A mad wor(l)d my masters

Snoop Dogg went to JaMAIca and came back a Rasta.  He now goes by Snoop Lion and his next album will be entirely reggae.  Tis fabulous news!  Hope he covers at least one Sublime tune…

OMG  I just spent two hours reading RADFem and Transfem blogs and the hate and bigotry are so tiresome and frightening that I went to a Men’s Rights blog for a while to help me get my bearings.

Unclear on the concept – private company tries to trademark Anonymous.

Paul’s back from Ontario, brown as a walnut and sporting a rather luxurious multicolored beard.  He poked his head in briefly last night and it was good to see him in such good spirits!  Then he had to go to work….

Eddie haz a sad.  He hates it when Jeff is gone for any length of time.

Had brekky with the lovely and everblooming Sue, and how good it was to spend some time with her.

Now, back to work.  I have learned that when you’re writing trombone lines, you need lots of places for players to take breaths, as they need more air than any other brass instrument.

 

 

Up early

… like, really early.  Finally around 5 am Jeff was up too and we did our shopping.  Then I made buckwheat pancakes for breakfast and boiled up a bunch of spuds so I’ve got home fries ready to go from the freezer at a moment’s notice.

I realized I’d double parked some of my songs – same song, different names – AND had some song names in there where I Knew I wrote a Song but didn’t actually memorize it or anything useful like that.  Since I’m never going to write it down, off it comes – list is now at 180 songs.  I have started cleanup so I have a match for each tune – the lyrics, the notation – and I’m trying to delete all the multiple versions of various things, including lyrics, and notations.  It’s really fussy and I’m hating it.

Spoke to Katie, she’s doing fine.  Mike’s bday partay didn’t happen, all hell and then some broke loose in his personal life.

Back to the grind….

Sundry and various

DARWIN’S BEARD!!! Have any of you seen the sheet music for Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody?

A.  It whipsaws back and forth between 4/4 and 5/4 time. Cazart!

B.  It uses guitar chords so hard to play that only somebody with a left hand like the Incredible Hulk and the speed of the Flash could even attempt them, let alone play ’em in close order drill like that. Cue me swearing like a dockside bawd.

C.  Crawling away now with my various inadequacies breaking trail.

Phew, Imagine is much easier, played slower, and still interesting musically.

If anybody’s wondering I’m working my way through MTV’s 100 best pop songs looking to challenge myself with new chord progressions and possibly ‘Songs I may attempt to learn at some point.’

Oh, thank the Zimmermans for Dylan, the worst chord for Tangled Up In Blue is F#m, which is a bar chord so simple even I can play it.

Mike’s 45th bday today at Garry Point Park.  Jeff and I plan to go for a couple of hours.

Jeff and I did the lawn yesterday which improved the appearance of the place markedly.  I had a horrible experience getting the gas for the lawnmower earlier this week but I’m not going to complain about it as I have calmed down somewhat.  Life is full of sad realizations.  Including the sad realization that whoever owns the place across the alley has now spent thousands of dollars on renovations to that house, only to once again rent it to what appears to be the same ilk of person who trashed the place the last time.  IE smokers with big dogs and a relaxed attitude toward garbage in the yard.

Can’t get hold of Katie, she keeps leaving her phone at home.

I should really get back to backing stuff up before my 5 year old hard drive quits.  Jeff has been quite diligent about reminding me and I’ve been a slug.

Jeff came up with a really interesting mapping idea this morning.  I will be messaging Coz Gerald to find out just how hard it would be to for cartographic newbies.

Google and Jeff’s cellular provider have finally fixed their handshaking problems regarding the calendar in Google.  This was a real issue as the push notifications to the phone were broken for like a month, and it’s hard to run a business when your appointments keep disappearing.  The two of us are considering getting new phones, but I’m kind of inclined to keep the Blackberry until the keyboard softsides up.

Dead Can Dance concert in August, so looking forward to it.

