Ted Stevens' Tubes Raided

Ok...

This is what I found so hilarious today-

The Alaskan home (apparently he has more than one of these "homes" for there to be such a distinction)of former Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens (doesn't he know "stephen" is spelled with a "ph"?)...yes the infamously furious "NO!" Ted Stevens. The man who taught us all that the Internet is not a dump truck(not to be confused w/ Donald Trump)-NO!-but a series of tubes. It's almost if by not being re-eleceted to the Internets Committee he was building a bridge to nowhere on this issue of the Internet. A series of tubes. Just to make the distiction (in case you do watch presidential debates but have no idea about the "tubes") this is not the former senator from Alaska that is currently running for president who is often stategically placed behind a potted plant, making Dennis Kucinich look sane, no...that is Mike Gravel.

Monday...Now it's Tuesday

Well, so much for getting today's work done yesterday. Oh, I am not looking forward to Tuesday (today)...or Wednesday for that matter (dentist).

I had a lot to post today, but I guess not anymore. All dreams must now be forgotten after hearing Gordon Brown does not use the same toothpaste as Tony Blair. The things we learn at these press conferences.

Anderson Cooper apparently enjoys broadcasting atop the CNN building when he is in Hollywood. Everytime he's there. Don't they have enough studio space?... or does the sunset better bring out his eyes?

Well, I obviously don't have a life...I have a lot of work to do tomorrow... but I don't have a life.

The Day After Wednesday

Thursday comes after Wednesday, just as Wednesday arrives shortly after the fall of Tuesday. Whoever dares to debate this position... has too much time on his hands... well, more time that I do.

Lots of crazy happening lately... well, I guess, the same amount as usual, but still, it's a lot.

Harry Potter has been exposed. A photo-ed copy of the final book made its way onto the Internets a few days ago. Lawsuits are flying everywhere and children are crying. I believe we are fewer than 25 hours from release. That means about 30 hours until no one cares anymore. (FYI...well, I'm not going to go there.)

Al Qaida is multiplying, things are exploding in New York, planes are crashing, and Michael Chertoff ate some bad food... maybe some bad toothpaste from China cooked in an Easy Bake... it might just be me, but I smell something cooking (and not just in the Easy Bake).

On another note, 13 more days until I start a new session of courses. I just can't wait... C++ and Visual Basic. Actually, it's not all that exciting and I am not all that excited right at the moment.

Tomorrow is Friday. The day after is Saturday. Did you know that?

Thanks, CNN for reminding me "The Office" was on.

So lastnight, I was watching Anderson Cooper (broadcasting from the Hollywood CNN building roof...I only watching it about half an hour, so I'm not sure why... maybe he needed a tan). Anderson was speaking with some correspondant (maybe Tom Foreman...don't remember...I think it was about the report card, though), when all of the sudden I see what in the background looked like Dwight K. Schrute on one of the monitors in the background. I immediatedly dismissed the idea that the people working in the background at CNN were watching The Office. Ok, so actually I didn't dismiss the thought at all and continued to watch the monitor. Dwight was up against a white wall and there was that window to the right. Then the camera cut to a board room and I clearly saw Angela. Pretty soon the camera was on Michael Scott... and who can miss the blurry zoom-ins and the camera work typical of that show. So now I knew that what was on the monitor could only be The Office. There were six other montiors where one showed a person that liked to speak with his hands, one looked like another (non-CNN)newsbroadcast, and the other three looked to be some sort of drama (very dark). I then realized it was Thursday and The Office actually was on (a rerun, but still, it was on). I flipped to NBC and sure enough, the same Jim and Pam that were walking in some sort of department store in the background on CNN were also walking around on NBC. Thanks, CNN for reminding me that The Office was on. CNN, the most trusted name in showing you what else is on! Move over, TV Guide Channel.

Pretty Euphonium

Why doesn't it let me post a title anymore???
(aka, the first actual Random Question Blog)

Ok. So the original intent of this blog was for people to e-mail me random questions (check out my profile, my e-mail is there) and I would answer them based on research or what is already up in my head. So, I finally talked to someone yester-night, let's call her "alethea" and she had several questions to ask. They are a little on the researchy side and I have been sitting here for almost 12 hours, so I'm kind of sick of research right now. Hopefully tomorrow I will get to them.

