tomorrow, moe is going to florida for her yearly dose of COVID of accolades from the national veterinary board, or something like that… she’s been invited back (i think) six years in a row, when the “NORMAL” practice is to only be invited back two years before having to “take a break”… which means, either, that my wife is, literally, outstanding in her field, or that the “system” is broken… but it also means that i have to take care of two of our three dogs. the youngest one, quill, is going to stay with our neighbour who is also a dog trainer, because she actually has the experience needed to keep an approximately one-year-old puppy in line, where i definitely DO NOT. the other two dogs get to come with me (or stay home), while i go to my unicycle class tomorrow, and maybe my circus class, wednesday. i’ve officially cancelled both classes, in case the dogs are recalcitrant, or in case i don’t feel like going, but i think i’ll do at least one of them, and at this point, it seems likely that i’m going to do the unicycle class, tomorrow, because i haven’t been in a while, and i really need to get back into it more regularly…

i’m buying a new tuba! 😎 i’m buying a new tuba! 😍 i’m buying a new tuba! 😜 i’m buying a new tuba! 😛 i’m buying a new tuba! 👍👍👍👍👍 as soon as moe gets home from florida, we’re going to take a road trip to yakima to pick it up! 😁

i was reading back through my old blog entries, and i came across this one, about my perceived connection between the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” and the opera “L’Arlesienne”… i specifically remember thinking “internet would be a much better place if you could ask questions in human language and not be inundated with meaningless information that is only intended to sidetrack you from what you really want to know.” it’s now a couple years later, and ChatGPT is a thing that didn’t exist a couple of years ago, so i wondered if, maybe, it could cut through the horseshit and get me somewhere closer to the answer…

Rev. DeLuxe: is the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” a remake of the opera “L’Arlesienne”?

ChatGPT: No, the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” is not a remake of the opera “L’Arlesienne”. “La donna più bella del mondo” is a 1955 Italian musical film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Gina Lollobrigida, Vittorio Gassman, and Robert Alda. The film tells the story of a woman who becomes a famous movie star and the men who fall in love with her.

On the other hand, “L’Arlesienne” is a one-act play by French writer Alphonse Daudet. It was adapted into an opera of the same name by Georges Bizet, which premiered in 1872. The story revolves around a young man who falls in love with a woman from Arles, but she is already married and eventually drives him to madness.

Therefore, these two works are not related in terms of story or content.

Rev. DeLuxe: is it possible that the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” and the opera “L’Arlesienne” are related in some way?

ChatGPT: There is no known direct connection between the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” and the opera “L’Arlesienne”. However, it is possible that there could be some indirect influences or inspirations between the two works.

For example, it is not uncommon for filmmakers to draw inspiration from other works of art such as literature, music, or theater. It is possible that the filmmakers of “La donna più bella del mondo” were influenced by the themes or characters of “L’Arlesienne” and incorporated them into their own story. Similarly, the opera may have influenced other aspects of Italian culture, such as fashion or language, that were then reflected in the movie.

However, without any concrete evidence or statements from the creators, it is difficult to determine if there is any direct or intentional connection between the two works.

Rev. DeLuxe: why might i be under the impression that the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” and the opera “L’Arlesienne” are related in some way?

ChatGPT: There could be several reasons why you might be under the impression that the movie “La donna più bella del mondo” and the opera “L’Arlesienne” are related in some way.

One possible reason is that both works are part of Italian and French cultural heritage, respectively, and share certain characteristics or themes that are common to their respective artistic traditions. For example, both works could explore themes of love, beauty, and the human condition, which could give them a similar emotional tone or feeling.

Another reason could be that you may have come across information or reviews that compare the two works, even if they are not directly related. This could create an impression in your mind that the two works are somehow linked, even if there is no direct evidence to support this claim.

