Very very frightening

A few weeks ago I was watching Torchwood on DVD, specifically the outtakes. At one point the whole cast starts singing “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

A few days later on a Ukulele blog I saw a link to this video of a guy playing “Bohemian Rhapsody” on a kazookeylele (and if you want to know what a kazookeylele is, you pretty much have to watch the video).

Soon after that one of my Facebook friends wrote that she ‘finds few things more alarming first thing on a Monday morning than my husband’s rendition of Queen. “Scaramouche, Scaramouche, can you dance the fandango?” My Gawd, he knows the whole thing.’

Then on UkuleleUnderground someone posted a review of a Jake Shimabukuro concert in which he played “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

Then someone on Facebook posted a link to this video of the Muppets doing “Bohemian Rhapsody”.

Now consider that a few weeks ago, “Bohemian Rhapsody” had made little enough impact on my life that I needed to Google the lyrics to verify what song the Torchwood cast was singing. And since then, as far as I can tell totally independently, five references to the song have come up.

Weird.

Then the night before last while I was half asleep, my wife came back from a birthday party she’d been to and said to me, ‘So, you know “Bohemian Rhapsody”?’ I started screaming but it turns out she was just telling me about the Muppet version, so it didn’t count as #6.

SG:Unwatching

So I think I’m going to stop watching “Stargate: Universe” at least for now. My reaction to the pilot episode was pretty favorable; it was considerably better than I was expecting it to be. I still think it has the potential to be a fine show, but only the potential.

By the time I got to the end of “Stargate: Atlantis” I was seriously wondering why I was bothering, and the answer pretty much was McKay and Zelenka. The rest of the characters never really appealed much to me, being too 2-dimensional, too perfect (one flaw each, but perfect otherwise), too damn competent and too damn good. Cheesy aliens, cardboard bad guys, and not particularly memorable stories. At least McKay and Zelenka had some good chemistry together, some funny scenes.

There’s about none of that on SG:U. The characters are all far from perfect, most have some depth, most are out of their depth, and and most have a lot of both good and bad in them. No aliens at all, at least no sentient humanoid ones. Practically no jokes to speak of, which is shocking in a Stargate series, but that’s okay. What isn’t okay, though, is leadenly slow story development, almost nonexistent plot, and, in the latest episode, 45 minutes of uninterrupted maudlin soap opera. I’d almost welcome someone in a rubber monster suit just to get things moving. Last week’s “Time” was pretty good but the general trend has not been favorable.

So if you’re still viewing and this show picks up steam, let me know, okay? Otherwise I’ll find better things to watch.

Cross-sizing

I stopped going to LaFayette Concert Band rehearsals when Heather started working Tuesday nights. She no longer does, but I haven’t gone back. Between the dojo and Kenny’s piano lessons I’m out three evenings a week plus Saturday late morning / early afternoon, and that’s enough for right now. (For similar reasons I still am not participating with Thornden Morris. I will do Wild Blue Morris early next year, but that presumably will be only one night every two weeks for three months.) Not that I didn’t enjoy the band, but I enjoy the dojo too and it’s most of my exercise program.

That doesn’t mean stopping playing clarinet, logically, but I have. I don’t get a lot out of playing solo, and even when I was active in the band I had a hard time getting myself to practice enough. Finding the time to do it was difficult, for one thing.

And now I have a different instrument to work on — one that’s more rewarding to play solo, I think, and which I can play softly at night while folks are sleeping, or while I’m watching TV, so I do practice more.

That being the case, owning five B-flat soprano clarinets seems just a little daft.

So I’ve sold three. The two Mazzeos I picked up for cheap, just to see what Mazzeo is about (and the second because the first was way out of adjustment), and the Evette and Schaeffer I bought to be my main clarinet but which later got demoted in favor of my Ridenour. I’m keeping the latter, and the Evette (because I can’t bring myself to let go of a Buffet-made instrument I paid under $11 for), and the E-flat, alto, and bass clarinets. It would make sense for me to get rid of some of them too, but I’m not going to, not for now. Especially not the bass.

I thought about titling this post “Downsizing” but that would probably have been a lie, since I’ll likely take the proceeds and buy something else to clutter the place up with. Not sure what, though. But I hear nice things about the Mainland tenor uke…

From all over

The Black Belt at 50 blog has a new entry talking about the various martial arts styles incorporated in the Lavallee’s curriculum. Some of this I knew, some I didn’t. We refer to it as “karate” but really that’s just a convenient shorthand term; what we actually do incorporates elements of many styles of martial arts: Kenpo (based on Tracy style kenpo, going back through Ed Parker to William Chow to James Mitose; basis of some of the katas and some of the self defense); XMA (some katas, sword); muy thai (some kicks, knees, and elbows); Okinawan kobudo (nunchucks); taekwondo (kamas); krav maga (some of the self defense); kickboxing (sparring); and Brazilian jiujitsu (grappling). I think I have that right. Karate purists would gag, I suppose, but I’m not one.

