https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia_c6EyiSsA
Monthly Archives: January 2014
dead people
Pete Seeger — i met pete seeger when i was 3 years old (in other words, i don’t remember him at all), and my friend rob went to visit him when i was 20 or so… it was about time that he died, but it still sucks. 😮
frank
i went into the pantry looking for lunch, and came across this…
i guess i forgot to shut the dryer when i unloaded it… it’s a good thing i checked…
케첩
also, i am “in the cloud” now…
recently i bought a 2TB hard disk with NAS (from frys, for under $100!), which allows me to connect, literally, from anywhere. now i’ve got a place to keep my /home directory that’s accessible by ALL my computers and electronic devices but, conveniently, NOT accessible by anybody else (unless i, personally, make an account for that person), and, most significantly, is NOT owned by apple, microsoft, google, yahoo, dropbox, or any other corporate interests.
now, along with all the other stuff i have to do, i have to move my /home directory from both my linux box and my mac over to the cloud drive, and compact them, because a lot of the information from my /home directory is duplicated on both machines…
<sigh>…
it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that i was terrifically impressed by the 4TB array i was working with, which had the capability to handle millions of individual email messages to thousands of different users… and it doesn’t seem like it was too much longer ago than that, when i was totally impressed with an 80MB external hard disk, which i likened to an “electronic black hole, into which i could toss files forever and never be able to fill”…
the 2TB drive sits on my bookshelf, with two other terabyte drives, one 2TB and one 1TB, surmounted by my router, which is about the same size as one of the drives…
catsup
i’m still more or less stuck on the new web site, but i’m not really worried about it, because i continue to get orders from the current one… yes, i’m not always getting all the emails i should be getting regarding customer orders, but i continue getting the most important ones. also i still haven’t discovered an alternative for paypal, but both of those things may be mitigated by the fact that i may be hiring a professional to “do it for me” at some point. at this point, such a thing would only happen after a disaster, such as somebody cracking the site in a way from which i can’t recover on my own, or something like the current version of PHP or the database no longer being supported, or something like that. it remains a fantasy, but part of the current fantasy for the near future.
today i helped ezra move a four-foot-by-four-foot “painting” from his apartment in the central district to a recording studio in fremont. it barely fit in my car. the word “painting” is in quotation marks because the object looks like, and functions like a painting, but is, actually, made from scraps of vinyl. we also spent some time wandering up and down the burke-gilman trail discussing recent events, future plans, fantasies and miscellania. he’s going to lisbon for a couple of weeks, and then he’s doing a residency in central oregon for a month… my son is thinking of moving out of state, and perhaps even out of the country, on a more-or-less permanent basis.
i’ve gone through one “artist” who said that they would make a vector representation of my raster-based file. i don’t know whether or not they actually made a vector represntation of my file, because they responded with a “proof copy” and then stopped responding… which, i suppose, i should have expected, considering that i found out about them on “fiverr dot com”, which is, allegedly, a place you can go to find just about anything for increments of $5. i’ve sent a preliminary file to a “professional” in florida, who claims to do the same thing, although more “reliably” and, predictably, for more money, but they, too, said they would get back to me in 24 hours, and that hasn’t happened yet. fortunately, i haven’t actually forked over any money, yet, but this person’s web site had many, glowing testamonials from seemingly responsible, professional businesses and suchlike, so i’m hoping that the only reason i haven’t heard from her yet is because it’s sunday.
once i actually receive a vector drawing based on my raster drawing, i’m going to give it to the local guy who does vehicle wraps, and get a proof from him, and then, if i like it, i’m going to get a vehicle wrap on my car. i may, actually, be able to fit all 1008 names of ganesha on my car, due to the fact that i can, more acturately, render the typeface size because it’s from an electronic file, and not painted by me… 😎
FOR SALE — OFFICE “GARAGE” SALE
the following items are for sale at a storage unit in bellevue. if they aren’t sold before 01-27-2014, they will go to the dump.
NO REASONABLE OFFER REFUSED! no kidding… 🙂
reply by email or telephone, and i will tell you where and when to meet me to pick up the items.
