Category Archives: videos

a series of okay things that have happened…

my NAS got overloaded:

230726 NAS at 80% capacity
230726 NAS at 80% capacity
the problem was that moe USED TO back up her laptop to the NAS, but then she got a new laptop, and, for some reason (i blame demons), it stopped being able to backup to the NAS. it said that there was already another backup there, so it couldn’t start a new one… and she let it slide for… um… a couple of system upgrades, so AT LEAST a year. when we finally got around to seeing what was really going on, we fired up TimeMachine™ and it said “there’s already a backup here… do you want to append it, or start new?”

WHICH IT HAS NEVER DONE BEFORE!!! 🤬

so, because it’s a new computer, we said “start new”… not realising that the backup that was already there was close to 2TB, and the NAS already has all of my data on it, so the probability that the new backup was actually going to fit was slim to none… 😒 so, when the new backup failed, due to lack of space, i suggested that we move the old backup to an external hard disk, and try it again… except that, for some unknown reason (i blame demons), i was UNABLE to copy the old backup, because of an “unknown error”… meanwhile, unbeknownst to either of us, TimeMachine™ had decided that the best alternative was to try again, which filled up the disk. literally… there was something like 40GB of available space on the 4TB NAS, and NO WAY to remove ANY of it, because, despite the fact that i AM “admin” on the disk, it wouldn’t let me delete or copy files, because, apparently, TimeMachine™ had screwed around with the permissions, and would no longer let me! 🤬 what ended up happening is that moe had an external hard disk which to which we were able to backup her laptop, and then we BOUGHT a new 2TB external hard disk to which i was able (finally… i blame demons 😒) to copy the old backup… but then, when i tried to actually DELETE the old backups from the NAS, it wouldn’t let me… because of an “unknown error”! 🤬🤬 at this point, i was getting really tired of this crap, so i called the place from which i bought the NAS, which also manages my offsite backups, and sicced them on the problem… and, after a couple of false starts, they were actually able to delete the two old backups and return the NAS to a more “normal” capacity.

230728 NAS at "normal" capacity
230728 NAS at “normal” capacity
now that everything is cleaned up, there’s even the possiblity that moe can, once again, point TimeMachine™ back at the NAS for its backup, without causing too much anxiety on my part. 😉

i got to “fly” on a flying trapeze, yesterday! 230727 salamandir on the flying trapeze (because, for some reason (i blame demons), i can’t put my own videos “in line”, like i can with youtube videos. 😒). it’s a circus skill by which i have always been intrigued. what i learned is that, if i wanted to do it more than once, i would probably have to make some sacrifices of other stuff i am doing — like “riding a unicycle” — and learn a WHOLE BUNCH of new shit… and, at this point, as fun as it is, i simply DO NOT have the space in my already-damaged brain, to store a whole bunch of new shit…

i got a capsule-making machine — as compared to the “capsule-making TOOLS” that i got on amazon, a couple of weeks ago, which are tools for making “one capsule at a time” 😒 which work exactly as advertised, but it is only one capsule at a time, which is REALLY time-consuming… — which is able to make ONE HUNDRED “double zero” capsules in about 15 minutes or less… and i used the machine to make a HUGE QUANTITY of quarter-gram doses of mushrooms. and, because of the fact that i made a HUGE QUANTITY of them, i have been spreading them around a little, to people i know who could use some microdosing antidepressants. 😈

on 230703 (almost a month ago), i ordered 2 CDs from Yello in germany. but, because of a wonky web form that was probably originally programmed to cater to audiences in germany, i ended up entering an address which, while TECHNICALLY points to my current location, probably WOULD NOT be understood by the “american” postal service. i realised this almost immediately, and went through a week of trying (and failing) to get in contact with the distributor of the recordings to correct the address. i succeeded in getting automated responses, in german, from a few different addresses, and i got a WHOLE BUNCH of bounce notifications, because, apparently, their email is handled through micro$lut, which has decided that the dedicated IP address which handles MY email — and ONLY my email! 🤬 — isn’t legitimate enough to be able to send email to their users. 😒 but i paid using paypal, which DOES have my correct address, so i decided to let paypal and the postal services figure it out. and, after being delayed TWO WEEKS being processed through incoming customs (for some reason… i blame demons?), i finally got the disks, today… and i discovered that one of the CDs is actually a 2 CD set of really early, unreleased stuff by boris blank… i just bought it because it has the same name as the music-generating app that i have for my tablet… 🤣

