It's always strange to me when I hear about a celebrity that has passed away that I feel overly sad that they're gone. I never knew Pat Morita, I have no idea if he was a good person or a selfish jerk. But, I liked Mr. Miyagi, and I hope that Pat Morita had some of the characteristics of the character he portrayed.
There are many pithy words of wisdom that could be quoted, but the one that I've always remembered comes from the worst of the Karate Kid movies, ("The Next Karate Kid", with Hilary Swank playing the lead. Believe me when I tell you the movie sucked.)
No matter how bad the movie was, Mr. Miyagi came through with a profound little nugget that we should all ponder:
"Never trust a holy man who doesn't dance."
Amen. Rest in peace, Pat.
11.28.2005
11.18.2005
wal-mart
I know there are a lot of things that I should hate about wal-mart, (well on their way to being the ONLY store which would be the ultimate monopoly, putting all the mom & pop stores out of business, capitalism run amuck, yada yada), but really two things in particular come to mind that I truly despise about wal-mart.
1) This year, they got out the Christmas stuff IN AUGUST!!!! This is annoying like everything about the commercialization of Christmas is annoying, so...whatever...
2) (I really hate this one) Why oh why do I have to listen to constant, LOUD, commercials for wal-mart while I'm in the store? I'm thinkin': I'm already at Wal-mart. I'm shopping here. Do you really need to yell at me the whole time I'm here to tell me to shop here more? What I think is particularly vulgar are these little speakers hanging all the way from the ceiling, but hanging really low over the toy aisles. These little speakers are BLASTING commercials into the kids heads the whole time they're looking at the toys.
Does anybody else see how awful this is? How can this even be legal? How come nobody has thought to think it may not be moral?
1) This year, they got out the Christmas stuff IN AUGUST!!!! This is annoying like everything about the commercialization of Christmas is annoying, so...whatever...
2) (I really hate this one) Why oh why do I have to listen to constant, LOUD, commercials for wal-mart while I'm in the store? I'm thinkin': I'm already at Wal-mart. I'm shopping here. Do you really need to yell at me the whole time I'm here to tell me to shop here more? What I think is particularly vulgar are these little speakers hanging all the way from the ceiling, but hanging really low over the toy aisles. These little speakers are BLASTING commercials into the kids heads the whole time they're looking at the toys.
Does anybody else see how awful this is? How can this even be legal? How come nobody has thought to think it may not be moral?
11.11.2005
Substitute 5th Grade Teacher
Ok, many have asked. Sorry that it's taken me all week.
Of course, I had trouble sleeping the night before and I ended up getting up early, getting ready, and getting to the school even before the secretary. Somebody in the office told me how to get to the room so I went on down there just to try to get my bearings.
When I got to the room, low and behold, the teacher, Mrs. D, was there making sure that all her plans were ready for me. So, she went over everything with me. She was very nice and very encouraging and really helped put me at ease.
I won't give a play by play of the day, but I'll just say it went OK. I was disappointed with the behavior of the students for the most part. They were 5th graders and just intent on trying to get away with stuff all day. For example: The first thing a student said to me all day was: "Oh yea, we have a sub today. The teacher told us that you were supposed to give us an extra recess today..." Yea, right.
So, between my lack of experience, their age, the fact that it was a beautiful friday, made it difficult to keep their attention and keep them on task.
One of the biggest frustrations was the fact that there were reading blocks and math blocks which meant that there were different groups of kids in the room. This happened after we'd only been in there for like 30 minutes. Of course getting kids' named learned in that amount of time was impossible, but after 30 minutes, I couldn't even tell which kids were "homeroom" kids and which were block kids. Between these blocks, some kids going to different "resource" work and testing, I never knew if all the kids who were supposed to be in the class were there or not.
I did manage to make one girl cry for not letting her go to the bathroom just 30 minutes after they were all supposed to have a bathroom break. Which brings up of the the two big things I learned: 1) find out the teacher's bathroom policy 2) find out what should be done with all the papers/work they work on that day. I just had them hand almost everything in.
All in all, it wasn't so bad that I'm not ready to do it again. In fact, now that I've done it once, I'm not nearly as terrified and am wanting to try it some more. However, it was not good enough that I'm rushing to go back to that or any other 5th grade classroom very soon.
Of course, I had trouble sleeping the night before and I ended up getting up early, getting ready, and getting to the school even before the secretary. Somebody in the office told me how to get to the room so I went on down there just to try to get my bearings.
When I got to the room, low and behold, the teacher, Mrs. D, was there making sure that all her plans were ready for me. So, she went over everything with me. She was very nice and very encouraging and really helped put me at ease.