—–
1 DESK – two level. bottom level 38″x30″, top level 35″x12″. floor to surface of bottom level 29″. metal and wood veneer, very sturdy. $35 OBO
1 DESK – with wheels, 41″x19″, floor to desk surface 26.75″. wood veneer over pressboard, has a box that was used for shelves and a drawer. the hardware is still there. $20 OBO
1 FILING CABINET – 36″ wide by 43″ high by 19″ deep with three shelves and doors. heavy metal. $40 OBO
2 CORNER UNITS – for corner desks. units are very heavy and sturdy, and designed to fit on top of a corner desk. each one makes a plain flat desk into a space for a computer monitor or suchlike, with disk storage on the sides, plus 3 shelves. $25 each OBO
5 KEYBOARD TRAYS – bolt-under-the-desk variety keyboard trays with separate mouse pads. $10 a piece, $30 for the lot, OBO
14 CUBE WALLS – three 30.5″x63″, two 24″x51″, five 42″x51″, two 42″x39″ one 30″x39″, one 48″x63″ with electrical connections. start your own cube farm! $100 takes ’em all, OBO
COUNTER TOP!! – three pieces of 1.5″ grey heavy vinyl counter top: one 24″x48″; one 24″x64″ with a 6.5″x10.5″ piece cut out of one corner and a 2.5″ diameter circle in the side with the piece cut out of it; one 24″x72″ with a 2.5″ circle towards the middle of one of the long side. $50 for all, OBO
2 COAT RACKS – one slightly wobbly. $10 for both, OBO
1 HIGH INTENSITY LAMP – folding “elbow” style lamp with high intensity bulb and NON-STANDARD PLUG. $5 OBO
and, finally…
1 FAKE TREE – 6 feet high, no water necessary, guaranteed green no matter what (it was in our storage unit for 10 years and never wilted). $5 OBO
SNRK!! 8)
Sun comes out, Putin furious — snork… er… um… 👿 okay, in the interest of full disclosure, this is a poe.
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…
titles
The Church of The Pleistocene
We hope you enjoy your vomit.
Dentistry Ministry
Digital Wellness Club
Ice Cream Turd
Pacificcianado
Help Wanted: Chick Magnets
Traffic Laws Not Enforced
It’s fun to lose money!
so…
it’s been a week, and the inside of my car is looking a bit more like an art car, but the outside is still just plain black. it is NOT going to get a “vehicle wrap” unless i can find a professional that is willing to do it for $1000 or less (the quote that i got yesterday was for $2,500), but if not there are other, less expensive options that have presented themselves… but it may also mean that i’m going to do some of the work myself, with actual paint much to the chagrin of moe… and i sort of see her point. this is a much newer car than i have ever had before, and there’s no telling what will happen to it five, or ten years from now.
i’m currently trying to figure out how to colour the black-and-white sticker model that i made for the hybrid elephant logo a few years ago, because if i can figure out how to do it, i may have that put on the hood of my car… 😉
moe and i moved two enormous piles of wood, today, from where they were more-or-less randomly piled after having been cut up (some as long as two or three years ago) to a place where, when summer comes and the hornets make nests in it, won’t be so close to a gate that people have to go through all the time.
now i’m tired.
tomorrow we’re recording the songs from the panto, and i’ve got a xmas party to go to for moe’s work in the evening.
woahy…
so i bought a “new” car yesterday… 😮
i’m still kind of dazed and confused… i didn’t expect to have to buy a new car for… oh, i don’t know, a year or so… it’s not as though buying a new car was completely unexpected, and it’s not as if i couldn’t afford it (thanks to my grandmother, who has been dead since 1988), but…
okay, my old car died — they thought it was the fuel pump, but that was two days ago, and they were supposed to call me with an update, but didn’t — and in the mean time, moe and i went down to salem, oregon, where monique is friends with the people who own Withnell Motors, and, thanks to my grandmother, i bought a “new” 2009 Hyundai Elantra Touring, which qualifies as the newest car i have EVER owned (with the exception of two literally brand-new cars that i bought with moe, which were “our” cars)…
i have four panto performances coming up in a few hours, so i’m not even going to be able to BEGIN processing all this until monday…
another very big stupid
U.S. Customs Won’t Apologize for Destroying Musician’s Rare Flutes
by John Hudson
January 2, 2014
U.S. customs officials last week destroyed 11 rare flutes by a respected Canadian musician who was returning home via New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. But the agency isn’t apologizing for the incident — it says the flutes were an ecological threat.
Officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection identified the instruments owned by flute virtuoso Boujemaa Razgui as agricultural products that risked introducing “exotic plant pathogens” in to the United States, a customs official tells Foreign Policy. As a result, officials destroyed every single flute without contacting Razgui in an incident that makes your holiday airport delays trivial by comparison.