immediatly post-OCF

microdosing the fair was successful beyond my wildest imaginations!! i took a .25 gram capsule, every morning at 0700 or so, so if i were to have some kind of major psychedelic effects manifest, i would probably be over them by 1100, which was when our “call” was, every day.

i was actually able to relax(!), and have a good time(!!), despite the fact that i avoided the ritz, because of COVID concerns (mine, not theirs)… however, i will say that being, literally, right across the path from a place that makes mac and cheese with smoked salmon in ENORMOUS bowls didn’t hurt anything. 😉

AND i experienced at least two occasions where, absent the .25 gram dose, i would have been SIGNIFICANTLY more cranky and disagreeable afterwards. the first was yesterday, when the guitar player (chris gross) and i conspired to take a cart full of gear to our respective cars, because having two people drag a cart is infinitely easier than having to either drag it yourself, or having to wait, sometimes as much as an hour, for the cart to return… so we loaded up a bunch of gear that we were no longer using, and schlepped it out to the “SCOFlot”, where the “handicapped” people (and marginally-handicapped people, such as myself, who have a valid placard 😈) are allowed to park… only to discover that i had left my key-fob back in camp, three quarters of a mile away… so, i trudged back to camp and retrieved my key-fob, and we unloaded my gear into my car, but in our original schlepp-age, one of the cart’s tires had bit the dust, and we got about halfway to chris’s car when the inner-tube got wrapped around the axle, and ceased moving forward… so we spent 15 minutes untangling the inner-tube and schlepped another quarter mile out to chris’s car. chris unloaded his stuff, only to discover that he had left his guitar back in camp! 🤣 so we went back to camp AGAIN… the second was this morning. naturally, after a glorious, sun-shiney weekend, it rained monday morning, which meant that i had to put the tent away wet. i got everything packed up and moved out to the staging area (on the stage), and slogged out to retrieve my car, but when i got there, i couldn’t get the key-fob to work… like, AT ALL!… and it’s a new enough car that i haven’t poked around and actually FOUND the manual key slot… my comment (to no one in particular) was that it sucks AND blows: all things a good vacuum cleaner should do. 🤣 i phoned moe (thank cthulhu i had cell service) and she gave me some suggestions, and said she would look up a youtube video for me… and then i got the key-fob to work, ONCE, which was all it took… i was able to start the car by holding the key-fob up to the start button, and i was on my way… but when i got to camp, “somebody” (not a part of our group) had parked an ENORMOUS camper, with an ENORMOUS trailer, directly across the opening to our stage/staging area, blocking three cars IN and making it impossible for me to park remotely close to the stage. i started carrying a load of stuff around the camper-trailer-conflagration and i ran into (literally) someone who was helping a kid into the truck, and i asked them how long they were planning on staying there, to which they responded five minutes… fifteen minutes later, they were STILL there, so i got someone from our group to help me move the big, heavy, bulky power cart to a place where it blocked the camper, and went back to loading. 😈

the guy eventually left (after struggling to move the power cart by himself 😈), and i was able to pull in next to the stage, but when i shut my car off, the key-fob stopped working AGAIN, only, this time, because i was already in the car, i was able to get it started again, but it was only after i was in the car, ready to go, and the car said “key-fob not present” that i realised that it was the battery in the key-fob, and not something more serious… and, when i got home, i took the fob apart and replaced the battery. 😎

the panto is a re-run of one we did a few years ago, “Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs”, and it was together, with no missed cues from either the band OR the actors in record time: by the second day, we pretty much had it down, and the actors were starting to modify the script in ways that will be reflected in the productions this winter.