Out with the old, in with the desk

Tiring weekend. During the week a shipment arrived from Miller Nurseries: Seven fruit trees Heather had ordered but wasn’t expecting before spring. Fortunately the weekend provided both opportunity and favorable weather, and we got them planted, wrapped, watered, mulched, and caged. Watering, yeah… did I mention I’d just last weekend stowed away all our hoses in the basement? And we needed them all to reach the new line of trees, 30 feet west of the previous western boundary of the orchard. Two pears (Max Red Bartlett and Collette), three peaches (two Fingerlakes SH and one Red Haven), two plums (Yellow Egg and Big Blue).

Meanwhile we took drastic action on Kenny’s room. Essentially everything but the furniture and clothing came downstairs for sorting and triage. The living room’s full. Time to cut way back. Kenny’s one of the least acquisitive kids I know, but once he gets something, getting him to part with it is a challenge. He has toys he’s too old for, that he never plays with, in some cases that he never played with, and he says he wants to keep them. The impetus for the clean sweep has to do with our new computer; we’re going to give the old computer to Kenny. But he needed a desk to put it on, so I bought one at SU Excess Property for $5 and spent three times that on painting it. Between computer and desk and upcoming Christmas, it was clearly time to get rid of a lot of the excess. The desk is in his room now, the computer will go there soon, and a lot of stuff will get donated to his school or to the rescue mission or to the landfill or something, somewhere, anywhere but back where it was…

Goals and victories review (Oct 09)

Goals:

(Recreation and fitness)

• Blue belt done
• Green belt done
• Brown belt done
• Climb an Adirondack high peak done x 2
• Complete my electronics project (the WSG)

(Work)

• Rewrite polarimeter software 
• Complete next experiment (HAPPEX-III) done

(Home)

• Organize shed done
• Repair house exterior

(Financial)

• Reduce debt y y n n y n n y? n y – - / N
  (y(n) means we did (did not) meet my specific debt reduction goal in the given month; final Y(N) means we have (have not) met my goal cumulatively in the months so far)

Victories:

• Purple belt second tip
• Blue belt
• Rewrote Compton polarimeter decoder software
• Blue belt first tip
• Recovered from pneumonia
• Performed at Gilbertsville, Syracuse May Day, Cortland May Day, Oneida Plant a Row for the Hungry garden, Sudz tour in CT/MA, Saugerties Garlic Festival
• Got rid of Stairway to Nowhere and much other trash and yard waste
• Blue belt second tip
• Green belt
• Replaced basement door
• Cleared brush growth near Bilco door
• Polarization measurement with new electron detector
• Finished removal of concrete hazard to navigation
• Green belt first tip
• Climbed two Adirondack high peaks
• Organized shed
• Run Coordinator for our experiment
• Started learning to play ukulele
• Green belt red and blue tips
• Semi successful polarization analysis for incoming data
• Green belt white tip
• Brown belt
• Completed HAPPEX-III data taking
• Painted walls and baseboard moldings of study

Quoting myself again, “Once again, higher priorities have put the electron detector software rewrite on hold. Priorities like actually taking data, and getting the photon detector analysis working.” We completed data taking on HAPPEX-III, which is pretty much what I meant when I set the goal of “completing” the experiment; of course it’s not really complete until we’ve analyzed the data and published the results.

And again, “Not much work done on the house. Study is … painted.” Mostly. The “…” was “still half”, but I finished painting the walls and baseboard moldings. Ceiling, doors, bookshelves, and remaining windows and trim will wait until open-window weather returns.

We were able to make a big credit card payment this month, so we much more than met this month’s goal, though we’re still behind on where I wanted to be for the year. Still, debt’s down by a good deal and I can’t complain.

The other big victory for the month is brown belt. Funny, it seems a bigger step up than it really is. It didn’t feel weird to be a green belt last May, but it feels a little weird to be a brown belt now. Weird like, hey, why do I have one of these?

All I wanted was an oil change

So I got into the Prius this morning to take it to the mechanics.