Okay, back to work….

 

Don’t you love cute pictures?

I know I do.  So, let us share!

Kitty shows babbies to friend Goggie.

Wombat!

Uncute anecdote break.  Watched Keith kill two NPC’s so they would respawn in the right place.  That was weird, kinda “We had to destroy it to save it” in the cognitive dissonance department.

Keith has already managed to get an interview, I think he has another job.

Katie’s camping.

Moar cyute!

Lady Gaga done Disney style.

Fast food restaurants weigh in on gay marriage.

Porcépic vs watermellum.

Cute man, hijjus bike AKA Clooners gotta cloon.

 

 

 

The little list

I made a list of things that make me happy about 5 years ago (probably before I blew out my back), and it’s really interesting to see how things changed.

Foreign films.  Still true.

Wreck Beach.  Still true; but I don’t go as much.

Roller skating.  I haven’t done that in ages, and given that my balance is not good, I think that’s done.  I still have ice skates but gosh, I’ve put on enough weight to make them a bad fit.

Writing songs.  Now folks, what do YOU think?  SVQ.  Still my favourite activity by far.  And so cheap! And so close! And so filled with inertnesting surprises!

Baking pies.  I don’t think I’ve made more than one pie since I started living with Jeff.  That, I hasten to add, is not his problem/fault/responsibility.  Mmmm, pie. Too hot to bake right now.

Going to a spa.  Oh, yeah.  In fact, I think I may book something soon.

Cooking a large meal for a houseful of friends.  Still true.

Throwing a party.  Still true.

Walking.  enh, not so much.  I have to get going on this and just make a walk part of my morning routine, rain or shine.

Watching bugs.  I can still do this for hours.  I prefer that they not be silverfish under my bed though.  I just cleaned under my bed, laid down some silverfish poison, and found twenty bucks.  Even my fucking room is expressing an opinion on the subject of how stytastic it is.

Listening to live music.  And you would guess….?

Home-making presents.  Still doing that.

Watching fireworks.  Well, the Vancouver crowds suck unholy mops, but yes.

Walking downtown on a Saturday night.  I love people watching.  Early in the evening, before the drunks get violent.

Getting a massage.  Sadly, I have to pay for these now.  I can winkle a few minutes out of the kids, but sigh.

Driving through terrain.  I love highway driving in BC.

Seeing unusual animals – pets, IRL, zoos, TV shows – I loves me weird critters.  Current favourite is velvet worms.

Travelling alone.  I hate it; I prefer to do it alone.  And sometimes being by myself at 30000 feet is okay; that’s the part of the trip that doesn’t freak me out.

Eating lobster.  Yes.  This.

Having sex.  Haw, haw, haw.  I’m celibate now – have been for a year – and I can cross this safely off my list of things to enjoy.  This aphorism deleted.  And nobody wants to hear details either way so, bully for me.

Going to the ballet.  Haven’t done that in ages.  The last opera was ruined by the perfume (Fuck Entitled White Women and their TRAIL OF TEAR GAS).  But I could definitely handle some dancing soon.

What wasn’t on the list – drinking beer. Surfing the internet or watching ER for 6 hours at a time.  Hugging my kids.  Hearing a friend’s voice on the phone.  Going to church.

Letter to the Globe and Mail published January 5 1991.

John Allemang’s recent comments on the subject notwithstanding, women who choose to breastfeed do so from the conviction that they are doing what is best for the child.  I was pregnant and/or nursing for almost five years, and I certainly got bored with it, but I never felt trapped, because it was something I chose to do, voluntarily, despite the witlessness and smug, value-laden commentaries of people like Mr. Allemang.

I never flashed my breasts in public because I failed to see how I could advance the cause of nursing by so doing.  Take a poll of real live women who nurse their children, and ask them how they feel, rather than telling us how you think they should feel.  We already know that a lot of men like looking at women’s breasts.  Please tell me something new – that we are perhaps now living in a world where a woman can discharge her responsibilities as a caring parent without getting flak for it.