Finally, it is also possible that your impression could be a result of a simple misunderstanding or confusion between the two works, especially if you have not seen or heard either work firsthand.

ouch! 🤣

the word that i’ve heard is that the democretins won most of the most essential races, but not others. and georgia is going to a runoff between republicretin herschel walker (a “christian” anti-abortionist brainless ex-football jock who has allegedly paid for at least two abortions with two different women, and has multiple unacknowleged children with multiple other women), and democrud rev. raphael warnock (an actual Christian minister) who, at last count, was winning by THOUSANDS of votes… 😒 now we have to worry about the global economy, which is still more or less up in the air. 😒

the most recent incense order i recieved didn’t have the shipping charges included, which is a major problem. a little bit of investigation, combined with a brief back-and-forth with the developers confirmed a bug in the version of woocommerce square plugin that i was using, which is, if the customer doesn’t enter the state that they live in, the shipping charges are not included on their reciept, and they can proceed through checkout without having to enter the state in which they live… which is DEFINITELY a bad for business, as it requires me having to write the customer and ask for more money. presumably i have been updated to the most recent (fixed) version of the plugin, after having to explain that my questions about cost were not a criticism of how much it costs, to the web designer, who was all set to cancel the web maintenance agreement that we’ve had for the past three years. 😒

i lied… i have actually logged into twit-turd twice since i said i was not going to login for a couple of days… but the fact that the democrasts have done somewhat better than expected has made it somewhat more tolerable.

today i learned about the composer carl orff, who lived from 1895 to 1982. i’m somewhat embarrassed to say that i thought he was a 19th century composer, and i was shocked to discover that his lifetime and mine overlapped, despite the fact that i have actually played the piece he’s most famous for, which is the oratorio known as “Carmina Burana”… he was still alive when i played it, too. 😉 but he is also the originator of what has come to be called the Orff Schulwerk method of music education, which is, primarily, intended for children, but can be extrapolated very easily to encompass special needs students, and (significantly for me) older people who have some movement difficulty. there is the Evergreen Chapter of the American Orff Schulwerk Association which i have written to, in order to get more information, because this inspires me in a way that i haven’t been inspired in a long time.

also, i was looking at the wiktionary article for litmus, where i learned that the etymology comes from the protogermanic cognate “blee” which means “colour” or “hue”… at first i thought it might have been a typo for “bleed”, but no, it’s “blee“…

so, this has been a week from hell, but i’m still capable of finding things that aren’t hell, that interest me. 🤔

so, it turns out, there’s a MINISCULE chance of my getting pulmonary fibrosis.

as a fully vaccinated person:

there’s approximately 2% chance that i will get COVID (the “98% survival rate” that anti-vaxxers seem to think applies to them, as well). if i do, there’s approximately 2% chance that it will be bad enough to put me in the hospital. if THAT happens, there’s approximately 30% chance that it will end up with pulmonary fibrosis.

but still, i don’t relish the idea of getting COVID, even if it is “mild”. 😒

moe’s birthday was yesterday. she’s still not as old as i am.

we’re starting to gear up for the moisture festival, which IS going to happen, in person, this year — but, beyond that, who knows, because it’s alleged that the palladium has been sold — although precisely HOW they’re going to hold the moisture festival in the middle of a pandemic remains to be seen.

we’re starting to think about starting to gear up for the oregon country fair, this year, in spite of the fact that it hasn’t happened for the past two years, and nobody’s really sure whether it is GOING to happen… but, naturally, if it IS going to happen, we need to be ready for it, because, one way or the other, we’re GOING to have a panto ready in december, despite the fact that we probably won’t have a place to perform, because of the aforementioned alleged selling of the palladium.

thaddeus and i have a gig scheduled in october, as “snakez alive”, and kiki came over last week, with her banjolele, and we played old timey tunes á la Peanut Envy. at this point, we’ve played enough in common to get us through a couple hours of busking at the market, but the market still requires masks for buskers, and i can’t wear a mask and play tuba at the same time… STILL… 😒

i remember learning, some time ago (like, possibly, as many as 20 years ago), that the movie staring Gina Lollobrigida, which features the song “‘A Frangesa” (the name of which i have been unable to determine), was a “modern remake” of “L’Arlesienne”, by Georges Bizet and Alphonse Daudet…

or, possibly, that the movie starring Gina Lollobrigida was based on the real-life story of the person about whom Alphonse Daudet wrote his romanticised play…

but i can find no solid evidence for or against this theory, on internet.

i wonder if i imagined the whole thing… 😕

i can say that, if i had known about the movie with Gina Lollobrigida when i first learned the song “‘A Frangesa” (which was when i was in 8th grade, or thereabouts), i would have had a much more positive opinion about the song than i had at the time. 😉 as it was, it was a harder-than-normal concert band piece which i could play, but very many of my fellow student musicians were unable to play (because it’s “faster” than most of them could play reliably), and, because of that, it sounded VERY MUCH like an elementary school band trying very hard to play something that is too difficult for them EVERY! SINGLE! TIME!