I won't give a play by play of the day, but I'll just say it went OK. I was disappointed with the behavior of the students for the most part. They were 5th graders and just intent on trying to get away with stuff all day. For example: The first thing a student said to me all day was: "Oh yea, we have a sub today. The teacher told us that you were supposed to give us an extra recess today..." Yea, right.
So, between my lack of experience, their age, the fact that it was a beautiful friday, made it difficult to keep their attention and keep them on task.
One of the biggest frustrations was the fact that there were reading blocks and math blocks which meant that there were different groups of kids in the room. This happened after we'd only been in there for like 30 minutes. Of course getting kids' named learned in that amount of time was impossible, but after 30 minutes, I couldn't even tell which kids were "homeroom" kids and which were block kids. Between these blocks, some kids going to different "resource" work and testing, I never knew if all the kids who were supposed to be in the class were there or not.
I did manage to make one girl cry for not letting her go to the bathroom just 30 minutes after they were all supposed to have a bathroom break. Which brings up of the the two big things I learned: 1) find out the teacher's bathroom policy 2) find out what should be done with all the papers/work they work on that day. I just had them hand almost everything in.
All in all, it wasn't so bad that I'm not ready to do it again. In fact, now that I've done it once, I'm not nearly as terrified and am wanting to try it some more. However, it was not good enough that I'm rushing to go back to that or any other 5th grade classroom very soon.
11.06.2005
11.02.2005
busy week
This week is just crazy. wedding on saturday, Halloween, piano moving, trying to finish keyboard parts on a record we're trying to finish at the studio, more piano moving, filling in for T-rev last night at ConC, going to the OMA's tonight to schmooze for the studio, but not before a quick voice over session right before, big piano moving day tomorrow to free up Friday so I can go substitute teach for 5th graders.
yes, you read that right. I'm nervous.
yes, you read that right. I'm nervous.
10.27.2005
Music industry still singing the blues - Yahoo! News
Two headlines popped up on my "yahoo! news" this morning. I linked the first above.
The headline right below it?
"Ashlee [Simpson]:'I Am' No. 1" (the article is about Simpson's new CD being #1 in Billboard sales right now.)
Is it so hard to see the correlation? Nobody wants to buy the perfectly packaged crap [a la Simpson] the music industry has been feeding consumers.
This may seem backwards, I mean her CD is number 1. But, the point is that music sales are way down, and even if her sales are number 1, they're still pitifully low especially considering how much money her label put up to market her. (my guess would be $2 million or more, but that's just a guess)
This may only seem relevant to me, but you can go back to whatever you were doing, now.
The headline right below it?
"Ashlee [Simpson]:'I Am' No. 1" (the article is about Simpson's new CD being #1 in Billboard sales right now.)
Is it so hard to see the correlation? Nobody wants to buy the perfectly packaged crap [a la Simpson] the music industry has been feeding consumers.
This may seem backwards, I mean her CD is number 1. But, the point is that music sales are way down, and even if her sales are number 1, they're still pitifully low especially considering how much money her label put up to market her. (my guess would be $2 million or more, but that's just a guess)
This may only seem relevant to me, but you can go back to whatever you were doing, now.
10.25.2005
something to feel good about
I've recently been spending a lot of time the web-site linked above. If you haven't checked it out yet, do so now.
This guy...he's my kind of guy.
This guy...he's my kind of guy.
10.18.2005
swishswishswishswishswishswishswishswish.........
I don't cry much. My mom does. My wife does. Even my sister has become more and more of a crier as she gets older. I cried uncontrollably when my dad died nearly 12 years ago and it was a pretty sad state of affairs when petey died a few months ago. But, those sort of things are allowed.
When I do find myself tearing up, I fight pretty hard not to let anybody, even holly, know what's happening. We've even got into fights because she'll ask me if I'm crying and I get mad because I'm not. (but, sometimes I am...)
Sometimes, in movies, it's just uncontrollable. 90% of the time it's the actual music in the movie. This irritates me so much, because my mind knows that I'm being manipulated by another musician, but there's no stopping the emotions...
Then I heard this sound. It's just a weird little sound that's almost more mechanical than musical in its rhythm. I've never felt my brain seem so small and useless in trying to come to grips with what this little sound actually means.
This strange little sound made it difficult to keep others from noticing tears in my eyes.
When I do find myself tearing up, I fight pretty hard not to let anybody, even holly, know what's happening. We've even got into fights because she'll ask me if I'm crying and I get mad because I'm not. (but, sometimes I am...)
