have made the difference between Atlanta and Houston--you know, if I let her drive. Or read the map while I was driving.
My friend Mark re-put up his website today. If you want to see it, click here. Tomorrow I'm going to give a quiz in my class. A lot of people missed on Thursday so they didn't get the hand-out. That's not my fault, though. I'm sure they'll bitch and moan like last year but I really don't care. The only person I'm considering letting make it up is the one that told me he was going to be out last week. Oh by the way, I do sometimes go back and fix my mistakes to earlier posts. Just in case you were wondering. Brian, I know you put this on your website today, but it was so good I had to put it here too. Brian gets all the credit; I claim none! I hope you're happy. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Tuesday: March 02, 2004 - Give A Quiz and Leave Day
Any day where your lesson plan is "Give quiz and leave" is a good day. Teaching went smoothly this morning and the only interesting thing that happened in Music Bibliography was that I had a surprisingly loud sneeze. I know I sneeze louder than most, but this one was really quite an interruption. Bryan Richards told me I needed to take three credits this summer instead of the two I had planned for. Oh well, I can't wait to be done. He also told me that I would not be able to receive an assistantship in the fall so I'd better be damn sure I finished in the summer semester. Apparently they're cracking down on people that aren't moving ahead that have had assistantships for more than three years. That means you're safe if you did a MM and are now doing a DM/Ph.D but not safe if you're getting a second MM (me) or have been working on your DM too long. Whatever, I don't really care as long as I finish. And even if, God forbid, I don't, I'll still leave. I'm ready for a change of scenery. Jamie and I went to Olive Garden for lunch and the traffic getting there made the trip about 1.5 hours. Apparently there was some "march" going on. Maybe it was because it's now March. I hope they don't have apes in April. My "New Layout for Brian's Apartment" took top prize but it was also the only entry. I think it won because of my creative use of snakepits. There's another grad student in my Music of the Caribbean class who I talked to for the first time today. I really hate it when people try to impress you with their apathy. "Oh yeah? Well, *I* didn't even learn to speak until I was 22. And breast feeding? Well, I carry a bottle in my purse just in case I can't get home to mom soon enough." This particular Student Y (not to be confused with Student X from previous posts) is, ta-da, a music education graduate student. Surprise! I admit, I am not always the most prepared student but I sure as hell don't brag about it. After practicing for the past couple days, I thought I'd be able to blow Chris away in rehearsal with my new-found abilities. I was wrong. He is still somewhere in the area of 50-80x better than I am. Maybe I just need to memorize the hard passages because right now I still have to read them. I'm hesitant to memorize anything because Kathy once told me that I never look at my music when I play and I don't want people to think I can't read music and just memorize patterns. Perhaps I should get over that. Matt came over for some wedding music writing and we knocked out a solid ten measures in about two hours. We also were able to squeeze a few beers in here and there too. Oh, and that's a picture of Tibet. Because Matt likes Tibet.
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Wednesday: March 03, 2004 - I'm sorry Jeff Jackson, ooo
Today I hung out with Kathy for a while. We went to Ruby Tuesdays where we were served by the deftly-smooth Jeff Jackson. After that we went to the dog park. I found out my car battery is dead (again). I had a lame rehearsal for a choir piece. I promise to not complain about the inability of anyone in the steel band to not keep time anymore. Every two measures we were in a different tempo so I just stopped watching and tried to keep playing the speed I started. Tomorrow is the concert. You should come. No, on second thought, you really really shouldn't. I am currently on page 3 of my ten page paper due tomorrow for my Music of the Caribbean class. I don't know how the hell we're supposed to talk about 36 pieces of music in ten pages. I could do it in 50 pages but certainly not 10. It's funny how as you get older you want assignments to be longer because you have more to say. I'm sure the undergrads in the class are freaking out, though--10 pages! Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! On a final note, you'll be pleased to know I corrected all the typos of "Later Day Saints".
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Thursday: March 04, 2004 - Grading Quizzes
Despite only getting three hours of sleep last night, I was able to stay awake for most of today. I woke up at 8am to grade quizzes for my class. I taught from 9-10. Helped some students from 10-11, taught again from 11-noon, came home, worked on my paper, went back to school, took my Bibliography midterm, came home, finished my charts for my Caribbean class, went to that class, went to rehearsal, left at break to play in a concert, came back to rehearsal and then rehearsed with the Good Group for another hour and a half. What a day. At 6:30am tomorrow I need to call AAA and get them to jump the Taurus so I can take it to the Ford dealership. I need to then have them re-jump it once I get there so I can drive to Sears so I can a new battery. Bleh. Happy f'ing Spring Break.
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Friday: March 05, 2004 - Ford Sucks: I
Apparently I am not the first person to have problems with their Ford. I woke up at 6am to call AAA so I could have my car brought to the dealership. The that came out was very helpful, patient and friendly. Once he informed me there was nothing stuck in my cigarette lighter that was shorting out the electronics we pondered the battery. Although it sat charging for 20 minutes, we couldn't get a charge. Eventually, we got it started and I decided to get the new battery from Sears first. I sat at Sears until I had already missed all of Atonal. The problem became more interesting as the car would start whenever I turned the key now--no more battery problem. With my remedial knowledge of car engines, I suggested the alternator and my mechanic agreed, giving me a complicated explanation of what exactly was wrong (the diode trio [Also the name of my new band]). Since the battery was fine and the car started perfectly, I got in it and drove straight to Ford. Although I called to change my appointment, they apparently do not have the capacity to write things down, so my time of 7am was still on their dry-erase board even though it was now 11:30. I met with my "guy", Mike Dell ( in case any of you want to find him and do unmerciful things to him). He told me it would take about an hour and a half to look at both the alternator and the check engine light. That didn't seem so bad. I figured I'd walk to PetCo and by the time I was done looking at sweet fish, he'd call me to come back. Well, well, well....
11:35-11:45: McDonalds
12:00-1:30: Mall
1:30-2:00: Ross Dress For Less
2:00-4:30: Borders
So, it's now almost 5pm and I haven't heard anything from the Dealership. Surprise, surprise. I walk back the 23 miles to their building and am pissed. In addition to this, their take-you-home guy is gone so I'm stuck there. I find Mr. Dell and ask him what the hell is going on. He tells me that they're working on it and it shouldn't be terribly much longer. Thinking he's full of it, I sneak past the back of the garage and through a small fence to see the car-waiting lot. Lo and behold, there's the Taurus, untouched. Had they not had my key, I would have driven it through the fence and come home. Since I didn't have my key, I opened the door, sat down, plugged my now-dead cell phone in and let the rage build. Once sufficiently pissed, I walked back over to Mike's office, where he was in a conversation with other customers. Rudely walking in between then I said in my nicest voice, "This is bulls---, motherf-----" complete with the down-up hand movement. His eyes opened wide and said nothing. I then asked why the hell he lied to me about my car. I told him I went back to their lot and saw my car even though he said the were working on it. Rather than explaining why he lied, he attempted to make *me* look bad by telling me the back lot was off-limits. I not-so-calmly explained that I understand cars need work and that I could have given a s--- if they had the car until Monday (which is the case now) but he didn't have to try to make it look as though it was nothing and making me waste the past five and a half hours. So FINALLY, after raising hell, I saw the Taurus being pulled into a garage slot. 10 minutes later he calls me and tells me that the battery problem is not my alternator. Naturally, I ask him what it is then. He says the mechanic doesn't know. I ask if he checked the alternator and replies, "sort of". This reply requires all caps, I'm sorry, "IT'S ON THE BOTTOM OF THE F---ING ENGINE. I KNOW IT'S INCONVENIENT TO HAVE TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING BUT TELLING ME IT'S THE BATTERY IS F--- BULLS----. KEEP THE GODD--- CAR AS LONG AS YOU WANT BUT F----DO SOMETHING". At that point Ken The Driver, the most amiable guy comes to pick up and take me home. He could not have been nicer or sympathetic. I couldn't tell if it was sincere or not because it was so over the top, but at least he listened to me. And took me home the way I told him. He's thinking about moving to Milwaukee. Lucky guy. They have a fantastic Ford dealership there. Anyway, I'm sure I'll never see my car again after being such an asshole to them but man, all they had to do was tell me to go home and pick it up on Monday. Sure, I might have been frustrated but at least I would have had the day to myself.
If there was any good news, is that I was able to read two full books on publishing at Borders and I skimmed a 3rd one on the "music business". Matt and Jamie came over last night. Matt and I had a long conversation on philosophy vs. sociology for a good two hours. We each had 3-4 beers and were at that perfect mellow-conversation sort of inebriation. Jamie came over towards the end of the evening. Matt left and Jamie and I stayed up and complained about various topics. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Saturday: March 06, 2004 - The Crass Menagerie
This morning I called about my car and they said they would have the parts on Monday. Obviously, I don't believe them. Oh well, what can I do? My dad informed me that I was most likely on their blacklist for all the yelling that I do whenever I'm there. I don't know what else to say, though--I don't really understand how wanting a product to be fixed when it's built to be inferior is such a ridiculous request. I really just relaxed the rest of the day until about 6pm when Chris and Mike said they were coming over. The arrived around 7 and Chris and I went to Gordo's to pick up dinner for myself and Jamie. They really did not do a very good job with our order. Mine was (literally) a piece of bread with some turkey slices. Not even mayo or "Gordo's Sauce". And the fries, we figured, were fried in B.O. We also picked up a few drinks from the store and came back to dispose of them. We had a fun time and Chris took us all out to McDonald's around 11:30. One of the advantages of drinking early is that you feel pretty good the next morning because you feel asleep at 1am instead of 4am. That is especially good for days like tomorrow, when we have early rehearsal. Steve is also coming in tomorrow around 5pm. I need to do some heavy cleaning after the gathering last night. The plan is to have a bunch of people over for dinner to honor his arrival. Also staying with me for the week are: Abner (Chris' turtle with sweet turtle abs) and Mike's fish. Hmm, I guess that's not as much as I thought. If only The Ab was staying too. Alas, she's too crazed around Chompy to really not get me in trouble. If you want to come over and eat with us, this is your invitation.
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Sunday: March 07, 2004 - Steel Band Concert
This morning we had a very, very nice rehearsal. Everyone remembered to come and we got through a lot of music. Afterwards, Jamie and I went to Target and I bought some more dog food and some of those dust-cleaning-mitts. We ate some Wendy's and watched some Family Guy before she left. In the hour between her leaving and picking Steve up I cleaned my apartment. And I did a damn fine job, if I do say so myself. His flight was on time with only minor turbulence. Chris and Mike came over for dinner and they ended up making most of it because I got a call from David Knapp. He is in NY now, working some office job and making big bucks. He told me lots of good news about publishing, hooray. Dinner was delicious. After eating, Jamie came over and a little after her arrival so did Matt Flynn. We all bored Steve to tears by talking about the steel band problems. Chris and Mike brought over Mike's fish, who are now living happily in my hospital tank next to little Abner. Jamie, Chris & Mike left and Steve, Matt and I watched this horrible DVD my mom sent me of this weird "episode" Steve and I filmed when I was about 14. It involved lego people any army guys and GI Joes and the dog, and was really terrible. To my credit, my parents did an excellent taping job at the last steel band concert. After watching the DVD, Matt left and Steve and I watched the end of the Gonzaga basketball game. Oh, and if you're the person that checks this six times a day and your cable internet service provider is @Home, I know you have me bookmarked and it kind of creeps me out.
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Monday: March 08, 2004 - Hot Chicks
Today officially started at noon. Steve and I went out to lunch at the Atlanta Bread Company with Jamie. She told us there was a murderer running around town and the 10pm news confirmed it. Apparently he already killed a lawyer. Hopefully he's on his way to the Ford dealership as we speak. I got the car back but it still isn't completely fixed. The air bag light is on and they said they couldn't fix it without my permission. Hello?! How about you CALL me and say, "Your air bag light is on--should we fix it?" I would imagine this is for all the people that reply, "No, I like driving according to 1973 highway safety standards." I hate them. Well, I like Ken the Driver but the rest of them can burn in hell. And I'm not talking about cushy fire and brimstone hell, but rather 9th layer of hell á la Dante's Inferno. Once we got the death trap back, we went to Home Depot and PetSmart but didn't buy anything. Our project tonight is artistic in nature but, á la me, is not complete. For dinner we had some average chicken-something. Hopefully we will get it done tomorrow. Maybe we'll go to an auto rally and see some hot chicks (á la Tom) in bikinis. Tomorrow should be another leisurely day. Maybe at some point we'll go down to P-ma city.