ETA 210907: the movie appears to be called “La donna più bella del mondo” (the most beautiful woman in the world), but was english-ified into “Beautiful but Dangerous“… but i still haven’t been able to find out whether or not it was a remake of L’Arlesienne. internet would be a much better place if you could ask questions in human language and not be inundated with meaningless information that is only intended to sidetrack you from what you really want to know… and it’s full of computers! ick! 😒

let’s talk about tommy tuberville, okay?

as you can see from the pronounciation guide at wikipedia, he pronounces it “TUBBER-vil” even though the way it’s spelled implies that it should be pronounced “TUBER-ville”… right?

TUBER… like a potato, right? “tuber-city”… 😉

to me, this is a very strong indication that this is a person who got called “potato-head”, or “french-fries”, or something similar, during grade school, and it had such a profound effect on him that decided that he was going to make everybody pronounce his name differently…

… and, when he wasn’t successful at that, he decided to devote his life to beating all of his rivals’ college football teams, and, eventually, becoming the U.S. senator for alabama, and aligning himself with a monumental loser, so that people would forget that they ever called him “potato-head”… 😉

tommy potato-head…

the son of the emasculated mr. potato-head… 🤣

we spent a week at the beach, for moe’s birthday. instead of going to the house that we usually rent, which was down the street, we rented a different house, because we thought that more people were going to show up. at the last minute, one of the people bailed (she had the flu, so it was probably just as well), so it was just me and moe, and micah and shaya (moe’s friends). also, on the web where moe first found it, the place we rented claimed to have WIFI, but, in reality, it doesn’t. this wasn’t very much of a problem for me, moe and micah, but shaya had a lot of work to do that involved people in hawaii and africa, and the lack of connectivity was a real problem for her. the beach was the beach: calm, relaxed… the weather was typical for january, meaning that it was windy and rainy, but not that cold. there were a couple of days where there were very strong winds and rain pretty much all day, there were a couple of days where the weather was windy and rainy for part of the day, and there was at least one day where the weather was sunny and cloudless. i got to fly my kite a few times, moe took the drone out a couple of times, the doggles got thoroughly worn out running on the beach…

but then we came back to “reality”… EEEeeeewwwww!! 😡

the political situation continues to get orders of magnitude worse, on an hourly basis. the most recent things are #drumpf signing executive orders starting construction on “the wall” — which he continues to insist will be paid for by the mexicans, although he admits it “will probably be a complicated process”, and has, meanwhile, begun petitioning an all-republican congress to start eliminating things like medicare and social security so that he can fund building the wall anyway — and starting the deportation process for millions of migrants who are undocumented and/or muslim. of course, there is a lot of protesting going on, on a daily basis, but it doesn’t appear to be making a lot of difference. meanwhile, Resident Chump (as kiki calls him) is putting gag orders on the public parks department, and various different scientific and environmental departments, all of which are publically funded, saying that they are no longer “allowed” to state their findings to the public. there’s a lot of me that wants to give up and move elsewhere, and a good deal of the rest of me that would love to see a revolution. unfortunately, i don’t think i’m ever going to have the resources to leave this country, even for a short period of time, and i’m not sure how effective i would be as a part of a revolution, in spite of how much i would like to see one… and, to be honest, there’s no guarantee that what would happen after a revolution would be any better than what we’ve already got.

in other news, people are still trying to break into my site using the old web developer’s username, and they continue to get blocked from ever being able to access the site. at this point, once or twice a day, i’ll log in and block anywhere from 10 to 50 unauthorised login attempts. it’s getting annoying, but i’m sure having my web site cracked would be even more annoying.