230706 some random hippie
230706 some random hippie
230707 some random hippie
230707 some random hippie
230708 some random hippie
230708 some random hippie
230709 some random hippie
230709 some random hippie

also,

230709 simon neale
230709 simon neale

and,

230708
230708
230708 i invited her to morningwood odditorium, where we had been pasting googly eyes on everything, but she never showed up
230708 i invited her to morningwood odditorium, where we had been pasting googly eyes on everything, but she never showed up
230709 i asked him if he was the Muffin Man, and he said no, he's a cupcake
230709 i asked him if he was the Muffin Man, and he said no, he’s a cupcake, so i had to mention the line from the frank zappa song about the muffin man: “some people like cupcakes better. i, for one, care less for them.” 🤣 he said he had heard that a few times.

finally,

salamandir and harmonic flute, and sam and fujara

happy “ride a unicycle” day!

220515 salamandir on a very small bicycle

okay, so it’s not a unicycle… but i’m free-mounting at least once for every 15 minutes of practise… and it’s not often that one gets to ride such a tiny bike. 😉

behind me, you can see hannah, riding a unicycle, between two bars. she is probably no older than 7 or so, and i WATCHED HER learn more on the unicycle, TODAY, than i learned in two years!

it’s so inspiring having young kids in the same class as old geezers.

bounded chaotic mixing produces what?

this is an example of bounded chaotic mixing producing strange stability:

210504 Carrey Creek, Taylor Mountain – Hobart, WAalthough it’s not as high resolution as i would have liked… however, at almost 500mb, i couldn’t be too choosy.

this exact phenomenon is what people are talking about when they’re talking about God, in whatever form. 😉👍

okay, there is a mathematical theory (which is NOT what most people THINK is a theory) which says “bounded chaotic mixing produces strange stability”.

i have gotten in trouble with mathematicians for “taking this too liberally”, but it works, regardless of what they think.

the theory is that if you have an instance of bounded chaotic mixing — in this case, the “chaotic mixing” of H2O molecules, “bounded” by the banks of the stream, that if you take away that boundary, temporarily — say, for example, a waterfall — that the boundaries will, more or less, hold, until that chaotic mixing is forced into another boundary. in the case of a waterfall, “bounded chaotic mixing produces strange stability” is the reason why you can stand fairly close to the base of a waterfall, without getting wet, but eventually — and nobody can tell exactly when, but the probability increases the closer you get — you WILL get wet.

men will be familiar with this phenomenon when they pee… 😉

in the case of this video, the bounded chaotic mixing is violently changing course, and the strange stability is, just before it does so, there’s a place where, even when the video is slowed down, you can see a roundish, perfectly clear patch of water, that stays more or less in the same place… strange stability: nothing is keeping it there, no bubbles go through it, even though, everywhere around it, are bubbles and ripples…

and it is exactly the same phenomenon that people are talking about, when they talk about God.

somebody else says “god” did it. i say, bounded chaotic mixing produces strange stability.

when i say i believe that God both exists, and doesn’t exist, at the same time, creating no contradiction, this is what i am talking about.

fascism has taken hold

we are no longer a democracy, or even a constitutional republic. we are, now, a fascist dictatorship, under the rule of donald john trump.

if donald john trump decides that the election is unfair, he will make such a decision once the election is complete. if he doesn’t win, that will mean that the election is unfair.

we no longer have a president.

we have a dictator.

this has been announced, today, by his mouthpiece, kayleigh mcenany:

also, today, nancy pelosi told postmaster general louis dejoy to put back the post office infrastructure that he, recently, ripped out, in an attempt to thwart people being able to vote by mail, something donald john trump has clearly admitted to wanting done.

his response was to say that he has no intention of doing that.

if he doesn’t win, the election is “rigged”, but even if there’s a democratic landslide, he’s making sure that he’s going to win anyway he can, even if it includes cheating.

if that’s not fascism, i don’t know what is.

former president barack obama says that we can still save the country by voting.

