groove

Friday night I went to a Chuck's Junk show. The guys played really tight all night long. Joe's playing was just right there in the pocket.

When you're a musician, you see other great players and either get inspired or discouraged. I'm sure it's the same with athletes or painters or whatever. Most musicians hear phenomenal players - guys with chops beyond belief - and leave with that senes of awe and a renewed desire to better themselves. I'm no different.

Hearing playing like that, not always the most technically difficult, but just so right... that's a hundred times more inspiration to me. There was a moment in the show when I was just diggin' the music more intensely than usual and when I looked up, the whole band was visibly diggin' into it, too.

Making great music, creating those grooves, that's where I want to be musically.

vacation...part I

I wrapped up a medium-to-large sized project last night. Now I can focus on next week's vacation to Boston. The thing about vacation - my mind leaves about 3 days before the rest of me. It also seems to be the slowest part of my body to return after.

This vacation will be extra-fun because I'll be spending a good chunk of it jamming with a friend.

the lucky charms

Cheers
Originally uploaded by SilverTurtle.

St. Patrick's Day.
The Most High Holy Day. Or at least that's what some of my friends call it.

Thursday night we escaped our jobs as early as possible. Decked out in green we hit an Irish pub for the festivities. The evening begin with a shot of good Irish whiskey: Jameson.

As we were sitting, chatting, throwing back a few pints in honor of St. Patrick, my friend was beaned in the head. It looked like those little mesh bags of rice people throw at weddings.

This bag was filled with Lucky Charms. That damn little leprechaun bestowed several more bags of tasty sweet marshmallow-y cereal on us throughout the night, although we never saw him.

Happy belated St. Patrick's Day everyone!

random

You don't really realize how much time you spend online with news, blogs, email, and just screwing around until your internet goes out at home.

Anyways, the DDW girls posted this gross-but-intriguing link.

blogging, trade secrets & the first amendment

We see stories all the time about blogging and how much of it is or should be protected by one of the most sacred and beloved pieces of our constitution, the First Amendment.

I don't worry about myself much, because I break the #1 rule of good blogging by not having a theme that the majority of my posts revolve around. Steady readership is sort of hit-or-miss and I haven't established myself as the pinnacle of, say, rock music news online. But there are a lot of blogs out there that are very, very specific, and have developed into legitimate sources of information for various aspects of our culture; politics, technology, baking, whatever.

Looks like an Apple insider leaked some info and it appeared on a couple of blogs. Now Apple's all a-flutter about their trade secrets. I really like this article in the San Francisco Chronicle. It shows both sides of the argument pretty fairly, and the quotes it uses are relatively well though out on both sides. Apple does have a right to protect their trade secrets. Apple should look to themselves first to locate the source of the leak. One of my favorite quotes in the article: "Every new form of media in the last 200 years has gone through a similar rite of passage. Blogs (like mine) are as valid a form of 'press' as the pamphlet was during the American Revolution.".

What I really love about the article is that the majority of its quotes were culled from blogs and internet forums. To me that just emphasizes the validation that blogging can be construed as a form of journalism.

The problem now becomes that journalists are trained in some ethical behaviours which the average blogger isn't. (I took Newswriting in college. Even that class covered journalism and ethics). The average journalist probably wouldn't have just gone and revealed trade secrets, but may have contacted Apple about being one of the first to break the story when they were ready to go public. It makes the story theirs and establishes them as a primary contact person in the media.

Blogging, in my eyes, is a form of media. It's also, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, anonymous heresay. This guy speaks to both sides of the issue and makes a great point without coming right out and saying it: consider your sources when you read or hear something and use your own damn brain for once.

weird quiz

Thanks to Digital Retrograde for the link.

Part disturbing, part intriguing... can you tell the difference between Serial Killers and Computer Programmers?

for those political bloggers

When I had my first blog (over at Live Journal) I talked politics quite a bit. When I moved over here, I thought I would talk politics nonstop - it was close to election time. For some reason, I haven't touched on politics much, other than occassional links to places like The League of Pissed of Voters.

I am a little curious about the outcomes of this possible action. I can see a fine line between public speech and public fundraising for a politician.

a fond farewell

Goodbye, blogging friend

ahnold weekend

This weekend is the Arnold Classic Fitness Expo. As in Ahnold Schwarzenagger. So the city is bombarded with a few buff men and women from around the country. And a heck of a lot of people selling "nutritional supplements" to the buff ones. And this year the added treat of seeing the same two guys several times wearing hats and hoodies with "Arnold for President" splashed across them.