also interesting is the fact that i have had an inbox that is, for the most part, empty, for closing in on a month now… i get two or three emails that i have to hold onto in my inbox for a few days, every now and then, and i usually keep emails for orders that i’ve made, or orders that i have to fill, in my inbox, but i file them when they’re complete. it has been five years or so since i had a completely empty inbox for any significant period of time, and this time is appearing to be quite a bit longer than any time since i started using email on a regular basis… probably 30 years…

we’re getting a new puppy, which was born last night. we’re going to see him tomorrow, and spending the night in a hotel in portland, so that we can visit moe’s mom, as well. i truly understand what the people were talking about when they said that they’re spending the weekend with their in-laws, so they have to stock up on booze.

things continue to get orders of magnitude worse, on a daily basis, politically. drumpf continues to appoint utter moronic idiots to posts for which they are no more qualified for than a slug, and at this point, there’s no solid guarantee that drumpf won’t be the last president, because there will be a nuclear war or the planet will suffer irreparable climate change before the next election. if we do actually survive, it will be decades before we make up the losses that we will have suffered during the next four years. no kidding, it’s going to be a blood bath of biblical proportions.

i’m up later than my normal bedtime because moe is getting home from phoenix at midnight, and i’ve got to pick her up at the airport.

snake suspenderz(!) has got a gig(!) at the “So Bazaar” event in redmond next thursday, which is connected with the moisture festival. we’ve got another gig in october at the château in renton.

the sousa band has a gig at the ballard locks on sunday. i’ve got an appointment to renew my medical cannabis card next thursday, i’ve got an appointment with the ophthalmologist next friday, and i’ve got an appointment with a lady who may be the replacement for ned next saturday, along with a party at the fremont acupuncture clinic.

a podium is the thing you stand on, from the greek πόδι – foot. it is also the thing the lectern stands on. the lectern is the thing you read from, from the latin lectus – to read. when you know even a little bit of a language other than american, things like this are a lot less confusing. 😕

two days ago, i drove moe to the airport, so that she can go on a business trip to austin and las vegas.

yesterday started with my almost losing zorah… well, i didn’t really “almost lose” her, because she was perfectly safe and fine all the time, but there were about 15 minutes, yesterday morning, when i wasn’t so sure of that.

today the cat decided that he was going to go walkabout, and door-dashed when i opened it to let the dogs in. of course he didn’t go that far, because he hadn’t thought that far ahead, but it was complicated by the fact that the dogs wanted to go inside and were confused when there was a complication with their desires.

i had a rehearsal for the moisture festival yesterday. i’ve got another one today.

moe gets home on thursday.

i’m planning an actual, long-distance, several-day trip at the end of may. it’s somewhat exciting, but it’s also terrifying, and something that i am ready to give up on, several times a day. i’ll be going to see joe, who i haven’t seen since 1973 (according to the handy-dandy chart of when things happened) in orlando, and rosemary, who is my great-grandfather’s daughter, in warrensburg. the last time i flew anywhere was when i went to san francisco in 2012, with the big bois with poise. the last time i was on the east cost was when i went to boston in 1999… but i have never actually planned a cross-country trip where i was both planning the trip, and the only one going on the trip. and, to be honest, i haven’t seen joe for 40 years, and, while we are farcebook friends, i really don’t know that much about him or his life, and i do NOT want to be stuck on the east coast with a friend who is pissed at me for saying the wrong thing, or looking bizarre. and i really don’t want to be stuck in Knob Noster with a relative who, like most of my other living relatives, can’t stand me.

oh gawd… i was distractedly perusing the map, and i discovered small towns to the south of Knob Noster, called Tightwad and Racket… yes, folks… this is where my ancestors came from. 😕

let me see…

sousa bash yesterday. parked across the street from the apartment building i used to live in, played in Town Hall, which used to be the christian science church when i lived there. and, if it weren’t for the wife, and the dogs, and the workshop, and a whole bunch of other stuff, i would live there again. in fact, there’s a good chance that if i were given the choice between an apartment on capitol hill, or an apartment in bellingham, i would choose an apartment on capitol hill.

speaking of bellingham, ken and kamala have officially moved out of serendipity, and it has officially changed hands and is now, no longer, serendipity. ken and kamala have moved into a house-sharing situation on south lake samish, which is several steps up for them, and, if it works out, will be much more satisfactory than serendipity ever was…

but it’s still not enough to make me want to live there.

i went up there on wednesday/thursday to help them with getting new tires for their truck.