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Tuesday: March 09, 2004 - Art Project
Today started at around 9:00am for me. I single-handedly finished my art project and I must admit. It looks awesome. Steve's day started at 1pm. We went to Ruby Tuesday's for lunch and it was pretty good, even though they didn't offer me a To-Go cup of Kiwi Lemonade. Oh well. We then went on a tour of town, where we bought Hexen for Nintendo 64. After fighting rush hour traffic, we realized we needed a "memory pack" and spent another hour driving back to the stupid used games store to get it. It's really a stupid game, much like a glorified Doom from my 7th grade computer game days. It's unnecessarily complicated and any game that requires more time spent on finding keys than killing three-headed dog zombies sucks. At least we can play together but the levels are so dark and weird that it takes for ever and isn't particularly fun (yet). Tomorrow I'd like to give Steve a tour of Doak Campbell stadium but I don't know if I'm allowed to get into the stands or on the field. Whatever. Hopefully I can talk to Matt about sitting in on Leon High School's Lion Steel rehearsal on Thursday morning. That will be fun. Jamie called tonight and I was kind of cranky with her. Sorry! Not that she'll be reading this for another week, if ever. Our night tonight will conclude with some John Madden 2000 football. It's the first game since RBI baseball for Nintendo that I've been able to completely kick Steve's ass in. I got to talk to Kathy's friend Anne online for a bit tonight after a two-year hiatus but dinner stole me away before I could finish our conversation. Well, gotta get back to kicking Steve's ass.
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Wednesday: March 10, 2004 - Baseball with Matt (and Steve)
We spent the better part of today at Matt's house playing baseball while Chompy, The Ab and Sally ran around. Later tonight, Matt came over here and we shot pool. The phrase "slop dance" was officially coined.
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Thursday: March 11, 2004 - Seat-Pant Flying
Despite our best intentions of leaving early, Steve and I didn't leave for St. George Island until 2pm. Oops. We made it without any side trips and I successfully navigated the new St. George bridge without any signs of nausea. Usually going over long bridges makes me really sick but this new one is much more sturdy and I like the added comfort of having a shoulder just in case I start to get light-headed. We were there for about three and a half hours and Steve was fortunate enough to finally find a sand dollar to bring back to our Dad. I found a couple too, but they were pre-collected by some kid hours before. In his/her cache of shells were two other small sand dollars in addition to some other pretty cool shells. I might plop them into my cichlid tank just to give it something new. We ordered some pizza after we got back and shot some stick with Matt Flynn (again). Tomorrow I need to wake up at 7am so I can make my guest appearance at Leon High School to play with their steel bands. Even the high school has two--why can't we? Seriously.
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Friday: March 12, 2004 - Lion Steel
This morning I went with Matt to the Leon High School Lion Steel rehearsals. Since Matt is their director now, I think I'll go visit them more often. The first band is...not very good. I brought my pan with me and got a primo spot in the center of the lead section. The first tune up was Dust in deh face. As the piece went on, more and more people dropped out until by about letter G it was just me and the drum set player. I was hoping Matt would cut us off but he didn't, so I ended up playing by myself until the piece was over. Thank God I'd played it before. Well, I certainly didn't play it perfectly but whatever. I probably hit about 95% of the notes which is just fine with me after not playing for a week. We next played another Mas N' Steel favorite, Savannah Party. I remember it only because the notation was so difficult to read and the size was so small that I don't think either Chris or I ever played it the same way twice (well, maybe Chris did because he's Chris, but I sure as hell didn't). The band collectively made it through the piece and I guess I was supposed to "rip an awesome solo" which I failed to do. I couldn't remember the chord changes so I settled for 32nd note pentatonic runs, which sounded a lot harder than it really was. The kids were impressed easily enough and they threw me some very flattering comments. I then kicked back with the band director (who apparently has to hang out in the room the whole time with Matt because he [Matt] isn't a certified teacher) and listened to them play my arrangement of Hey Ya. It wasn't really what I thought it would be--it sounds a lot different (better) with the small group at FSU. I think I just take for granted that good musicians will play musically and not play whole note rolls triple forte. Anyway, they love the piece and that makes me happy. They then butchered one of my favorite songs in the world--Moby Dick. The drummer was cool with the solo but his time-keeping made me look like John Bonham. It didn't help that the tempo was roughly quarter note equals one. The class really got nothing done--they're so crazed and disrespectful if I were to direct them I would have been fired after a parental revolt. I guess I just take college teaching for granted where I can be a little more threatening. More power to Matt & Co., though. Anywho, once they left the band director, who I should probably leave nameless said some equally disrespectful and inappropriate things about some of the students. Not really perverse inappropriate but still. I'm sure my high school directors said the same things about me. I hope they stumble on this site--right now. See? I did make it into college even after you laughed in my face. And now who has more degrees? Yeah, that's what I thought...
The second band came in a few minutes later and I got to play my favorite piece El Montuno with them. Now appropriately warmed up, I was able to make them stop and say "Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" with my solo. They cheered crazily and my ego was even more gigantic than usual. We played through a couple more pieces and my God these kids were good. Now, you know I hate to say anything nice about anyone but JCOLD these kids were amazing. I know this is terrible to say but they played about as well as we're playing at FSU right now. We played Pan in A Minor and even though Matt told me his students were great I didn't believe him...but I do now. I can't believe that these high school students are on par with us! This just makes me more sad about the current state of the ensemble at FSU. The fact of the matter is that we need at least two bands--hell, Leon High School has two bands and we have one. Which is probably why their top band could easily play with ours. What blew me away was the balance. Not only could you hear all the parts but the doubles and triple parts were RoCkIN'. They were playing so confidently (and accurately) that they were getting that sound that's just on the verge of playing too loud like you hear on the panorama CDs from Trinidad. I hope FSU is able to recruit their finer players. I think they would be some key additions to our group. There was really only one lead player that was any good but that's ok--we have good leads to spare. However, we could definitely stand to beef up the lower voices with some aggressive players.
Yeah, so Steve, Matt and I went to Tia's for his last meal (hmm, as I typed "last meal" Great White was playing on Winamp and played "you don't know where you got your 'last meal'" with "last meal" lining up perfectly). We got some ribs and they were terrible. Both Steve's and mine had an enormous piece of cartilage running the length of it, with the width of a sharpie. It was really disgusting. After lunch I kicked Steve's ass in Madden 2000 a couple more times and then dropped him off at the airport. Once I got home I did some more steel drum research and made it half-way through the C's on my list. Oh, the list! I'm compiling a list of every collegiate steel band in the country. Sadly, this means going to the website of every damned university in the country and trying to find it. You would think most schools would have a working "Search" option on their site but not many do. This little project will most likely take over 100 hours unless someone helps me. In the end, though, I should have a list of people to whom I can market my steel drum music. Whew. That was quite the entry. Spring break is over and I'm sad. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Saturday: March 13, 2004 - Comcast Sucks
Dear Comcast,
I commend you on your decision to buy Disney instead of wasting your profits on improving service or purchasing new cable modems for us loyal customers. Of course, I respect your fantastic rates of a mere $50/month and $7/mo for the modem rentals for the outstanding service you provide that works an extremely solid 62-65% of the time. My only regret is that I do not have the disposable income to buy stock in your fine company. I also find your website extremely navigable and your FAQ are very detailed. I can't even fathom the amount of time it took to answer every possible consumer question with: "unplug your cable modem and plug it back in." Your online customer support is nothing short of exceptional--it's only been two days and because you haven't responded--you must have a team of crack individuals working hard to solve my problems, most of them with college degrees, I'm sure! Anyway, I'm sure you must get these sort of flattering emails all the time so don't feel obligated to reply. Keep up the great work!
"Paris Hilton"
I didn't do much today. I dusted and cleaned. Ooh la la. I was watching Greed tonight and one of the contests stated she was "musically inclined". When asked why by super-star Chuck Wollery, she replied, "I go to New York once a year to see a musical." I feel like I did more today but I guess I didn't. Oh oh oh, I studied hard for my Trading Spaces course with at least a six-hour review. I looked at the same material twice because I had so much time. FSU is out of the NCAA Tournament. Oh well, maybe next year. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Sunday: March 14, 2004 - Spring Broke
Another Spring Break has come and gone. My master plan of doing a week's worth of work failed miserably for the 19th year of school in a row. I did manage to get some job applications filled out. I really hate the ones that have to be done solely online. I'm sure it is really convenient for the employer but it's damn hard to get your letters of reference on disk. If I were writing a letter, I wouldn't want my recommendee to be reading it ahead of time. Now, it's thesis time.
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Monday: March 15, 2004 - Another Dollar
Another day another dollar. I think I booked us another gig today for April 1st. It pays $300/hr per person. APRIL FOOLS! No seriously, I booked us a gig for that day at the capitol building. I had a pleasant chat with Dr. Von Glahn today about directing the steel band next year. She forwarded me to Dr. Kite-Powell. I sent him an email begging for a meeting. I know they don't want to hire me as an adjunct and I think that sucks. They won't admit it (yet) but I know it's coming. Fortunately, I have a new backup plan. Stetson University apparently owns a bunch of pans and has no one to direct them. They don't know they need me yet but they soon will as soon as Jamie's sister's friend emails Jamie back so I know who to email attack with my pro-Mike propaganda. Theory-Chris came over and gave me the notes for my Atonal homework since I missed class on Friday because of the damn car. I made a very delicious chicken noodle soup for dinner and now, sadly, I must go read. And read a lot. And then grade papers. And stuff.
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Tuesday: March 16, 2004 - Lab Monitoring
As far as Tuesdays and Thursdays go today wasn't too bad. My first class went exceptionally well--I was able to get 11/12 computers working, easily besting my old score. Despite working frantically on my Music of the Caribbean paper, I found out it's not due until Thursday, so I'm glad I didn't rush to finish it. The down side, is that I didn't find out until around 3:30, so I had already invested all that time. I also called Comcast today and tomorrow evening I get to pick up my new modem. Hooray. I'm sick of these dial-up speeds. Tomorrow I have a day full of meetings--Clendinning, Eli-The-Groom and the ever-"stoic" Dr. Kite-Powell. I called the woman from Image Protocol about the gig on March 30th and she said she'd fax me the contract today. Yeah, right. It's been almost a month and while I am a very patient person, I want my ducks in a row. At least a diagonal. In other news, my forehead itches like a beast and I don't know why.
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Wednesday: March 17, 2004 - FSU upsets Wichita State!
Well, it's 1:38am and I just finished arranging two more pieces for rehearsal tomorrow. I admit, I did a mediocre job. The notes are there but that's about it. I anticipate having my time machine done late tomorrow so I should be able to go back in time and redo these arrangements in about ten minutes sometime last week. I got a B+ on my atonal project and I deserved it. My chart, although done with the best intention, was terrible and I should have stuck to shelling out the 89 cents to buy colored pencils and scrawl all over the score. It made sense to me and I had no desire whatsoever to follow most of my classmates back to 4th grade. Maybe for our next project they'll make some shoebox dioramas. Fun. After class I took a quick shower, changed out of my St. Patty's day celebratory bandana and into a more respectable attire and headed off for The Loop to meet with Eli about a gig. As it turns out, he's already married and is just having a party for it now. He wants mostly sell-out music, which I understand. He seems like a really great guy (he bought me lunch) and invited Jamie and I to an event at the University Club on Friday as his guests. I don't really know what that is but I should probably go and say hi. The two new pieces (that I just finished) are Red Red Wine and No Woman No Cry. We have a version of the UB40 song but the parts are hand-written and completely illegible. And even if they could be read, I suspect that they done poorly. Even if my version sucks, which it might, at least the parts are clean(ish). My meeting with Dr. Clendinning went well today and after lunch I met with Dr. Kite-Powell about directing the steel band next year. He seemed receptive to my ideas and I'm hoping that I made a good enough case that they'll decide to pass over the nerdy and uninspired future grad students and hand the reigns to me. I'm not going to get my hopes up, though. Not yet anyway. I parted ways with Turtle Ab and MR Fish tonight. Jamie came by for a bit and...whoa, her car was towed. We drove out to the place to get it but it would have cost $120 to get it tonight and only $80 tomorrow. So I'll give you one guess who gets to drive her there at 8am. It's me! In other news, The Ab took a massive dump on my floor tonight. Good thing she's so cute or I'd turn her into glue sticks. FSU and UWM both played tonight in the NIT Tournament. UWM destroyed Rice by 28 and FSU lost in double overtime to Wichita State. So much for my fantasy of a UWM vs FSU final where both teams are short-handed so they ask me to play all-time offense (since I'm at the game). Speaking of basketball, there was some new Ph. D theory guy lurking about with the faculty and I ran into him with a bunch of other people at The Loop. Apparently, Drs. Shaftel & Buchler were sharing my basketball stories. I wasn't that violent! I punched ONE guy. Just ONE. And the ONE guy I did punch broke Mark's eye for Christ's sake. I know by some accounts it appeared like I punched him and then twisted his stomach fat but in reality I just patted him in the mid-section and the flesh of his soft underbelly might have somehow become entangled in my fingers afterward. Anyway, it's not like I murdered him and had my way with his wife. I didn't!
