Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Saturday Pete came over with a load of wet laundry because their dryer broke down. It reminded me of the period when I was doing my laundry at Pete and Donna's house every week, because the facilities at my apartment weren't maintained very well and I was tired of watching machines that didn't work eat all my quarters. Pete also helped me string up a sail shade over the south yard that's now walled-in. Actually, he did most of the work after I smacked myself in the nose with the wicked hook-end of a tensioner. It bled spectacularly, but after I washed the blood away the wound itself was unimpressive.
The tomatoes are doing famously - after a number of crappy years due to late planting and early onset of hot weather, it looks like I might get a decent crop this time 'round. The important thing is that they flower before the temperature hits 100, because that heat kills the pollen and they won't set. The Sunmasters are doing well; however the plants getting the most unfiltered sun are the ones that are doing the best, regardless of variety. That may sound like a big duh, but in Phoenix it's often the opposite.
Oh, and the artichoke is turning into a Mesozoic monster.
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Last night while channel-surfing, I happened across the new version of Battlestar Galactica. Holy cats, this could get me watching series television again! Halfway through the penultimate show of the season, no clue what was going on, and still I was hooked. Whoda thunk the Skiffy channel, the folks who brought us that limp version of Lathe of Heaven, could've come up with something this engrossing? Seriously, Skiffy should leave the classics the hell alone and concentrate on what seems to be their forte: breathing new life into cheese from my childhood. Howsabout an updated, gritty My Favorite Martian? Or Mr. Ed? Ooh ooh I know - The Ghost and Mrs Miur!
4 comments
The tomatoes are doing famously - after a number of crappy years due to late planting and early onset of hot weather, it looks like I might get a decent crop this time 'round. The important thing is that they flower before the temperature hits 100, because that heat kills the pollen and they won't set. The Sunmasters are doing well; however the plants getting the most unfiltered sun are the ones that are doing the best, regardless of variety. That may sound like a big duh, but in Phoenix it's often the opposite.
Oh, and the artichoke is turning into a Mesozoic monster.
--------------------
Last night while channel-surfing, I happened across the new version of Battlestar Galactica. Holy cats, this could get me watching series television again! Halfway through the penultimate show of the season, no clue what was going on, and still I was hooked. Whoda thunk the Skiffy channel, the folks who brought us that limp version of Lathe of Heaven, could've come up with something this engrossing? Seriously, Skiffy should leave the classics the hell alone and concentrate on what seems to be their forte: breathing new life into cheese from my childhood. Howsabout an updated, gritty My Favorite Martian? Or Mr. Ed? Ooh ooh I know - The Ghost and Mrs Miur!
4 comments
Friday, March 25, 2005
A Poll
I'm looking for some feedback on my plans for the upcoming Stardust County album. (obviously I'm most interested in the opinions of people who might actually buy it, but don't let that stop you from posting.) The opera is going to be a two-CD set; the second disc will be an enhanced CD with additional data that can be accessed from a PC or Mac, such as the libretto and detailed credits. One of the things I might include is a software copy of the Stardust County Songbook. I have an idea of how I want to do this re format etc. Here are the options:
(1) The score format will probably consist of lead sheets - the vocal line + guitar chords. If some or all of the songs also included a piano reduction of the full score, would you actually use this? Would you really, or are you just saying that?
(2) Which file format would you prefer:
(a) A score that can be read, played-back, and printed using a free music reader downloadable from the 'Net (and edited using a not-free music editing program).
(b) A collection of graphics files (such as bmp), one file per page of music.
[Updated 26 March 4:33 PM MST]
To be more specific, the music notation software I use is Sibelius. Scorch is a browser plug-in (works with every browser I've heard of) that allows you to read, print, and play-back Sibelius files without actually having Sibelius. There's no MIDI involved. Scorch isn't advertised as Linux-compatible, but if your browser sandbox is emulating a Windows or Mac environment I should think it might work.