panto rehearsals start tomorrow. i’ve still got to procure a hinge for a “whip-crack” sound effect that i’m making, and i’ve got to remember to bring my tuning forks.

no perceivable change with the moisture festival, except for the rumour that mr. poopy-pants may have been, in fact, severely talking out of his ass, which would make me laugh, but it’s only a rumour at this point.

i’ve calmed down a little, but mr. moisture-festival-poopy-pants is still on my list of bad people.

i’m in the process of doing something which i haven’t done since i lived in mount vernon, which, according to the handy chart of when things happened, was in 1993. twenty-two years ago, and this time i’m going to be doing it with my own set-up, rather than using a set-up borrowed from a friend… and it’s legal now… 😉

the sousa band is playing on saturday. it’s john philip sousa’s 161st birthday, and it’s also the 30th anniversary of the sousa band, so instead of having the sousa bash at the traditional place, which is kenyon hall (also known as hokum hall), we’re having it at town hall in seattle, which is the old christian science church that’s two blocks away from where i used to live.

snake suspenderz gig tonight at the georgetown stables.

going to bellingharm tomorrow to say farewell to serendipity. it’ll probably be the last time for a while, although i’ll probably attend a memorial service for kenyth, if one happens.

there’s currently some spammer/script-kiddie at 185.82.201.17 who thinks s/he can break my shit by repeatedly trying to login — 245 times as of this writing — to a directory that s/he’s been banned from since 2:30 am this morning. i can’t imagine that they’re doing it manually, but they keep knocking and i keep saying go away. i suppose they’ll get the idea eventually.

i’m on vacation. we rented a house in moclips for a week. then i’m going to bellingham next weekend. i can probably post photos here, but not from this device (an ipad that doesn’t have a very good camera) and i can’t be arsed to figure out how to transfer photos, because i’m on vacation… i’ll figure it out eventually… or i won’t… who cares?

hi. i’m still here.

moisture festival ended (for me) two weekends ago, and it ended for everyone last weekend. i spent a week recovering, then…

moe’s mom came for a “visit”. she’s currently asleep on the recliner in the living room. moe is at work, and won’t be home until late this evening. i had some things to do earlier today, but… 😐

she wants to visit the buddhist temple down the street. ordinarily i would be all for her visiting non-christian spiritual temples, but i don’t want my first time visiting the buddhist temple to be simultaneous with hers… if for no other reason than i don’t want to be the target of her stupid ignorant questions for which i don’t have a ready answer… honestly, i would be a lot more comfortable taking her to the hindu temple down the street, but she didn’t ask for that…

it’s possible that i’m going to have to break in a new counsellor. the old one (8 years now) is going to a system where he can only accept medicaid, and i’ve only got medicare… it’s possible that i can get supplememtal medicaid for my “mental health issues”, but i don’t have the first clue what to do to find out (moe suggested internet 😐 ) and there’s a limited amount of time before a decision has to be made one way or the other.

i got two incense orders, yesterday, from repeat customers who i haven’t heard from for a long time, and who i have been agarbathiwala to for an even longer time. one said that we were “the bestest pen-pals a decade ago”, and the other one has been a part of my search for aparajita for at least 8 years.

moe’s car died yesterday. the alternator went out while she was driving down the freeway. fortunately she was able to get off the freeway before anything catastrophic happened, but the result is that she drove my car to work today, and i’ve been stuck at home fielding calls from the repair shop, which says that it’s going to cost on the order of $600 to get it running again.

i got my old computer transferred to my new computer, and got the new computer in the backup routine — and it has only taken me four days — and that is not to mention that much of the important software on my old computer won’t work on the new one, so i’ve been franically flailing around to try and update everything before one of my clients calls and asks for an emergency change to their business card, or something like that.

