Month: November 2008

more Garage Band

I am definitely in the TOO MUCH OF EVERYTHING AND ALL AT ONCE school of music making.  When it’s just me and a stringed instrument I can keep it quite moronically simple, but give me a wee bit o’ software and I turn into a complexificating loon.  I go back and forth between Not Ready Yet and Karaoke at the Hellmouth with no urge to trim it down, and this is not a good thing, as they are sounding increasingly bizarre.

Hopefully today I will be able to sweet talk Jeff into visiting some of the audio places around; i have my eye on a better mike and headset, and I also need a separate headset for the Casio keys because there’s no large hole to small hole plug in adapter adapter and otherwise I have to run it through Garage Band, which is occasionally inconvenient, like now, when Jeff has to twist like a pretzel around the keyboard to feed the cats.  Many thanks to Katie and Paul for keeping all the bits together – it would be useless if folks hadn’t tirelessly kept it with its ac adapter.  I am about ready to give Paul the ex-marital bed back, I’m so slammed for space in my room, and go back to a single so I can at least leave all my music set up all the time.  It’s either that or leave it strewn from one end of the house to the other, which is suboptimal.

On a work related note, I’m not there today.  I needed some time off to reacquaint myself with my creative side.  Given the right stimulus, it appears that if you perforate me, music still comes out.

I want to see if I can record any of my birthday festivities; that should be fun!

Last night I dreamed Ridley Scott was directing Brangelina in an x-rated film. Jeff looked up and said, “I’ve had the exact same dream.”  Snicker. All I got to see was Ridley telling Brad to stand ‘artistically’ in a doorway.  While nude.

Last night, roast beast with carrots onions and taters.  This morning, BLTs.  We just finished them.  Yum!

More Garage Band

Heavens. I’ve messed together another song.  The first one was a charming novelty tune called “Not Ready Yet”, and this one is now entitled “Karaoke at the Hellmouth”.  The backstory is that twin demons (they are actually hatchlings from the same clutch) have come to this plane to participate in karaoke for the very first time and one of them gets drunk and passes out during the song, and their performance is further complicated by their inability to form anything resembling consonants.  The wizard they tormented into assisting them on their hellish quest wisely put a liplock on them, so all they can do is howl and gargle, tantalizingly close to being on key, but never quite there, and certainly not capable of saying anything in their ghastly language, which can break glass or drill nails out if used in our plane.  A four year old child accompanies them on Mellotron, a fourteen year old on bass, and the pseudohorns and drum kit does the rest.  Don’t I make it sound attractive?

20 questions

Why do certain wavelengths of light trigger my migraines?

Where does the feeling I get when I’m working on a song come from?

Out of 100 married or common law men, who are married to or cohabiting with women, how many are actually gay or bi and not telling their spouses?

If I really could physically transform myself into a man, and knew I’d be able to go back to being female, would I do it?

Is Justin Trudeau going to be the next leader of the Liberal party, despite swearing that he isn’t?

Is Gregor Robertson going to be a good mayor?  (He’s sure doing the Obama get out the vote thing.  And you know, frankly, any guy who gets busted for farescoffing is gonna be five-by-five by me.)

Am I ever going to have a lap cat again?

Are you coming to my birthday party? (sing out if you haven’t been invited).

How the hell do you save a Garage Band file as another kind of audio?  Oh.  Okay, I figured it out. But don’t expex to be able to play it unless you can convert it to MP3.  And DON’T convert it unless you want to hear a minute long shoegazer song that sounds like I’m being backed up by that chick from the Star Trek theme song and two werewolves.  Truth in advertizing.

Is anybody else as grateful as me for the break in the weather yesterday??? It was warm enough to sit outside and have coffee, and it wasn’t peeing rain.  Yes, I saw Dax again yesterday.  He’s doing much better and he didn’t mention Katie at all.  He laughed his ass off when I described what I am doing with Garage Band.

Is Keith ever going to get over his love affair with GTA IV?  Yesterday was “I will crash into everything” day.

Is Allegra going to remember to keep her liquor store receipts in future?  The ******* Stella Artois was skunky.  I said **** this for ***********, I’m going to get more Lion Winter Ale.  And I did, too.