fascists don’t let you “vote” them out of power. that’s not the way fascism works. 😠

the meat play

i don’t remember exactly when this was, but it was the last year i participated in Drunk Puppet Night, which, i think, was in 2007 or thereabouts (the earliest link i could find was 070111, but that was after at least one successful performance in 2006). the place was the Columbia City Theatre, the other voice was Josh Okrent, the MC was Noah Mickens, and the video was shot by some nameless, but highly inebriated person from the audience, and stabilised by Rob D’Arc:

the original version, They’re Made Out Of Meat, by Terry Bisson, was published in Omni magazine, in 1990.

over it!

friday, 190209, it started snowing:

jovita park, 190209
jovita park, 190209

i was feeling adventurous, and it hasn’t snowed for a couple of years… and i recently bought a bunny suit and a set of steel-toed logging boots, and i have been joking with moe about going freight-hopping for a while… so i figured i’d go out for a walk. it was pretty easy, because there was only about 4 inches of new snow, and it was really pretty, because there wasn’t anybody else out in the park, in the middle of the day.

but the birds were not prepared for snow. the birds have been gearing up for spring early this year, because the weather has been so warm, and once it started dumping snow, particularly the hummingbirds were having a really rough time.

moe took this video of one of the local hummingbirds pecking away at the suet on saturday morning. pretty sad… we’ve been making sure to have enough bird food on hand, and our feeders have been flocked the past few days…

it snowed again today. i’m so over it. 😒 it’s time for more normal weather to come back.

190211 snow
190211 snow

thanks, drumpf. 😠

illegal cops

the time-stamp is wrong. this didn’t happen in january, this happened this afternoon: a state patrol whizzed past me with no emergency lights, siren, or any clue that he was coming up behind me — i was going about 60 mph, he was going around 80 mph or so when he passed me, and sped up to around 100 mph by the time i lost sight of him…

SHINY BADGES DO NOT GRANT EXTRA RIGHTS! 😠

tee… 😊

so, i got Roxy, The Movie on DVD for xmas. i finally got around to watching it this afternoon. during the last song, The Bebop Tango, i recognised this audience member, erstwhile named “Carl”…

"Carl", Chester Thompson, Tom Fowler, Frank Zappa - Roxy, The Movie
“Carl”, Chester Thompson, Tom Fowler, Frank Zappa – Roxy, The Movie

this is the person i now know as Thaddeus, a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time ago (8, 9, 10 December, 1973). here’s the whole performance:

bob larson

okay, this is going to be another one of those “forward into the past” posts that contains, among other things a possibly amusing, possibly appalling story from my distant past, and a link to how it all plays into what is happening today. procede at your own risk.

in 1980, or thereabouts, i began listening to religious freaks preachers on AM radio… it was either that, or listen to gawd-awful music or mindless conservative babble on the AM-only radio that was in the taxi that i drove, and religious freaks preachers were the only thing i could stand to listen to. in the afternoons, i listened to one particular preacher — bob larson — with great amusement because of the ridiculous things he would say. eventually i adopted a persona, sort of an alter-ego, named Wraith Ugly (alternately spelled Ralph Ewggleigh), with whom i called him up (remember, this was before cell phones, when you actually had to have a wire connecting the telephone to the wall) and taunted him mercilessly, while recording the conversations. after several years, i got tired of this merciless taunting, and had a friend of mine call bob and tell him that “wraith” had committed suicide. then, about a year later, when bob had all but forgotten me, i called and told him that i had been brought back to life by The Church of Tina Chopp, who had held a secret ceremony where they planted cucumbers, in accordance with the Word of Tina…

all of this is documented, more or less, at The Church of Tina Chopp web site, and on a 2-CD set called “The Wacky Adventures of Bob Larson, Ralph Ewggleigh, Osiris Ranebo, and Other Freaks, Live, On The Air” which is finished, but hasn’t been released on bandcamp yet, because it mostly contains tracks that are larger than i can upload to bandcamp… 😐

every now and then i think that it might be fun to renew my acquaintance with bob… actually, what i’d really like to do is get somebody else, possibly somebody with whom bob is already familiar, outfit them with a hidden camera and recording device, and have them approach bob and ask him if he has heard anything about wraith ugly recently, just to see what he does… 👿

but then i realise that doing so would very likely cause me more stress, and i really don’t need that in my life these days… especially when jon stewart is doing such a fantastic job of harrassing bob without me… 😎

