rip tommy johnson

The vast majority of the world - or at least Americans - don't know they know who Tommy Johnson was.

But if you know the two musical notes that signaled Jaws was on the prowl, you knew Tommy Johnson. He was the tuba player that performed those two notes, along with numerous other notes for numerous other TV and film scores.

Here's a nice little obit by tuba player Roger Bobo.

RIP Tommy.

politicians : a mini-rant

I get a little involved in politics and community stuff. I'm not attending too many rallies (and if I am it's probably to take pictures or perform) or anything, but I think it's important to be involved.

I also think that a politician's job is to represent his or her constituents.

Anytime that I send an email or letter or actually place a phone call to one of my representatives, a get a pretty standard letter back. This letter does one of two things:

a It (rarely) assures me that the representative agrees with me and will support/oppose the issue in question
or
b It tells me that the represenative does not agree with me, on moral or other grounds, expresses thanks for my input, but basically tells me to piss off

Being a politician isn't shouldn't be about what you personally believe/support/etc... It's about what the majority of your constituents believe/support/etc...

Pretend you represent a district of 10,000 people. There is an issue for school funding. You personally don't support it for whatever reason. 2,000 of your constituents contact you urging you to oppose the issue. Another 3,000 constituents contact you urging you to support the issue. The remaining 5,000 haven't expressed their opinions to you either way. You may personally oppose the issue, but it's your duty and job to vote in support of the issue, because that's what the majority of your constituents wanted.

I know that politics is all about power and money and lies and is far from the people. And that's the biggest problem facing this country.

the costume - halloween 2006

So my Harry Potter Halloween party mentioned in the previous post ... my costume was going as the Chinese Fireball Dragon.

I also thought I'd share some photos from Hocking Hills.

question for all of my bloggers...and halloween costume

Can anyone recommend a good RSS/Atom reader?

I want to be able to give it the rss feeds for all of the blogs I read. And then I would go to one website and ALL of the blogs' recent content would be available.

Also - I'm going to a Harry Potter Halloween Party this weekend. I decided on my costume and made some purchases for it this week. Hint: Book 4. I'll post pics after the party.

a time capsule project for everyone

I once read a short story for a high school English class assignment. The story was set far in the future, and a civilization (from another planet maybe?) 'discovered' the ruins of our current civilization.

They discovered the same room with essentially the same features in every home. This room was the bathroom. And the discoverers concluded that the toilet was our god - a god revered so highly that each and every home had an entire room dedicated to his/her worship.

So it's a good thing that Yahoo! has partnered with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings to create a really giant and really kind of amazing time capsule. I mean, you don't want aliens to think that you worshipped a toilet do you?

Here's some info about how YOU can contribute to the time capsule.

holiday movie review

Happy "celebrate the man who didn't exactly discover the Americas and helped destroy native peoples" Day.

For those of you not stuck at work and looking for something relaxing to do this afternoon, here are some movie "reviews".

Courtesy of Charlotte: Whatever you do, don't see Hollywoodland.

The next three are from myself with Silver Turtle Boyfriend's input:

Also do not go see The Black Dahlia. Sure it looks all hip and stylistic and it's about an unsolved real life murder. But it sucks. The acting, story, everything sucks. I've noticed a pattern - if Josh Hartnett is in something, I don't like it. Even though I don't consciously not like Josh Hartnett.

You should go, immediately, and see Jet Li's Fearless. It's everything that makes Hong Kong kung fu movies great - stories on an epic scale, a little humor, a little romance, and of course kung fu fighting.

Then you should go and see The Departed.

new old photos

I finally got around to scanning in some photos from when I went to Europe way back in 1994. This was before I knew anything about photography, so the quality is average at best. But some neat images and I wanted to archive them.

take a peek here

new band and other exciting news

I auditioned with a dixieland band this weekend. Holy WOW Batman - they were so much fun to play with. All good musicians. Fun music - most of it raucous and loud, some of it a bit bluesier - but Yay! Jazz!

I'm their new tuba player! And they did ask me to play some bass on a few dance numbers for an upcoming gig.

I also found out this weekend that I had a few of my Cleveland photos included in an online travel guide.

I didn't make it to the Oktoberfest. Saturday afternoon I was mulling over heading out. Then there was a big crash of rain and I thought I'm happy I didn't go to Oktoberfest. Maybe next year...

All in all... Good weekend.