How many disgusting figurines will ScaryClown make on his two weeks of vacation?  I’ve seen one from his facebook links, and he still hasn’t answered my question about where he’s hosting now so I can repost the link to his homepage.  Anyway, the most recent one is either an aborted alien fetus or fresh Hellmouth spawn, and yet it is strangely cute and inoffensive, like all of his work.  There is a tension between his touching innocence and his stated and raging depravity that is reflected in his art.

Anybody know about a good USB mike?

What do you say to somebody who has an amazing life and committed friends and doesn’t understand or appreciate it?

How do you help a moron?  This is actually a different question that the last one. Which reminds me of a joke – how do you make a sword invisible, answer, let a coward wear it.

Do you think there will be anti-atheist rioting in the US within the next four years?

Do you think the Mormons know what they have done to their church by their successful efforts to kill Prop 8 in California?  (Sample banner : No more Mr. Nice Gay).  I really don’t think it’s a fair fight; queers have been substantially more discriminated against for longer.

Did you eat a good breakfast?

Are you going to do something good for the world today?

a big stew of links and updates!

I won something worth $720 and I gave it to a coworker after briefly toying with the notion of selling it.

I support the United Way, which is I why I won the above noted item.

I’ve been up very early every morning since the time change.

Patricia and I brainstormed a problem at work and the results were high five worthy.

I’m shopping today for my France trip.

Haagen Dasz Mayan Chocolate ice cream is REALLY good.

I have a very long list of things to do.

Flying Spaghetti Monster made a Pastafarian out of me.

Can a squirrel be cute?

There’s a new Youtube video in my account of the little waterfall next to work.

It’s so rainy that it’s actively dangerous to walk anywhere except pavement.  Wet leaves, slick grass.

It’s so rainy that the ground is exploding.  What the hell is it?

I had to take shots from different angles.

Is it a Helvella lacunosa?

These guys at least are cute and not reminiscent of inimical alien brains.

Found art in the ladies can.  This one’s for daughter Katie.

Barack Obama’s family is going to adopt ‘a mutt, like me’.  bwa ha ha!  We’re all mutts, Uncle Rocky.

I already sent this link to Paul.  Folks like this should get taken out behind the hangar and shot.

Some people study psychopaths, and I guess that’s a good thing.

I have an offer of a weeklong stay in a bungalow in Belize, and I’m seriously considering it.

Eddie and Gizmo demonstrate vertical superiority.

Doug’s contribution to the art of pumpkin carving.

Sandy P at work took this awesome pic when she was in SF.

Death by black hole and other astrophysical meditations; I especially like the notion that Apophis could have been called Bambi.  A physicist explains it all for you.

I am just finishing making waffles.

We watched Objects in Space again last night.  Honestly, it’s in my top five hours of tv ever. (Along with Restless, Michael Moschen’s special, the moon landing, and the episode of Band of Brothers where they parachute into Normandy).

If fonts had personalities…..

I am messing around a lot with Garage Band.

I found the sound of a door on freesound that was so good I put in on LOOP and listened for half an hour.

My digestion is much better since I started taking acidophilus.

Keith is supposed to turn up later today.

Oh, Nutella, how you glisten!

We are very SF positive in New Westminster.

That should hold ya for a while, I guess.  I’ll be off shortly to commit myself some serious retail therapy.

Going away for a while.

Katie didn’t show last night. Normally I wouldn’t comment, but I am really disappointed. She called Jeff but not me.

Jeff, at least, was appropriately sympathetic when this piece of intelligence reduced me to hysterics.

I finally got that huge whack of bank draft out of the house and into the hands of the financial dude.

A couple of people want Tarot readings at work today.

I’ve got four days off now. I’m going to drop out of blogging for at least a couple of days, or until I can think of something cheerful to say, whichever comes first.

Meteors

There were lots of them last night, I just could not see them for the clouds.  How often do events like this resemble life itself.

I hear tell from Lexi that she had a limo and a box to see Lenny Kravitz last night – and the sumbitch cancelled the show.  This is the third show he’s cancelled in Vancouver, it’s like he doesn’t like it here or something.  I was actually hankering to go but now I’m glad I didn’t have the organizational skills buy tix.

Another fine mandolin lesson last night.

Katie is visiting this evening to pick up those items of clothing etc that she actually wants to take with her.  She is still entirely adamant about not laying eyes on Dax voluntarily ever again; she is viewing my consorting with him with a little yellow about the eyes and she was disturbed that he wanted to spend any time with Jessica D last night (they hung out for a couple of hours).  I opined that Jessica was far too smart to do anything except use the opportunity to give him a piece of her mind.  Personally I think Dax is well on the way to adjusting to the new circumstances and moving along,

Her schooling is going well.  Keith, as far as I know, is doing well.