His last comment about bottles bringing happiness into the world was egregious.  Tell that to a Third World mother who has lost child after child to formula mixed with contaminated water, or the mother whose child has become kendy or brain damaged due to lead-contaminated formula.

Letter to Globe and Mail published 24 November 1993

I offer my gratitude, my sense of indebtedness and my daughterly respect to all those men and women who and lived, or fought and died, so that I may enjoy freedom in Canada.  It is right and proper that those who benefit from something should acknowledge it.

However, I think that Michael Coren dishonours the dead of many wars when he says, “There have also been atrocities in war, but only a tabloid historian would argue that this was common.”

I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it is hard for me to do.  How is he defining ‘atrocity’? How is he defining ‘common’?

I think of the bombers raining death upon the children of Baghdad not so long ago, the slaughter of East Timor, the firebombing of Dresden, the siege of Leningrad, the Trail of Tears, the levelling of Coventry, the 40 million (estimated) dead of the Chinese revolution, Andersonville, the internment of the Japanese and Italians (among others), the horror of the Eastern Front, the piles of skulls in Cambodia, the napalm and chemicals of Vietnam, the children playing with severed heads in the streets of El Salvador, the starvation of the Ukraine, the open-eyed children lying in the makeshift morgues of the Balkans, the legless children in Angola, and the tons and tons of buried death chemicals all over the Wets, and enduring legacy of war that may yet rise from the ground like an unquiet ghost.

And I sorrow for these dead with at least the same intensity as I respect those who knew what high ideals they were dying for, whoever and whenever in time they may be.

Are these not atrocities? Are they not common, indeed, pervasive? Are not atrocity and war bosom companions, however we may honour those who fight on our behalf?

Two new songs

Let’s go Swimming (working title (December 2020 says this song is now called ‘Grateful’)) I haven’t written down yet mostly because I can’t figure out what key it is in AND it is not finished, and A Filker’s Life for me is written down but I’m still messing with the notion of verses.  I may leave it as is and ask people to write verses.

I sure hope the smayellllll of deathhhhhhh is gone from the kitchen.  Jeff hit the one by taking out the trash and I hit the two scrubbing out the trash can which was VILE.

Songwriting tip of the day.

 

You canna write if you dinna noodle!  Noodling is bonny!

 

Alternate song writing tip if you don’t like that one.

Say what you want to say in plain English.  Pull out the words that are easy to rhyme and stick them on the ends of the lines.  Backfill.

Welshidoc and the three quarks From Jaxamicus, a commenter on io9


Welshidocs and the Three Quarks:

There was once a family of quarks who lived in a cozy cottage in the farthest reaches of space. There was a great big Papa Quark, a medium size Momma Quark, and a little tiny baby quark.

One morning Mama Quark cooked them some unaccounted-for mass for breakfast. As the mystery-breakfast was both hotter and moving faster than predicted, the three quarks decided to take a walk in the darkness while it cooled.

They had not been gone long when a physicist from Cardiff named Welshidocs came along. He had been picking Bosons and had wandered into the depths of infinity. When he saw the three quarks’ cottage, he smiled and clapped his hands. “How elegant!” he cried. “I wonder who lives there?” He stood on his toes and peaked into the Computer Model. There didn’t seem to be anyone home, so Welshidocs opened the door and went right inside!

The first thing he saw was the table set with three bowls of unaccounted-for mass; a great big bowl for Papa Quark, a medium size bowl for Momma Quark, and a tiny little bowl for baby quark. “Oh, that Nobel Prize in Physics smells so good!” Welshidocs said. Then, as he was feeling a little hungry, he picked up a spoon and tasted the mystery-breakfast in the Great Big Bowl.

“OUCH!” he cried, dropping the spoon. “That mass is MUCH too arbitrarily assumed to be spherically symmetric!”