This is a yearly event which I've never attended. I do see the comedy in Columbus being the 16th fattest city in the country (down from #10 last year!) and hosting an annual fitness expo.

the network

Tonight I received an email from the Music Director of the church I play at occassionally. He asked if I could join the praise band this week. I didn't give him my email address, have never emailed him, and I'm pretty sure he never really knew what my name was until this past February, the first time I played in praise band for him - which I was asked to do as I was leaving rehersal that week. (I started playing holiday shows there Christmas of 1995 - but there are a lot of changing musicians every month).

I'm sure the orchestra director passed along my email address to him. I'm happy that after only 2 live performances there on bass they are that confident in my playing that they feel I can show up Sunday morning an hour before service and pull off 2 or 3 songs.

I do wish it wasn't such a Southern Baptist church. I share some very core beliefs with them (i.e. God and Jesus) and that's where it ends. I think as a whole the sect has no grasp on the world around them. (Did you see the Buddha post?) They tend towards the judgemental and homophobic and chauvanistic. I hesitated before agreeing to play this week (for all of four minutes) because I had this mini-dilema about supporting their specific religious beliefs. But...

Some of the other members of the orchestra and/or praise band at the church are involved in other community music groups. Talking to them and playing with them is not only fun, it's a good exercise in networking.

the germ factory

There is some nasty disease floating around our office. Actually, there was one disease, and then my boss got something completely different and even more gross.

So I'm trying very hard not to get close to anyone I work with. Which is hard because our office is so tiny.

So far I've managed to stay healthy. And other than general "winter blahs" and the nagging feeling that my job is kind of sucky, I feel fine.

When I was a kid, I was constantly sick. Coup as a baby, earaches, and of course trips to the ER for various diseases and broken bones. Then, at the end of 4th grade, I had my tonsils out. I got really sick maybe 3 or 4 times after that. Otherwise I stayed pretty healthy.

My freshman year of college I suddenly got really sick. Bronchitis.
(Campus Health Center Nurse: What's wrong?
Silver Turtle: My throat hurts and I think I've been running a fever
Campus Health Center Nurse: Are you sexually active? Are you pregnant?
SilverTurtle: No, I'm not pregnant, I have a sore throat.
** various prodding and looking around **
Campus Health Center Nurse: Hmmm... looks like you've got a bad case of bronchitis. I'm going to prescribe some antibiotics. Get some rest, drink lots of fluids. You should be feeling better in a couple days. Oh, and here's a giant paper sack of condoms.)

I wasn't stupid. I was sick because I lived in a building with a lot of other people who were getting sick and spreading their germs all over my living areas. From that day on, I started drinking at least 1 (and usually 2) glasses of OJ every day. I wash my hands constantly. I stay bundled up in the winter - scarf, hat, gloves, everything. I sometimes get sick, but it's usually a fever and I feel really tired. So I sleep for about 23.5 hours straight and I'm all better. And this only happens once every year or so.

If I can just stay away from my diseased coworkers for another week until this ends.
Oh, and the local news reported last night that there is an outbreak of whooping cough in the city. Weird.

i *heart* technology

Some things are just too cool. I read this article about cell phones at work yesterday.

These are the coolest cell phones ever. Imagine being able to walk out of your house carrying only your phone. You can lock your door with it. Walk to the corner bar (or take a cab and pay for it via phone). Drink - pay for that via phone. Get home the same way. No need for anything else.

[From the article...and three of the five models come with a nifty function called FeliCa, which enables the 901i to serve as a digital wallet. You download cash into the phone's guts, then simply swipe it over a FeliCa reader at the local mini-mart. Almost anything else you might place in your wallet-a gym membership ID, video-store card or tickets to a concert-can be digitized on a FeliCa-enabled handset. Some apartment buildings in Tokyo are even making their locks compatible. Now that's convergence. ]

There's some other stuff out there that's really sweet, too. [Again, from the article Available only in Japan, the TS41 conveys sound to its user not by emitting audible waves but by sending vibrations to the cochlea through the bones of the ear. Whoa. The supposed advantage of this system is that the phone can be "heard" in the loudest of places, like the cacophonous floor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. ].

One of my friends said a few years ago that he thinks humans have hit the peak of technology. We're not capable of discovering or inventing anything new. No steam engines, light bulbs, Guttenberg presses, cars, airplanes, computers etc. He claimes that everything we develop now is just an improvement on something that already exists. Or a combination of technologies that already exist. I'd like to think he's wrong. But it is hard to imagine what could possibly be left to create.

Then there was my mass media professor who was convinced that humans would be able to teleport in the near future - in "our" lifetime. (I'm 28, so presumably in the next 50 years or so). While that would completely kick ass, I'm not convinced it will ever be possible.

Whatever technology is available in the future, I want a phone that functions as keys, wallet, phone, computer browser, and back scratcher. These things are just too sweet.