WORST DAY EVER
And it's not even noon yet.
First I wake up with a Grateful Dead song in my head (Casey Jones, a particularly inane choice). Then it changes - into a reggae song! Good god I hate reggae. And in keeping with the stupid song theme, it's Smoke Two Joints by the Pop O Pies*. So I share my pain with Twitter, and some hippie is now bugging me about not liking the Dead.
AND THEN I realized that even before Casey Jones came along I had woken up from a dream where I was hanging out with Elvis Costello, who I hate. (I know, I know - almost everyone who's musical taste I respect loves Elvis Costello, but - I've tried. Every Day I Write The Book still makes me want to smash the stereo every time I hear it. He produced The Pogues' first album, though, so I'll give him some credit for that.) The only good part of the dream was that my glasses were cooler than his.
Also, I'm on day 7 of this fucking cold and I'm still stuffed up. Someone should be punched.
On the other hand - Yay! Maker Faire this weekend!
* Why do I know all this if I hate the music so much? I was a college radio dj in the late 80's, that's why.
First I wake up with a Grateful Dead song in my head (Casey Jones, a particularly inane choice). Then it changes - into a reggae song! Good god I hate reggae. And in keeping with the stupid song theme, it's Smoke Two Joints by the Pop O Pies*. So I share my pain with Twitter, and some hippie is now bugging me about not liking the Dead.
AND THEN I realized that even before Casey Jones came along I had woken up from a dream where I was hanging out with Elvis Costello, who I hate. (I know, I know - almost everyone who's musical taste I respect loves Elvis Costello, but - I've tried. Every Day I Write The Book still makes me want to smash the stereo every time I hear it. He produced The Pogues' first album, though, so I'll give him some credit for that.) The only good part of the dream was that my glasses were cooler than his.
Also, I'm on day 7 of this fucking cold and I'm still stuffed up. Someone should be punched.
On the other hand - Yay! Maker Faire this weekend!
* Why do I know all this if I hate the music so much? I was a college radio dj in the late 80's, that's why.
notes of a domestic scientist
My new desk is so awesome it's inspired me to blog! That's pretty fuckin' awesome because, looking at my statistical blogging frequency over the last year, if there's one thing I hate, it's blogging. - But enough hating - I have a new desk that is both shallow and wide, and has a keyboard tray, and on top of that it's orange, and on top of on top of that, it was FREE, so, in the spirit of being cheap -
I made noodles last week! Cooking dinner is one of my new houseboy duties, since I no longer win the bread. I haven't actually made the bread yet (I made noises in that direction and The Knitter did it within a week, because she is competitive like that), but I made the noodles! And I have to tell you that, even without a pasta maker machine thingy, it was really easy and TOTALLY WORTH THE EFFORT. Seriously. I used the recipe out of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything (the edition previous to the one currently on the bestseller list), and an internet tutorial on how to cut pasta if by hand, and it turned out great. And (this is the secret of cooking at home to save money) it was at least as good as pasta I would expect to get at a restaurant for $30-$40 a plate (or more, but even when I had a job I wasn't making that much money).
This is the recipe: 2 cups flour, 2 eggs. Put 'em in a food processor and let it run. Take the dough out and let it rest for a while. Roll it out real thin, fold it like you were folding a letter to put in an envelope, cut it into strips of appropriate width, unfold them (this is the most tedious part) and let them rest for at least 15 minutes. Then cook it and put some of your tasty homemade pasta sauce on it. Srsly, that's how easy it is. I reckon if you had a kid between 6 and 10 to unfold the pasta it would go faster (I would have thought that was a totally neat thing to do at that age). Yes, we're yuppies and have a food processor, but it can't be that much harder with eggbeaters or what-have-you, right? And at the store the other day I saw "fresh" package fettucini for five bux a package - even with the fancy free range eggs I insist on getting ours was probably $2 or less. Also, I'm avoiding carbs these days, so I feel that if I'm going to have them they should be better than perfunctory - they should be delicious. These definitely met the delicious carbs criteria. Therefore I say unto you - make your own pasta! At least once!!!
Also, the mulching continues apace. I usually go get mulch when I have a reason to be in that part of town (it being a good 15 minute drive away). I got some the other day while I was taking my brother to the airport to go to Korea and be reunited with his wife. On the way home I picked up a load of mulch and now the yard is about 3/4 covered - and the biggest patches of foxtails are covered, too! (Apparently foxtails thrive in areas that dogs pee, which explains our yard - the previous owners had a chow who had run of the yard, and then we moved in...) Once I'm done killing the yard, I think my next project will be pruning. And possibly painting the kitchen. (If this alarms you, as it does The Knitter, feel free to offer me a full-time job. Remember - only YOU can prevent pistachio-colored kitchens!)
In closing, I haven't yet seen any giant Cheeto's, and this is causing me much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Does anyone on the Bay Area know where to find them?
I made noodles last week! Cooking dinner is one of my new houseboy duties, since I no longer win the bread. I haven't actually made the bread yet (I made noises in that direction and The Knitter did it within a week, because she is competitive like that), but I made the noodles! And I have to tell you that, even without a pasta maker machine thingy, it was really easy and TOTALLY WORTH THE EFFORT. Seriously. I used the recipe out of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything (the edition previous to the one currently on the bestseller list), and an internet tutorial on how to cut pasta if by hand, and it turned out great. And (this is the secret of cooking at home to save money) it was at least as good as pasta I would expect to get at a restaurant for $30-$40 a plate (or more, but even when I had a job I wasn't making that much money).