(Yes, I know. Real Men, and Real Women, change their own oil. Well, I do too — on the lawnmowers. I just prefer to have people who have more expertise than I do the maintenance on the cars I and my family trust our lives and livelihoods to. Except the windshield wiper blades. Those I change myself. Also I sanded and painted a couple little rust spots on the Matrix the other day.)

We have the keyless remote entry/start, so I pushed the start button. It didn’t start, just lit up the idiot light that means “you don’t have the remote on you, idiot”. But I did, so I pushed it again. Same light.

Sigh. Battery had gone dead in the remote after just under 5 years service. So I pushed the remote into the slot on the dashboard and verified that even without battery power, it works in the slot. Started up, drove it in, waited. Quite a while.

Finally they were done and I found out what took so long: They’d found a mouse nest in the air filter. After cleaning that out and buttoning up, the check engine light came on. Deciding they’d bumped something in working on the air filter they reset it and drove it a bit; the light stayed off. All good.

So I got in and called the Toyota dealer, who’s just down the street from our mechanics. Asked about the remote battery. I was told I could buy a new battery at a drug store and was given instructions on how to open the remote up to access the battery. After disconnecting I tried it but couldn’t figure it out, so I drove to the dealer and went in to ask. “Huh. This isn’t like the newer ones…” So we went to the parts department, and the guy there knew how to get it open. The two of them only had to struggle with it about 30 seconds to open it. I am assured the new ones are much easier; I told them I’d probably need a better reason than that to buy a new Prius.

Anyway, they got it open, but then there are four little Philips screws you have to remove to get to the battery… don’t ask me why… and the parts guy’s suitable screwdriver had gone missing. He went looking for it, and I attacked the screws with the point of my Swiss Army knife. I won.

He sold me a battery (drug store would’ve been cheaper, but less convenient at that point — meanwhile another customer bought the exact same kind of bottle of touch up paint I’d gotten at the auto parts store last weekend, and he paid about 50% more), I put it all together, verified it was working, and drove off… and the check engine light came on.

So back to the mechanics and I got a ride to work.

They just called. They claim the Prius is pretty sensitive to high oil levels and they’d put in a little too much, but they’ve fixed it and cleared the light and it didn’t come back on after a longer test drive.

No word on how the mouse is doing.

Brown

Kenny and I have the same color belts again, though he got his four months ago. This is belt #7, but this and the next (red) each take longer than each of the first six. They’re the first of the advanced belts. Then there’s high red, and the fun really starts…

A blast from way, way in the past

Labor Day Weekend, 1985. (YouTube video, low quality unfortunately.)

Another video from the same show will go public soon, I hope…

Goals and victories review (Sep 09)

Goals:

(Recreation and fitness)

• Blue belt done
• Green belt done
• Brown belt progress
• Climb an Adirondack high peak done x 2
• Complete my electronics project (the WSG)

(Work)

• Rewrite polarimeter software 
• Complete next experiment (HAPPEX-III) progress

(Home)

• Organize shed done
• Repair house exterior

(Financial)

• Reduce debt y y n n y n n y? n – - - / N
  (y(n) means we did (did not) meet my specific debt reduction goal in the given month; final Y(N) means we have (have not) met my goal cumulatively in the months so far)

Victories:

• Purple belt second tip
• Blue belt
• Rewrote Compton polarimeter decoder software
• Blue belt first tip
• Recovered from pneumonia
• Performed at Gilbertsville, Syracuse May Day, Cortland May Day, Oneida Plant a Row for the Hungry garden, Sudz tour in CT/MA, Saugerties Garlic Festival
• Got rid of Stairway to Nowhere and much other trash and yard waste
• Blue belt second tip
• Green belt
• Replaced basement door
• Cleared brush growth near Bilco door
• Polarization measurement with new electron detector
• Finished removal of concrete hazard to navigation
• Green belt first tip
• Climbed two Adirondack high peaks
• Organized shed
• Run Coordinator for our experiment
• Started learning to play ukulele
• Green belt red and blue tips
• Semi successful polarization analysis for incoming data

September not much more goalish than August. Out of town at the beginning, recovering from out of town, busy with data analysis, blah blah, excuse excuse.

Quoting myself, “Once again, higher priorities have put the electron detector software rewrite on hold. Priorities like actually taking data, and getting the photon detector analysis working.”

And again, “Not much work done on the house. Study is still half painted.” Though I’ve done a little prep work on the other half.

A little confusion in our financial planning made this a not too good month for the credit card debt. Which is, I should add, down substantially since the start of the year, just not as far down as I would have liked. We’re going to try to do better at keeping track of upcoming expenses.

Some victories, though. Getting a decent start on learning a new instrument probably the top one.