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There are two things that don't have to mean anything - one is music, and the other is laughter. [Chuckles] Don't have to mean anything, that is, in order to give us very deep pleasure.

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It's a big sky. Lots of room.

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School of Honk back at Davis Square
Josh at work:

Either the movie Alien was inspired by this eel, or evolution watched the movie and decided to recreate the second mouth.

Me:

♪♪WHEN THE EEL
OPENS WIDE
EXTRA TEETH
DEEP INSIDE... THAT'S...
A MORAY!♪♪

Trying to adapt songs:

Rise up this mornin,
Smiled with the risin sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin, (this is my message to you-ou-ou:)
Singin: don't worry bout a thing,
Cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Or, rather, every little thing is gonna be what it gonna be.
Within your ability to withstand it,
but not necessarily to your preference,
and sometimes pleasant if you pay attention to the right details.
And if you look you'll see you're on a hedonistic treadmill
and will get back to your happiness setpoint soon enough
but if you cultivate your focus and your expectations
maybe you can grow your contentment and courage
and bump that setpoint up a few notches.

That is why I'm not a songwriter, I guess... but mostly, I don't have an intuitive understanding of people finding the sentiment "it's gonna be ok" comforting, at all. When I find someone trying to soothe me like that, I get MORE worried that the external objective reality must be REALLY bad and they're blowing smoke to get me to calm down. I always want as unflinching and uncompromised view of likely outcomes as possible, with the reassurance applied to the idea that I'll be able to adapt.

I mean- I sort of get it. "It's gonna be ok" has that mix of authoritative confidence and reassurance about external things, kind of parental - and maybe that faux-parent is seeing things that the scared inner child can't. And most people aren't as entangled in an obligation of seeking unconfirmable ultimate objective reality as I am. "It's gonna be ok" is fighting fears that aren't in the realm of the rational, so for many folks it's ok to fight emotion with emotion.

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RIP Rip Torn. I just like saying that.

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Hi, its God. Sorry I missed your call because I'm everywhere but I'll get back to you, maybe in strangely fitting words from a coworker or a dog's smile

Two of the drummers sitting in (well, marching along?) with New Magnolia on the 4th were Berklee students really into death metal - listening to and making it. I guess while Boston's jazz scene is stumbling (RIP Johnny D's and Ryle's) other local scenes are thriving, which was good to hear.

I admit, I can sort of get what people like in most genres, but this is possibly furthest from my own tastes. Just raw gut energy, with so many dials turned to 11 (and a few others turned all the way to zero) In particular, the percussion - the ratatatatatatatatatat snare - it's so far from the interplay of bass and snare I dig in funkish things that it's a territory I'm completely lost in. JP Honk @ JP Porchfest 2017, Photos and Video Courtesy Agustina M

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My brain conflated my curiosity about rumors of a special "Pro" iPhone with the old Onion Tim Cook:' I'm Thinking Printers' for a dream where I went to some kind of launch event in a drab auditorium (no stage, just a table up front) and my reward for preordering was an "upgrade" to the new phone... about the form factor of a Nintendo Wii, where the phone was kind of the face of it that was detachable, and a receipt-printing size setup inside. BEHOLD THE FUTURE.

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@School of Honk's performance, photo by Tom H

Imma tryin' to help Ezequiel use his tuba powers only for good... but also thanks to Robert for locating a good size sousaphone for him! Donald and Hobbes, a set of old C+H with Donald playing Calvin:

I thought that one was the deepest one, but in general these work so well it kind of makes Calvin look worse in comparison.

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Maybe you should put some shorts on or something, if you want to keep fighting evil today.

Last Night The Jamaica Plain Honk Band​ did a gig in co-operation with the Hyde Square Task Force, and afterwards a few of us ducked in the formerly closed Blessed Sacrament church to encounter the acoustics of the empty sanctuary... this is before we put together some jams, Pachelbel Canon, and Toccata and Fugue...

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Every time you write, ask yourself: Could this scene take place in a hot-air balloon? If the answer is yes, then it probably should.

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On my UI blog, I really love this sleep sort...