Sometimes, in movies, it's just uncontrollable. 90% of the time it's the actual music in the movie. This irritates me so much, because my mind knows that I'm being manipulated by another musician, but there's no stopping the emotions...
Then I heard this sound. It's just a weird little sound that's almost more mechanical than musical in its rhythm. I've never felt my brain seem so small and useless in trying to come to grips with what this little sound actually means.
This strange little sound made it difficult to keep others from noticing tears in my eyes.
Jeffrey Overstreet on "Serenity"
1) I watched the TV series of Firefly last week and dug it.
2) Since I dug the show, I decided I wanted to go see the movie, Serenity which is a movie kind of finishing the show that got cancelled after one season. Dug the movie too.
3)I've been spending a lot of time on Jeffrey Overstreet's web-site lately. He's a writer and a critic from Seattle who approaches movies and music and art in the way I think more people (christians) should.
In other news, I have a gig this coming Saturday. I was really hoping to work up some new material for it, but about now, I'm just hoping that I can hammer down this stupid allergy crap enough to make it through. We'll see.
2) Since I dug the show, I decided I wanted to go see the movie, Serenity which is a movie kind of finishing the show that got cancelled after one season. Dug the movie too.
3)I've been spending a lot of time on Jeffrey Overstreet's web-site lately. He's a writer and a critic from Seattle who approaches movies and music and art in the way I think more people (christians) should.
In other news, I have a gig this coming Saturday. I was really hoping to work up some new material for it, but about now, I'm just hoping that I can hammer down this stupid allergy crap enough to make it through. We'll see.
10.13.2005
Librarian Rediscovers Beethoven Score - Yahoo! News
I don't really have anything to say about this, but I think that it's cool. How cool will it be to actually hear this piece of music performed now?
10.11.2005
reading list
I've got so many books going right now that it's getting stupid:
Searching for God Knows What - Don Miller
Through Painted Deserts - Don Miller
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkein
In Other Words- Artists Talk about Life and Work by Anthony DeCurtis
The Message-I've had this sitting in the bathroom and been reading it while...(ahem)...my daily constitutional...
and today I just got A New Way to Be Human by Charlie Peacock from half.com in the mail.
Today, I spent most of the day riding in the truck to take a piano to Oklahoma City. Instead of making some headway on one of the books listed above, I started re-reading The Story We Find Ourselves In by Brian McLaren. I think I got about 3/4 of the way through it. (it was a long day).
Searching for God Knows What - Don Miller
Through Painted Deserts - Don Miller
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkein
In Other Words- Artists Talk about Life and Work by Anthony DeCurtis
The Message-I've had this sitting in the bathroom and been reading it while...(ahem)...my daily constitutional...
and today I just got A New Way to Be Human by Charlie Peacock from half.com in the mail.
Today, I spent most of the day riding in the truck to take a piano to Oklahoma City. Instead of making some headway on one of the books listed above, I started re-reading The Story We Find Ourselves In by Brian McLaren. I think I got about 3/4 of the way through it. (it was a long day).
10.06.2005
NO WAY!
So, after chillin' with Joan Jett last weekend, James and I kept talking about the movie she starred in with Michael J. Fox back in the '80s called "The Light of Day". James ended up finding it at the library and so the shacks and powers got together tonight to watch it.
It's really not worth hunting down unless you're really interested, but I remembered liking it when I saw it before and it wasn't that bad.
I particularly liked this part where the band was hanging out at their old regular club and there's this cheezy techno band playing on their stage. In the dialog, the band is called "The Problems". "They used to be called The Sins, now they're just called Problems..." The band was actually a trio: two guys playing keyboards/computers and a lead singer front and center playing a synth-drum pad...AWESOME!
THE CRAZIEST thing about this is that as we're watching the credits at the end of the movie, they list all the members of all the bands in the show & TRENT REZNOR is one of the guys in Problems! If you don't know who Trent Reznor is, he's a pretty hard-core industrial artist producer who, among other things, produced Marilyn Manson and wrote the song "Hurt" that Johnny Cash redid.
If you could see this band "Problems" and knew who Trent Reznor is, you'd know why this is so outrageously crazy.
It's really not worth hunting down unless you're really interested, but I remembered liking it when I saw it before and it wasn't that bad.
I particularly liked this part where the band was hanging out at their old regular club and there's this cheezy techno band playing on their stage. In the dialog, the band is called "The Problems". "They used to be called The Sins, now they're just called Problems..." The band was actually a trio: two guys playing keyboards/computers and a lead singer front and center playing a synth-drum pad...AWESOME!