as an aside, one of the applications that no longer worked was photoshop. i’ve been using CE since my minuteman press days (i.e. 10 years ago) and i was pleasantly surprised to discover that it worked both on my OS9 mac and my OSX mac, so i figured that it would continue to work, given that i haven’t changed platforms, i’ve just upgraded it… BUT NO… 😐 apparently “Universal Binaries” are no longer supported, despite the fact that i’ve got a number of open source programs that are also, apparently, “universal binaries” and they work just fine… fortunately i was able to find a copy of CS2 on ebay, and CS2 will work, because i AM NOT going to purchase CC (the “cloud” version), because that is not software, it is sold as a “subscription” which means that, if you don’t pay for it, you can’t use it… another one of the “universal binary” applications that no longer works is macromedia freehand, which is, truly, a shame, because it’s replacement in the commercial market (illustrator) doesn’t work half as well, and uses adobe’s “home office” terminology, rather than the much more standard “industry” terminology…

i’m back from OCF, moe is back from chicago, i was in the greenwood seafair parade (where the art cars won the trophy!), i had a rehearsal, our weekend houseguest (moe’s friend/student diana, and owner of one of lucy’s puppies, ben) has come and gone and i’ve had a “weekend” (although it was monday and today), and now i’ve got enough spoons (i think) to be ready for what comes ahead… which includes another rehearsal, a gig at the locks, another parade (the magnolia seafair parade), and getting together with my father to get his curved soprano saxophone.

woof.

one rehearsal monday, two rehearsals tuesday, a gig friday, a gig saturday and, possibly a gig sunday… this week…

i got two traffic tickets yesterday. one i can make go away by sending in a copy of my current insurance card (the old one expired a couple weeks ago, and i haven’t got the new one installed yet). the other one i can either pay, or pay close to the same amount to have it “deferred” for a year, during which time i have to get no other traffic tickets (which shouldn’t be a problem), and then it, too, “goes away”…

it strikes me as a not-so-sneaky way of getting the taxpayers to pay for things that their taxes should already pay for, but i’m on the receiving end of their “benificence” this time, so i really shouldn’t complain… too much…

44.8625432 (44°51’45.1548″), -124.0404183 (-124°2’25.5048″) – 5120 Cavalier Ave, Lincoln Beach, Oregon 97341

i have a background “wallpaper” on my linux box, that automatically changes every 10 minutes, with a random photo from a directory of photos i keep around. this one came around, and i immediately started wondering:
there’s this relatively modern (i believe they started some time in the 1920s or thereabouts, but didn’t really get off the ground until the 1960s) syncretic religion from viet nam called Cao Đài that has bits and pieces from buddhism, catholicism, taoism, and indiginous pagan beliefs from south asia (among other things), and their concept of “God” is a symbolism of the Divine Eye overseeing the universe, depicted above… according to wikipedia, this is a photo taken from inside the Tây Ninh Holy See. the official web site has a different representation, but it has the same aspect about which i have been wondering.
both of these “all seeing eyes” are left eyes…

it’s a little difficult to tell for sure, but i believe the “eye of providence” on the $1 bill is also a left eye…

Man marrying My Little Pony character writes angry email to erotic pony artist – this may be a hoax, but it’s too early to tell at this point… and we may never know… 😮

rick still isn’t dead. the probability that he will be any time soon is going down, but you never know. it’s really sad that he’s such a feeble old man, if for no other reason than he’s actually two years younger than me…

we’re going to try again to record the panto, on wednesday. i’ll believe it when i see it happen. there have been many, many attempts to coerce a CD, or something like it, from this group of crazies, and none of them has succeeded so far.

i’m still waiting (after two weeks) for the artwork that the acord foundry people said that they were going to send me “in a couple of days”. they paid me to print business cards for them, but they still haven’t got around to sending me the artwork. i hope they’re not going to demand the finished cards any time soon… 😐 i should probably call them and find out what’s going on, but i’m pretty sure i know what the answer will be, which is that one or more people simply “hasn’t had the time” to go through the hard photographs (they don’t have any digitised photos at all) and snail-mail them to me… 😐

i should really find out whether or not there’s a smoke shop on the same calibre as the pike place pipe palace, only in tacoma.

ELECTION: obama won. i didn’t vote for him, but i’m glad that he won, because mitt romney is a gold plated asshole.

washington legalised cannabis and gay marriage, and elected a democratic governor, which are good things. in spite of the fact that i was torn on the cannabis issue, i couldn’t bring myself to vote against something that i have been encouraging others to vote for, for most of my life.

COMPUTER: i rescued my genealogical information by writing to the GRAMPS-users mailing list. i also rescued my address book, although i still don’t know how… i haven’t even come close to rescuing my old email, but that’s a relatively low priority, and if it never comes back, i won’t be too disappointed… although Kmail is still acting somewhat strangely. it may be because of “features” with which i am not familiar, yet. HOWEVER i still don’t have ANY sound from my computer, and it’s beginning to get frustrating.