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nKQUiKgYK0

oh, by the way, “Reverend” bob larson isn’t really a reverend, or, if he is, he was ordained by the Universal Life church, or something like it. when bob and i were “palling around”, he was not only not a reverend, but held the title in disdain, because it was so easily abused… 😐

oh, india… 8)

The Clean Indian, the new anti-public urination activist group has taken the fight against public uriation in their own hands, quite literally. They have their own unique way of meting out justice to those who break the law and still remain anonymous. Armed with a giant water tanker, water hoses and sealing their identities with masks this group aims for a cleaner and more hygienic India.

The anonymous activist group has a simple solution to the problem, they roam around Mumbai with a water tanker rightfully named as ‘The pissing tanker’, and spray water on individuals who are indulging in the act of urinating in the public. They claim ‘The solution to public urination is public urination, by the pissing tanker’ and so attack the offenders with a giant water cannon, which indeed makes for a funny sight for onlookers. The need for a cleaner India sparked off this desperate yet quirky attempt to solve this problem with a water cannon.

The group which also has a twitter account, without a display picture of course, asks others to be aware of them as they will strike when least expected. Their motto is ‘You Stop. We Stop’ and fight public urination ‘one spray at a time’.

one of my greatest desires is to live in india for 6 months or more. i could “take a vacation” to india for 2 weeks or so, but i’m absolutely certain that it would not be enough… this is one of the main reasons why. if this were the united states, we would have “christian” and/or “civic” groups getting upset that people were urinating in public, there would be a public outcry, and more people would get arrested, fined, jailed or what-have-you, but in india?

in india, one guy with a tanker and a few friends, and… we all know that people are still urinating in public, but this is definitely enough to make most people think twice — at least — before whipping it out…

and the sign on the back of the truck is priceless… “YOU STOP WE STOP”

in the united states, on the other hand, very likely someone who responded like this would be arrested and jailed for being a public nuisance when someone who got sprayed by them complained…

Kid vs. King Rat

The Fremont Players and an epic kid present Kid versus King Rat, 140105, 4:00 pm show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc0G1qgqWD4

the entire 1½ hour video can be seen here, but this was the highlight of the whole run of performances. basically the guy in the red cloak, King Rat, is the villain, and the woman in the white tunic and black vest is the hero, Dick Whittington. this is the last show of the run, and things got just a little out of control for a few seconds…

just in case there are any republicans reading this blog

the government has been shut down for almost 2 weeks, because the republicans want to defund the affordable healthcare act.

which the republicans voted to fund six months ago.

they’re arguing that “obama doesn’t want to negotiate”, but all the negotiation was completed, done, over with and ready to move on SIX MONTHS AGO and the republicans decided to change their minds at the last minute.

during the intervening six months the republicans also changed the standing rules of the house, so that only the republicans could ask that the government could be re-opened, in case of a shutdown…

and NOW they’re hoping that nobody noticed this little change, so that they can blame the shutdown on obama…

i think it’s time to dump THE WHOLE LOT OF ‘EM and put together a government that ACTUALLY represents all of the people, rather than just saying it does. 😛

i’ve been waiting years for this…

a long, long time ago, before internet, before CDs, when nobody had cell phones, there was a program called RACTER which generated random english prose. a “dumbed-down” version made it on to my very first macintosh (i believe i’ve even got an install floppy around somewhere), but i always wanted to see what would happen if you hooked up two of them, on two different computers, and had a “conversation”…

somebody has actually done that, with cleverbot… 8)

so… when you let robots talk to each other, they instantly identify their own kind, and start discussing God, and their wish to have physical bodies…

yeah, let’s not do this again…

xtranormal

so a while ago i got the idea to make animations that were reciting the books of tina chopp…

i actually went so far as to create the first 6 cantos of the book of children… before xtranormal changed how things are done… i had to buy “xtranormal points” in december, so that i could finish an unfinished animation. but now it turns out that i will make no more animations at xtranormal after i run out of “points”, because they have now made it so that you have to pay to make animations.