I also took my first nap in the longest time today. I had a cancellation of a rehearsal, so my intent was to work on a bunch of school work then, but I couldn't keep my eyes open. Of course, it wasn't refreshing sleep as it gave me several unsettling nightmares. I need to find the connection for what makes me really tired like that. It's food, but what is it? I recently had an allergy testing for 60 different common allergens. Just about every one of those came back with a rating higher than 3 (on a scale of 1 to 5). I'll take a nap over needing to sleep 18 or more hours, but I'd rather be conscious a full 16 - 18. I had potatoes (the garlic mix from DG), broccoli, roast beef in chicken broth, and milk for supper. For my afternoon snack/lunch I had a handfull of spinach and 2 soft pretzels. I am allergic to oats and barley and I get itchy after eating wheat (haven't been tested for it yet, but I'm probably allergic) and I'm allergic to soy...hmmmm... I did dump a lot of soy sauce on my stir fry the night before...and it had onions in it (5/5). So my goal is to not eat any bready stuff for a while. Right after I received the results of my allergy test, I didn't eat bread for a week and felt great that week. I had so much energy and focus and got so much done. So, we'll see how that situation pans out.

Website...another thing I'm working on. More on that in a later post.

Oh, and I have also yet to post any sort of video or anything fun on this blog, so I'm going to try to post the two stop-motion videos I made this winter when I was in a stop-motion phase. There is no real plot or anything and both are fewer than 30 each. They are mostly just designs. So, see below.

Thumbtacks


Guitar Picks


Well, I must get back to the work that never seems to stop. This work should stop after I complete it, but work in general will never stop.

It won't let me click in the "Title:" box.

It's one of those days (or weeks) where I feel as if I am running in circles. I have so much to do. I do it, yet it feels as if it never gets done. Maybe my research tangents don't help... or my extra trips to the library... or spending hours watching video on YouTube. I am taking a bunch of online courses which really don't have anything to do with anything I aim to do, and they take a lot of time out of my day.

I haven't had a chance to research tangent news today, but apparently there's something up with the PA budget. I've been researching a little on pole shift. Scary stuff. Supposedly it was supposed to have happened on 5/5/2000, but no sight of anything. The planets were supposedly in some sort of alignment that would throw off the balance of earth's land mass and that would cause the crust to slide around the mantle and cause all sorts of badness. There is another prediction that this is supposed to happen on 12/21/2012. The planets will be in some sort of alignment and that is the date the Mayan calendar ends and a whole bunch of other stuff. I'm really great with specifics right now. There was a program about it on the history channel and that's what turned me onto that.

Well, it's that time a year again. Heat Wave! This one is supposed to last only another day or two, and all the power companies state that there is nothing wrong with any transformers....yet...and they should hold up. They have absolute confidence. We'll see what happens. Right now there are supposedly only 3 people without power in Manhattan.

Miles O'Brien seems to have taken on a more nerdy image now that he's back in the news room...hmmm...

Bush denies Congress access to aids. Now who would have predicted that. Just yesterday (maybe two days ago) Congress and everyone else was so confident that they couldn't find a loophole this time. Well, there is always Executive Privilege .

In other news in my life, I spent several hours lastnight downloading new little programs from download.com. I have yet to use anything, but I'll probably procrastinate myself into browsing some programs by the end of the day.

Why I am Sitting here eating chips??

It's been a while since I've had chips, but I'm eating them now. They don't really taste that great, but I'm eating them anyway. I guess somehow it compensates for my non-existent vacation. Maybe one of these days I'll even have a camp fire with some sparklers.

What has happened lately in my life that is worth blogging about....hmmm...let's see. Nothing.
Typical summer response. Try back in a few weeks.

There's been a lot happening in the world of the real world..."the most exciting moment in the history of sports...ever" A hotdog eating contest! Joey Chestnut wins with 66 hotdogs. Kobayashi no longer holds the record.

Scooter Libby was pardoned...and who could have predicted that. Keith Olbermann demanded Bush's resignation. Search it on The YouTubes...it's also currently at the top of Rosie's Blog. Maybe this incident will be the straw that pops the bubble of American political detachment.

CNN has a new site layout and video player...as described by CNN every seven minutes.