HEALTH: i may be am probably getting a cold. moe has been sick for a couple of days, and i’m beginning to feel like, possibly as soon as tomorrow morning, i will also have a cold… i suppose it’s what i get for sleeping in the same bed as a sick person. 😐

according to these guys, my C tuba is a Conn 2J, which is a close relation to the 3J, 4J, and 5J tubas Conn made in more recent years.

we are finished with this round of kennel cough, and two dogs are, once again, accompanying moe to work. huge sighs of relief from all humans involved.

snake suspenderz is performing at the can can again on tuesday, september 18th. i don’t know yet when or with whom, but those things are to be worked out immediately. i think we may be headed towards another attempt to perform at cafe racer, as well.

the fremont phil (such as it is, these days) will be playing at the garden party at big red (the huson’s west seattle hangout) on saturday.

the BSSB is playing at Edmonds Concert In The Park on sunday.

my didjeriflute has a Hornbostel-Sachs number of 421.111.11, while my C tuba has the number 423.232

this week has been phenomenally busy: i got back from OCF last monday, and monique left for alberta on wednesday. i got the radiator in my car replaced, mowed the lawn, cleaned up the entire house, went to 3 rehearsals, shipped out 3 packages of incense (including one containing huge amounts of incense to the company in chicago that sells my incense) and re-packed and put away all of my camping gear before tuesday of this week. i also started dealing with a fiasco that may or may not be happening with the Sousa Band email list, of which i am administrator. tuesday this week, i had a BSSB rehearsal, wednesday i had a BSSB performance at des moines beach park — an hour and a half: most of the BSSB sets are half an hour or less, and i was playing first trombone (read “exceptionally high parts”) which is the first time i’ve done that in many, many years (i only fluffed a couple of notes, though… 8) ), and tonight i have a snake suspenderz performance at St. Clouds restaurant, for Robert Fulghum (the author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten and It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It). he saw us at the ballard sunday market a few weeks ago, which is another party for another rich and influential person we have gotten by busking at the ballard sunday market… i think we need to do that more often… 8)

monique is leaving for a veterinary conference in san diego next wednesday, and will be gone for a week. we still haven’t seen the guy about the thing that i mentioned a few weeks ago, which is now just sitting there collecting dust. eventually we will both be home for a long enough time that we can get together with the guy and work out exactly what we’re going to do with it, but it can’t be soon enough for me.

• finish organising my OCF photos, taking into account the new, slower, buggier interface for uploading photos to flickr pictures here
• create a “Big Boys With Poise” patch, which is going to be made by b coole
• make at least one long, rambling post about OCF
• at least get started making a video of me playing my didjeri-flute (ultimately to be uploaded to youtube), which is not a fujara but is a specialised kind of overtone flute (both of which terms i heard applied to my didjeri-flute for the first time at OCF last weekend)
• rehearse at least once with snake suspenderz

i ordered a gerard hoffnung CD more than a week ago, and it hasn’t arrived yet. i feel like i should give them a little leeway, since the place i ordered it from is in england, but at the same time, i ship things to england on a pretty regular basis, and it’s my impression that it takes less than a week… but i could just be paranoid, as well, because i’m paranoid, and it is a gerard hoffnung CD, after all…

some alien being has eaten my father and replaced him with an exact clone that has a human brain. it’s uncanny.

snake suspenderz went busking today. we played for around 2 hours and made $12.50 apiece, which is better than nothing, but could be a great deal more without any difficulty at all.

i broke down and bought a plain black fez, because as nice as they are, the fez-o-rama fezzes (fezi?) are specifically not available without some kind of goofy logo on them, and so far they haven’t produced a goofy logo that i feel is representative of me (at least not all the time)… but i still really like wearing a fez, for a variety of reasons. the logical alternative, at this point, is to acquire a blank fez, and, with the help of Master Payne, (who gave me the secret information needed) i have now done just that. expect pictures when it arrives. 8)

i still haven’t gotten started painting my car. i’m pretty close to it, though, but i had better get some paint on it pretty soon, because SACBO is coming sooner than expected: i.e. the 16th, and not the 23rd, as i had thought originally… although, strangely enough, i’m only going to be able to make one day at the fair, because i have two snake suspenderz gigs the second day of the fair, and one of them is at a competing fair in burien – the wild strawberry festival (the other one is at the can can, with the wanderlust circus). fortunately, i, literally, “have to have some paint on it” to get into the fair, so i think i’m going to be able to come up with something.