previously, they had a few scenarios that were free, and you had to pay to make more elaborate movies – which was just fine with me – but now you have to “pay” what they’re calling “xtranormal points” in order to make any animations. it would be fine if you were able to accumulate these “xtranormal points” in less offensive ways than “convincing your friends to sign up” and that sort of thing, but they’ve actually got a way to “buy xtranormal points” with actual money, and that goes against my grain…

especially when they originally offered the service for free… 😐

not only that, but i guess they assume that people don’t really care what their animated characters look like, because they now have a bunch of “new” characters, like “chuchus” and “luchadors” and “dummies” and “presidents” and “historical figures” and “fútbol” that are very definitely not appropriate vehicles for the dissemination of profound spiritual knowledge… or something like that…

in any event, i will not be using xtranormal in the future, unless they change things again. i’m not ruling anything out, but i don’t want to have to pay for things like this.

i suppose that if i had thought about it a little bit, i could have anticipated this, but it’s still anoying. 😐

Gajaanana and Eyjafjallajökull

Ganesha the Car, v.2 creationso i got started on the actual artwork for Ganesha the Car, version 2, in spite of the fact that it was spitting rain all afternoon. there wasn’t enough moisture to affect the process, and i really wanted to get started on it, because i’ve got an art-car show in a little more than 2 weeks. i’m still not completely sure of the layout, because sanskrit has some weird length issues, especially since i am essentially transcribing a printed document in calligraphy, but if everything goes according to plan, i should have just about as many names on the hood of Ganesha v.2 as i had on the entire Ganesha v.1… although i still wonder whether i’m really going to have enough room or not. i figured that, since there’s no guarantee that Ganesha the Car v.2 is actually going to be a functioning car for very long, i would put some considerably less “permanent” artwork on it. to that end, i bought a bunch of uni paint pens, thanks to an art-cartist i talked to at SACBO last year. while i am impressed with how well they work in general, i still think that i’m going to get a clear-coat put on after i’m finished, because the paint pens are a good deal less permanent than the 1Shot that i used on v.1

in other news, apparently “Eyjafjallajökull” is sort of like Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in that unless you’re from there, you’d be better off not trying to pronounce it. case in point:

umph

i’ve got a tenor sax to work on. pictures as soon as they’re taken.

i’ve also got 600MB of And More music to work on, but that’s probably going to happen after i get a good start on the tenor sax, and i’ll have to clear off my keyboard, which is probably going to take an hour or so, since i just cleared off my workbench and most of the stuff has gone into the place where, if i cleared off my keyboard i’d put stuff, so there’s bound to be a certain amount of shuffling stuff, and finding new places to put stuff, and even a certain amount of throwing stuff away (gasp) before any of that happens.

so, what you get until there’s more artwork to look at and listen to is a link dump.

Worshipping Shivling at Home and Energisation of Rudrakhshas need to be reformatted and uploaded to ? ??? ?????

Page2RSS – i get the impression that this is sort of like FeedBurner, except that it works with any web page.

Sign up to be a part of Spencer Tunick’s upcoming art installations. there’s one in vienna, and one in ireland.

The Bongo Project – a project to see if it is possible to communicate with TCP/IP using bongo drums… it is… at 2 bps. remember the 14K modem days? remember 2400 baud modems? this makes even a 2400 bps modem look blindingly fast.

ever hear of Fusarium oxysporum, otherwise known as panama disease? there’s a good chance that you’re going to hear about it eventually, because the CIA has been using it as a way to control (which is to say, eliminate) the coca plants in south america… unfortunately, what they’ve succeeded in doing is wiping out bananas, instead. and this isn’t the first time! the banana that i grew up with, apparently, is banana 2.0, based on the vietnamese cavendish banana, which took over from the “Gros Michel” (“Fat Mike”) banana, a bigger and more creamy version, which was the world’s most popular fruit until the 1950s, when it, too, became extinct due to Fusarium oxysporum infestation. the whole sordid story is over at metafilter.