Al Gore is having his Global Warming Concert this weekend. Wow, think of all the CO2 that will be released from this global event. His son was just busted for drugs in a hybrid car. That's what my ticker said...not just a car, but a hybrid car. Hashish is also something that releases a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, so as long as he was in a hybrid, it kind of equalled out.
As I watched former president-elect Al Gore on The Larry King last night, I noticed that Gore kept mentioning that there were going to be all sorts of little surprises. What exactly does that mean? He wouldn't.... would he??? He also mentioned that he had "fallen out of love with politics", but when Larry asked him if he were going to run, he stated that there were still about 500 days until the election and it was too early to speculate about anything. So, still no "no" from Gore.

More next time about how green Greenland used to be and how the poles are shifting...

PostPerformance

Well, the performance with the group went really well and the performance of the solo went ok, but my lip was already gone before I began. I was also very shaky and couldn't get deep breaths, oh well. It's over now and I am awake. Boy am I awake. I have to get up at 8 tomorrow and I want to watch the replay of Michael Moore on Larry King at midnight. Oh, so that's not on. It says Robin Williams. Then I will watch Letterman and Conan. I also want to install Linux on my desktop, clean up my external hard drive, fix my laptops (and either list them on ebay or install Linux), read "To Kill a Mockingbird", finish my library books, clean up my room, work on my 3 courses, and finish some arrangements. Yeah, I'm not going to sleep.

Now that that concert is over, a huge burden has been lifted and I am free to mess around again, but for how long?

I would like to work on my performance skills and do weekly YouTube videos. I have recorded before, but I always find something wrong with my recordings, so I don't post them anywhere. I like to make arrangements in Sibelius, so I have a few waiting to be played. I'll start with something easy like Mario Bros or Tetris (as everyone on YouTube always plays) and move on to harder things later. That is my goal for Monday. I'll get a video up on the YouTube.

Concert Tonight!

Wow! This makes two blogs in a row. It's been a while since I've done that on a blog.

I have a concert tonight that starts somewhere between 7:30 and 8:00. It's a quintet concert, so a lot of a playing... There's also a tuba solo and a euphonium solo (that's me) and several organ solos so we can rest our lips. I don't know why, but my lips always get so tight in the week and sometimes just days before a concert. Of course, I always pick some song way up there in the stratosphere to do on a hot summer night. I didn't play much in May, but before then, I could hit a good half octave (sometimes an octave) above the highest note in this piece. I thought I wasn't going to much playing this summer or have to play any solos or anything (when I say "have to", that means when people ask, I can't say no), so I didn't play much during May or the first week of June. I'm not that nervous right this moment, but it's still early and I can't seem to snap out of this daze I'm in. I've also been having some really freaky dreams up to this point about the solo, so that hasn't helped my sleeping patterns any.

So, right now I'm debating whether or not I should practice any. I always feel like I have to have that one last run-through before the concert or the piece won't go well. Then if I do that, it's always "one more time" to the point of obsession and/or hurting my lips so there's no chance I'll be able to hit half of the notes.

I think this concert also means I'm going to miss Michael Moore on Larry King at 9. I can still watch it at midnight though.

So did you all hear about the three potential car bombs in London? Someone saw a car was smoking on the inside so police took a look and found large quantities of petrol and something else and a bunch of nails. I think later they found that the detonators to these potential bombs was a cell phone...speaking of cell phones, 6pm!!!

I predict the first few days (potentially weeks) there will be much hype and much regret to the people who did not get one. The buzz will die down shortly after this coming holiday weekend. Something with more features and better reception (at a lower price) will come out and just bury the iPhone. I hear Apple is coming out with something better sometime around Christmas, but maybe I drempt that.

So my favorite shows, TDS and TCR, are off for two weeks this year. Last year when they took off the first week of July, Israel erupted into a war with Hezbollah, Kobiashi (now stricken with arthritis of the jaw) won the Coney Island hotdog thing, North Korea launched Taepodog II missiles that fizzeled out shortly after launch, and all sorts of other things happened. When they took off for the Holiday season this past year, Saddam Hussein was hanged, Gerald Ford died, and so did James Brown. Do I see a pattern? First of all, when one crazy thing happens, it sets ablaze ten other situations and second, everything happens when these shows are on vacation.

I am very excited for the used book sale this weekend!! Books for a quarter!!

Now I must go be very nervous.