Last night was "do or die" night for songs on the party set list, and 3 songs that we've been working on will not be featured. The bass player pointed out that we were spending a disproportionate amount of the scant practice time remaining to us working on a couple of songs that aren't ready, when we could be better served polishing up many more of ( Read more... )

So I've been watching "America's Got Talent" all season . . . well, I passed up some of the early rounds, but I've been a regular viewer ever since they got down to serious contenders. And usually, we watch the show on the night it happens, delayed just long enough so that we can skip commercials (the only way to fly, in my opinion). But we weren't ( Read more... )

The Maltese Falcon fooled me. I thought I didn't much like it until the last five minutes, and then it pulled out an amazing ending. I still have some problems with the acting--the "action" scenes, such as they are, seem clumsy, contrived, and stagy. Through most of the film I was not convinced of the motivations of many of the characters. I've ( Read more... )

I finally got around to opening up my malfunctioning iPod to attempt a quick and dirty fix. The theory is that certain models of iPod have hard drives that deform from heat as they warm up, and wedging a folded piece of paper between the drive and the case can prevent that deformation from causing read-write errors. So I carefully examined a couple ( Read more... )

Soundtrack from my morning walk

• "Getting Jiggy Wit' It" by Will Smith [tying shoes]
• "www.memory" by Alan Jackson (2:35)
• "Hold On Loosely" by .38 Special (4.39)
• "Cream" by Prince (4:13) [beat is at a perfect walking pace]
• "Devil Got My Woman" by Skip James (3:00)