Whoa, update--ESPN screws up! They put the winning arrow by Wichita State but really FSU won in double overtime. Well, well, well. Looks like my fantasy might come true after all.... [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Thursday: March 18, 2004 - Red Red Wine Arrangement
Greetings to whomever from ISU is reading this regularly. I almost went to ISU for undergrad but I couldn't stand not being able to live in a big city. Who knew I'd end up in Tallanothing, FL. My students have done well so far but absences are starting to become a real problem. I fully understand missing some class. I hate to get up that early to teach too. As Peter Griffin once said in an episode of Family Guy while addressing Congress, "Come on. Come on!" How you can miss four weeks of class already? Speaking of missing class, I skipped Music Bibliography today to work on my Music of the Caribbean paper (I mean nap). Ryan was not at rehearsal tonight because his wife Missy is having pregnancy complications. We didn't even know she was pregnant. Hopefully it will all work out for them. Tension and angst are both growing within the small group. I'm not sure what it will take for it to stop but hopefully whatever it is will surface quickly. Matt's brother Joe came to our small-group rehearsal and played some very fine congas. I did not play well tonight, not at all. Apparently my arrangement of Red Red Wine was lacking a crucial part to the song. I guess I'll just have to suck it up and download it since God knows there are no UB40 albums in my house. One of my plans for this summer is to gather all the old DAT tapes of Mas N' Steel and put together a "Best Of" since we will be celebrating our 20th anniversary next year. It's sad to say that we probably don't sound much better than the first year they had the group but if nothing else there's more interest in the ensemble. Too bad we have the same drums that they had. Maybe we can sell some CDs and make $50 to buy a new mallet or something. Thank GOD tomorrow is Friday. I'm ready to kick back with some cold ones.
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Friday: March 19, 2004 - Underground Tropical Tank Filter
Man O Man! If there were any examples of apathy being good today was it. The problem was I learned this the hard way--by doing things. Atonal was fine. I checked out some old Mas N Steel CDs from the music library and they were fair. They collaborated more with other ensembles and instrumentalists and I wish we did that now. I came home, picked up Dr. C and went to look at fish. After not buying anything I came home and took a much needed nap. I picked up Jamie for a truly disgusting dinner at TGIF. Apparently their "world famous mashed potatoes" are of the rare "instant" species. After dinner, I dragged Jamie to Wal-Mart to buy some fish supplies. My goal of the night was to fish both tanks up real nice. This included a filter fix for the cichlid tank and a complete overhaul of the tropical tank. Well, we got the filter working without too much trouble...maybe a half-hour of suck-starts. We then set our sights on the bedroom tank. I had just finished scooping all the fish when there was a knock on my door. It was my apartment manager and a very upset resident of #212. Apparently, when we "fixed" the filter I knocked an elbow joint loose and it was leaking profusely. It leaked into my downstairs' neighbors apartment. We finally got it fixed after dumping about two gallons of water into his pad. Sorry, lawyer-guy. He was a real asshole about it at first, but I guess no wants two gallons of water all over their TV and other electronic equipment at 1:45am. After another half-hour Jamie installed the new underground filter in the tropical tank. While the water settles, I'm writing this. Before I go to bed I'd like to transfer the dozens of tropical fish out of the 10 gallon tank in the kitchen back into their normal home. Hooray.
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Saturday: March 20, 2004 - Yippie-kai-A
I woke up early and got so much done today. Yippie-kai-A. Jamie and I went to the Tallahassee Nursery, her former employer, and I bought a couple new plants and 55 lbs of rock for my cichlid tank. You'd think 55 lbs would be a lot of rock, but it's really not. I was on Ab Duty all day and the dogs were really well-behaved for the most part. After washing the rock later this afternoon, I emptied out the cichlid tank and rebuilt it from the gravel up. It appears that I have only ten fish left, down from the peak of 33. I plan on buying more now that I have a habit that is less conducive to homicide. Speaking of fish tanks, my other one is SPARKLING. The tropical fish spent the night in the hospital tank and fortunately, they all lived through the night. One of my first missions this morning was to transfer them back. Everything was going fine until one jumped of the bucket. I pride myself on being someone who will not touch gross things, such as fish. Sadly, I either had to grab it or let it die on my floor (since I had waited a minute before deciding what to do). I sucked it up and grabbed it by the tail and tossed it into the holding bucket. It lived. Hooray. That tank is so bright it almost hurts your eyes to look at it. This afternoon Jamie and I watched Bowling for Columbine. I really like Michael Moore and I thought the movie was very powerful. I would highly recommend it. The best part is one of the interviewees stating that he wishes he could go back and tell himself in high school that high-school-life does not dictate anything. I remember thinking that whatever I was in high school was what I was going to be the rest of my life. Fortunately, that is not the case. Jamie went to her roommate's 21st birthday party tonight and I stayed home with the attack dogs. There was only one near-fatal attack from Chompy but fortunately I was able to run into the bedroom to save Ab's life. When not saving Ab's life I finished the last two must have arrangements for the upcoming gigs. The first was the hornpipe movement of the Handel Water Music and the other was Bob Marley's One Love. I didn't have a score for either but transcribing both were much easier than I anticipated. I spent about a total of 12 hours on the Handel (including parts-time) and only about 3 on the Bob Marley. Hmm, I see that Ab has completely destroyed her hippo and it's now in fluffy pieces all over the floor. Fantastic! UWM lost on a buzzer-beater tonight so now I only have to root for FSU in the NIT Tournament. Ok, I promise no more fish-updates for a while.
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Sunday: March 21, 2004 - Chicken and Dumpling Soup
Why haven't I heard back from any jobs yet? Even if the answer is no, which I'm sure it is in at least a few of the cases, can they not afford the 37 cents to send me a postcard from New Orleans? Or Northern Ontario? I can read between the lines, of course. I'm not asking for a dissertation as to why they they don't want to hire me, just a letter. Or two letters: no.
Today was a great day for watching some basketball. I really didn't do much other than that today. I made some great chicken and dumpling soup tonight--I figured out the key to delicious dumplings. Sadly, I still have to clean up the enormous mess. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Monday: March 22, 2004 - Matt and Rosemary
So much for my theory. I thought if I could manage to get a lot things done, be responsible, act nicely and just keep it all together I'd be pretty happy. Well, it didn't work. I did well on my atonal homework and I'm confident I'll get some sort of A on the quiz Wednesday. After class I had a great meeting with Dr. Clendinning because I had prepared. I got some scores from the steel band room and sorted through what I needed copied. So far so good. I came home to eat some lunch--leftovers from last night. Delicious. I trotted back to school for a few hours to practice and things went really well. I came home for a few minutes to walk the Number One Pup and then went back again to practice more. Jamie came to practice after work and we stayed there until about 7:30. Chris and Mike came over bearing gifts in the form of brownies. Apparently it was Ian's birthday today. Happy birthday. I'm not your friend apparently but I still knew you were having a party. I really feel like I don't belong to any clique anymore. I feel as though I should feel bad about it but I just don't care. Two of my friends from college, Matt and Rosemary, are going to come down and visit me next month. I'm kind of ashamed of the person I've become down here. I know what they're going to tell me when they get here--that I've changed. And not for the better. I thought coming to FSU over NU was a great idea at the time. Same degree, so much less work. I was sort of right. Because there's not a lot of "real" work to do, everyone here, myself definitely included, sort of falls into this weird stasis. What's really weird is watching the interactions between people who, if given a choice, would not be friends. For some reason, there's some serious friend-settling here. I feel very grateful to have made such good friends in Wisconsin because things are...well, just different here. There's really no other way to describe it than settling. The secret, of course, was discovered by Brian in his tenure here. Keep mostly to yourself, be nice, get slammed with your quasi-friends every now and then, do your thing, get the hell out and then pretend like the state never existed. That's my new plan.
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Tuesday: March 23, 2004 - This Date in History
I'm very relieved that it's not just me. Brian updated his website today after keeping us in bored-suspense for the past couple days. While I agree with almost everything in Brian's diatribe, I'm starting to lose my "verve" for teaching. The fact of the matter is that having twice as many people, if not more, than the number of computers in the lab makes teaching this class next to impossible. As I'm sure I've said before, the idea of sharing might be great for other things, computers cannot be shared when everyone has x amount of time to get things done. I sure as hell wouldn't want to sit there and watch someone else work on a project while I literally did nothing for two weeks. I know the majority of my students are getting pissed and I'm getting pissed too. I think I have to dice the class into halves and have each half come on a different day. The problem is that there won't be enough time to explain everything in class for Finale. It's a lose-lose situation and I just don't know what to do. I hate being as flexible as I have to be to teach this class. No one can get anything done so I push the due dates back. Once I do that, everything else has to move back which means the calendar is worthless so people just stop coming. And that sucks. The worst part is that there is no one to complain to. AND today was the first day in A YEAR that 12/12 computers were "working". When I say "working", I mean that they weren't crashing--there were, of course, all of the software problems. Hmm, maybe it's time to stop using the version of the program that was released in 1991? How about spending less money on buying new crap for the Macintosh side and update the f'ing programs on the PC side where CLASSES TAKE PLACE. When that program came out...let's see...
The Best of 1991
January 17, 1991 - Gulf War (Part I) Begins
March, 1991 - Silence of the Lambs wins Best Picture Oscar
April, 1991 - Nirvana releases Nevermind
June 12, 1991 - Jamie turns 8 years old
June, 1991 - 15 year old Kathy goes on a family vacation to California
August 3, 1991 - I start 7th grade
September 4, 1991 - Collapse of the Soviet Union
September 28, 1991 -Miles Davis dies
October, 1991 - Matt Shaftel is able to vote
October 27, 1991 - Minnesota Twins defeat the Atlanta Braves in the World Series
November, 1991 - All-Pro Tampa Bay Buccaneers Brad Johnson and Derrick Brooks play their first year at FSU
December 7, 1991 - Matt Flynn is able to buy pornography legally
Oh, and the Florida State University School of Music purchased the latest Cakewalk software... [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Wednesday: March 24, 2004 - Keanu Reaves (the fish)
For as terrible as my week as been, today was a great day. The Atonal quiz was a breeze but I missed the extra credit question. Apparently when I read "tetrachord" I thought of a "tetra fish" and in my mind it had three fins so I was looking for the wrong cardinality. Once I realized my mistake, I only had five minutes left. After class I came home and had a very pleasant conversation with an instructor in Roanoke, VA, who runs a music school. Alan Coyle had recommended he talk to me about doing some arranging. Hooray. He has been extremely successful putting the funds together to get drums. They have the exact ensemble we have at FSU...but theirs are two years old...and he's looking to expand it from there! Included in the conversation was my doing a workshop with other steel band composers and arrangers--awesome! The dog park was fun today--lots of cranky pits. The Ab got sick on the way home so we had to stop to get some water, which she didn't drink. Once back at my house, she puked a half-dozen times. Jamie and I went to Bennigan's for dinner and it was nothing short of terrible. At first, our waitress thought I was a girl and referred to us as "ladies". Even though the place was maybe 15% full, we were there for almost an hour and a half because she was sitting in this booth talking to these two (as Matt Flynn calls them) chaches (CHA-chez). After dinner I talked Jamie into coming to PetCo (where the pets go) and I bought a couple new fish since I was having such a great day. In addition to two Chinese Algae Eaters I shelled out the big bucks for a Dragon Fish (in the picture). He's only about a foot long and not nearly as scary looking as that one in the picture. He ain't pretty, though, that's for damn sure. He and Keanu Reaves were already fighting over territory. Speaking of Keanu Reaves, he's on his last fish-legs and his scales are starting to fall off. I've thought "today is the day" for the past three days and every morning he's still alive so I hope he can manage to fight off "Eelian Gonzales" for control of lava rock village!
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Thursday: March 25, 2004 - Hey Baby
Hey baby. No, not you. The new baby cichlid that Jamie discovered in the tank today! It's a baby aura (those yellow and black ones in the picture) but I'm not sure of its gender just yet. It's about the size of a pinky nail's clipping or a small grain of rice. Apparently Dr. Mean was able to sow his wild fish-oats before he passed on. I read that they usually come in baker's dozen but I'm sure with all the hungry and cranky fish in my tank that only a couple survived. Keanu Reaves took a turn for the worst today. All, the circle of life.
Today was a damn long day. I did hear some real nice Cakewalk projects in my class, though I heard some pretty terrible ones too. The small group bubble finally exploded and after some yelling things improved vastly. The things we recorded post-fight sound hundreds of times better than the pre-fight crap. So the secret of music is playing angry. Y'know, in case you were wondering. Tonight was Jason, the new auxiliary player's first night. Here are some mono tracks that I haven't gotten around to editing yet, but they're only like 2 megs each, so it shouldn't be unbearably long. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Friday: March 26, 2004 - Damn Ian
I admit it. I am writing this a day late. I am sorry.
I received a 94% on my Atonal quiz. I made a stupid mistake that cost me a 97%. And the three points that separated me from a 100% were debatable. Although I conveyed accurately that the row was constructed from a [014] trichord, I didn't use the word "imbricated" so didn't get the points. Oh well. I met with the Gig-Guy at the capitol building. The view from the top floor, where they're having the reception is very nice. Sadly, he can't pay us all the money at once. He did give me cash for the deposit and he seems trustworthy enough to come through. Just in case, the payment plan is stated in the contract. Maybe if he doesn't pay on time I can take him to Judge Joe Brown and win the money in small claims court. I need to call Liz about getting us a time in the recital hall. While the mini-disc player does a fine job, it still sounds like it was recorded in a cramped room full of crap (which it was). Jamie and I cleaned my house when she got off work to prepare for, as Alex calls it, Texas Hood-lum Night. The consensus was to not play for real money so we busted out my two jars of coins and divided it up between the six of us (me, Kathy, Meg, Ian, Chris and Jamie). By the end, we were getting sick of playing so we started playing "all in" as the ante of the lowest player to guarantee people would be out. Below is a chart so that you too can feel as though you were there watching it all pan out.
It really wasn't that great of a game for me personally. I should have adopted the "Groan n' Win" tactics of others. Apparently complaining enough results in massive amounts of money flowing to you. On the bright side, I know now that I have over $25 in coins in my house just in case I ever really need to scrape some money together. Take that CoinStar! [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Saturday: March 27, 2004 - Stealing From PetSmart
Ah, dishonesty. Jamie and I stole $16 worth of doggy nail clipping today from PetSmart. We still managed to spend about $50, though. I bought a few new fish and so far everyone is doing well. Eelian Gonzales poked his head out for the first time today, so I'm not as worried about him. The baby aura, Miss Tough, is still alive and kicking. I bought a couple other auras today since I now know they can mate successfully. I also bought a baby peacock since he was on sale as well as some tasty blood worms. This afternoon I watched the dogs while Jamie studied for the GRE. In addition to watching some basketball, I prepared the Mas N' Steel page for April Fools Day. Oh man, you guys are in for a treat! You'll have to look at the main page, though. After dinner we watched Monster--the movie based upon this prostitute who killer her clients. It was really bad but the acting was great. The plot was abysmal and I felt no empathy whatsoever for the main character. Christina Ricci was pretty cute, though, even with her boy-haircut. It's always nice to see a beautiful actress with a receding hairline like me.
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Sunday: March 28, 2004 - Weekoff
Gee, thanks for telling me I've been a date off all week. Apparently I counted one of my pupdates as a real date. Oh well. Since today was wholly uneventful I figured I'd make a little collage of my fish. I've been doing a bad job of keeping track if they've alive or dead so from now on I have this handy little sheet to look at. Ah, my cute little African Cichlids and other weird looking beasts. As you can see from the large red X, I already found one of the new PetSmart ones dead. That didn't take very long. With a flashlight I can see the end of her body but there's no way I'm moving 55 lbs of rock to get it out for my $3 refund. I tried to make them size relative, with the Ms. Tough being the smallest (the baby). I was fortunate enough to find a lot of fish online that look similar to my own--especially Keanu Reeves with that stupid blank expression and Eelian Gonzales. The two male auratus on the left don't have names yet because they'll probably be killed by 'Ma before the week is up. She's such a bitch. I had to come up with some names--I named Luol that after the Duke basketball player Luol Deng. I guess I was connecting Kenya (the fish) with Central African Republic (the boy). Well, Africa is Africa, right Jamie? In the fifteen minutes it took me to make that stupid picture I could have easily been done with my Atonal project but no, for some reason I thought it best to waste even MORE time.
I think we'll be ready for the upcoming gigs, even if none of us speak to each other for a week afterwards. There's only a month left of school and I have to admit that I'm pretty damn happy about it. I'd really like to hear back from some freaking jobs, though. Starting April 1st, I'm going to move these past three months worth of entries to another page so that the main page will load a little faster. Apparently it takes 1733 seconds to load up on a 28.8 modem. That seems like almost a half-hour. I doubt that's accurate. HIGHLY doubt it's accurate. Whatever. I need to keep on truckin'. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Monday: March 29, 2004 - My favorite peacock
Oops, I left off my favorite fish last night...my peacock. I never named him and this picture doesn't really capture the fact that he is easily the most beautiful fish in the tank. Anyway, I read my matrices backwards for my Atonal project last night. Let that be a lesson to me to not work so late. I somehow got my contact stuck in my inner-eye and it's been really red all day, so I'm stuck with my classes. After class I went to the library to copy the thousands of pages of theory. I came home, ate some delicious leftovers and took a brief nap. This evening I read through Alex's article on Klumpenhower networks. To paraphrase the actor (not the fish) Keanu Reeves, "whoa." I feel like writing a song that goes something like "theory is not for me, repeat, repeat, repeat". I also made this poster for the upcoming concert. I left off the 8pm time but other than that I think it's pretty neat. It still needs a couple fixes and the discrepancies in the
background should be less noticeable once I make it grayscale for copying. I'll probably make a couple more changes like adding some eyes complete with angry eyebrows on both instruments. I guess it's possible to make some serious posters but whenever I see creative ones it grabs my attention. Well, I guess it's back to the theory-realm once I send out some (sh)e-mails.
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Tuesday: March 30, 2004 - All About The Benjams
It's all about the benjamins, baby. Just in case you were wondering what the price of friendship is, it's $130. My day was wholly uneventful except for the gig tonight. I think Thursday's will go more smoothly, if for no reason than it can in no way be more stressful than tonight's. Everything from finding where the hell we were supposed to play, to lost music, to set list problems, to drinking, it was all covered tonight. For all the drama of the night, we didn't play too badly even if the audience was, shall we say, less than receptive. If nothing else, I got to make my debut on the field of Doak Campbell Stadium and got to tightrope-walk across the goal posts. Seven of our book-us now sheets were taking but I'm not sure how many were taken by members of the jazz band. Jason did a nice job tonight in his opening night with Less N' Steel. Hopefully we'll all wake up tomorrow feeling good.
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Wednesday: March 31, 2004 - Future of Steel Drum Music in America
So let me answer the question on everyone's mind: Who IS the future of steel band music in the United States. It's me. I finished LaSalle Bank (in honor of Matt's dog [La]Sall[e]y). It's really rocking, I have to admit. It's very rare that you get to modulate far away in pan music but not only did I do it, I got it into the locrian mode, everyone's favorite. I also wrote a new piece tonight, Modest Funk Bus Station since let's face it, we'll never sound like Grand Funk Railroad. It sounded terrible in the midi playback (surprise surprise) because all the notes couldn't be held properly making it sound more dissonant than it really was. I made it to the bank today so everyone will be receiving their check on time from me tomorrow. Chris and Mike hung out with me tonight and now I'm very confident things will run smoothly tomorrow. Saturday will be another entity all together just because we have to play for five hours. FIVE HOURS. At least Nathan will be there and he's always good for morale.
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The SNES NBA Jam fantasy is over. Although I will most likely play it with live people, there is no longer any thrill whatsoever playing against the computer. Even on the hardest setting, I was able to win 140-16 tonight. In my last game, I was ahead 62-0 at the end of the first quarter. I figured I'd play the rest of the game with my eyes closed, since I already had a headache. When I opened my eyes before the 4th quarter I saw that it was 58-64 and made a deal that I would only shoot from half-court if I could keep my eyes open. I agreed. I didn't make any shots the last quarter but neither did they, thanks to my stifling defense. My original goal was to hold them scoreless for a game but my roommate David and I did that my senior year of college, ultimately winning 294-0. No really, 294-0. We were aiming for the elusive 300-0, where the computer does not even touch the ball, but they did manage to take it once and we had to settle for stealing it after they touched it. Alas, it was too late--the precious seconds that David needed to hit the last two 3-pointers was lost. I am proud to say that I scored none of the 294 points.
I turned in my Atonal project today after a Photoshop fiasco, where it only printed out certain layers instead of the whole "picture". I also took Chompy to the dog park. There weren't many dogs so I took her on a tour of the woods. I did my best to get us lost in the hopes she would remember the way out, but fortunately we didn't get lost because she made at least two semi-serious wrong turns. To her credit, though, she did navigate a good dozen directions properly but the two she missed could have made the difference between Atlanta and Houston--you know, if I let her drive. Or read the map while I was driving.
My friend Mark re-put up his website today. If you want to see it, click here. Tomorrow I'm going to give a quiz in my class. A lot of people missed on Thursday so they didn't get the hand-out. That's not my fault, though. I'm sure they'll bitch and moan like last year but I really don't care. The only person I'm considering letting make it up is the one that told me he was going to be out last week. Oh by the way, I do sometimes go back and fix my mistakes to earlier posts. Just in case you were wondering. Brian, I know you put this on your website today, but it was so good I had to put it here too. Brian gets all the credit; I claim none! I hope you're happy. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Tuesday: March 02, 2004 - Give A Quiz and Leave Day
Any day where your lesson plan is "Give quiz and leave" is a good day. Teaching went smoothly this morning and the only interesting thing that happened in Music Bibliography was that I had a surprisingly loud sneeze. I know I sneeze louder than most, but this one was really quite an interruption. Bryan Richards told me I needed to take three credits this summer instead of the two I had planned for. Oh well, I can't wait to be done. He also told me that I would not be able to receive an assistantship in the fall so I'd better be damn sure I finished in the summer semester. Apparently they're cracking down on people that aren't moving ahead that have had assistantships for more than three years. That means you're safe if you did a MM and are now doing a DM/Ph.D but not safe if you're getting a second MM (me) or have been working on your DM too long. Whatever, I don't really care as long as I finish. And even if, God forbid, I don't, I'll still leave. I'm ready for a change of scenery. Jamie and I went to Olive Garden for lunch and the traffic getting there made the trip about 1.5 hours. Apparently there was some "march" going on. Maybe it was because it's now March. I hope they don't have apes in April. My "New Layout for Brian's Apartment" took top prize but it was also the only entry. I think it won because of my creative use of snakepits. There's another grad student in my Music of the Caribbean class who I talked to for the first time today. I really hate it when people try to impress you with their apathy. "Oh yeah? Well, *I* didn't even learn to speak until I was 22. And breast feeding? Well, I carry a bottle in my purse just in case I can't get home to mom soon enough." This particular Student Y (not to be confused with Student X from previous posts) is, ta-da, a music education graduate student. Surprise! I admit, I am not always the most prepared student but I sure as hell don't brag about it. After practicing for the past couple days, I thought I'd be able to blow Chris away in rehearsal with my new-found abilities. I was wrong. He is still somewhere in the area of 50-80x better than I am. Maybe I just need to memorize the hard passages because right now I still have to read them. I'm hesitant to memorize anything because Kathy once told me that I never look at my music when I play and I don't want people to think I can't read music and just memorize patterns. Perhaps I should get over that. Matt came over for some wedding music writing and we knocked out a solid ten measures in about two hours. We also were able to squeeze a few beers in here and there too. Oh, and that's a picture of Tibet. Because Matt likes Tibet.