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Donald Trump Chrome Plugin - Enhance all of your browser's references to Donald Trump with pithy quotes from the man himself

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Atomic Fireball candy in the Apples & Cinnamon Quaker Instant Oatmeal I get for free at work. Great idea, or greatest idea? Funny little vignettes in the form of Lego tributes to the 50 states

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This year I've had notable more allergies than in previous years (when I was a teenager I used to get shots for the few grasses etc I react to, but mostly it was my mom being aghast at my ability to phlegm things up at will than any real discomfort.) Suddenly I'm wondering if I might have been making things worse by having a window fan constantly blowing on warm nights... previous years I've had various forms of A/C. In general my bedroom's windows are shaded enough that it stays comfortable through the day and evening, but now I'm tempted to get a small air conditioner in part because of this new allergy theory. (Even though I know it's been a bad year for allergies in general.)

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thevoxbox:

charlesoberonn:

giftvvrap:

will you marry me = a marriage proposal
will, you, Mary, me = a foursome proposal

Will you, Mary me = Cavewoman Mary helps Will recover from his Amnesia

Will, you marry me. = Will's time-traveling partner

And people keep trying to tell me that punctuation isn't important

**crickets**

2013.07.10

separated at birth?

2012.07.10

Somehow I ran into a blog entry about the pamphlet "Size Stick- the Shoeman's Manual" with this map of the leather bearing hide of a cow:


That outline looked vaguely familiar...


Or is it just me?

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Bogost's "Alien Phenomenology" reminds me what tech modern mirrors are- perfect reflection woulda seemed like awesome magic for most of history

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I'm always surprised when I remember English has an adjective order that I just know:
quantity or number
quality or opinion
size
age
shape
color
proper adjective (often nationality, other place of origin, or material)
purpose or qualifier

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Unlike redwoods and lichen and salamanders, computers don't carry the baggage of vivacity. They are plastic and metal corpses with voodoo powers.

bike racing

2011.07.10

Yesterday we went to see Amber's brother in the The 16th Annual Attleboro Bicycle Criterium Road Race... I took some pictures. Turns out it's difficult to take these pictures!

Open Photo Gallery

This was probably my cleanest shot:


This was my favorite, though, despite the blur... it looks like he's winning!


This was probably the favorite of Brendan's mom, because of the stop sign :


Incidentally, they are taking a really difficult corner... given all the crashes in the Tour de France, I think everyone was taking it a little easy there.

Brendan did pretty well in the Cat 3 race, coming in around 10th, at the front of the main pack.

doodlesturm und drang

doodle

2010.07.10

Commissioned by Amber though she might not have realized it at the time.

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When I understand that the glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious.

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Let's not forget who killed Jesus -- ambitious politicians pandering to religious conservatives. #PontiusPalin

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mtv international mister furry

2009.07.10

via

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Baseball gloves really seem kind of oversized and comical when you stop to think about 'em.

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http://www.pinsane.com/pinorama/events/MJ_09/kr/michael_jackson_arcade_entry.html - old news, but man... MJ's arcade panoramically.

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Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.

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Haha, I misremembered bing.com as "bling.com" and had to google for "microsofts new search engine" (thought it might be better search for "distance between boston and chicago")

hello from new jersey or something

2008.07.10

On the road again...

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Quote of the Moment

"Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together." -- George Santayana

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Link of the Moment
Sorry I Missed Your Party. People's party photos in flik'r, snarkily commented upon.

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So few drum solos actually have much rhythm...

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love driving my little car in manhattan and still having basic street literacy

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Wow. In Virginia they still do that flash your lights to warn about upcoming speedtraps thing.

vacation scratchlog flush #2

(2 comments)

2007.07.10

So there was a good xkcd comic and discussion on "cheesy pickup lines gone wrong". Here were my favorites:

• "If I could rearrange the alphabet, I'd put your sister and I together."
• "Is your father a thief? Because that's totally my jetta you parked outside."
• "You must be tired, 'cause you've been running through my mind all night. ...Screaming."
• "That shirt looks good on you, but it would look even better stuffed into the neck of a vodka bottle and flung burning through our office building's window. Let's do it. Let's fucking do it and never look back. "
• "Wanna play an army game? Lay down on the ground and I'll blow your brains out."
• "Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?"
• "Did you die and go to hell...? 'cause you're hot!"
• "Baby, are you a parking ticket? 'Cause you've got 'I'm gonna max out your credit card' written all over you. "
• "Eeee, by gum, you don't sweat much for a fat lass" (said in a thick, thick Northern English accent)

My contribution was

reminds me of a when my cohabitating then-girlfriend said to me "nice pants!"