Razgui said there are around 15 people in the U.S. with such flutes, which means acquiring one ahead of his upcoming performances in February may be impossible. “I’m not sure what to do,” Razgui told The Boston Globe.
“They said this is an agriculture item,” Razgui continued. “I fly with them in and out all the time and this is the first time there has been a problem. This is my life … This is horrible.”
Razgui’s mishap was first reported by the music blog Slipped Disc on Tuesday before jumping to the front page of the massive link-sharing site Reddit, which nearly melted the small blog‘s servers according to a follow-up post.
Though neither the blog nor The Globe received a response from U.S. Customs on the issue, a New York-based CBP official tells us the agency followed standard protocol.
“CBP is responsible for detecting and preventing the entry into the country of plant pests and exotic foreign animal diseases that could harm America’s agricultural resources,” said an official, after being asked if the agency would issue an apology. “The fresh bamboo canes were seized and destroyed in accordance with established protocols to prevent the introduction of plant pathogens into the United States.”
Razgui, who has worked with numerous U.S. ensembles and performs regularly with the Boston Camerata, said he hand-crafted each instrument with difficult-to-find reeds. “Nobody talked to me. They said I have to write a letter to the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.,” he told The Globe.
The CBP official said Razgui’s luggage was unclaimed and added that “fresh bamboo is prohibited from entering the United States to prevent the introduction of exotic plant pathogens.”
as i suspected…
it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better… 😛
my car died. it seems to be the fuel pump, but i don’t know yet. i’ll probably know some time tomorrow, but it has been decided that i’m going to drop everything else that i had planned for tomorrow, and accompany moe to salem, where she knows a person who owns a car dealership, so instead of fixing the current car, depending on how much it costs (not counting my artwork, which at this point is worth nothing) we may be buying a “new” car.
while it’s not entirely unexpected, and i certinly wouldn’t be disappointed to have a more reliable car, it’s a bit sudden… and i was planning on going… out… tomorrow… 😛
downward spiral
i’m getting depressed, and, from all i can tell, things will continue to happen over the short term that will succeed in making me more depressed. among them are:
i’ve reached a point where i, literally, don’t know what to do next on the hybrid elephant site. i’ve got it as ready as it needs to be, design-wise, but i haven’t started feeding the database yet, because things keep coming up which are more important… but there are a few things to which i don’t even know where to start looking for the answer, and they all have to do with paypal… and/or something to replace paypal… 😐 i’ve got a “local” replacement for paypal all set up and ready to go to the FSM, but i haven’t even been to the FSM as a vendor for a few years, and while i know the owners, john and candace, pretty well, they still won’t let me come back without a city of seattle business license, which i let expire because i wasn’t doing enough business in the city of seattle to make it worth my while… but the “local” replacement doesn’t (as far as i know) work on my web site, and i really should find a more “legitimate” alternative to paypal for those people (like me) who mistrust paypal…
along the same lines, the new (temporary) theme for this blog is doing some decidedly strange things that i’m not sure i like, and when i go to the place where i expected to be able to adjust things, all i get is pages and pages of incomprehensible code. it would be really nice if i could use the barthelme theme that i had before, but unfortunately it is no longer being updated, which means that i’m going to have to find another, suitable theme, and/or learn some new, incomprehensible and useless code in order to be able to fix things… and i really DON’T want to learn more incomprehensible computer stuff these days, because my brain is already having trouble retaining the incomprehensible computer stuff that i already know — most of which is out of date anyway.
also, we’ve only got one more weekend of panto shows – four total – and then we’re done with panto until the summer, and we aren’t even going to find out about potential moisture festival gigs for two or three months, which means that i’m going to have very little to do for the forseeable future.
moe has been sick for the past couple of days: yes, she was sick on new year’s eve. 😛 so, despite the fact that we were invited to 3 different parties, we stayed at home, had pizza for dinner, and went to bed early. in spite of the fact that moe has been sick, we took our annual “take the dogs to the beach on new year’s day” walk, and all the time i was there i was thinking that, a year ago, magick was alive, and three years ago, paddy was alive… we didn’t walk very far this year, because moe was sick… and i had to get up at 7:30 in the morning so that i could go on a depressing walk with my sick wife and a bunch of people i only see once a year… 😐
it wasn’t an complete loss, though, because i found what appear to be two HUGE snail shells… both about the size of my fist. i didn’t know snails grew to be that big around here…
it would be nice if something would happen to change this downward spiral, especially since i have conscious awareness of its presence… but at this point it doesn’t appear likely. 😐