12 comments
I'm looking for some feedback on my plans for the upcoming Stardust County album. (obviously I'm most interested in the opinions of people who might actually buy it, but don't let that stop you from posting.) The opera is going to be a two-CD set; the second disc will be an enhanced CD with additional data that can be accessed from a PC or Mac, such as the libretto and detailed credits. One of the things I might include is a software copy of the Stardust County Songbook. I have an idea of how I want to do this re format etc. Here are the options:
(1) The score format will probably consist of lead sheets - the vocal line + guitar chords. If some or all of the songs also included a piano reduction of the full score, would you actually use this? Would you really, or are you just saying that?
(2) Which file format would you prefer:
(a) A score that can be read, played-back, and printed using a free music reader downloadable from the 'Net (and edited using a not-free music editing program).
(b) A collection of graphics files (such as bmp), one file per page of music.
[Updated 26 March 4:33 PM MST]
To be more specific, the music notation software I use is Sibelius. Scorch is a browser plug-in (works with every browser I've heard of) that allows you to read, print, and play-back Sibelius files without actually having Sibelius. There's no MIDI involved. Scorch isn't advertised as Linux-compatible, but if your browser sandbox is emulating a Windows or Mac environment I should think it might work.
12 comments
Word of advice: If you live anywhere in the Phoenix area, get your butt out to Boyce Thompson Arboretum while it's still wildflower season. (Bring the rest of you while you're at it.)
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Sunday, March 20, 2005
Ministry of Strooth
The Administration's cheerleader for extending the USA PATRIOT Act recently told a roomful of people that there is no provision in the Act to allow access to a citizen's library records. While strictly true that libraries are not explicitly mentioned in the Act, there is a provision that the FBI has used extensively as basis for requesting patrons' borrowing records, and the courts have upheld that interpretation. Talk about bending the facts....
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This year's Phoenix Folk Festival had phenominal good luck, IMO. For the first time in the 9 years I've been playing it we didn't have perfect weather; the sky glowered all Saturday as if it were going to open and pour buckets any minute, but we never got more than a meagre sprinkle. My set in the boathouse went really well and I sold some CDs. I felt a little badly that the song everyone told me they liked the best - Larry Warner's Lesson - isn't on any of those CDs.
I have mixed feelings about my albums the older they get, because they're really snapshots in time, and I'm constantly trying to improve my craft. Listening to Anchored to the Wind - now 10 years old - is like looking at my high school yearbook picture with the awkward smile and goofy 70's hair. I feel almost as if it were a geekly kid sister who sat down in Robert Sampler's backroom studio and laid down those first tracks - they're so earnest, but so unpolished. But people still buy the album, and enjoy it, so who am I to argue. (I think Paige Sullivan's beatiful artwork has something to do with the sales.)
None of which explains why I was so exhausted after the first day of the Festival that I went home and fell asleep in front of the TV.
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My garden is extremely confused. I have a Christams cactus that is getting ready to bloom. (This plant is supposedly so picky about blooming on winter Solstice that you have to follow a complicated regimin of keeping it in a dark closet for X hours each week.) Also, where I planted corn I now have tomatoes and cucurbits sprouting. That's what happend when you use your own compost...
0 comments
The Administration's cheerleader for extending the USA PATRIOT Act recently told a roomful of people that there is no provision in the Act to allow access to a citizen's library records. While strictly true that libraries are not explicitly mentioned in the Act, there is a provision that the FBI has used extensively as basis for requesting patrons' borrowing records, and the courts have upheld that interpretation. Talk about bending the facts....
--------------------
This year's Phoenix Folk Festival had phenominal good luck, IMO. For the first time in the 9 years I've been playing it we didn't have perfect weather; the sky glowered all Saturday as if it were going to open and pour buckets any minute, but we never got more than a meagre sprinkle. My set in the boathouse went really well and I sold some CDs. I felt a little badly that the song everyone told me they liked the best - Larry Warner's Lesson - isn't on any of those CDs.