He tasted the doctrine in the medium size bowl. But that chaos was MUCH too cold.

Then he tasted the ideas in the tiny little bowl. “Mmmmmm,” he said. “This set of assumptions is JUST right!” so he ate it all up!

Having eaten his fill, Welshidocs moved into the living room and climbed into the Great Big Superstring Theory that belonged to Papa Quark. “Oh, no!” he said. “That theory is MUCH too hard.”

Then he clambered into Mamma Quark’s Classical Mechanics Theory “Oh, no,” he said. “That theory is MUCH too soft!”

Next, he dropped himself down in Baby Quark’s Dark Energy Theory. “Ahhhh,” he said with a smile. “This theory is JUST right!”

Just then there was a loud CRAAACK! and Baby Quark’s theory broke right through!

Welshidocs stood up and dusted himself off. Then he climbed upstairs to the bedroom. There he saw three Gravitational Waves all in a row. “Oh,” he said, yawning, “I am feeling sleepy.”

So he pulled down the covers and climbed into Papa Quark’s Great Big Gravitational Wave. But he quickly jumped down. “That wave is MUCH too hard!” he said.

Then he tried Mamma Quarks’s Reasonably Observably Sized Gravitational Wave. But it was far too soft.

So he climbed into Baby Quark’s Curiously Perfect Gravitational Wave. It was JUST right. Soon Welshidocs was lulled fast asleep!

A little while later the Three Quarks returned from their walk. They were feeling very hungry and were looking forward to eating the nice bowls of tasty unaccounted-for mass.

Suddenly Papa cried out in his Great Big voice, “Someone has been eating my spherically symmetric mass!”

Then Mamma cried out in her medium size voice, “Someone has been eating MY chaos theory!”

And Baby Quark cried out in his Tiny Little Voice, “Some has been eating my wild hokum. And they’ve eaten it ALL UP!”

Then the Three Quarks saw their theories near the fireplace.

“Someone has been sitting in my hypothesis!” Papa Quark said in his Great Big Voice.

“Someone has been sitting in MY hypothesis!” Mamma Quark said in her medium size voice.

“Someone has been sitting in MY hypothesis,” Baby Quark cried in his tiny little voice. “And now it’s BROKEN!”

Then the Three Quarks went upstairs to the bedroom.

“Someone has been sleeping in my Wave, which I can observe although the wave itself is inconceivably large!” Papa Quark shouted in his Great Big Voice.

“And someone has been sleeping in MY Wave of reasonably observable size that I have no evidence of existing!” Mamma Quark exclaimed in her Medium Size Voice.

“Someone has been sleeping in MY Fermi Paradoxical wave,” Baby Quark squeaked in his Tiny Little Voice. “AND HERE HE IS!”

Just then Welshidocs woke up! When he saw the three quarks standing around him, he leaped off the Wave and ran down the stairs and out the door.

He didn’t stop until he was wee, wee, wee, all the way home.

And the Three Quarks never saw Welshidocs again!

Dead loss

Yesterday was a dead loss due to a migraine – not much pain but violent visual disturbances including one quarter of my visual field disappearing before an onslaught of boiling, twisting, geometric-and-then-fractal rainbows held in a semicircle.

This morning laid out tarot…

VII Swords for querent, ow.

VII Pentacles for cross card, double ow.

Followed by The Sun (XIX), and Strength (VIII). ?!

Followed by King of Pentacles and The World (XXI).

Followed by

V Wands

X Wands (this and the next card emphasize the first two very nicely, just in case I wasn’t getting the message the first time)

V Cups

Knight of Pentacles

TL;DR:  Querent is lazy and intellectually dishonest and her troubles are much of her own making.  Some decks are tricksy and hard to interpret; my deck rolls over from a sound sleep, karate chops my liver, follows with a right cross to my face and goes back to bed.