I was going to say "thanks! i bet they'd look great crumpled on your bedroom floor" but then I remembered... she's seen them crumpled on the bedroom floor, along with some shorts and assorted other laundry and frankly, she knows that it doesn't look that great.

pluck your magic twanger, froggy (?)

photos

(9 comments)

2006.07.10

Saturday evening, after hanging out at my family's annual reuinon, I hightailed it to Cape Code where Ksenia's family was nearing the end of their annual "rent a campsite in Nickerson State Park". Sunday we went to the nearby ocean beach, and then later to the even closer pond. But at the beach, I traced a big Alien Bill in the sand:



It makes me realize I don't do a lot of artwork at that scale. (Though I suppose with a laptop and a videoprojector...)

That's Ksenia's brother Nick in the corner. Actually the Alien Bill might have been inspired by him writing "Megaman" in the sand. Writing "Megaman" wasn't too surprising, the kid is a big fan. Writing "by Capcom" was a little bit more surprising, but that surprise was then trumped by him including "(TM)" after the name Megaman. What a deep respect for Intellectual Property law at a tender age!

Here's a small, lily-pad laden pond next to the larger swimming pond:



By the way, what pondish creature makes a "twang" noise at night, like a banjo being plucked? Was that the frogs?

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Hedbergism of the Moment

I have an oscillating fan at home; it looks like it's saying 'Noo...' so I like to ask it questions that a fan would say 'no' to. "Do you keep my hair in place?" "Do you keep my documents in order?" "Do you have three settings?" Liar! My fan fuckin' lied to me! Now I will pull the pin up. Now you ain't sayin' shit!"

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Video of the Moment
You can watch the headbutt that may have cost France the World Cup... it seems pretty random and aggressive.

geekery on the high seas

(2 comments)

2005.07.10

More strange dreams...an urban center overrun by gangs of black youth playing dodgeball, for keeps...the rallying cry "where can a fellow find a game?!?" warned before an outbreak. (Sometimes fellow was replaced with the N-word.) Then, two, an oddly short Dr. Ruth (who changed her last name, maybe because she got married) who had her entire lower body replaced with white plastic cyberlegs...very odd.

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Geek Tool of the Moment
There are lots of decent tools out there to show you the "diff"erence between two text files, which lines are different, but only a very small percentage of them are good at showing you what's different for any particular pair of lines...they view lines as being "atomic", so to speak.

Enter diffline v0.1! It starts from both ends and shows you what part in the middle is different. This is especially useful when you have lots of junk on a single line, like with a PATH or CLASSPATH variable comparision. It's a bit primitive (I mean, it's not smart enough to know that abXcdYef and abXYcdYZef have that "cd" in common) but very useful to a certain small set of circumstances I think.

This and several other geek tools available on ths kisrael tools page.

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Star Wars Figure of the Moment

--Heheheh... from the same spot that served up that woman falling through bubbles toy...

what the puck

2004.07.10

After many minutes of sober consideration, I think "Puck" (as in, "The Puck") is it as a name for my new Scion xA. "Tetsuo" is a fine name, but I prefer car names that aren't people names, and that reflect physical characteristics of the car. Plus there's an emotional significance to the name that I've already mentioned.

You know, it's surprisingly difficult for me to go against a popular other option...I'm such a weasely wishywashy politician at heart, or something.

Off to my family reunion!

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Milestone of the Moment
Coalition Deathtoll hits 1,000. And that's just our dead...not their dead, and not our wounded. Is the amount of additional safety our nation might (or, might not, depending on how you read some of the implications of such a focused effort) be receiving from causing a change of government in Iraq worth this cost?