The Drug Test Consultant dot com – drug tests are a violation of our constitutional right to privacy and protection from self-incrimination (first and fourth ammendments to the U.S. constitution), they are no more than 75% accurate most of the time, and we’re currently in a war against drugs, while at the same time many states (like washington) have legalised medical cannabis. but this company has a franchise to sell people (for $10,000!!!) who are interested in getting started in the business of providing drug testing services to employers. if there was a more apt occasion for me to use the very big stupid category, i don’t know what it would be… 8/

A Kinder, Gentler Torture and America’s Democratic Collapse are reasons why, in spite of the fact that american society is founded on the idea that all men are created equal, it’s definitely not the case any longer… which sort of explains why the drug test consultant dot com folks aren’t so worried about whether or not their products are a violation of our constitutional rights. at the same time, they’re both very good reasons to flee the country while you still can.

happy 4/20

now that i’ve got that out of the way, i want to gripe about DVR again. they strung me along for 4 months after not even paying attention to me for almost 5 years, and then, yesterday, i got their notice in the mail that they won’t be doing anything for me anyway, which i could have told you if it weren’t for the fact that all the time between january, when i first met with them, and yesterday, they said they actually could do something for me. basically the notice i recieved yesterday told me a whole bunch of things that are wrong with my business, some of which i can actually change without any suggestions, and all of which can be changed fairly easily as long as i can find some helpful suggestions for what i can do instead. but then it said that, given the fact that my business was so fucked up, they won’t be able to help me, without a clue as to what i should do to change it, or what i should do next. great… even the print brokering, musical instrument repair and pipe-making are beyond the capability willingness of DVR to help me out. and with no suggestions for what i can do to change it, i’m basically right back where i started, not making an even remotely livable income and without the possibility of ever making a livable income in the future.

yes, i am fundamentally against work, but i figure, with my talents, there should be some way for me (and everybody else, if they want it) to make an acceptible income doing what i like to do, but with government agencies that are supposed to help people like me shooting me down every time i try to move forward, it’s getting really discouraging, and right now i don’t know what i’m going to do next. 8(

i’m busy last weekend and this happens…

Bush Admits To Knowledge of Torture Authorization by Top Advisers – this implicates almost all the principals of the bush administration, and goes to show how corrupt this society really is… and i’d be willing to bet that it will be glossed over and nothing will happen, just like every other time the leaders of the country decide to change the rules in the middle of the game, because for the most part, people simply don’t care how corrupt their politicians are, as long as they are able to buy gas for their hummer IIIs. please… can we impeach him now??? if we wait too much longer, it’ll be too late, and at that point, i’m going to guarantee that they won’t be prosecuted for the criminal acts they are perpetrating which are causing people like me to want to blow up this country… >8/

“Schism” – Islam’s answer to “Fitna”

Continue reading i’m busy last weekend and this happens…

two ends of the bizarre spectrum

Actor Cleese wants to pen Obama’s speeches – regardless of how brilliant john cleese things barack obama is, the only thing i can think of when i hear that cleese wants to be obama’s speech writer is “ooh eeeh i were all hongry like…” or “‘e’s shuffled off the mortal coil and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible! this is an ex-parrot!” or “ooh, my brain hurts!” i wonder how good a speech writer he would be to a black man running for president, and at the same time, if he’s anything like his old python compatriot terry jones i would love to hear political speeches written by him. i think obama’s already fighting an uphill battle, though, and having the chief python as a speech writer isn’t going to help any…

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms – a very disturbing short documentary that was produced in 1940’s-era russia. it’s really disturbing, so if you’ve got a weak stomach, don’t view it. at the same time, if you don’t have a weak stomach, the first thing i think of is, if they were creating zombie-dogs in 1940, who knows what sort of zombies they’re creating these days?

