Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

“Please, God, let this be over soon.”

I found this picture on the Washington Post web site. I presume it’s from a debate. What I like best about it is the expression on Obama’s face. It’s the look of a guy who finds himself in the embarrassing position of being out on a date with one of those kinds of women who talk in a high squeaky voice and like to pretend they’re a little bunny rabbit.

To The Guy Who Cut Me Off Yesterday On Fairfax County Parkway

—–

I’m not really an angry person by nature. Really.

International Falls, MN Needs A Doctor

….And they’ve got their own song about it!

Just Listen

If you’re interested in the job, you can find out who to contact here.

Quintet At The Fairfax Country Club

In case any of you were wondering how I spend my time when I’m not blogging…

This picture was taken Tuesday (12/11/07) at the Fairfax Country Club. We were playing for a holiday luncheon there. If you’re not a musician, you probably don’t realize that December is usually a really busy season for us. There are generally lots of churches that want additional musicians for their holiday services or, as was the case today, clubs wanting music for their special events.

Anyway, that’s me in the back row with the blond hair and the mildly amused expression.

Oh… should I name us? Okay. From left to right: Cindy, Sung Hee, Susan, Rebecca, Rolfe. I’ll refrain from giving the last names of my fellow musicians because I know at least a couple of them would REALLY REALLY not want my web site to come up on a Google search of their name.

The woman on the far left is holding a bass flute (plays a full octave lower than the usual concert flute) and the woman next to her is holding an alto flute (plays a 4th lower than a concert flute). The rest of us are holding our regular concert flutes — the kind you’d typically see played in an orchestra.

Don’t Sound Stupid

Click on the picture for a larger and easier to read version. This is one of two originally posted on Jesse Ruderman » Don’t sound stupid, stop saying like. It’s a couple years old but still mighty. Tip o’ the hat to Language Log for the link.

An Eye for An Eye, I Say

Vick Gets 23 Months for Dogfighting – washingtonpost.com

That’s not nearly punishment enough. If the dogs didn’t deserve so much better, I’d say they should have let the poor things tear Vick to pieces.

And no, I’m not kidding. Vick’s kind of cruelty is entirely deserving of a death sentence.

More Pandora

I told you about Pandora a little while ago and now that I’ve spent a couple days with it I’m even more thrilled (really! thrilled!) with this service than I was on the day of discovery.

Let me just put it to you like this: If you’ve got a computer that you like to spend time around and you like music you’d be really stupid to not familiarize yourself with Pandora.

So far I’ve got three “stations” set up:

Baroque & Renaissance — I seeded this one JS Bach, Palestrina, and Josquin, so besides music by those guys I’m also getting some really nice stuff by William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, and so on.

Romantic Impressionist — seeded with Debussy, Ravel, and Satie. I love this stuff… it’s sort of a private indulgence.

Folk Rock — seeded with Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, and a few others.

When I’m done writing this, I’m going to create another station for Jazz and seed it with Dave Brubeck and…I’m not sure. I’ll need to think about it. It’s bound to be wonderful, though.

I’ve probably mentioned before that I’ve got one of our computers hooked up to our stereo. Originally, the purpose was to have high quality playback on my vast collection of MP3 files. BUT!!!! But!!! Now that I’ve got Pandora, I just listen to that on the stereo computer. (It’s an old Mac Cube, if you’re wondering.) If you think that sort of hook-up would be complicated, relax. It’s easy as can be. On the back of your stereo amplifier you’ve probably got a pair of “audio in” jacks, no? On your computer you’ve probably got a single much smaller “audio out” or “speaker” jack. All you need is a special cable that’s got the 2 bigger stereo plugs on one end and the single smaller computer plug on the other. I think I might have got mine at Radio Shack. Or possibly Comp USA. I really don’t remember. They’re out there, though. Anyway, just plug in the cable, figure out what “component” your amplifier thinks the computer is (I’ve got it on “Video” on mine) and voila! — you’ve got yourself some really nice digital music coming from your big stereo speakers. It’s pretty swell.

Pandora

Well, here’s a very cool free web thingie! It’s Pandora — a free internet radio service that plays only music that you LIKE.

You type in the names of a couple artists or songs that you like and, through the mystical work of someone’s hard-wrought algorithm, the site plays a bunch of music like the stuff you enjoy.

For example: I entered “Joni Mitchell” and “James Taylor” (hey — I’m old, okay?) and Pandora has just played

• Neil Young’s “Birds”
• Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love”
• Dan Fogelberg’s “The Innocent Age”
• Cat Stevens’ “Father & Son”

Now here’s what makes it all even better: you can easily rate the individual songs while they’re playing. Thumbs up or thumbs down. If you hate the song, you’ll never have to listen to it again AND if these Pandora people are as smart as I suspect they are, they use your rating information to further refine their algorithm.

But wait! There’s more! If you especially like one of the songs that Pandora plays, they’ll hook you right up with Amazon or the iTunes store to BUY that song.

Well, needless to say, I’ll be listening to a LOT of Pandora. What a really cool service! Thank you, Pandora people!

A Snowy Night In Duluth Minnesota

With a tip ‘o the hat to Debbie Does Duluth and her talented kiddos.

This really is quite nice. I don’t know her or her kids and even I became verklempt.