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Wednesday: March 03, 2004 - I'm sorry Jeff Jackson, ooo
Today I hung out with Kathy for a while. We went to Ruby Tuesdays where we were served by the deftly-smooth Jeff Jackson. After that we went to the dog park. I found out my car battery is dead (again). I had a lame rehearsal for a choir piece. I promise to not complain about the inability of anyone in the steel band to not keep time anymore. Every two measures we were in a different tempo so I just stopped watching and tried to keep playing the speed I started. Tomorrow is the concert. You should come. No, on second thought, you really really shouldn't. I am currently on page 3 of my ten page paper due tomorrow for my Music of the Caribbean class. I don't know how the hell we're supposed to talk about 36 pieces of music in ten pages. I could do it in 50 pages but certainly not 10. It's funny how as you get older you want assignments to be longer because you have more to say. I'm sure the undergrads in the class are freaking out, though--10 pages! Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints! On a final note, you'll be pleased to know I corrected all the typos of "Later Day Saints".
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Thursday: March 04, 2004 - Grading Quizzes
Despite only getting three hours of sleep last night, I was able to stay awake for most of today. I woke up at 8am to grade quizzes for my class. I taught from 9-10. Helped some students from 10-11, taught again from 11-noon, came home, worked on my paper, went back to school, took my Bibliography midterm, came home, finished my charts for my Caribbean class, went to that class, went to rehearsal, left at break to play in a concert, came back to rehearsal and then rehearsed with the Good Group for another hour and a half. What a day. At 6:30am tomorrow I need to call AAA and get them to jump the Taurus so I can take it to the Ford dealership. I need to then have them re-jump it once I get there so I can drive to Sears so I can a new battery. Bleh. Happy f'ing Spring Break.
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Friday: March 05, 2004 - Ford Sucks: I
Apparently I am not the first person to have problems with their Ford. I woke up at 6am to call AAA so I could have my car brought to the dealership. The that came out was very helpful, patient and friendly. Once he informed me there was nothing stuck in my cigarette lighter that was shorting out the electronics we pondered the battery. Although it sat charging for 20 minutes, we couldn't get a charge. Eventually, we got it started and I decided to get the new battery from Sears first. I sat at Sears until I had already missed all of Atonal. The problem became more interesting as the car would start whenever I turned the key now--no more battery problem. With my remedial knowledge of car engines, I suggested the alternator and my mechanic agreed, giving me a complicated explanation of what exactly was wrong (the diode trio [Also the name of my new band]). Since the battery was fine and the car started perfectly, I got in it and drove straight to Ford. Although I called to change my appointment, they apparently do not have the capacity to write things down, so my time of 7am was still on their dry-erase board even though it was now 11:30. I met with my "guy", Mike Dell ( in case any of you want to find him and do unmerciful things to him). He told me it would take about an hour and a half to look at both the alternator and the check engine light. That didn't seem so bad. I figured I'd walk to PetCo and by the time I was done looking at sweet fish, he'd call me to come back. Well, well, well....
11:35-11:45: McDonalds
12:00-1:30: Mall
1:30-2:00: Ross Dress For Less
2:00-4:30: Borders
So, it's now almost 5pm and I haven't heard anything from the Dealership. Surprise, surprise. I walk back the 23 miles to their building and am pissed. In addition to this, their take-you-home guy is gone so I'm stuck there. I find Mr. Dell and ask him what the hell is going on. He tells me that they're working on it and it shouldn't be terribly much longer. Thinking he's full of it, I sneak past the back of the garage and through a small fence to see the car-waiting lot. Lo and behold, there's the Taurus, untouched. Had they not had my key, I would have driven it through the fence and come home. Since I didn't have my key, I opened the door, sat down, plugged my now-dead cell phone in and let the rage build. Once sufficiently pissed, I walked back over to Mike's office, where he was in a conversation with other customers. Rudely walking in between then I said in my nicest voice, "This is bulls---, motherf-----" complete with the down-up hand movement. His eyes opened wide and said nothing. I then asked why the hell he lied to me about my car. I told him I went back to their lot and saw my car even though he said the were working on it. Rather than explaining why he lied, he attempted to make *me* look bad by telling me the back lot was off-limits. I not-so-calmly explained that I understand cars need work and that I could have given a s--- if they had the car until Monday (which is the case now) but he didn't have to try to make it look as though it was nothing and making me waste the past five and a half hours. So FINALLY, after raising hell, I saw the Taurus being pulled into a garage slot. 10 minutes later he calls me and tells me that the battery problem is not my alternator. Naturally, I ask him what it is then. He says the mechanic doesn't know. I ask if he checked the alternator and replies, "sort of". This reply requires all caps, I'm sorry, "IT'S ON THE BOTTOM OF THE F---ING ENGINE. I KNOW IT'S INCONVENIENT TO HAVE TO ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING BUT TELLING ME IT'S THE BATTERY IS F--- BULLS----. KEEP THE GODD--- CAR AS LONG AS YOU WANT BUT F----DO SOMETHING". At that point Ken The Driver, the most amiable guy comes to pick up and take me home. He could not have been nicer or sympathetic. I couldn't tell if it was sincere or not because it was so over the top, but at least he listened to me. And took me home the way I told him. He's thinking about moving to Milwaukee. Lucky guy. They have a fantastic Ford dealership there. Anyway, I'm sure I'll never see my car again after being such an asshole to them but man, all they had to do was tell me to go home and pick it up on Monday. Sure, I might have been frustrated but at least I would have had the day to myself.
If there was any good news, is that I was able to read two full books on publishing at Borders and I skimmed a 3rd one on the "music business". Matt and Jamie came over last night. Matt and I had a long conversation on philosophy vs. sociology for a good two hours. We each had 3-4 beers and were at that perfect mellow-conversation sort of inebriation. Jamie came over towards the end of the evening. Matt left and Jamie and I stayed up and complained about various topics. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Saturday: March 06, 2004 - The Crass Menagerie
This morning I called about my car and they said they would have the parts on Monday. Obviously, I don't believe them. Oh well, what can I do? My dad informed me that I was most likely on their blacklist for all the yelling that I do whenever I'm there. I don't know what else to say, though--I don't really understand how wanting a product to be fixed when it's built to be inferior is such a ridiculous request. I really just relaxed the rest of the day until about 6pm when Chris and Mike said they were coming over. The arrived around 7 and Chris and I went to Gordo's to pick up dinner for myself and Jamie. They really did not do a very good job with our order. Mine was (literally) a piece of bread with some turkey slices. Not even mayo or "Gordo's Sauce". And the fries, we figured, were fried in B.O. We also picked up a few drinks from the store and came back to dispose of them. We had a fun time and Chris took us all out to McDonald's around 11:30. One of the advantages of drinking early is that you feel pretty good the next morning because you feel asleep at 1am instead of 4am. That is especially good for days like tomorrow, when we have early rehearsal. Steve is also coming in tomorrow around 5pm. I need to do some heavy cleaning after the gathering last night. The plan is to have a bunch of people over for dinner to honor his arrival. Also staying with me for the week are: Abner (Chris' turtle with sweet turtle abs) and Mike's fish. Hmm, I guess that's not as much as I thought. If only The Ab was staying too. Alas, she's too crazed around Chompy to really not get me in trouble. If you want to come over and eat with us, this is your invitation.
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Sunday: March 07, 2004 - Steel Band Concert
This morning we had a very, very nice rehearsal. Everyone remembered to come and we got through a lot of music. Afterwards, Jamie and I went to Target and I bought some more dog food and some of those dust-cleaning-mitts. We ate some Wendy's and watched some Family Guy before she left. In the hour between her leaving and picking Steve up I cleaned my apartment. And I did a damn fine job, if I do say so myself. His flight was on time with only minor turbulence. Chris and Mike came over for dinner and they ended up making most of it because I got a call from David Knapp. He is in NY now, working some office job and making big bucks. He told me lots of good news about publishing, hooray. Dinner was delicious. After eating, Jamie came over and a little after her arrival so did Matt Flynn. We all bored Steve to tears by talking about the steel band problems. Chris and Mike brought over Mike's fish, who are now living happily in my hospital tank next to little Abner. Jamie, Chris & Mike left and Steve, Matt and I watched this horrible DVD my mom sent me of this weird "episode" Steve and I filmed when I was about 14. It involved lego people any army guys and GI Joes and the dog, and was really terrible. To my credit, my parents did an excellent taping job at the last steel band concert. After watching the DVD, Matt left and Steve and I watched the end of the Gonzaga basketball game. Oh, and if you're the person that checks this six times a day and your cable internet service provider is @Home, I know you have me bookmarked and it kind of creeps me out.
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Monday: March 08, 2004 - Hot Chicks
Today officially started at noon. Steve and I went out to lunch at the Atlanta Bread Company with Jamie. She told us there was a murderer running around town and the 10pm news confirmed it. Apparently he already killed a lawyer. Hopefully he's on his way to the Ford dealership as we speak. I got the car back but it still isn't completely fixed. The air bag light is on and they said they couldn't fix it without my permission. Hello?! How about you CALL me and say, "Your air bag light is on--should we fix it?" I would imagine this is for all the people that reply, "No, I like driving according to 1973 highway safety standards." I hate them. Well, I like Ken the Driver but the rest of them can burn in hell. And I'm not talking about cushy fire and brimstone hell, but rather 9th layer of hell á la Dante's Inferno. Once we got the death trap back, we went to Home Depot and PetSmart but didn't buy anything. Our project tonight is artistic in nature but, á la me, is not complete. For dinner we had some average chicken-something. Hopefully we will get it done tomorrow. Maybe we'll go to an auto rally and see some hot chicks (á la Tom) in bikinis. Tomorrow should be another leisurely day. Maybe at some point we'll go down to P-ma city.
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Tuesday: March 09, 2004 - Art Project
Today started at around 9:00am for me. I single-handedly finished my art project and I must admit. It looks awesome. Steve's day started at 1pm. We went to Ruby Tuesday's for lunch and it was pretty good, even though they didn't offer me a To-Go cup of Kiwi Lemonade. Oh well. We then went on a tour of town, where we bought Hexen for Nintendo 64. After fighting rush hour traffic, we realized we needed a "memory pack" and spent another hour driving back to the stupid used games store to get it. It's really a stupid game, much like a glorified Doom from my 7th grade computer game days. It's unnecessarily complicated and any game that requires more time spent on finding keys than killing three-headed dog zombies sucks. At least we can play together but the levels are so dark and weird that it takes for ever and isn't particularly fun (yet). Tomorrow I'd like to give Steve a tour of Doak Campbell stadium but I don't know if I'm allowed to get into the stands or on the field. Whatever. Hopefully I can talk to Matt about sitting in on Leon High School's Lion Steel rehearsal on Thursday morning. That will be fun. Jamie called tonight and I was kind of cranky with her. Sorry! Not that she'll be reading this for another week, if ever. Our night tonight will conclude with some John Madden 2000 football. It's the first game since RBI baseball for Nintendo that I've been able to completely kick Steve's ass in. I got to talk to Kathy's friend Anne online for a bit tonight after a two-year hiatus but dinner stole me away before I could finish our conversation. Well, gotta get back to kicking Steve's ass.
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Wednesday: March 10, 2004 - Baseball with Matt (and Steve)
We spent the better part of today at Matt's house playing baseball while Chompy, The Ab and Sally ran around. Later tonight, Matt came over here and we shot pool. The phrase "slop dance" was officially coined.
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Thursday: March 11, 2004 - Seat-Pant Flying
Despite our best intentions of leaving early, Steve and I didn't leave for St. George Island until 2pm. Oops. We made it without any side trips and I successfully navigated the new St. George bridge without any signs of nausea. Usually going over long bridges makes me really sick but this new one is much more sturdy and I like the added comfort of having a shoulder just in case I start to get light-headed. We were there for about three and a half hours and Steve was fortunate enough to finally find a sand dollar to bring back to our Dad. I found a couple too, but they were pre-collected by some kid hours before. In his/her cache of shells were two other small sand dollars in addition to some other pretty cool shells. I might plop them into my cichlid tank just to give it something new. We ordered some pizza after we got back and shot some stick with Matt Flynn (again). Tomorrow I need to wake up at 7am so I can make my guest appearance at Leon High School to play with their steel bands. Even the high school has two--why can't we? Seriously.
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Friday: March 12, 2004 - Lion Steel
This morning I went with Matt to the Leon High School Lion Steel rehearsals. Since Matt is their director now, I think I'll go visit them more often. The first band is...not very good. I brought my pan with me and got a primo spot in the center of the lead section. The first tune up was Dust in deh face. As the piece went on, more and more people dropped out until by about letter G it was just me and the drum set player. I was hoping Matt would cut us off but he didn't, so I ended up playing by myself until the piece was over. Thank God I'd played it before. Well, I certainly didn't play it perfectly but whatever. I probably hit about 95% of the notes which is just fine with me after not playing for a week. We next played another Mas N' Steel favorite, Savannah Party. I remember it only because the notation was so difficult to read and the size was so small that I don't think either Chris or I ever played it the same way twice (well, maybe Chris did because he's Chris, but I sure as hell didn't). The band collectively made it through the piece and I guess I was supposed to "rip an awesome solo" which I failed to do. I couldn't remember the chord changes so I settled for 32nd note pentatonic runs, which sounded a lot harder than it really was. The kids were impressed easily enough and they threw me some very flattering comments. I then kicked back with the band director (who apparently has to hang out in the room the whole time with Matt because he [Matt] isn't a certified teacher) and listened to them play my arrangement of Hey Ya. It wasn't really what I thought it would be--it sounds a lot different (better) with the small group at FSU. I think I just take for granted that good musicians will play musically and not play whole note rolls triple forte. Anyway, they love the piece and that makes me happy. They then butchered one of my favorite songs in the world--Moby Dick. The drummer was cool with the solo but his time-keeping made me look like John Bonham. It didn't help that the tempo was roughly quarter note equals one. The class really got nothing done--they're so crazed and disrespectful if I were to direct them I would have been fired after a parental revolt. I guess I just take college teaching for granted where I can be a little more threatening. More power to Matt & Co., though. Anywho, once they left the band director, who I should probably leave nameless said some equally disrespectful and inappropriate things about some of the students. Not really perverse inappropriate but still. I'm sure my high school directors said the same things about me. I hope they stumble on this site--right now. See? I did make it into college even after you laughed in my face. And now who has more degrees? Yeah, that's what I thought...
The second band came in a few minutes later and I got to play my favorite piece El Montuno with them. Now appropriately warmed up, I was able to make them stop and say "Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" with my solo. They cheered crazily and my ego was even more gigantic than usual. We played through a couple more pieces and my God these kids were good. Now, you know I hate to say anything nice about anyone but JCOLD these kids were amazing. I know this is terrible to say but they played about as well as we're playing at FSU right now. We played Pan in A Minor and even though Matt told me his students were great I didn't believe him...but I do now. I can't believe that these high school students are on par with us! This just makes me more sad about the current state of the ensemble at FSU. The fact of the matter is that we need at least two bands--hell, Leon High School has two bands and we have one. Which is probably why their top band could easily play with ours. What blew me away was the balance. Not only could you hear all the parts but the doubles and triple parts were RoCkIN'. They were playing so confidently (and accurately) that they were getting that sound that's just on the verge of playing too loud like you hear on the panorama CDs from Trinidad. I hope FSU is able to recruit their finer players. I think they would be some key additions to our group. There was really only one lead player that was any good but that's ok--we have good leads to spare. However, we could definitely stand to beef up the lower voices with some aggressive players.
Yeah, so Steve, Matt and I went to Tia's for his last meal (hmm, as I typed "last meal" Great White was playing on Winamp and played "you don't know where you got your 'last meal'" with "last meal" lining up perfectly). We got some ribs and they were terrible. Both Steve's and mine had an enormous piece of cartilage running the length of it, with the width of a sharpie. It was really disgusting. After lunch I kicked Steve's ass in Madden 2000 a couple more times and then dropped him off at the airport. Once I got home I did some more steel drum research and made it half-way through the C's on my list. Oh, the list! I'm compiling a list of every collegiate steel band in the country. Sadly, this means going to the website of every damned university in the country and trying to find it. You would think most schools would have a working "Search" option on their site but not many do. This little project will most likely take over 100 hours unless someone helps me. In the end, though, I should have a list of people to whom I can market my steel drum music. Whew. That was quite the entry. Spring break is over and I'm sad. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Saturday: March 13, 2004 - Comcast Sucks
Dear Comcast,
I commend you on your decision to buy Disney instead of wasting your profits on improving service or purchasing new cable modems for us loyal customers. Of course, I respect your fantastic rates of a mere $50/month and $7/mo for the modem rentals for the outstanding service you provide that works an extremely solid 62-65% of the time. My only regret is that I do not have the disposable income to buy stock in your fine company. I also find your website extremely navigable and your FAQ are very detailed. I can't even fathom the amount of time it took to answer every possible consumer question with: "unplug your cable modem and plug it back in." Your online customer support is nothing short of exceptional--it's only been two days and because you haven't responded--you must have a team of crack individuals working hard to solve my problems, most of them with college degrees, I'm sure! Anyway, I'm sure you must get these sort of flattering emails all the time so don't feel obligated to reply. Keep up the great work!
"Paris Hilton"
I didn't do much today. I dusted and cleaned. Ooh la la. I was watching Greed tonight and one of the contests stated she was "musically inclined". When asked why by super-star Chuck Wollery, she replied, "I go to New York once a year to see a musical." I feel like I did more today but I guess I didn't. Oh oh oh, I studied hard for my Trading Spaces course with at least a six-hour review. I looked at the same material twice because I had so much time. FSU is out of the NCAA Tournament. Oh well, maybe next year. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Sunday: March 14, 2004 - Spring Broke
Another Spring Break has come and gone. My master plan of doing a week's worth of work failed miserably for the 19th year of school in a row. I did manage to get some job applications filled out. I really hate the ones that have to be done solely online. I'm sure it is really convenient for the employer but it's damn hard to get your letters of reference on disk. If I were writing a letter, I wouldn't want my recommendee to be reading it ahead of time. Now, it's thesis time.
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Monday: March 15, 2004 - Another Dollar
Another day another dollar. I think I booked us another gig today for April 1st. It pays $300/hr per person. APRIL FOOLS! No seriously, I booked us a gig for that day at the capitol building. I had a pleasant chat with Dr. Von Glahn today about directing the steel band next year. She forwarded me to Dr. Kite-Powell. I sent him an email begging for a meeting. I know they don't want to hire me as an adjunct and I think that sucks. They won't admit it (yet) but I know it's coming. Fortunately, I have a new backup plan. Stetson University apparently owns a bunch of pans and has no one to direct them. They don't know they need me yet but they soon will as soon as Jamie's sister's friend emails Jamie back so I know who to email attack with my pro-Mike propaganda. Theory-Chris came over and gave me the notes for my Atonal homework since I missed class on Friday because of the damn car. I made a very delicious chicken noodle soup for dinner and now, sadly, I must go read. And read a lot. And then grade papers. And stuff.
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Tuesday: March 16, 2004 - Lab Monitoring
As far as Tuesdays and Thursdays go today wasn't too bad. My first class went exceptionally well--I was able to get 11/12 computers working, easily besting my old score. Despite working frantically on my Music of the Caribbean paper, I found out it's not due until Thursday, so I'm glad I didn't rush to finish it. The down side, is that I didn't find out until around 3:30, so I had already invested all that time. I also called Comcast today and tomorrow evening I get to pick up my new modem. Hooray. I'm sick of these dial-up speeds. Tomorrow I have a day full of meetings--Clendinning, Eli-The-Groom and the ever-"stoic" Dr. Kite-Powell. I called the woman from Image Protocol about the gig on March 30th and she said she'd fax me the contract today. Yeah, right. It's been almost a month and while I am a very patient person, I want my ducks in a row. At least a diagonal. In other news, my forehead itches like a beast and I don't know why.
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Wednesday: March 17, 2004 - FSU upsets Wichita State!
Well, it's 1:38am and I just finished arranging two more pieces for rehearsal tomorrow. I admit, I did a mediocre job. The notes are there but that's about it. I anticipate having my time machine done late tomorrow so I should be able to go back in time and redo these arrangements in about ten minutes sometime last week. I got a B+ on my atonal project and I deserved it. My chart, although done with the best intention, was terrible and I should have stuck to shelling out the 89 cents to buy colored pencils and scrawl all over the score. It made sense to me and I had no desire whatsoever to follow most of my classmates back to 4th grade. Maybe for our next project they'll make some shoebox dioramas. Fun. After class I took a quick shower, changed out of my St. Patty's day celebratory bandana and into a more respectable attire and headed off for The Loop to meet with Eli about a gig. As it turns out, he's already married and is just having a party for it now. He wants mostly sell-out music, which I understand. He seems like a really great guy (he bought me lunch) and invited Jamie and I to an event at the University Club on Friday as his guests. I don't really know what that is but I should probably go and say hi. The two new pieces (that I just finished) are Red Red Wine and No Woman No Cry. We have a version of the UB40 song but the parts are hand-written and completely illegible. And even if they could be read, I suspect that they done poorly. Even if my version sucks, which it might, at least the parts are clean(ish). My meeting with Dr. Clendinning went well today and after lunch I met with Dr. Kite-Powell about directing the steel band next year. He seemed receptive to my ideas and I'm hoping that I made a good enough case that they'll decide to pass over the nerdy and uninspired future grad students and hand the reigns to me. I'm not going to get my hopes up, though. Not yet anyway. I parted ways with Turtle Ab and MR Fish tonight. Jamie came by for a bit and...whoa, her car was towed. We drove out to the place to get it but it would have cost $120 to get it tonight and only $80 tomorrow. So I'll give you one guess who gets to drive her there at 8am. It's me! In other news, The Ab took a massive dump on my floor tonight. Good thing she's so cute or I'd turn her into glue sticks. FSU and UWM both played tonight in the NIT Tournament. UWM destroyed Rice by 28 and FSU lost in double overtime to Wichita State. So much for my fantasy of a UWM vs FSU final where both teams are short-handed so they ask me to play all-time offense (since I'm at the game). Speaking of basketball, there was some new Ph. D theory guy lurking about with the faculty and I ran into him with a bunch of other people at The Loop. Apparently, Drs. Shaftel & Buchler were sharing my basketball stories. I wasn't that violent! I punched ONE guy. Just ONE. And the ONE guy I did punch broke Mark's eye for Christ's sake. I know by some accounts it appeared like I punched him and then twisted his stomach fat but in reality I just patted him in the mid-section and the flesh of his soft underbelly might have somehow become entangled in my fingers afterward. Anyway, it's not like I murdered him and had my way with his wife. I didn't!
Whoa, update--ESPN screws up! They put the winning arrow by Wichita State but really FSU won in double overtime. Well, well, well. Looks like my fantasy might come true after all.... [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Thursday: March 18, 2004 - Red Red Wine Arrangement
Greetings to whomever from ISU is reading this regularly. I almost went to ISU for undergrad but I couldn't stand not being able to live in a big city. Who knew I'd end up in Tallanothing, FL. My students have done well so far but absences are starting to become a real problem. I fully understand missing some class. I hate to get up that early to teach too. As Peter Griffin once said in an episode of Family Guy while addressing Congress, "Come on. Come on!" How you can miss four weeks of class already? Speaking of missing class, I skipped Music Bibliography today to work on my Music of the Caribbean paper (I mean nap). Ryan was not at rehearsal tonight because his wife Missy is having pregnancy complications. We didn't even know she was pregnant. Hopefully it will all work out for them. Tension and angst are both growing within the small group. I'm not sure what it will take for it to stop but hopefully whatever it is will surface quickly. Matt's brother Joe came to our small-group rehearsal and played some very fine congas. I did not play well tonight, not at all. Apparently my arrangement of Red Red Wine was lacking a crucial part to the song. I guess I'll just have to suck it up and download it since God knows there are no UB40 albums in my house. One of my plans for this summer is to gather all the old DAT tapes of Mas N' Steel and put together a "Best Of" since we will be celebrating our 20th anniversary next year. It's sad to say that we probably don't sound much better than the first year they had the group but if nothing else there's more interest in the ensemble. Too bad we have the same drums that they had. Maybe we can sell some CDs and make $50 to buy a new mallet or something. Thank GOD tomorrow is Friday. I'm ready to kick back with some cold ones.