I have mixed feelings about my albums the older they get, because they're really snapshots in time, and I'm constantly trying to improve my craft. Listening to Anchored to the Wind - now 10 years old - is like looking at my high school yearbook picture with the awkward smile and goofy 70's hair. I feel almost as if it were a geekly kid sister who sat down in Robert Sampler's backroom studio and laid down those first tracks - they're so earnest, but so unpolished. But people still buy the album, and enjoy it, so who am I to argue. (I think Paige Sullivan's beatiful artwork has something to do with the sales.)
None of which explains why I was so exhausted after the first day of the Festival that I went home and fell asleep in front of the TV.
---------------
My garden is extremely confused. I have a Christams cactus that is getting ready to bloom. (This plant is supposedly so picky about blooming on winter Solstice that you have to follow a complicated regimin of keeping it in a dark closet for X hours each week.) Also, where I planted corn I now have tomatoes and cucurbits sprouting. That's what happend when you use your own compost...
0 comments
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Gypsies, Tramps, and Swedes
I didn't get too much accomplished over the weekend, but hey, that tends to happen when you've got a guy with a jackhammer in your guest bathroom. I did manage to get the new Dell set up, and worked enough on Stardust County scoring that I didn't feel too guilty taking Sunday to drive out the the Superstitions to try the Carney Springs Trail hike that the AZ Republic recommended a few weeks back. I met a couple at the trailhead who were only planning on going as far as the first saddle and persuaded them to do the whole loop, across Boulder Canyon to the Peralta Trail, and I'm really glad that they did. Up to the first saddle is a somewhat strenuous hike with lots of clambering over rocks. Then you set out across country with the trail marked only by little cairns of stones set on top of boulders. There are two ridges and two little valleys, through pinion country where the vegetation grows out of cracks in the bedrock in long, straight lines. The wildflowers were pretty scarce at this altitude, but we did see some healthy Indian paintbrush, which I don't think I've ever seen in person. Right before the third ridge Weaver's Needle hove into sight, and the cairns suddenly disappeared. After some mucking about we found the trail again and made the near-vertical scramble through the boulders and extreme vegetation down to the Fremont Saddle pretty much on our butts. We were pretty bushed by the time we got to the Peralta parking lot, but it was fun!
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I'm almost finished with scoring Stardust County - just a few more songs and I'll have the basic scoring done. Then I'm going back to the Overture for some re-work - it's starting to sound a little thin after the orchestration that I've done for the more complex numbers - and some overall review and polishing.
I've been feeling in pretty good voice since Consonance; getting ready for the Phoenix Folk Festival on Saturday I pulled out some older songs I haven't done in a while and played around with them a bit. The acid reflux regimin really seems to have opened things up to where I can sing with a more open, "adult" voice - so maybe giving up coffee etc. was worth it after all.
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There are so many flowers in my backyard that the hummingbirds aren't even touching the hummingbird feeders. The level hasn't gone down an inch in two weeks. They'd much rather gorge on penstemons and fairy dusters.
0 comments
I didn't get too much accomplished over the weekend, but hey, that tends to happen when you've got a guy with a jackhammer in your guest bathroom. I did manage to get the new Dell set up, and worked enough on Stardust County scoring that I didn't feel too guilty taking Sunday to drive out the the Superstitions to try the Carney Springs Trail hike that the AZ Republic recommended a few weeks back. I met a couple at the trailhead who were only planning on going as far as the first saddle and persuaded them to do the whole loop, across Boulder Canyon to the Peralta Trail, and I'm really glad that they did. Up to the first saddle is a somewhat strenuous hike with lots of clambering over rocks. Then you set out across country with the trail marked only by little cairns of stones set on top of boulders. There are two ridges and two little valleys, through pinion country where the vegetation grows out of cracks in the bedrock in long, straight lines. The wildflowers were pretty scarce at this altitude, but we did see some healthy Indian paintbrush, which I don't think I've ever seen in person. Right before the third ridge Weaver's Needle hove into sight, and the cairns suddenly disappeared. After some mucking about we found the trail again and made the near-vertical scramble through the boulders and extreme vegetation down to the Fremont Saddle pretty much on our butts. We were pretty bushed by the time we got to the Peralta parking lot, but it was fun!
