Category: Blog

Ugh

The Arrival by Codename
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/codename2008-01-03.at4040.sbd.flac16/codename2008-01-03.at4040.sbd.d1t01_64kb.mp3]

I feel really crappy. This is a mostly worthless post, and I strongly advise skipping over it. I need to complain somewhere so I can realize how petty my problems are and cut it out. I just reread the whole thing now that I’m done writing it, and you shouldn’t bother. Its a total waste of time. This post is what gives blogs a bad name.

Lets start with Friday. Friday night was good, but after friends left my place, it got less good. I didn’t go to sleep Friday night in an attempt to get myself tired enough to go to sleep a little earlier on Saturday night, so I could wake up for something on Sunday. This is never a good plan, and after trying this many times in the past and knowing full well that it doesn’t work, I did it again. So I got to wonder around Saturday in a weird daze. I’m normally pretty good with not sleeping, but whenever I’m not sleeping, I’m usually doing something. This wasn’t the case on Saturday, and trying to stay awake with no reason to isn’t a very easy thing to do. Hence the daze.

Around noon on Saturday my dad and I went to the RV show in Hartford. The idea was to check out some floor plans of the RVs there, and find some vendors who could hook me up with parts I’ll be needing. The RV show was a really disgusting place. Really. Its in a (the?) convention center in Hartford, which is a massively long, wide, and tall building, which was heated much more than it needed to be. The RVs there were mostly disgusting, including things you should never need. I was thinking about skipping over this RV rant, but I’ve got nothing better to do, so I’ll go with it.

I think – no, I must have a different idea of RVing than the people who make/buy/use them. My idea of an RV is very functional. It has beds, a toilet and shower, a place to make food and eat, and a place to just sit. On wheels. The RV being a base camp for whatever else you would be doing. The RVs at this show could replace a house, which isn’t very surprising because they cost about the same. I know they brought out their biggest and best for the show, but there were RVs with two floors, RVs with TVs larger than any in my house, and all of it was leather. It seems to me if I had one of these RVs, I wouldn’t want to leave it. Which kind of defeats the purpose of it being mobile. I don’t get it.

Back to the RV show. So the place and vehicles are disgusting. There were some sane RVs / campers there that didn’t require a mortgage, but I’m going to forget those and villanize the whole place. So while I’m at it, the people there were…interesting. There were the people who were shopping for their new house, and taking it all very seriously. There were people who were looking for a RV for weekends and such, and of course there were NASCAR people. I don’t quite know how this works, but I guess if you have an RV at a NASCAR event you’re some kind of VIP. And then there were the people who seemed to have absolutely no reason to buy an RV. I’m tired of writing about that, so I’m going to wrap it up by saying that the floorplans were not practical for my purpose (or in my opinion any other…they were just really inefficient with their space.) and there was no one selling parts. Plus they charged us $10 a head to get into the place.

Anyway, we got home from that, and I sat around for a while, and didn’t find anything to do. So eventually I gave up on staying awake for no real reason and went to sleep around 1800. I woke up around 0030, and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went downstairs to get something to eat and zone out in front of the TV. I got back to sleep around 0500, and woke up for good three hours later. I did more of nothing this morning, and then in a desperate attempt to busy myself, I tried to set up my parent’s mythtv box. After an hour or so of dealing with problems I had already solved a week or so ago when I last touched it, I realized that the hardware just wasn’t going to cooperate, and stopped before I smashed it to bits.

I’m not sure how, but my parents have this amazing ability to cripple computers. I can’t really blame the mythbox on them (it has larger issues), but they’ve rendered any computer the family used completely useless within a year of use. I had always chalked this up to Windows or Dell, since all their previous computers had one or both of those inherent defects. But the iMac I hooked them up with about a year ago is starting to slow down. I’m just puzzled by this, since I’ve had my PowerBook for three years now, and it works as well as the day I got it. I dunno, as long as I don’t have to use it, I don’t think I’ll try and figure it out.

So in conclusion, I feel crappy after spending a weekend doing all sorts of things I didn’t really want to do (and in case you didn’t notice, I didn’t end up going to that thing today I stayed up all night Friday for). Ugh.

6 Day Week?

Got No Feathers by Keller Williams
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/kw2007-02-28.flac16/kw2007-02-28d2t09_64kb.mp3]

I’ve been keeping even later (earlier?) hours recently. For quite a long while I was going to sleep around 0600 or 0700, but I usually had been in bed working on my laptop. The last few days, I’ve been out in the garage, actually doing things that people who are awake do. Which somehow makes me stay up later. Yesterday I went to sleep around 1000, and woke up around 1800. I think I’ll be going to sleep later than that today (because of eBay).

Whatever the case, I’m starting to lean towards the 28 hour day (I haven’t actually done the math to see how close or far I am, but I know I’m in the ballpark). I’ve gotta say, I like it. Obviously, there are the problems with not being able to interface with people, since most of them are asleep, but I’m alright with that. I’ll go out and hang out with friends shortly after waking up, and then when they take off around 0200, I’ll just hang around for the rest of the night. Its like a normal day, but in reverse.

So since I realized how close I was getting to the 6 day week, I figured I may as well actually try it. It should be interesting, because even though I usually have no commitments that I need to make, I have one this Sunday. So we shall see how this works out.

Holy Crap TV

I watched TV today for the first time in a long time, and it turns out I picked a pretty good day. I went downstairs to get breakfast today a little before 2000 (I’ve changed my sleep schedule around a lot) and got a bowl of cereal, then sat down to watch tv. What? The Daily Show? Its a rerun right?