This is the recipe: 2 cups flour, 2 eggs. Put 'em in a food processor and let it run. Take the dough out and let it rest for a while. Roll it out real thin, fold it like you were folding a letter to put in an envelope, cut it into strips of appropriate width, unfold them (this is the most tedious part) and let them rest for at least 15 minutes. Then cook it and put some of your tasty homemade pasta sauce on it. Srsly, that's how easy it is. I reckon if you had a kid between 6 and 10 to unfold the pasta it would go faster (I would have thought that was a totally neat thing to do at that age). Yes, we're yuppies and have a food processor, but it can't be that much harder with eggbeaters or what-have-you, right? And at the store the other day I saw "fresh" package fettucini for five bux a package - even with the fancy free range eggs I insist on getting ours was probably $2 or less. Also, I'm avoiding carbs these days, so I feel that if I'm going to have them they should be better than perfunctory - they should be delicious. These definitely met the delicious carbs criteria. Therefore I say unto you - make your own pasta! At least once!!!
Also, the mulching continues apace. I usually go get mulch when I have a reason to be in that part of town (it being a good 15 minute drive away). I got some the other day while I was taking my brother to the airport to go to Korea and be reunited with his wife. On the way home I picked up a load of mulch and now the yard is about 3/4 covered - and the biggest patches of foxtails are covered, too! (Apparently foxtails thrive in areas that dogs pee, which explains our yard - the previous owners had a chow who had run of the yard, and then we moved in...) Once I'm done killing the yard, I think my next project will be pruning. And possibly painting the kitchen. (If this alarms you, as it does The Knitter, feel free to offer me a full-time job. Remember - only YOU can prevent pistachio-colored kitchens!)
In closing, I haven't yet seen any giant Cheeto's, and this is causing me much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Does anyone on the Bay Area know where to find them?
The lawn is dead, long live the yard
The mulching has begun!
As far as medical science is able to tell, all the parts of my brain that used to be occupied with work are now occupied with killing the so-called grass in our backyard. It's actually a collection of mallow, bermuda grass and foxtails. So in actuality, this is going to save us money in the form of at least one less trip to the vet this summer*. There are also a couple of totally dead patches where even the bermuda grass won't grow (!) so hopefully mulching will help (we're putting it over cardboard and/or newspaper). And in any case I won't have to look at them anymore. So yesterday I took my station wagon and some plastic bins and contractor trash bags and found a pile of mulch that was dumped by the side of the road (yes, the tree guys will dump their mulch by the road, but they won't bring it to me and dump it in my driveway. Bastards.) and put it in my car and then put it on my yard. It's not the most efficient mulch delivery system, but whatever.
Soon our backyard will be a fecund green wonderland! Or I would settle for not a depressing reproach for my laziness. Yes.
* For those who don't live in California, foxtails are a grass with spiky little seeds that will get in your dog's eye or nose or poke through her poor little foot. Don't like 'em. And they pretty much always require a vet visit.
As far as medical science is able to tell, all the parts of my brain that used to be occupied with work are now occupied with killing the so-called grass in our backyard. It's actually a collection of mallow, bermuda grass and foxtails. So in actuality, this is going to save us money in the form of at least one less trip to the vet this summer*. There are also a couple of totally dead patches where even the bermuda grass won't grow (!) so hopefully mulching will help (we're putting it over cardboard and/or newspaper). And in any case I won't have to look at them anymore. So yesterday I took my station wagon and some plastic bins and contractor trash bags and found a pile of mulch that was dumped by the side of the road (yes, the tree guys will dump their mulch by the road, but they won't bring it to me and dump it in my driveway. Bastards.) and put it in my car and then put it on my yard. It's not the most efficient mulch delivery system, but whatever.
Soon our backyard will be a fecund green wonderland! Or I would settle for not a depressing reproach for my laziness. Yes.
* For those who don't live in California, foxtails are a grass with spiky little seeds that will get in your dog's eye or nose or poke through her poor little foot. Don't like 'em. And they pretty much always require a vet visit.
if there's one thing I love, it's the 2nd Amendment
If there's another thing I love, it's Sarah Haskin preaching tha gospel on the right to bare arms!
(Also, I'm wondering if Jacqueline Kennedy ran into the same sort of controversy about not wearing gloves? For some reason I think she did...)
(Also, I'm wondering if Jacqueline Kennedy ran into the same sort of controversy about not wearing gloves? For some reason I think she did...)
what does one do?
What does one do when one is unemployed? Besides get lots of sleep and finally catch up on (well, start catching up on) Battlestar Galactica. (I'm still in season 3 - do not speak to me of season 4.)
Okay, really, I had started a LOOOOOOONG post about the saga of trying to fix the weed whacker, but I'll spare you that and just tell you that there has been yard work. The back yard is no longer depressing.
There has also been lots of dog walking:
(btw, shortly before I got laid off, I got a Flip camera, and it's the bomb - if you think you would like one, you probably would.)
And please indulge me in one more dog video - last weekend we were at the beach and Clara got to play with a Great Dane! Her name is Etoile (I'm pretty sure) and she is BEE-YOO-TEE-FULL and her people said that when she was growing she ate 16 cups of dog food a day! That's equal to 30 chihuahuas! I love Great Danes. More importantly, Clara loves Great Danes, and I believe she has a birthday coming up. Just saying.