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Friday: March 19, 2004 - Underground Tropical Tank Filter
Man O Man! If there were any examples of apathy being good today was it. The problem was I learned this the hard way--by doing things. Atonal was fine. I checked out some old Mas N Steel CDs from the music library and they were fair. They collaborated more with other ensembles and instrumentalists and I wish we did that now. I came home, picked up Dr. C and went to look at fish. After not buying anything I came home and took a much needed nap. I picked up Jamie for a truly disgusting dinner at TGIF. Apparently their "world famous mashed potatoes" are of the rare "instant" species. After dinner, I dragged Jamie to Wal-Mart to buy some fish supplies. My goal of the night was to fish both tanks up real nice. This included a filter fix for the cichlid tank and a complete overhaul of the tropical tank. Well, we got the filter working without too much trouble...maybe a half-hour of suck-starts. We then set our sights on the bedroom tank. I had just finished scooping all the fish when there was a knock on my door. It was my apartment manager and a very upset resident of #212. Apparently, when we "fixed" the filter I knocked an elbow joint loose and it was leaking profusely. It leaked into my downstairs' neighbors apartment. We finally got it fixed after dumping about two gallons of water into his pad. Sorry, lawyer-guy. He was a real asshole about it at first, but I guess no wants two gallons of water all over their TV and other electronic equipment at 1:45am. After another half-hour Jamie installed the new underground filter in the tropical tank. While the water settles, I'm writing this. Before I go to bed I'd like to transfer the dozens of tropical fish out of the 10 gallon tank in the kitchen back into their normal home. Hooray.
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Saturday: March 20, 2004 - Yippie-kai-A
I woke up early and got so much done today. Yippie-kai-A. Jamie and I went to the Tallahassee Nursery, her former employer, and I bought a couple new plants and 55 lbs of rock for my cichlid tank. You'd think 55 lbs would be a lot of rock, but it's really not. I was on Ab Duty all day and the dogs were really well-behaved for the most part. After washing the rock later this afternoon, I emptied out the cichlid tank and rebuilt it from the gravel up. It appears that I have only ten fish left, down from the peak of 33. I plan on buying more now that I have a habit that is less conducive to homicide. Speaking of fish tanks, my other one is SPARKLING. The tropical fish spent the night in the hospital tank and fortunately, they all lived through the night. One of my first missions this morning was to transfer them back. Everything was going fine until one jumped of the bucket. I pride myself on being someone who will not touch gross things, such as fish. Sadly, I either had to grab it or let it die on my floor (since I had waited a minute before deciding what to do). I sucked it up and grabbed it by the tail and tossed it into the holding bucket. It lived. Hooray. That tank is so bright it almost hurts your eyes to look at it. This afternoon Jamie and I watched Bowling for Columbine. I really like Michael Moore and I thought the movie was very powerful. I would highly recommend it. The best part is one of the interviewees stating that he wishes he could go back and tell himself in high school that high-school-life does not dictate anything. I remember thinking that whatever I was in high school was what I was going to be the rest of my life. Fortunately, that is not the case. Jamie went to her roommate's 21st birthday party tonight and I stayed home with the attack dogs. There was only one near-fatal attack from Chompy but fortunately I was able to run into the bedroom to save Ab's life. When not saving Ab's life I finished the last two must have arrangements for the upcoming gigs. The first was the hornpipe movement of the Handel Water Music and the other was Bob Marley's One Love. I didn't have a score for either but transcribing both were much easier than I anticipated. I spent about a total of 12 hours on the Handel (including parts-time) and only about 3 on the Bob Marley. Hmm, I see that Ab has completely destroyed her hippo and it's now in fluffy pieces all over the floor. Fantastic! UWM lost on a buzzer-beater tonight so now I only have to root for FSU in the NIT Tournament. Ok, I promise no more fish-updates for a while.
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Sunday: March 21, 2004 - Chicken and Dumpling Soup
Why haven't I heard back from any jobs yet? Even if the answer is no, which I'm sure it is in at least a few of the cases, can they not afford the 37 cents to send me a postcard from New Orleans? Or Northern Ontario? I can read between the lines, of course. I'm not asking for a dissertation as to why they they don't want to hire me, just a letter. Or two letters: no.
Today was a great day for watching some basketball. I really didn't do much other than that today. I made some great chicken and dumpling soup tonight--I figured out the key to delicious dumplings. Sadly, I still have to clean up the enormous mess. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Monday: March 22, 2004 - Matt and Rosemary
So much for my theory. I thought if I could manage to get a lot things done, be responsible, act nicely and just keep it all together I'd be pretty happy. Well, it didn't work. I did well on my atonal homework and I'm confident I'll get some sort of A on the quiz Wednesday. After class I had a great meeting with Dr. Clendinning because I had prepared. I got some scores from the steel band room and sorted through what I needed copied. So far so good. I came home to eat some lunch--leftovers from last night. Delicious. I trotted back to school for a few hours to practice and things went really well. I came home for a few minutes to walk the Number One Pup and then went back again to practice more. Jamie came to practice after work and we stayed there until about 7:30. Chris and Mike came over bearing gifts in the form of brownies. Apparently it was Ian's birthday today. Happy birthday. I'm not your friend apparently but I still knew you were having a party. I really feel like I don't belong to any clique anymore. I feel as though I should feel bad about it but I just don't care. Two of my friends from college, Matt and Rosemary, are going to come down and visit me next month. I'm kind of ashamed of the person I've become down here. I know what they're going to tell me when they get here--that I've changed. And not for the better. I thought coming to FSU over NU was a great idea at the time. Same degree, so much less work. I was sort of right. Because there's not a lot of "real" work to do, everyone here, myself definitely included, sort of falls into this weird stasis. What's really weird is watching the interactions between people who, if given a choice, would not be friends. For some reason, there's some serious friend-settling here. I feel very grateful to have made such good friends in Wisconsin because things are...well, just different here. There's really no other way to describe it than settling. The secret, of course, was discovered by Brian in his tenure here. Keep mostly to yourself, be nice, get slammed with your quasi-friends every now and then, do your thing, get the hell out and then pretend like the state never existed. That's my new plan.
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Tuesday: March 23, 2004 - This Date in History
I'm very relieved that it's not just me. Brian updated his website today after keeping us in bored-suspense for the past couple days. While I agree with almost everything in Brian's diatribe, I'm starting to lose my "verve" for teaching. The fact of the matter is that having twice as many people, if not more, than the number of computers in the lab makes teaching this class next to impossible. As I'm sure I've said before, the idea of sharing might be great for other things, computers cannot be shared when everyone has x amount of time to get things done. I sure as hell wouldn't want to sit there and watch someone else work on a project while I literally did nothing for two weeks. I know the majority of my students are getting pissed and I'm getting pissed too. I think I have to dice the class into halves and have each half come on a different day. The problem is that there won't be enough time to explain everything in class for Finale. It's a lose-lose situation and I just don't know what to do. I hate being as flexible as I have to be to teach this class. No one can get anything done so I push the due dates back. Once I do that, everything else has to move back which means the calendar is worthless so people just stop coming. And that sucks. The worst part is that there is no one to complain to. AND today was the first day in A YEAR that 12/12 computers were "working". When I say "working", I mean that they weren't crashing--there were, of course, all of the software problems. Hmm, maybe it's time to stop using the version of the program that was released in 1991? How about spending less money on buying new crap for the Macintosh side and update the f'ing programs on the PC side where CLASSES TAKE PLACE. When that program came out...let's see...
The Best of 1991
January 17, 1991 - Gulf War (Part I) Begins
March, 1991 - Silence of the Lambs wins Best Picture Oscar
April, 1991 - Nirvana releases Nevermind
June 12, 1991 - Jamie turns 8 years old
June, 1991 - 15 year old Kathy goes on a family vacation to California
August 3, 1991 - I start 7th grade
September 4, 1991 - Collapse of the Soviet Union
September 28, 1991 -Miles Davis dies
October, 1991 - Matt Shaftel is able to vote
October 27, 1991 - Minnesota Twins defeat the Atlanta Braves in the World Series
November, 1991 - All-Pro Tampa Bay Buccaneers Brad Johnson and Derrick Brooks play their first year at FSU
December 7, 1991 - Matt Flynn is able to buy pornography legally
Oh, and the Florida State University School of Music purchased the latest Cakewalk software... [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Wednesday: March 24, 2004 - Keanu Reaves (the fish)
For as terrible as my week as been, today was a great day. The Atonal quiz was a breeze but I missed the extra credit question. Apparently when I read "tetrachord" I thought of a "tetra fish" and in my mind it had three fins so I was looking for the wrong cardinality. Once I realized my mistake, I only had five minutes left. After class I came home and had a very pleasant conversation with an instructor in Roanoke, VA, who runs a music school. Alan Coyle had recommended he talk to me about doing some arranging. Hooray. He has been extremely successful putting the funds together to get drums. They have the exact ensemble we have at FSU...but theirs are two years old...and he's looking to expand it from there! Included in the conversation was my doing a workshop with other steel band composers and arrangers--awesome! The dog park was fun today--lots of cranky pits. The Ab got sick on the way home so we had to stop to get some water, which she didn't drink. Once back at my house, she puked a half-dozen times. Jamie and I went to Bennigan's for dinner and it was nothing short of terrible. At first, our waitress thought I was a girl and referred to us as "ladies". Even though the place was maybe 15% full, we were there for almost an hour and a half because she was sitting in this booth talking to these two (as Matt Flynn calls them) chaches (CHA-chez). After dinner I talked Jamie into coming to PetCo (where the pets go) and I bought a couple new fish since I was having such a great day. In addition to two Chinese Algae Eaters I shelled out the big bucks for a Dragon Fish (in the picture). He's only about a foot long and not nearly as scary looking as that one in the picture. He ain't pretty, though, that's for damn sure. He and Keanu Reaves were already fighting over territory. Speaking of Keanu Reaves, he's on his last fish-legs and his scales are starting to fall off. I've thought "today is the day" for the past three days and every morning he's still alive so I hope he can manage to fight off "Eelian Gonzales" for control of lava rock village!
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Thursday: March 25, 2004 - Hey Baby
Hey baby. No, not you. The new baby cichlid that Jamie discovered in the tank today! It's a baby aura (those yellow and black ones in the picture) but I'm not sure of its gender just yet. It's about the size of a pinky nail's clipping or a small grain of rice. Apparently Dr. Mean was able to sow his wild fish-oats before he passed on. I read that they usually come in baker's dozen but I'm sure with all the hungry and cranky fish in my tank that only a couple survived. Keanu Reaves took a turn for the worst today. All, the circle of life.
Today was a damn long day. I did hear some real nice Cakewalk projects in my class, though I heard some pretty terrible ones too. The small group bubble finally exploded and after some yelling things improved vastly. The things we recorded post-fight sound hundreds of times better than the pre-fight crap. So the secret of music is playing angry. Y'know, in case you were wondering. Tonight was Jason, the new auxiliary player's first night. Here are some mono tracks that I haven't gotten around to editing yet, but they're only like 2 megs each, so it shouldn't be unbearably long. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Friday: March 26, 2004 - Damn Ian
I admit it. I am writing this a day late. I am sorry.