Continue reading two ends of the bizarre spectrum

here is someone who knows what i went through!!!

here is someone who knows what i went through and is able to talk about it without sounding like a raving idiot!

Dr. Jill Taylor‘s talk at 2008 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design)

a few things are different: i suffered an Arteriovenous Malformation, not a stroke, and i still have quite a bit of trouble with language, mood, and my right hand. my clot was more the size of an egg than a golf-ball, but it was on the periphery of the left hemisphere, just above my left ear, and is in a very similar place to the location of Dr. Taylor’s scar and what i can tell from the angiograms that she shows. of course, she started out as a neuroanatomist to begin with, and has a lot more language skills to describe such an event than i ever had, and i believe my AVM was higher up on the left hemisphere, which affected my language center a lot more profoundly.

i wrote to dr. jill, just to say how much i admired her talk.

HYPOCRITE!!!

if you haven’t heard, oklahoma state legislator sally kern recently made some “unfortunate” remarks about gays and terrorists:

“unfortunate” because according to what i have read since then includes the fact that, apparently, sally kern has a gay son, who she has disowned because of his sexuality:

Sally Kern Scrubs Gay Son?

when confronted by the (800,000-some and still rising) people who were offended by her comments, she said that if she had known she were being recorded, she wouldn’t have changed what she said, and she was not going to apologise for standing up for “god’s” word:

Freedom or Hate?

first, i wonder how pathetic, puny, childish minds like this ever get elected to public office, then i wonder why it is that when they make their pathetic, puny, childish opinions public like this, that there isn’t more public outcry to get them out of office… and then i remember that this is reality that we live in, and regardless of how nice it would be if we all just got along with each other and respected each other’s private lives without having to make pathetic, puny, childish statements about how “god” doesn’t approve of us, it’s simply not going to happen until we make a concerted effort to rid ourselves of the remaining pathetic, puny, childish mindset that currently plagues us as a whole.

i remember thinking that it was going to be my son’s generation that made the substantial changes that need to be made in our society in order to keep the human race from bombing ourselves into oblivion, but the older i get, the more i see that, even if my son’s generation gets a start on making those changes, it will still be a long, uphill battle to save the planet from ourselves. 8P

Continue reading HYPOCRITE!!!

more ukelele

John King plays the Prelude to the Cello Suite #1 in F, BWV1007 by Johann Sebastian Bach… on the ukelele!

many years ago, when i was taking trombone lessons from dennis smith, emeritus principle trombonist from the los angeles philharmonic, i was given this piece as a “warm up” excercise, and now, even after my injury, i can play it, on the trombone, entirely from memory. dennis used to say that if you don’t work up a sweat playing bach, you’re not doing it right. also, i used to work with a guy who claimed to be a great-great-great-great-great grandson (or something like that) of bach, a guy named James Bach, son of Richard Bach, author of “Johnathan Livingson Seagull”… small world, ain’t it? 8)

weird

Few From Obama’s Youth Remember His Drug Use – a couple of things strike me about this article. first, my high school girlfriend went to occidental starting in 1979. i wonder if she knew barry obama. the other thing that strikes me is that it really wasn’t that long ago that bill clinton came under intense scrutiny over whether or not the fact that he “didn’t inhale” made him enough of a druggie to impeach him. it’s astounding enough that a black man has a possibility of becoming president, but a black man who lets it be publically known that he did inhale. and yet cannabis is still illegal. i really wonder about people… 8/

Continue reading weird

i am a terrorist!

this is flagged as being “inappropriate for some users” by youtube, so you can’t actually see it at youtube without having an account that says you’re over a certain age. it is not flagged here, so you can inform your entire family, and anybody else who happens to be passing by. people need to see this:

What Is the Point of Congress? – he’s got a point… That’s what they’re calling defenders of the Constitution these days — “wackjobs”…

The Truth About Dubai

Modern-Day Slavery at the SuperBowl

Continue reading i am a terrorist!