So yes I could have just put up a photo, but you get a better idea of how awesome she is in motion. Check out those feet!
There's been Britney. That was... quite an experience. I have been to exactly two other huge arena shows in my life- my first rock concert, which was Van Halen on the 1984 tour, and Black Sabbath on their big reunion tour with Ozzy, back before he was all ubiquitous and annoying. I am here to tell you that the sound of a screaming crowd at a Britney Spears show is very different from that of a Black Sabbath show. So much... higher pitched. It was a sound unlike any I have ever heard, and actually physically painful.
It was also interesting there was really no pretense of her actually singing at all, except for one ballad. The sound was awful - it was incredibly boomy and you couldn't understand a word she sang (which was too bad because I was really hoping for some insight into the lyrics of Slave 4 U). There were, however, a lot of dancers - 4 females and 800 million males. I was pleased to note that none of the girls were ridiculously tiny - one of them actually had a little tummy! Because, NEWS FLASH, it is totally possible to be fit without being emaciated. In fact, I would go so far as to posit that being emaciated is NOT being fit. Anyway, I'm sure that was to keep Britney from looking too big (she got some back on her now, it looks good), but here's hoping it has the side effect of giving girls a slightly more realistic body image. The boys, on the other hand, are screwed, because all the male dancers were built like greek gods - fortunately, there were no boys at this show.
Oh, one more thing - it turns out that Womanizer is a pretty good song (as is If You Seek Amy). Here's a cover with a video shot in my old stomping grounds in the Mission.
So that's what one does. Let me know if you want to come over and play Rock Band sometime before it gets too hot.
Okay, really, I had started a LOOOOOOONG post about the saga of trying to fix the weed whacker, but I'll spare you that and just tell you that there has been yard work. The back yard is no longer depressing.
There has also been lots of dog walking:
(btw, shortly before I got laid off, I got a Flip camera, and it's the bomb - if you think you would like one, you probably would.)
And please indulge me in one more dog video - last weekend we were at the beach and Clara got to play with a Great Dane! Her name is Etoile (I'm pretty sure) and she is BEE-YOO-TEE-FULL and her people said that when she was growing she ate 16 cups of dog food a day! That's equal to 30 chihuahuas! I love Great Danes. More importantly, Clara loves Great Danes, and I believe she has a birthday coming up. Just saying.
So yes I could have just put up a photo, but you get a better idea of how awesome she is in motion. Check out those feet!
There's been Britney. That was... quite an experience. I have been to exactly two other huge arena shows in my life- my first rock concert, which was Van Halen on the 1984 tour, and Black Sabbath on their big reunion tour with Ozzy, back before he was all ubiquitous and annoying. I am here to tell you that the sound of a screaming crowd at a Britney Spears show is very different from that of a Black Sabbath show. So much... higher pitched. It was a sound unlike any I have ever heard, and actually physically painful.
It was also interesting there was really no pretense of her actually singing at all, except for one ballad. The sound was awful - it was incredibly boomy and you couldn't understand a word she sang (which was too bad because I was really hoping for some insight into the lyrics of Slave 4 U). There were, however, a lot of dancers - 4 females and 800 million males. I was pleased to note that none of the girls were ridiculously tiny - one of them actually had a little tummy! Because, NEWS FLASH, it is totally possible to be fit without being emaciated. In fact, I would go so far as to posit that being emaciated is NOT being fit. Anyway, I'm sure that was to keep Britney from looking too big (she got some back on her now, it looks good), but here's hoping it has the side effect of giving girls a slightly more realistic body image. The boys, on the other hand, are screwed, because all the male dancers were built like greek gods - fortunately, there were no boys at this show.
Oh, one more thing - it turns out that Womanizer is a pretty good song (as is If You Seek Amy). Here's a cover with a video shot in my old stomping grounds in the Mission.
So that's what one does. Let me know if you want to come over and play Rock Band sometime before it gets too hot.
Portrait of the Banjo Player as a Young Punk
A long, long time ago I used to be cool. When I used to be cool I was in a band that did a split 7" with Sleater-Kinney. A 7" I had never heard, because I never had a working turntable. So this weekend I hooked up a usb turntable and got to hear it! It was pretty good! If you like that sort of thing. Which I do, obviously. So I thought that I had never heard it, maybe you hadn't either, so I'm putting it up on the site. This was part of the Free To Fight project and we wrote this song about woman on woman battering especially for the record. I'm pretty sure I was playing banjo on this. I remember that we'd gotten into a huge brawl at the last show of our US tour the night before with some drunk straightedgers (yes, that's what I said) and Shari, our drummer had hurt her knee and had to borrow my walker so she could stand up to sing backing vocals. I got my nose smushed, which is okay because I have a smushy nose, but I was uninjured.
Blame The Victim
(If you want to hear Cypher in the Snow's cd, you can find mp3's here.)
tl;dr
Since the band broke up (Oh gosh, did I not tell you? I'm not being facetious, it actually hadn't happened at the time i last wrote about it. I didn't mean to do lead you astray, I just didn't know at the time. Well, there will be one last show on Thu Feb 12, and on top of being the last Whoreshoes show, we're going to be practically giving away merchandise, so you should come...) I've been thinking one of the things that I should get back to is blogging. And it's not like nothing blog-worthy has happened in the last - oh, I don't know, how long has it been since I got on twitter? God I love twitter. She is a friend, a lover, a confidant - all the things a free online service should be. Also, I would like to go back in time and attempt to explain the humor in that statement to 19 year old me. (Srsly - if you want to prevent your compulsive blogging (or micro-blogging) from being taken too seriously (by you at least) , try to imagine explaining it to teenaged You.)