------------------------
I'm almost finished with scoring Stardust County - just a few more songs and I'll have the basic scoring done. Then I'm going back to the Overture for some re-work - it's starting to sound a little thin after the orchestration that I've done for the more complex numbers - and some overall review and polishing.
I've been feeling in pretty good voice since Consonance; getting ready for the Phoenix Folk Festival on Saturday I pulled out some older songs I haven't done in a while and played around with them a bit. The acid reflux regimin really seems to have opened things up to where I can sing with a more open, "adult" voice - so maybe giving up coffee etc. was worth it after all.
------------------------
There are so many flowers in my backyard that the hummingbirds aren't even touching the hummingbird feeders. The level hasn't gone down an inch in two weeks. They'd much rather gorge on penstemons and fairy dusters.
0 comments
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Consonance certainly pulled me out of a deep funk! It's been about an aeon since I stayed up so late at an open filk, and I only pumpkinned at 2:30 because I knew I had to be up and packed before checkout time Sunday. Lotsa fun, you bet! And Cthulu too.
Harmony Heifers is almost out - there was a pre-release party in the con suite, and one day soon I hope to hear the trio's version of Leather Pants of Evil without the overwhelming ambient party noise. Ditto Joe Bethancourt's Great Big Way Out There, featuring my The Overland Stage, which was released last week.
Question of the day; should I:
(a) buy a kit and try to fix the toilet in the guest bath
(b) buy a kit and hire a handyman to fix the toilet in the guest bath
(c) buy a new toilet and hire a plumber to install it, like the last time I tried to fix one of the creaky old toilets in this house.
0 comments
Harmony Heifers is almost out - there was a pre-release party in the con suite, and one day soon I hope to hear the trio's version of Leather Pants of Evil without the overwhelming ambient party noise. Ditto Joe Bethancourt's Great Big Way Out There, featuring my The Overland Stage, which was released last week.
Question of the day; should I:
(a) buy a kit and try to fix the toilet in the guest bath
(b) buy a kit and hire a handyman to fix the toilet in the guest bath
(c) buy a new toilet and hire a plumber to install it, like the last time I tried to fix one of the creaky old toilets in this house.
0 comments
Consonance certainly pulled me out of a deep funk! It's been about an aeon since I stayed up so late at an open filk, and I only pumpkinned at 2:30 because I knew I had to be up and packed before checkout time Sunday. Lotsa fun, you bet! And Cthulu too.
Harmony Heifers is almost out - there was a pre-release party in the con suite, and one day soon I hope to hear the trio's version of Leather Pants of Evil without the overwhelming ambient party noise. Ditto Joe Bethancourt's Great Big Way Out There, featuring my The Overland Stage, which was released last week.
Question of the day; should I:
(a) buy a kit and try to fix the toilet in the guest bath
(b) buy a kit and hire a handyman to fix the toilet in the guest bath
(c) buy a new toilet and hire a plumber to install it, like the last time I tried to fix one of the creaky old toilets in this house.
0 comments
Harmony Heifers is almost out - there was a pre-release party in the con suite, and one day soon I hope to hear the trio's version of Leather Pants of Evil without the overwhelming ambient party noise. Ditto Joe Bethancourt's Great Big Way Out There, featuring my The Overland Stage, which was released last week.
Question of the day; should I:
(a) buy a kit and try to fix the toilet in the guest bath
(b) buy a kit and hire a handyman to fix the toilet in the guest bath
(c) buy a new toilet and hire a plumber to install it, like the last time I tried to fix one of the creaky old toilets in this house.
0 comments
Thursday, March 03, 2005
Two things I won't be doing again real soon
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- Buying a piece of complicated furniture I have to put together from a kit
- Hosting a 13-hour movie marathon at my house. Seriously folks. Carrie and I had fun making pizza, but if I'd known all but one of the yeses and all of the maybes would turn out to be no-shows, I'd have scaled back to RotK and spent the day hiking or otherwise enjoying the weather.
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