I love my new hat.  It keeps my head warm, it looks good on, it’s heavy enough that it doesn’t just blow off in the lightest breeze, and it keeps rain off in a most firm and masculine way.

I’ve booked off the first week of February next year and I’m going to go on vacation by myself.  I’ve decided it’s San Francisco, Mexico, Hot Springs Cove or a fat farm.  Or maybe I’ll do something else entirely.

I hear tell that Carly smashed up her gran’s car earlier this year.  Weather related – no injuries except to pride.  I know that feeling!

How to respond….

One friend answered my enquiry as to how he’s doing with, “Glad I can’t find the key to the trigger lock on my 45”.

 

Christ and Odin.  I don’t think he’s talking about homicide. 

 

Another friend is watching the explosive decompression of her brother’s marriage.  This story has everything except Yul Brynner, and I can’t repeat a word of it because a) it’s none of my business and b) there are minor children involved.  Let’s just say that in the past I’ve said that wifey is, at best, suffering from narcissistic personality disorder and at worst is capable of the kind of life altering nuttery that drags everyone who gets close to her through a mire of lies and attention getting bs.

As for me, I am going to try to keep being content, although I am definitely having my struggles at the mo….

megrim

Megrim is a variant of migraine.  I’m going to shut off the computer and see if I can clear my visual field up before work.

I know it’s better for the world as a whole that Obama won, but it may not be extra cool for Canada, what with more protectionism and all.

all gone

I wrote a post and it vanished.  That always makes me mad.  I went back through my pages hit on and found this: Please Vote!

And Mars Mission news.

I have a coworker who is addicted to lip balm. He jokes about it.

I am at a super low ebb.  Everything takes a million years; I feel like I can scarcely move.  Fortunately, I have to get up and go to work, otherwise I’d just lie here and moan quietly.  Knowing this state of mind is entirely temporary is useful; I once believed that if I felt bad I’d feel bad forever, and now I know I’ll feel lousy for a while and then it will go away.  Also, I can think of at least three things, off the top of my head, that would make me feel better.  Obama winning, lunch at the Himalaya and seeing some critters.

I just managed four weeks without a single cigarette, not so much as a drag.  That’s the longest I’ve gone in probably 10 years. Unca Dave getting sick was the wakeup call I needed.

Since it takes a month to make a new habit, I’m now contemplating the next peak to conquer.  Hopefully I won’t need oxygen and a Sherpa.

Oh wait, banjo music!

Doug and Elly

Yesterday was quite the day for meals (which I did not have to cook). For Brunch, Jeff and ScaryClown and I sucked back an Islands inflected breakfast at the Reef on Main street and then took a tour of the shops; for dinner Doug cooked a magnificent roast lamb with greek salad, greek style potatoes (oh…my… god they were good) and hummus, pita and tzatziki.  I even drank red wine and didn’t get a migraine.  Keith and Jeff accompanied me on that trek to the golden kitchen of Doug.  As always, the soundtrack at their place is amazing.  I never go over there but that I think I want to live there!

When asked, why return to Toronto, Elly had a few comments.  It is home.  Her mother’s dying of emphysema (not that Elly means to get close to her or effect a reconciliation after all the crap…).  It’s closer to grandchildren; it’s closer to children; it’s closer to New York, where she is establishing a new chapter in her mental health career (her show went over really well).  Vancouver and her time in BC got her healthy, healthy enough that she tossed her journals.  (Why do I need them?  It’s just endless boohooing.  There’s no value in it.  Gave me a twinge about the blog, believe you me.) Doug’s career is portable, as is hers. And the maraschino on top is getting out before the Olympics.  Grr.

Doug showed off his new insulin monitoring device; he says if he can reduce the number of injections from four to five a day to one every three days he’ll gladly participate in the research.

When Jeff and I moved in here I whined about how I didn’t have any cast iron frying pans.  Well, I do now; Doug and Elly are dejunking and I acquired two.  Shout out for Jeff who enquired if they were dejunking.  Keith may get the computer desk but he has to run it by Paul first.

I don’t have a picture of Doug’s new beard styling, but it rocks.  I do have pics of his pumpkin, and will post later …