Lo and behold, the opening animation introduced it as January 7th, 2008 (rebroadcast of last night’s show)! Somehow, no one told me about this. Last night, probably around the same time this episode was airing for the first time, I was complaining about how I missed the Daily Show. Although, until the writers return, they’ll be broadcasting as ‘A Daily Show with Jon Stewart.’

The Colbert Report took a similar change in title, abandoning the French pronounciation of the show for the American pronounciation, complete with T’s. But then, after these two shows which I missed so dearly, what come on next? Futurama! And then South Park! Hot damn, Comedy Central came out swinging.

Grey Fox 2008

The Bluegrass Country by the Del McCoury Band
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/del2001-07-21a.shnf/del01-07-21a10_64kb.mp3]

It has been a few years coming, but it seems that the farm that has been home to the Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, and the Winterhawk Bluegrass Festival before that, and the Berkshire Mountain Music Festival before that, has been sold. I’ve gone to this festival every year of my life, and it has always been on the Rothvoss Family Farm in Ancramdale, NY.

A few years back, when we went up on the hill fully believing that it was the last year we would have there, I brought up a camera of my own for the first time. That was when I took these pictures, hoping I’d be able to remember the place itself. There aren’t many pictures of the stage or the performers because many other photographers have taken far better pictures of those subjects than I ever will. But I tried to take pictures that would remind me of walking around the hill, what it sounded like sitting in the amphitheater, or the sound of the music I heard from my tent as I drifted off to sleep. We were lucky enough to get two more festivals before the sale of the farm was official.

There are folks who I see only once a year at Grey Fox, and they’re as close as any friends I have. There was a certain atmosphere on the hill that came from both the people and the place. The people will certainly stay with the festival as it moves, but what I hope for more than anything is that the atmosphere comes with them.

I’m grateful for the 21 years I had on the hill. I’m certainly sad to have to move on. Grey Fox was always my image of a perfect society, and I’ve always identified it as home – where I felt most comfortable. I just hope I can keep the memories of the hill alive in my mind.

I’m going to try and post some stories from the hill over the coming weeks.

Bonnaroo 2008

One Rabbit Race by Brothers Past
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/bp2006-06-10.dpa4022.flac16/bp2006-06-10dpa4027d1t01_64kb.mp3]

If I wasn’t certain before, I am now. There is no way I’ll be going this year. Led Zeppelin is headlining this year. This means two things: tickets will cost more, and the atmosphere will be even farther from what I’m looking for. Last year, it was pretty bad with lots of people going exclusively for Tool, but Zeppelin will draw an even larger crowd.

That isn’t even taking into account that they’re likely not even worth seeing anymore. I would have loved to see them in their prime, but I’m not so sure it would be worth seeing them today. The Police were absolutely unimpressive last year, and I honestly don’t expect much more from Zeppelin.

So it looks like Wakarusa this year. I’m looking forward to it, since it seems to be more of a jam scene, with folks more my speed. Its also a festival more my size (80k-100k is really too much). I’m planning on volunteering…anyone interested in coming with?

Sweeny Todd

If you can, see this movie. It is certainly one of the better if not the best movies I’ve seen this year. It tells a great story, with catchy and extremely well written songs. Overall, it is genuinely entertaining, and well worth your money, which is rare.

I want to see it again before I write too much more, but since that isn’t likely, I’ll just trudge on blindly. Can’t hurt. I didn’t know this was a play before it was a movie. In fact, I had never heard of the story. I was happy that I went into this movie with a blank slate, because that is something I am rarely able to do. Hmm, that isn’t entirely true. I knew Tim Burton was directing this movie starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter (all of whom are fantastic).

The movie isn’t especially thought provoking, just plain old entertaining. Leaving the movie, all I could think of was how I wanted to see it again. And its true, I do want to see it again: it is a grand way to spend two hours. Jack says he’ll buy it when it comes out on DVD, which is good, because if he buys it, I’ll be able to see it plenty more times.

Happy Christmas

What an American holiday. Christmas is undeniably secular, and is pretty widely accepted as a time to get together with family and (often) exchange gifts. A holiday devoted to consumerism, which needs two months of preparation. Yes, this is another Christmas rant, and while nearly everyone on the internet has written one, I haven’t, and I feel left out.

Let me pose a hypothetical situation: you are one of six friends (family, whoever) that decide to exchange gifts. Everyone spends about $50 on each gift, totaling $250 (50×5). You receive five gifts, totaling about $250 worth of stuff. In case you missed that, you just traded money for an equal amount of things you didn’t want or need.

Thankfully, my friends and I don’t exchange gifts. I hope we never do. However, my family is another story, as they still exchange presents. I doubt I’ll ever be able to unplug myself from that.

I think part of the magic of Christmas is how you perceived it as a child. Once Santa was outed and I got older and had to start buying gifts, that aura was pretty much gone. Maybe its just because I don’t have money to throw around.

Man, that was a pretty half-baked rant…
edit 1: A little embarrassing really…maybe I can spruce it up later…
edit 2: Nope, not gonna happen. Just gonna ignore it.

MT vs WP

So I’ve been playing around on the server here the last day or so. If
any pages have been down or not working, that’s probably why. I was
playing around with MovableType, and then with WordPress MU. Neither
really did what I had wanted, so I’m back to plain old multiple
installs of WP.

I smell pretty

Rollin’ 99 by Blue Turtle Seduction
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/bts2006-05-15.bts2006-05-15.flac16/bts2006-05-15.flac16/bts2006-05-15d1t05_64kb.mp3]

So I got a new stick of deodorant, because my old stick was running low. I just started using it today, and its funny. For a while, I thought one of the girls down the hall had a scented candle, or was wearing particularly strong perfume. But no, it was me.
I smell very pretty. I’m still not used to it. :-/