cedar (the person, not the tree: son of reverend chumley) and i removed the large juniper bush at the top of the driveway last weekend. he took pictures, but i (for some reason) did not. now we have a twenty-foot crater where the bush was, and moe and i are discussing what to replace it with. the current fanasy is bamboo (i would actually like to rip out all of the juniper and replace it with a bamboo hedge), but that’s likely to change. i’ve made tentative arrangements with cedar (the person) to come back at some point and trim the cedar tree at the bottom of the property. i found out it’s a deodar cedar, which is the basis for a lot of tibetan incenses, so it’s my guess that, if i do it right, i will probably be able to end up with a fair amount of deodar resin incense after all this is over.

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
— Frank Zappa

it doesn’t snow that often around here, which means that when it does, EVERYBODY FREAKS OUT. i grew up in buffalo, new york, where they have up to seven feet of snow, from october to may every year… i learned to drive in the snow before i could actually legally drive… and i don’t mind the snow as long as i don’t have to go anywhere (like today)… but it’s more because i don’t have to watch out for other people who are FREAKING OUT than because i don’t like driving myself. i took the dog for a walk and fell down on my way down the driveway, but because of the fact that i had actually prepared for it, it was more of an entertaining aside than a serious fall.

the picture was taken up the street from our house. there was approximately six inches of snow, and it was sleeting when i took it. according to the NOAA weather report, it should all be gone by tomorrow…

ETA: 2:15 pm – it’s already warming up, and while it’s not snowing any longer, it’s really foggy and the bush next to the driveway is collapsing under the weight of all the wet snow in its branches…

my xmas present to myself

i may not post an awful lot over the next few days, because my mother-in-law is coming to visit.

moe and i went to a friends’ house last night, and we ended up watching a really funny movie, which was odd, because it was likely intended as either a “holiday” movie, or a “horror” movie, both of which would be things which i would not have a tendency to watch, given the choice…

the film started with a bunch of english-speaking technicians, and one english-speaking “big wig” discussing a very bizarre drilling sample that had just been taken from the mountain which they were on top of, and it then followed a couple of suomi-speaking kids (with english subtitles) who had been “spying” on them as they went back to their families and their wintertime activities. it turned out that the english-speaking people had been drilling into an enormous grave-mound and had dug up the “original santa claus”, which caused a big problem for everyone. nobody in the film actually used the name, but they were clearly referring to krampus, and his “little helpers”, who were old, naked men with nasty tempers. it ended up with a full, double-unexpected twist that makes me want to get that movie on DVD so that i’ll have a film to suggest when everybody else wants to watch those awful stop-action animated monstrosities. 😉

rye is an 8-month old puppy, who is FULL OF HIMSELF… he’s ENORMOUS – he’s two inches taller than his mother, and 45 pounds, and he’s just going to get bigger. he also alerts when the printer goes off… and won’t stop… it’s almost as if he is afraid of the printer. he also really likes the tape-gun, but only when it’s actually in use.

i just discovered Legendary Doughnuts, which is close enough to where i live that i am probably going to start making a regular trip there, rather than to the “ordinary donut shop” that i have been going to in the past. they have maple-bacon doughnuts that are worthy of the name ‘DOUGHNUT’… 8)

fix my trombone slide: either do it myself, or call david cole. it’s GOT to be done, and the sooner the better.

clean pipes: i’ve got a dozen pipes that are totally clogged — again — and one of the reasons i set up my workshop was so that i would have a place to go and clean them out without having to move shit or clean up first…

finish entering new data into G.R.A.M.P.S.

Arbroath Fisheries probably has relatives working there, and even if they don’t, they use OSCommerce, so i bought some smoked fish from them.

moe has been gone since thursday at a sheep dog trial in oregon. she should be getting back at any moment. ah, yes… there she is. 8)

a poem from when i was a flagger in the early ’90s: