Directed by Rowdy Herrington |
July 30, 2003
For several months now I've been contemplating a roadtrip vacation to Wyoming
and California.
Initially the idea was to meet up with my old chum Heather Cox (the first in
a collectible series of Heathers I know) in Wyoming and then we would drive
to San Francisco. Lately I've been getting the feeling that Californy is the
place I oughta be. In the last 4 months, I know three people who've moved there.
Plus the Bay Area is home to some of my most favorite musicians: Jellyfish,
Michael Manring, Joe
Satriani, Geoff Tyson,
Primus, Faith No More, Invisibl
Skratch Piklz, Tower of
Power, even Huey Lewis and the News. So I've always wanted to see it.
But then Heather said she couldn't afford it. And then DeLaine said she couldn't
be my co-pilot. And my car, well, I just don't trust it lately. It's plotting
something. I can feel it.
Check out this postcard from Heather
and dig her wicked handwriting. Font-makers
take note.
Since Amy and Heath
talk about the various exploits of their cats, I feel it necessary to relate
to you that my cats are completely retarded. Billie
for whatever reason is unwilling to lap water with her tongue - she digs water
out with her paw and laps it from there. She makes a terrific mess at it. Stinkfoot
is basically a dog; thoroughly without grace or elegance, he gets so excited
when I give him some tuna that he eats too quickly and two times out of five
he barfs it back up. I have to pull him away for bit to let the tuna digest.
The dork. He's also endlessly fascinated by shadows and plumbing.
So I have one cat who has a drinking problem and another who's bulimic. What
kind of parent will I ever hope to be?
July 29, 2003
Taxes Before Death?
With the deficit at a record high and set to only get higher, I have to ask, is there some fundamental division between Republican and Democrat economics such that Republicans like to borrow money and Democrats like to tax? Which method works better? Isn't it kind of like buying stuff with a credit card versus making yourself work harder for more money? When the US borrows billions, from whom are we borrowing and what are the interest rates?
And if we're going to finance a $48 billion-a-year war, shouldn't we tax the populace more? I think that would make us far less likely to support the war effort. We can tolerate our troops being in danger but if we had to pay for them to go, I think we'd be much more reticent to get involved. Death we can handle, it's taxes we really seem to have a problem with.
Our deficit for this last fiscal year stands at 455 billion. Divide that by our population of 291 million and it would mean that each of us would have to pay $1,563.00 in tax to pay it off. Ouch. And that's just the deficit, so add that to your regular annual taxes.
Post a Comment
Last weekend I played a frat party on a boat.
July 24, 2003
"The new generation really needs to reach out for romance, because we're spending too much time in front of screens and radiation and lights and blips and blurbs. We need romance and flowers and wind."Amen, brother (I say as I stare blankly at my screen). This quote came from a great article on him by my Camille Paglia in Radar Magazine. I can't recommend enough that everyone in the world read more Paglia. She's a genius.
- Matt Drudge
July 23, 2003
The Porn Deficit
Though we may be a country of plenty, there are still those who live without the bounty we enjoy every day. Sadder still, those most in need are those who actively refuse the assistance that they so desperately require. This man for example. I ask you, brethren, is there one among us who is in need of good porn more than this man? We can only pray that he seeks help soon.
In other news, informative commentary from Amy on last weekend's Pointed Stick/Domesticat annual summit. Pics from the Cajun's show here and forthcoming from Amy. That show marked the professional debut of the new OLP guitar. It sounded OK. Everything sounded much better since I reset all the patches on the POD. And whaddya know, there's an article on the Line6 site (POD's maker) about Evanescence. Aren't they just everywhere? It's so weird to see Ben Moody and Amy Lee in places like that - seems like just the other day Mr. Lee was in the music store telling us about his daughter's new record...
July 18, 2003
This is the greatest resource for designers. And it's such a simple idea - just slide the colors around until you see a combination you like. I'm smacking myself in the forehead for not thinking of something like this. Pure genius.
I decided on the LiveJournal thing: I think whenever I have a topic in which I'll pose questions about stuff, that I'll link over to LiveJournal for discussion. Given that most of my posts are just me blathering endlessly and not saying much, I figure there's no need to make a wholesale conversion to LJ. So if I have a topic like, say, the troops who are probably going to get punished for criticizing Rumsfeld, I'll arrange the page like this:
"Some soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Division complained to ABC-TV this week after their units were told they would be leaving Iraq soon, then had their homecoming postponed. One called for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.That really sucks. What do y'all think? If a soldier criticizes Rumsfeld, he is punished for it, and if a regular citizen criticizes Rumsfeld, he's labeled as un-American or treasonous. Does Rummy get a free pass?
'Criticism of superior officers is a breach of military rules. The Army will determine whether any soldier will be charged with breaking those rules,' said Pentagon spokeswoman Chief Petty Officer Diane Perry." (Associated Press)
Post a Comment
July 16, 2003
Because Jo made her blog friends-only, I had to join LiveJournal to keep up with all her nefarious shenanigans. So I set myself up a blog over there. Should I make the switch?
I put the question to you, gentle reader(s): should I blog here in the safe, if interactively impotent, confines of my website, or should I sell out to the Man and get a real blog where comments can be made and all sorts of other things get done? Not only will your input on this topic help me decide, it will also help me determine if anyone is actually reading this utter, utter crap. Email me at colter @ pointedstick . net or the hotmail address, I don't care.
I'd program my own blog using Amy's software, or some other homebrew, but I just don't have the time or brainpower for it.
Also July 16, 2003
I am a golden god.
My roommate is a rock star.
Look at me and my pretty...guitars.
A more accurate photographic representation of who I really am.
I'm so bummed I missed out on the hard rockin' 80's.
July 14, 2003
"Right now, the military is the only action agency in the United States government, so any time anyone wants something done, the military is being called upon to do it. But that's the trouble. The military knocked things down in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's very good at knocking things down. But now we have to build things, and the military's not very good at building things. It's not about building things. It's about allowing what you've built to be destroyed. It's about allowing people you love to be killed."Somebody make that guy run for office! Click the link above to read Esquire's full article - it's fantastic. It pointed out something that I'll have to doublecheck somehow: that the Republicans in Congress voted against intervention in Kosovo. So all the ethnic cleansing that was going on, the Republicans didn't particularly care about. Yet suddenly they care about the evils Saddam Hussein visited upon his people? At least that's what their defense is when asked about WMD - "we went in to liberate the people!"
- Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark
On a similar tack, here's a neat bit of math from your pal and mine, Moby:
"so according to donald rumsfeld the u.s is spending 4 billion dollars a month maintaining the military presence in iraq.
or 1 billion dollars a week.
or 140 million dollars a day.
or 6 million dollars an hour.
or 100,000 dollars a minute.
that's a lot of money.
and i just visited my local police precinct and it's desperately in need of funding.
and we're closing down firehouses in new york city cos we don't have the money to keep them open. and education budgets are being slashed. and budgets for health-care for the poor are being slashed. so maybe we could cut the war in iraq short by one minute and my local police precinct could be given 100,000 dollars.
or maybe we could cut the war in iraq short by one hour and we could use the 6 million dollars saved so that we wouldn't have to close as many of new york cities fire houses. or maybe we could cut the war in iraq short by one day and give 140 million dollars to the new york school system so that the hundreds of thousands of people in new york's public schools could have a better chance of having a safe and decent education. just some thoughts."
July 11, 2003
I'm sick. Wednesday night as I was finishing up watching Sunset Boulevard, (another in an increasing spate of Billy Wilder movies I've added to my collection) I got up and felt dizzy. Some kind of loss of equilibrium. I figured maybe I'd sleep it off, but no. I woke up Thursday even worse - moving around gave me motion sickness. I got ready for work, but my stomach complained too much when I got in the car. So I went back inside, called in sick and went to bed. And slept off and on until 5:30! I think all I ate that day was Honey Combs, Ramen noodles, cookies and toast. And orange juice. I woke up today somewhat better and made it to work. If I sit still, I'm OK. Getting up and around is like being a little drunk. Turns out Steve from Superflux has the same bug, so we cancelled band rehearsal last night - thank god, because not only did that mean I didn't have to leave the house but also that I'm not alone in my suffering and it's less likely to be the inner ear infection I had feared. Nevertheless, I think this is going to cancel my weekend trip to Fayetteville. Bleah. Maybe if I've improved enough by 5....
Happy birthdays to Robin, Tracy and Arika, who all have birthdays within a span of 3 days this month. Although none of you are reading this, I love you all to pieces and I wish you all lived closer to me.
July 8, 2003
Sadly I'm so bad with numbers that I'd never be a real math geek (not that I aspire to it or anything), but I do enjoy the conceptual end of things, the applied mathematics. I've discovered how the application of mathematical concepts to guitar playing can make for a lot of practice material. Say you have three notes - with just those three notes you can make 27 exercises. Say I have three notes, A, B, and C:
| AAA AAB AAC |
BBB BBA BBC |
CCC CCA CCB |
| ABB ABC ABA |
BAA BAC BAB |
CAA CAB CAC |
| ACC ACB ACA |
BCC BCA BCB |
CBB CBA CBC |
That's 27 sequences to practice - granted many of them are boring and useless, but you can weed out the ones that suck. Better yet you can mix and match to make 6-note sequences like CAB-CBA. I further discovered that you take any number, and take it to its power, and that will give you the number of possible exercises:
2 notes = 22 = 4 combinations
3 notes = 33 = 27 combinations
4 notes = 44 = 256 combinations
5 notes = 55 = 3,125 combinations
3 notes = 33 = 27 combinations
4 notes = 44 = 256 combinations
5 notes = 55 = 3,125 combinations
And so on. And that's just a few particular notes. Factor that times a 12-tone system of music and a 4-octave guitar and you'll never run out of crap to practice.
July 6, 2003
Guitar Acquisition Syndrome. I thought I was immune to it by now. After 13-odd guitars, my guitar lust should be sated. But now guitars are getting cheaper. China is making some killer guitars for $200. Like this one:
I had to have it. I bought it Thursday at Banjo Center. It's unbelievably great for the price. The brand is OLP, which stands for Officially Licensed Product; in this case, it's a licensed copy of an Ernie Ball Axis, which was what used to be the Ernie Ball Eddie Van Halen model. So in a way it's another signature model to add to my collection (Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, Steve Vai, Blues Saraceno, Richie Kotzen). I can't put this thing down. It's the best $200 I ever spent!
July 3, 2003
Man Walks on Fucking Moon
 |
 |
July 1, 2003
Predictions for the Future
Or, you'd be surprised what 100 years can do.
- Everyone in the modern world will one day have a personal communications device that functions as a combination phone-TV-Internet and GPS unit. Obviously, all bandwidth will be wireless to these units, eliminating the need for conventional network infrastructure, thus removing all high wire telephone lines from our sight. Phone numbers will be largely hidden from view (much the way http://66.253.8.233 is rarely seen compared to pointedstick.net because the words mask the numbers) as these devices will be likely be entirely voice activated and user-interactive. Telephones will be obsolete as two-way video communication becomes the norm.
- Radio and media consolidation will be moot as every car will have web access so that you can listen to your friends' radio programs streamed in high-definition audio from anywhere.
- Record companies will diminish as music becomes less a commodity and more a service. As Pro Tools or some competing format becomes more user friendly, musicians will have the means by which to make high quality recordings more easily. Bands will gig more and make their money from shows and merch. Possibly they will offer subscription services on their websites, thus removing the need for record companies.
- Cut-and-paste music will become a more popular genre as new ideas and sound sources become more scarce. Possibly "sound designers" will emerge as a genre.
- Garage bands will be replaced by bedroom programmers and electronic music will likely overtake the musical forms based on the playing of conventional instruments.
- Flying cars will likely never happen, as there's just no safe, suitable substitute for gravity. We just don't have any leads on how to manipulate it. However, it will be possible for transportation to become almost entirely free of conventional tire-road friction (this will of course depend on the willingness of petroleum industries to find other things to do than make gasoline). With this, it may be that we will see the closing of many many gas stations.
- The space elevator may well be a reality (for those who doubt it, remember
that we routinely strap people to 4 million pounds of explosives and blast
them into space).