I received a 94% on my Atonal quiz. I made a stupid mistake that cost me a 97%. And the three points that separated me from a 100% were debatable. Although I conveyed accurately that the row was constructed from a [014] trichord, I didn't use the word "imbricated" so didn't get the points. Oh well. I met with the Gig-Guy at the capitol building. The view from the top floor, where they're having the reception is very nice. Sadly, he can't pay us all the money at once. He did give me cash for the deposit and he seems trustworthy enough to come through. Just in case, the payment plan is stated in the contract. Maybe if he doesn't pay on time I can take him to Judge Joe Brown and win the money in small claims court. I need to call Liz about getting us a time in the recital hall. While the mini-disc player does a fine job, it still sounds like it was recorded in a cramped room full of crap (which it was). Jamie and I cleaned my house when she got off work to prepare for, as Alex calls it, Texas Hood-lum Night. The consensus was to not play for real money so we busted out my two jars of coins and divided it up between the six of us (me, Kathy, Meg, Ian, Chris and Jamie). By the end, we were getting sick of playing so we started playing "all in" as the ante of the lowest player to guarantee people would be out. Below is a chart so that you too can feel as though you were there watching it all pan out.
| Hand # | Mike | Kathy | Meg | Ian | Chris | Jamie |
| 1 | $0.34 | $6.14 | $1.77 | $7.24 | $5.74 | $4.34 |
| 2 | $0.00 | $7.50 | $1.43 | $6.90 | $5.41 | $4.00 |
| 3 | $6.07 | $0.00 | $5.47 | $3.98 | $10.22 | |
| 4 | $2.09 | $1.49 | $0.00 | $22.16 | ||
| 5 | $0.60 | $4.47 | $20.67 | |||
| 6 | $0.00 | $5.67 | $20.07 | |||
| 7 | $11.37 | $14.40 | ||||
| 8 | $22.68 | $3.06 | ||||
| 9 | $25.74 | $0.00 | ||||
| Winner: | Ian |
It really wasn't that great of a game for me personally. I should have adopted the "Groan n' Win" tactics of others. Apparently complaining enough results in massive amounts of money flowing to you. On the bright side, I know now that I have over $25 in coins in my house just in case I ever really need to scrape some money together. Take that CoinStar! [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Saturday: March 27, 2004 - Stealing From PetSmart
Ah, dishonesty. Jamie and I stole $16 worth of doggy nail clipping today from PetSmart. We still managed to spend about $50, though. I bought a few new fish and so far everyone is doing well. Eelian Gonzales poked his head out for the first time today, so I'm not as worried about him. The baby aura, Miss Tough, is still alive and kicking. I bought a couple other auras today since I now know they can mate successfully. I also bought a baby peacock since he was on sale as well as some tasty blood worms. This afternoon I watched the dogs while Jamie studied for the GRE. In addition to watching some basketball, I prepared the Mas N' Steel page for April Fools Day. Oh man, you guys are in for a treat! You'll have to look at the main page, though. After dinner we watched Monster--the movie based upon this prostitute who killer her clients. It was really bad but the acting was great. The plot was abysmal and I felt no empathy whatsoever for the main character. Christina Ricci was pretty cute, though, even with her boy-haircut. It's always nice to see a beautiful actress with a receding hairline like me.
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Sunday: March 28, 2004 - Weekoff
Gee, thanks for telling me I've been a date off all week. Apparently I counted one of my pupdates as a real date. Oh well. Since today was wholly uneventful I figured I'd make a little collage of my fish. I've been doing a bad job of keeping track if they've alive or dead so from now on I have this handy little sheet to look at. Ah, my cute little African Cichlids and other weird looking beasts. As you can see from the large red X, I already found one of the new PetSmart ones dead. That didn't take very long. With a flashlight I can see the end of her body but there's no way I'm moving 55 lbs of rock to get it out for my $3 refund. I tried to make them size relative, with the Ms. Tough being the smallest (the baby). I was fortunate enough to find a lot of fish online that look similar to my own--especially Keanu Reeves with that stupid blank expression and Eelian Gonzales. The two male auratus on the left don't have names yet because they'll probably be killed by 'Ma before the week is up. She's such a bitch. I had to come up with some names--I named Luol that after the Duke basketball player Luol Deng. I guess I was connecting Kenya (the fish) with Central African Republic (the boy). Well, Africa is Africa, right Jamie? In the fifteen minutes it took me to make that stupid picture I could have easily been done with my Atonal project but no, for some reason I thought it best to waste even MORE time.
I think we'll be ready for the upcoming gigs, even if none of us speak to each other for a week afterwards. There's only a month left of school and I have to admit that I'm pretty damn happy about it. I'd really like to hear back from some freaking jobs, though. Starting April 1st, I'm going to move these past three months worth of entries to another page so that the main page will load a little faster. Apparently it takes 1733 seconds to load up on a 28.8 modem. That seems like almost a half-hour. I doubt that's accurate. HIGHLY doubt it's accurate. Whatever. I need to keep on truckin'. [Comments: 0]· permalink ·
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Monday: March 29, 2004 - My favorite peacock
Oops, I left off my favorite fish last night...my peacock. I never named him and this picture doesn't really capture the fact that he is easily the most beautiful fish in the tank. Anyway, I read my matrices backwards for my Atonal project last night. Let that be a lesson to me to not work so late. I somehow got my contact stuck in my inner-eye and it's been really red all day, so I'm stuck with my classes. After class I went to the library to copy the thousands of pages of theory. I came home, ate some delicious leftovers and took a brief nap. This evening I read through Alex's article on Klumpenhower networks. To paraphrase the actor (not the fish) Keanu Reeves, "whoa." I feel like writing a song that goes something like "theory is not for me, repeat, repeat, repeat". I also made this poster for the upcoming concert. I left off the 8pm time but other than that I think it's pretty neat. It still needs a couple fixes and the discrepancies in the
background should be less noticeable once I make it grayscale for copying. I'll probably make a couple more changes like adding some eyes complete with angry eyebrows on both instruments. I guess it's possible to make some serious posters but whenever I see creative ones it grabs my attention. Well, I guess it's back to the theory-realm once I send out some (sh)e-mails.
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Tuesday: March 30, 2004 - All About The Benjams
It's all about the benjamins, baby. Just in case you were wondering what the price of friendship is, it's $130. My day was wholly uneventful except for the gig tonight. I think Thursday's will go more smoothly, if for no reason than it can in no way be more stressful than tonight's. Everything from finding where the hell we were supposed to play, to lost music, to set list problems, to drinking, it was all covered tonight. For all the drama of the night, we didn't play too badly even if the audience was, shall we say, less than receptive. If nothing else, I got to make my debut on the field of Doak Campbell Stadium and got to tightrope-walk across the goal posts. Seven of our book-us now sheets were taking but I'm not sure how many were taken by members of the jazz band. Jason did a nice job tonight in his opening night with Less N' Steel. Hopefully we'll all wake up tomorrow feeling good.
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Wednesday: March 31, 2004 - Future of Steel Drum Music in America
So let me answer the question on everyone's mind: Who IS the future of steel band music in the United States. It's me. I finished LaSalle Bank (in honor of Matt's dog [La]Sall[e]y). It's really rocking, I have to admit. It's very rare that you get to modulate far away in pan music but not only did I do it, I got it into the locrian mode, everyone's favorite. I also wrote a new piece tonight, Modest Funk Bus Station since let's face it, we'll never sound like Grand Funk Railroad. It sounded terrible in the midi playback (surprise surprise) because all the notes couldn't be held properly making it sound more dissonant than it really was. I made it to the bank today so everyone will be receiving their check on time from me tomorrow. Chris and Mike hung out with me tonight and now I'm very confident things will run smoothly tomorrow. Saturday will be another entity all together just because we have to play for five hours. FIVE HOURS. At least Nathan will be there and he's always good for morale.
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Good Things Take Time...
-2 days until FSU Football (2010)
Random Picture...
Profile shot of our towel animal elephant.
Profile shot of our towel animal elephant.
Time Machine:
09-07-2009
· 09-07-2008
· 09-07-2007
· 09-07-2006
09-07-2009: I'll start with the good news: my death from the swine flu is no longer imminent. Now, onto the bad news.
WHERE THE HELL WAS FSU'S DEFENSE?! *I* could have been playing cornerback last night. I can easily ignore receivers as the blow past me or trip on my own two feet as a RUNNING BACK shoots past me for a catch in the end zone. Uggggggggh. On the bright side, the offense looked pretty good--at least Christian Ponder and the vaunted offensive line. The running game looked anemic when Jermaine was in there but his backup looked like a punisher. The fact our receivers c(w)ouldn't catch the ball made life rough. Fortson looked like the only guy who actually was willing to take one for the team and try to catch it, although Richard Goodman's catch on the two-point conversion ended with him getting blasted.
Anyway, where was the bloodthirsty FSU defense? Who were these cowards playing constant zone coverage? It doesn't take a PS2 NCAA Football expert very long to realize there's a time and a place for zone but if you want to win you need to MAN UP. Granted, the man coverage, when "utilized", made the secondary look absolutely stupid, with their coverage at least five yards behind the Miami receivers.
Whatever, we'll be good next year.09-07-2008: It looks like my vice-like grip over NCAA Pick 'Em is officially over. After tweaking "the algorithm" I still finished near the bottom of the picks because I clearly overweighed the section dedicated to "do they like to get upset?". The numbers correctly picked the ECU upset of WV but unfortunately they also picked three more upsets and, knowing that no more than three teams ever get upset in a week, I released WV out of a personal affinity towards the school. I also, until the game started, thought USM was in fact Mississippi State which they are clearly not. Oops.
I went out to Virginia to watch the FSU game with Kathy & Co. The bar had a lot of FSU fans but none that were particularly into the game. It didn't help that there was over two hours in combined rain delays. FSU looked good but I think anyone would look good against Western Carolina. They're not East Carolina, that's for sure. Catamounts, for the record, are mountain lions. They are not horses despite containing the word "mount". We'll know for sure how good FSU is when vaunted Chattanooga rolls into town next week. I took the day off blogging but only because I was thinking of you.09-07-2006: Although not as gratifying as some wins in the past, I was able to fend off tchris and jamie in a little three-way poker last night. At different points in the night we all had huge chip leads and somehow blew them. We're all big bettors so it was a lot of fun despite the low number of people.
I really need a new computer. Mine shuts off after about five minutes of use due to overheating and I still have not been able to find the right replacement fan. I'm hoping by the week after my birthday to have enough money to buy the new one from Dell, even though they won't let me get it without the video card. I talked to their retarded sales/tech guy and asked them simply if they could not charge/install a video card. They do not have dual-monitor options and I wasn't ordering any monitors so I didn't need the card. He replied that they could not and I was out of luck. I replied by asking him if the computers were really built by hand like they say in the commercials. He said yes. I then asked if they guy installing it could just "leave out" the video card (I'd be throwing it out the day I got it) and have the person hand-writing my bill leave off the cost of it. He said no. Oh well.
WHERE THE HELL WAS FSU'S DEFENSE?! *I* could have been playing cornerback last night. I can easily ignore receivers as the blow past me or trip on my own two feet as a RUNNING BACK shoots past me for a catch in the end zone. Uggggggggh. On the bright side, the offense looked pretty good--at least Christian Ponder and the vaunted offensive line. The running game looked anemic when Jermaine was in there but his backup looked like a punisher. The fact our receivers c(w)ouldn't catch the ball made life rough. Fortson looked like the only guy who actually was willing to take one for the team and try to catch it, although Richard Goodman's catch on the two-point conversion ended with him getting blasted.
Anyway, where was the bloodthirsty FSU defense? Who were these cowards playing constant zone coverage? It doesn't take a PS2 NCAA Football expert very long to realize there's a time and a place for zone but if you want to win you need to MAN UP. Granted, the man coverage, when "utilized", made the secondary look absolutely stupid, with their coverage at least five yards behind the Miami receivers.
Whatever, we'll be good next year.09-07-2008: It looks like my vice-like grip over NCAA Pick 'Em is officially over. After tweaking "the algorithm" I still finished near the bottom of the picks because I clearly overweighed the section dedicated to "do they like to get upset?". The numbers correctly picked the ECU upset of WV but unfortunately they also picked three more upsets and, knowing that no more than three teams ever get upset in a week, I released WV out of a personal affinity towards the school. I also, until the game started, thought USM was in fact Mississippi State which they are clearly not. Oops.
I went out to Virginia to watch the FSU game with Kathy & Co. The bar had a lot of FSU fans but none that were particularly into the game. It didn't help that there was over two hours in combined rain delays. FSU looked good but I think anyone would look good against Western Carolina. They're not East Carolina, that's for sure. Catamounts, for the record, are mountain lions. They are not horses despite containing the word "mount". We'll know for sure how good FSU is when vaunted Chattanooga rolls into town next week. I took the day off blogging but only because I was thinking of you.09-07-2006: Although not as gratifying as some wins in the past, I was able to fend off tchris and jamie in a little three-way poker last night. At different points in the night we all had huge chip leads and somehow blew them. We're all big bettors so it was a lot of fun despite the low number of people.
I really need a new computer. Mine shuts off after about five minutes of use due to overheating and I still have not been able to find the right replacement fan. I'm hoping by the week after my birthday to have enough money to buy the new one from Dell, even though they won't let me get it without the video card. I talked to their retarded sales/tech guy and asked them simply if they could not charge/install a video card. They do not have dual-monitor options and I wasn't ordering any monitors so I didn't need the card. He replied that they could not and I was out of luck. I replied by asking him if the computers were really built by hand like they say in the commercials. He said yes. I then asked if they guy installing it could just "leave out" the video card (I'd be throwing it out the day I got it) and have the person hand-writing my bill leave off the cost of it. He said no. Oh well.