Where was I? Oh, I was pining for the days when I was expected to come up with more than 140 characters on a topic. You know, back in the olden days, people who did what I do were know as Haiku-ists! Or something. Hi-larious, perhaps?
Yeah, so, I seem to have accidentally, hmmmm, you know, erased the hard drive containing my itunes library. In multiple steps, with warnings.
This is my gift.
The only thing I am certain of is that at one point my new drive and my old secondary drive were showing up as being the same size in disk utility, which I thought was suspicious at the time, since the new drive was supposed to be twice the size of the old drive. But I know at least THAT part was right. What I think happened was that my new disk didn't mount again and I assumed that the old disk WAS the new disk. Thus we enter the stupid part...
The upshot is that, while I had some dvd's and whatnot backed up there, almost everything on that drive was stuff I own in other media and most of it I could re-rip. In fact, I think I could get it all done by - oh, I don't know - Spring? Yeah, probably by then. So let's all hope this ipod backup thingy works, and let's all be grateful I backed up my entire library this weekend.
(And for those who are going to tell me to have a backup disk - that new disk is my backup disk!)
Where was I? Oh, I was pining for the days when I was expected to come up with more than 140 characters on a topic. You know, back in the olden days, people who did what I do were know as Haiku-ists! Or something. Hi-larious, perhaps?
Yeah, so, I seem to have accidentally, hmmmm, you know, erased the hard drive containing my itunes library. In multiple steps, with warnings.
This is my gift.
The only thing I am certain of is that at one point my new drive and my old secondary drive were showing up as being the same size in disk utility, which I thought was suspicious at the time, since the new drive was supposed to be twice the size of the old drive. But I know at least THAT part was right. What I think happened was that my new disk didn't mount again and I assumed that the old disk WAS the new disk. Thus we enter the stupid part...
The upshot is that, while I had some dvd's and whatnot backed up there, almost everything on that drive was stuff I own in other media and most of it I could re-rip. In fact, I think I could get it all done by - oh, I don't know - Spring? Yeah, probably by then. So let's all hope this ipod backup thingy works, and let's all be grateful I backed up my entire library this weekend.
(And for those who are going to tell me to have a backup disk - that new disk is my backup disk!)
also, I've been meaning to get to this...
Jesus Christ, Obama, I knew I said that you're a politician and therefore would eventually break my heart, but I thought you'd at least wait till after you were inaugurated!
At last!
Finally, the recognition I deserve! The Whoreshoes are in The Onion's AV Club Year In Band Names! And we were even mentioned in the same category as Gestapo Pussy Ranch, which as I'm sure you can imagine, is quite an honor!
Who came up with the name? Oh, I guess it was ME!
Punny band names rule.
Who came up with the name? Oh, I guess it was ME!
Punny band names rule.
since The Knitter isn't around
It falls me to notify you of this
I'm thinking she was knitting and crocheting slow for the cameras, because I don't see how she could manage to cover a chainsaw, much less a tank, working at that speed.
I'm thinking she was knitting and crocheting slow for the cameras, because I don't see how she could manage to cover a chainsaw, much less a tank, working at that speed.
President Barack Obama
To blatantly rip off someone's comment on metafilter - I've always loved America, but I've never been as proud of it as I am right now.
Mr. Barack Hussein Obama is going to be the next president of the United States of America. I'm so happy in so many ways. Remember when Clinton got elected the first time? I was living in Seattle, which was only becoming the liberal stronghold it is now, and we were flabbergasted. I don't think I'd ever voted for anyone who'd won before. So there's that nice feeling of victory, but that's the smallest part of what it is.
I was a military brat, and when I was in grade school my dad told me about when he was in the Air Force stationed in Alabama and he marched with Dr. King, even though he was risking courtmartial to do so, and it was clear to me that that's what good people do. When I was older he explained he'd always thought "evolution not revolution" until he saw how things actually were in the Jim Crow south, and even though he was an Air Force pilot and that's all he'd ever wanted to do, it was worth risking that to fix a monumental wrong. That's the kind of idealism I was raised with, and I firmly believe that there's no idealist like a military idealist - those are the people who are actually willing to get shot at for their beliefs. That idealist heart in me is about to burst with pride for what my country has done. (And while we're here, I'd like to point out that Obama is mixed race, which is huge. He's not that much older than me, and when he was born it wasn't legal for his parents to even get married in all 50 states. Which is why I'm bummed about Prop 8 in California, but not devastated.) I grew up being told it was "possible" for a black person to be elected president, but in my head I new that was in the technical sense - and yet we did it in a landslide.
Best of all, Obama, to me, has the real sense of actually being the best person for the job. Meaning, if there were some magical way to do a survey to find the Best Person to be President of the United States, including all the otherwise great convicted shoplifters, people with bad skin, or just folks with the common sense that tells then that running for president would be hellish, I wouldn't be surprised if Obama was selected out of all of them. Yes, he was going to be my candidate no matter what because he wasn't a Republican, and yes, he's a politician so he's bound to break my heart, but I really think he could be one of the greatest presidents this country will see. I'm sure hoping so.
To be honest, I'm surprised we managed to elect someone who can successfully articulate a compound sentence, much less be the most eloquent living public speaker I've heard. We elected someone who is not white, which I thought I would never live to see. In his acceptance speech when he talked about Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106 year old woman* who's father was a slave, who got to vote for him - dude. And if I though I would never see this day... maybe I need to stop being such a cynic, yeah?
We elected someone with an exotic name! (Perhaps we can thank Governor Schwarzenegger for breaking down that barrier.)
We elected someone who his opponent accused of not being Christian, of being a socialist, of being a terrorist... someone who, in his acceptance speech articulated a number of thoughts that would probably make our current president's head explode - can you imagine W saying "there will be setback and false starts"?
I'd really started to believe the press releases - Americans are jingoistic, petty, greedy, self-centered, racist, ignorant, and have never seen a problem they couldn't fix with a bomb. I know people are still people, but now I have hope that we're the average and not the lowest common denominator. And maybe for a while we'll be above average.
* and who looks GREAT for her age, btw
Mr. Barack Hussein Obama is going to be the next president of the United States of America. I'm so happy in so many ways. Remember when Clinton got elected the first time? I was living in Seattle, which was only becoming the liberal stronghold it is now, and we were flabbergasted. I don't think I'd ever voted for anyone who'd won before. So there's that nice feeling of victory, but that's the smallest part of what it is.
I was a military brat, and when I was in grade school my dad told me about when he was in the Air Force stationed in Alabama and he marched with Dr. King, even though he was risking courtmartial to do so, and it was clear to me that that's what good people do. When I was older he explained he'd always thought "evolution not revolution" until he saw how things actually were in the Jim Crow south, and even though he was an Air Force pilot and that's all he'd ever wanted to do, it was worth risking that to fix a monumental wrong. That's the kind of idealism I was raised with, and I firmly believe that there's no idealist like a military idealist - those are the people who are actually willing to get shot at for their beliefs. That idealist heart in me is about to burst with pride for what my country has done. (And while we're here, I'd like to point out that Obama is mixed race, which is huge. He's not that much older than me, and when he was born it wasn't legal for his parents to even get married in all 50 states. Which is why I'm bummed about Prop 8 in California, but not devastated.) I grew up being told it was "possible" for a black person to be elected president, but in my head I new that was in the technical sense - and yet we did it in a landslide.
Best of all, Obama, to me, has the real sense of actually being the best person for the job. Meaning, if there were some magical way to do a survey to find the Best Person to be President of the United States, including all the otherwise great convicted shoplifters, people with bad skin, or just folks with the common sense that tells then that running for president would be hellish, I wouldn't be surprised if Obama was selected out of all of them. Yes, he was going to be my candidate no matter what because he wasn't a Republican, and yes, he's a politician so he's bound to break my heart, but I really think he could be one of the greatest presidents this country will see. I'm sure hoping so.
To be honest, I'm surprised we managed to elect someone who can successfully articulate a compound sentence, much less be the most eloquent living public speaker I've heard. We elected someone who is not white, which I thought I would never live to see. In his acceptance speech when he talked about Ann Nixon Cooper, the 106 year old woman* who's father was a slave, who got to vote for him - dude. And if I though I would never see this day... maybe I need to stop being such a cynic, yeah?
We elected someone with an exotic name! (Perhaps we can thank Governor Schwarzenegger for breaking down that barrier.)
We elected someone who his opponent accused of not being Christian, of being a socialist, of being a terrorist... someone who, in his acceptance speech articulated a number of thoughts that would probably make our current president's head explode - can you imagine W saying "there will be setback and false starts"?
I'd really started to believe the press releases - Americans are jingoistic, petty, greedy, self-centered, racist, ignorant, and have never seen a problem they couldn't fix with a bomb. I know people are still people, but now I have hope that we're the average and not the lowest common denominator. And maybe for a while we'll be above average.
* and who looks GREAT for her age, btw
hell hath no fury like an Apple fanboy scorned
That's what they say, and boy is it the truth. I had intended to blog about how I had finished my first song for NaSoAlMo - but I can't do that. So instead can I just get a big FUCK YOU for Apple, for breaking Garageband when you upgrade to Leopard, and not telling you, and having the only solution be to buy the new version (which I don't have the money for right now)? I had a whole fucking song recorded - guitar, vocals and upright bass, and fucking garageband decided to randomly recopy part of the guitar track all over the place. I have to rerecord the whole fucking thing now. IT WAS ALMOST DONE. I could have finished it tonight.
Seriously - that's fucked up. That's bad customer relations, hearkening back to the system 7.6 days (oh yeah, I'm going there). I mean, I expect that from third-party software (like ProTools LE, which does more stuff but has a pain in the ass reinstall and upgrade everytime you do anything to your system software, which is why I don't use it.) When they upgraded to to OS X you could still run legacy apps, and that was a complete overhaul of the entire operating system from the ground up! But I guess if you're using Apple software, which they have TOTAL CONTROL over, that'sharder to deal with not as lucrative.
Apple, your bundled software is great, but not so much if you don't bother to make new OS's work with it, and you also don't fucking tell people that upgrading is going to break things. Did I mention I can't use iDVD now either?
Yes, so let's toast Apple with a nice warm glass of "fuck you you fucking fuckers".
Seriously - that's fucked up. That's bad customer relations, hearkening back to the system 7.6 days (oh yeah, I'm going there). I mean, I expect that from third-party software (like ProTools LE, which does more stuff but has a pain in the ass reinstall and upgrade everytime you do anything to your system software, which is why I don't use it.) When they upgraded to to OS X you could still run legacy apps, and that was a complete overhaul of the entire operating system from the ground up! But I guess if you're using Apple software, which they have TOTAL CONTROL over, that's
Apple, your bundled software is great, but not so much if you don't bother to make new OS's work with it, and you also don't fucking tell people that upgrading is going to break things. Did I mention I can't use iDVD now either?
Yes, so let's toast Apple with a nice warm glass of "fuck you you fucking fuckers".
and the b-boy shall lie down with the banjo
This is a number of different kinds of awesome all at once.
Also, I am astonished at how well breaking and fiddle tunes go together. Dude.
Also, I am astonished at how well breaking and fiddle tunes go together. Dude.
I'm gonna party like it's 1985
I am a much cooler teenager now than I was when I was a teenager. In the last week the following things have happened:
- Walking in the smelly alley behind work, a young man of probably not more than 19 was loitering (that's a word us old folks like to use) next to his car and complimented me on my hair.
"I like your mohawk", he said. "Wanna see mine?"
Then he pulled his hat off to show a grown out green mohawk and asked if mine was "black light active". Twelve years ago I would have had a definite answer to this question, but nowadays I would have to use the black light cat-pee detector to find out. He wanted to know because "I'm a raver, so I think about stuff like that."
Oh, bless your little raver heart. You're cute - try not to get in trouble waiting in that alley. Your friend looks sleazy. I wouldn't trust him. - I was walking down Market Street and was forcing my way through the always-crowded area directly between Old Navy and the BART entrance when all of a sudden there was this teenage girl standing in front of me - barely higher than my shoulder and not more than 16, with what I gather are cute clothes although it's hard to tell because she was dressed like it was 1985, and some really nice braids, and she said "I love your mohawk!" and RAISED HER HAND TO ME!!! Which was because she was attempting a high five. Whenever someone tries to high five me that's my reaction. I eventually figured it out and high-fived her back, and I didn't even miss her hand, which was probably just dumb luck.
- As I was walking to my ten year old American made station wagon (because that's how I ride) in the BART parking lot (because that's also how I ride) the other day, there were some grade school aged boys riding their bikes around the lot, in much the same way I would have done if I had lived someplace with paved roads at that age (not kidding - people always think I'm kidding about that, but I'm not). And one of them said as he rode past, "I want a cool mohawk like that!"
Ask her about dinosaurs!
Whew!
I am tuckered out! I am, in fact, so tuckered out, that I keep mistyping words - but mostly only as other words. So if you see a sentence that doesn't make any sense because there is a wrong word in it - for example, I just typed "I'm tucked pit!" - try switching some letters around or something. Or you can just accept that I'm talking nonsense. That's what most people do.
The Whoreshoes are getting ready to record a new album! Yay! So we spent the whole day recording all 18 of our new songs over the course of 9 hours so we can listen to them and whittle the new album down to maybe 12 or 15 tracks. I am very proud of us - we went in and we knew what we were doing and we just went in and played through a bunch of songs. I'm glad that we're a band that learns songs by doing them live, as opposed to putting them together in the studio. Unless you're a zillionaire and a have a super-awesome studio full of hookers and blow (just kidding dad!) spending all your time in the studio is kind of a major drag. In my opinion. And also I saw that Metallica movie where they were recording their last album, Some Kind Of Monster, and if you watch that movie you will never ever want to be involved in a creative project with another human being again as long as you live. Recording just isn't that fun. In my opinion. Which is correct.
Anyway, thanks to Larry from Rube Waddell (he's the one on the lower left) we were able to just punch out all those songs in one day! I love the twenty first century! Seriously! A mere ten years ago when my punk band did an album we thought we were really fucking lucky (and we were) to know someone who had a 16 track to record us on - direct to tape, of course. Now I could do that in my bedroom - and that's not a metaphor. On top of that, I think that the quality of what we recorded today is at least to that of our first cd, just because we've gotten so much better - well, and were able to listen back to what we played, which, for technical and money reasons we couldn't do the first time around.
I feel like the old geezer extolling the virtues of the horseless carriage, but if you're a musician it's really amazing. Look at it this way - in the last ten years or so we've had an astounding amount of music available to us. And that's on top of the relative wealth of music we've had since the advent of recording (this should warn you that I am geeking out in a big way). So all the kids, including me, have had a whole bunch more music that we can hear and be influenced by - and then you get tasty treats like Garageband (for mac users like myself) and, uh, other things for pc users which I'm sure they also like, and then we all take all that stuff we've heard and turn it into more music! How awesome is that?!? In case you're wondering how awesome that is, I now turn your attention to some bands I like who I think probably wouldn't exist with the crazy access The People now have to recording, like The Avett Brothers (just saw them at Strawberry and - dude. See them. Awesome.), The Shiftless Rounders and The Tallboys, to name a few who I can come up with my current addled state. I guess I like to emphasize this point for people who enjoy music, but who aren't Fans - if you don't spend a certain amount of your time a month these days considering your music delivery system you may be a fan, but you're not A Fan. And that's cool, you're probably thinking about what to feed your kids or how to cure cancer or something important like that, instead of how Conor Oberst (who I also love) is able to put an album every damn month, apparently.
Oh, you're still here? I was chatting with Rabbitch, who is fascinating. Blame it all on her. "It all" being my inability to wrap this post up neatly. Also, I'm tired. It's kind of like asking a boxer what he loves about boxing (they all love boxing*) after a fight. If only there were a phrase for that, when you've been in a fight. And someone's been punching you. And it's almost as if you're inebriated, you're so addled. Fight-addled! That's it! I'm fight-addled! Only with recording! And actually I'm just tired!
Yes, well, anyway. Save your pennies. Eventually there will a new Whoreshoes cd for you to spend them on.
* except Archie Moore, tragically.
The Whoreshoes are getting ready to record a new album! Yay! So we spent the whole day recording all 18 of our new songs over the course of 9 hours so we can listen to them and whittle the new album down to maybe 12 or 15 tracks. I am very proud of us - we went in and we knew what we were doing and we just went in and played through a bunch of songs. I'm glad that we're a band that learns songs by doing them live, as opposed to putting them together in the studio. Unless you're a zillionaire and a have a super-awesome studio full of hookers and blow (just kidding dad!) spending all your time in the studio is kind of a major drag. In my opinion. And also I saw that Metallica movie where they were recording their last album, Some Kind Of Monster, and if you watch that movie you will never ever want to be involved in a creative project with another human being again as long as you live. Recording just isn't that fun. In my opinion. Which is correct.
Anyway, thanks to Larry from Rube Waddell (he's the one on the lower left) we were able to just punch out all those songs in one day! I love the twenty first century! Seriously! A mere ten years ago when my punk band did an album we thought we were really fucking lucky (and we were) to know someone who had a 16 track to record us on - direct to tape, of course. Now I could do that in my bedroom - and that's not a metaphor. On top of that, I think that the quality of what we recorded today is at least to that of our first cd, just because we've gotten so much better - well, and were able to listen back to what we played, which, for technical and money reasons we couldn't do the first time around.
I feel like the old geezer extolling the virtues of the horseless carriage, but if you're a musician it's really amazing. Look at it this way - in the last ten years or so we've had an astounding amount of music available to us. And that's on top of the relative wealth of music we've had since the advent of recording (this should warn you that I am geeking out in a big way). So all the kids, including me, have had a whole bunch more music that we can hear and be influenced by - and then you get tasty treats like Garageband (for mac users like myself) and, uh, other things for pc users which I'm sure they also like, and then we all take all that stuff we've heard and turn it into more music! How awesome is that?!? In case you're wondering how awesome that is, I now turn your attention to some bands I like who I think probably wouldn't exist with the crazy access The People now have to recording, like The Avett Brothers (just saw them at Strawberry and - dude. See them. Awesome.), The Shiftless Rounders and The Tallboys, to name a few who I can come up with my current addled state. I guess I like to emphasize this point for people who enjoy music, but who aren't Fans - if you don't spend a certain amount of your time a month these days considering your music delivery system you may be a fan, but you're not A Fan. And that's cool, you're probably thinking about what to feed your kids or how to cure cancer or something important like that, instead of how Conor Oberst (who I also love) is able to put an album every damn month, apparently.
Oh, you're still here? I was chatting with Rabbitch, who is fascinating. Blame it all on her. "It all" being my inability to wrap this post up neatly. Also, I'm tired. It's kind of like asking a boxer what he loves about boxing (they all love boxing*) after a fight. If only there were a phrase for that, when you've been in a fight. And someone's been punching you. And it's almost as if you're inebriated, you're so addled. Fight-addled! That's it! I'm fight-addled! Only with recording! And actually I'm just tired!
Yes, well, anyway. Save your pennies. Eventually there will a new Whoreshoes cd for you to spend them on.
* except Archie Moore, tragically.
Is it so wrong?
Is it so wrong that I want to get home and play my new upright bass? I had bass dreams all night! Okay, yes, I had a class tonight, so I didn't get home until ten, and then I had to drag the bass out to the living room and move the bridge (there's not really enough space in my room to lay it down), because the kid I bought it from thought that moving the bridge would be a good way to lower the action, which technically worked but and even I, rank amateur that I am, could tell that the intonation was all kinds of messed up. So I did that. And then OBVIOUSLY the only reasonable course of action is to put itunes on a country mix and attempt to play along with every song. Which is what I do every night. You would be horrified to learn how many country artists do songs in B or F. (It's because they're commies.) And Kelly Hogan? Well, she's dreamy and all, but she has a whole raftload of songs that contain more than three chords, and I'm just not down with that. She's a commie, too. Still dreamy, but a commie.
TV Shows of my Former Housemates
As all right-thinking people are aware, Dr. Rachel Maddow's tv show will be premiering on MSNBC tonight right after Countdown with Keith Olberman - it's at 6pm here, but I don't know about you. Just tivo it, or get your friend to do it.
Dr. Maddow's main claim to fame, after being the most spectacularly popular lesbian pundit in the universe, is that she and I used to be housemates. Okay, yes, it was for only about three months, but then she was housemates with my girlfriend so I continued to practically live with her for another year, so that counts dammit! I know her secrets! To think - I knew her when she was mere bachelor, barely of drinking age! I knew her when she had that haircut! Ah, those glorious days of youth! When you lived in a roach infested mission flat with a rapidly rotating cast of housemates - I think I lived with fifteen different people in that apartment in the three years I was there. Yes, fifteen unique free spirits - all of whom should have their own tv shows. If you read my proposals I'm sure you will agree.
offer not available in all municipalities
Dr. Maddow's main claim to fame, after being the most spectacularly popular lesbian pundit in the universe, is that she and I used to be housemates. Okay, yes, it was for only about three months, but then she was housemates with my girlfriend so I continued to practically live with her for another year, so that counts dammit! I know her secrets! To think - I knew her when she was mere bachelor, barely of drinking age! I knew her when she had that haircut! Ah, those glorious days of youth! When you lived in a roach infested mission flat with a rapidly rotating cast of housemates - I think I lived with fifteen different people in that apartment in the three years I was there. Yes, fifteen unique free spirits - all of whom should have their own tv shows. If you read my proposals I'm sure you will agree.- C's show would feature radical carpentry and lighting, which would result in poorly lit guests whose chairs collapse periodically. Afterward C would explain that "lighting" is just The Man keeping you down. Special one hour episode on the story of the glow in the dark fliers wheatpasted to the living room wall, with outtakes on how to paint over glow in the dark wheatpasted posters in your living room.
- N's show consists entirely of bomb threats called into theatres that are showing Saturday Night Fever. If she can't find a theatre showing Saturday Night Fever, she might call your house - watch out!
- M's show would be very like Sprockets only about feminist political theatre. It will have less unitards and probably less dancing. You will only understand 50% of the content, but M will make up for it by being really sweary. M will hit the big time with cult fandom of her recurring character Zombie Shaving Accident Victim and will vanish from the public eye at the height of her fame, reappearing years later as the Philosopher Queen of an idyllic tropical isle whose culture is based on the work of Caryl Churchill and Bertolt Brecht.
- K's show would be like M's show only with giant puppets and not good. Do not touch K's monkey or there will have to be a house meeting about it, plus a discussion of whether you should even be touching someone's monkey without the express approval of the rest of the household and whether it is appropriate for you to even consider touching that monkey when know nothing of the monkey-american struggle since you are not monkey-american yourself. Repeat for thirteen weeks.
- E's show goes after the much-sought-after chickenhawk felon demographic. When the show is canceled it will stay in its time slot for an additional six weeks, but will broadcast from the lobby.
- D's show would be a nonstop calvalcade of art, music, learning and laughter. D would produce two shows a day, along with running a gallery, creating a constant stream of artwork and books and getting lots of sleep. In the exciting first season cliffhanger, D loses his time machine.
offer not available in all municipalities
Why don't they mention that I will be played by Johnny Depp?
Your result for The Director Who Films Your Life Test...
Francis Ford Coppola
Your film will be 67% romantic, 34% comedy, 33% complex plot, and a $ 40 million budget.
Filmography: The Conversation, The Godfather (and Pt. 2 and Pt. 3), Apocolypse Now, Peggy Sue Got Married, Jack, etc. He even used his clout after The Godfather to get George Lucas' classic American Graffiti made. But then he notoriously went WAY overbudget with Apocolypse Now which sort of maimed his career since. He's been doing a lot of small films lately which may give your life story an inside track. A high-budget simple romantic drama is best in the hands of this modern master filmmaker.
Take The Director Who Films Your Life Test at HelloQuizzy
the lost weekend
In keeping with my theme of being as dull as dirt, shall now regale you with tales of my weekend.
I almost went for a bike ride this weekend. I thought about it a lot. It would have been to Tilden Park, a ride that would have replicated much of this ride and, oddly, I decided I'd rather stay in bed. Weird.
And, okay, Saturday wasn't lost. There was band practice, and then meeting the Knitter afterward at Wild Side West for a beer, then getting ice cream at Bi Rite, and then going to see The Dark Knight - FINALLY. I liked it very much, didn't love it. Although I would like to see it in the theatre again. (Part of my lack of wholehearted love is that every time I see Christian Bale's face I think he looks like a younger, handsomer George W. Bush, and then I want to throw a drink in his face. Or something heavier.)
Sunday, though, was a total loss. All I did was turn the compost (I heart my new pitchfork), pick up dog poop from the yard, go grocery shopping, walk dogs, take out trashes and recyclings and make dinner. In other words, chores. Boring, boring chores. That was all I did Sunday. I rewarded myself with a finally seeing the last two eps of season 2.5 of BSG. Do not spoil season three for me*, or I will throw a drink in your face. Or something heavier.
*whenever I complain about BSG spoilers my brother says that I'm too far behind and at this point it's like complaining about someone spoiling M*A*S*H...
...it wasn't a chicken, it was a baby!
I almost went for a bike ride this weekend. I thought about it a lot. It would have been to Tilden Park, a ride that would have replicated much of this ride and, oddly, I decided I'd rather stay in bed. Weird.
And, okay, Saturday wasn't lost. There was band practice, and then meeting the Knitter afterward at Wild Side West for a beer, then getting ice cream at Bi Rite, and then going to see The Dark Knight - FINALLY. I liked it very much, didn't love it. Although I would like to see it in the theatre again. (Part of my lack of wholehearted love is that every time I see Christian Bale's face I think he looks like a younger, handsomer George W. Bush, and then I want to throw a drink in his face. Or something heavier.)
Sunday, though, was a total loss. All I did was turn the compost (I heart my new pitchfork), pick up dog poop from the yard, go grocery shopping, walk dogs, take out trashes and recyclings and make dinner. In other words, chores. Boring, boring chores. That was all I did Sunday. I rewarded myself with a finally seeing the last two eps of season 2.5 of BSG. Do not spoil season three for me*, or I will throw a drink in your face. Or something heavier.
*whenever I complain about BSG spoilers my brother says that I'm too far behind and at this point it's like complaining about someone spoiling M*A*S*H...
...it wasn't a chicken, it was a baby!