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Interview Q+A of the Moment

You know, The Matrix is a difficult concept to pitch. In the pitch, I just didn't see it. I watched Keanu's performance - and very rarely do I say this - but I would have messed it up. I would have absolutely messed up The Matrix. At that point I wasn't smart enough as an actor to let the movie be. Whereas Keanu was smart enough to just let it be. Let the movie and the director tell the story, and don't try and perform every moment.

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Geekery of the Moment
McSweeney's on On the Implausibility of the Death Star's Trash Compactor. Great stuff. I always wondered why the monster in there didn't get smooshed itself...I never thought that it might be deliberately put there, figured it was kind of weird parasite.

family sorrow

(2 comments)

2003.07.10

Awful, awful news in my extended family; the wife of one of my mom and aunt's cousins (popularly known as "the cousins") has died; she was young, mid-30s at the latest, and is leaving behind several children and her husband. Still a lot of unknown about the exact causes.

Anyway, posting might be a bit muted today.

Also not sure about my NYC plans now, though there might be a delay before the funeral, so it won't interfere.

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Passage of the Moment

Dave had been listening instead of talking, a standard feature of his 'low profile'--and very nearly a third way to lie, Ira, and easier than its equivalent--talking while saying nothing--and also tends to give the nontalker a reputation for wisdom. Never cared for it myself--talking is the second of the three real pleasures in life and the only thing that sets us apart from the apes. Though just barely.

diet: die with a t

2002.07.10

Quote of the Moment

Moreover, and perhaps more importantly: I hate people on diets. They're insufferable, self-righteous and invariably cranky.

It's been in my backlog since just before September 11, I must've been dieting around then. Probably let myself go a wee bit over the holidays, more or less maintained since then, but now I'm on my way back down again.

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Links of the Moment
Funny that on my guetbook there's a small dialog on the Atkins diet...there was a New York Times article on anti-Atkins-Diet, pro-low-fat bias in the scientific community, linked to from this Slashdot article. Someone followed up my post about how super low calorie diets like have been found to severely decrease the effect of aging in so many animals, up to and including monkeys with a link to a place full of humans who are trying the same thing. I wonder how low is low. Right now I've managed to be pretty happy with optional piece of fruit for breakfast, large salad with a bunch of grilled chicken on it for lunch, and then some kind of "boca" product (meatless italian sausage or burger) in the evening, and not much beyond that.

I've kind of told myself that right now I'm just dieting, and that I don't have to consider any lifestyle changes until I'm 30. And talked more with some doctor types.

Of course, this kind of thinking, along with things like cryogenics, (maybe even having kids!) is a really optimistic view of the future...sometime I feel that optimistic, sometimes not.

wide view

2001.07.10

Image of the Moment

click for fullsize

View from the roof of the Casa Mexilio, the B+B Mo and I stayed at in Mérida on our honeymoon. Made possible by a special mode and some neat PC software bundled with my new Canon PowerShot S110 Digital Elph (yeesh, I'm surprised they have room enough for the whole name on a camera that small.)

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Logrolling Link of the Moment
Ranjit's company Game Lab has some good coverage here. Man, I'm pretty jealous of what they're doing.

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Quote of the Moment

You can't reason with your heart; it has its own laws, and thumps about things which the intellect scorns.

In context, the narrator is talking about being scared as he approaches the "stronghold of an ogre", though with clever clipping I can recycle it seems like it can fit on the loveblender.

KHftCEA 1997-07.2 July

I turn off the music and turned on npr so as to not be deafened by my thoughts of r's email
97-7-10
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KHftCEA 1997-07.1 July

TRISH: Usually when you hear about couples breaking up over commitment problems, it's the guy who won't make one.
CHRIS:That's not necessarily true.  You just think it is because girls are on the phone more often than guys are, talking about what creeps men are and how they won't make commitments.  Men think all the same things, but instead of phoning their friends to complain, they spend time making a lot of meaningless decisions.
          -Deanne Stillman, "Girls in Suits at Lunch"