THE CRAZIEST thing about this is that as we're watching the credits at the end of the movie, they list all the members of all the bands in the show & TRENT REZNOR is one of the guys in Problems! If you don't know who Trent Reznor is, he's a pretty hard-core industrial artist producer who, among other things, produced Marilyn Manson and wrote the song "Hurt" that Johnny Cash redid.
If you could see this band "Problems" and knew who Trent Reznor is, you'd know why this is so outrageously crazy.
hmmm...
A friend sent this to me, and it made me stop to think:
"If you jog in a jogging suit, lounge in lounging pajamas, and smoke in a smoking jacket, WHY would anyone want to wear a windbreaker??" - unknown
"If you jog in a jogging suit, lounge in lounging pajamas, and smoke in a smoking jacket, WHY would anyone want to wear a windbreaker??" - unknown
10.05.2005
C.S. Lewis
"What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects --- with their Christianity latent. You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way round. Our faith is not likely to be shaken by any book on Hinduism. But, if whenever we read an elementary book on geology, botany, politics, or astronomy, we found that its implications were Hindu, that would shake us. It is not the books written in direct defense of materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books. In the same way, it is not books on Christianity that will really trouble him. But he would be troubled if, whenever he wanted a cheap popular introduction to some science, the best work on the market was always by a Christian. The first step to the reconversion of a country is books produced by Christians."(God in the Dock, "Christian Apologetics," C. S. Lewis)
I find little nuggets like this all the time and wonder if Lewis would be nearly as popular with Christians if they had any clue about what he actually said. Lewis' words, written some 40 years ago, speak intelligently in critique of issues that many still can't get figured out today.
It seems telling that there are no voices of reason and intelligence standing out in all of the Christian publishing industry like Lewis or Chesterton did at one time. If there were somebody out there smart enough and reasonable enough to actually have something to say, he/she is constantly feeling pressure to "write more little books about Christianity", which, of course, will never make any impression on anybody outside of the Church's walls.
"A CBA (Christian Booksellers Association) survey released at the Convention shows Christian-product sales by CBA member suppliers through all distribution channels to be just under $4.2 billion for the year 2002..."
Congratulations.
immutable truth
The older I get, the less important it seems to me to hold a great number of "bedrock" beliefs. There are a number of things that I believe strongly and passionately, but I have less and less faith in my own perspective and my ability to completely understand any given topic. Consequently, I think a key to learning and growing would be staying open to possibilities that my own conclusions may need tweaked as new information presents itself.
However, this morning I realized one particular truth that I don't ever believe will be tweaked. If I ever have kids of my own, I look forward to passing this bit of wisdom on to them and hope that it will become a part of their lives as it has mine:
Picky people pick Peter Pan peanut butter. It's the peanut butter picky people pick.
Live it. Love it.
However, this morning I realized one particular truth that I don't ever believe will be tweaked. If I ever have kids of my own, I look forward to passing this bit of wisdom on to them and hope that it will become a part of their lives as it has mine:
Picky people pick Peter Pan peanut butter. It's the peanut butter picky people pick.
Live it. Love it.
10.04.2005
shack & the blackhearts...and joan jett
So, last Friday, I was knocking around the house a little depressed because I kept thinking: "I need to make some money this weekend. How am I going to make some money this weekend? It's already friday, I can't book a gig, I can't book somebody in the studio, and there are no piano moves needed." Then, I get a phone call.
It's this guy, Hal, whom I've met once, who has a limo service. He says that his business is crazy busy this weekend with Bikes, Blues, and BBQ in Fayetteville. They're shuttling people back and forth from Dickson street and all sorts of things. They've also got the contract for shuttling around the for big band performing at the Amp on Friday and Saturday night and they're short one driver. Would I be interested in driving a 15 passenger van down to Fort Smith to pick up Blue Oyster Cult from the airport on Saturday? He can pay me somewhere between $15-$20/hour and he can get me tickets to the shows if I want.
ummm...YES!
So, Holly and I went to see SteppenWolf & Joan Jett and the Blackhearts on Friday night! Steppenwolf were not that great, especially since they didn't have a bass player and the bass was sequenced. But Joan Jett ROCKED!
So, then in the middle of Joan's set, (actually right as she was starting "I Love Rock-n-Roll", Hal comes and finds me and says there's been some scheduling changes and asks if I can take Joan & the Blackhearts to the airport in the morning before heading to Ft. Smith to pick up Blue Oyster Cult.
ummm...YES!!
So, I needed some money and the work I found was to drive around rock stars. It could be much worse.
It's this guy, Hal, whom I've met once, who has a limo service. He says that his business is crazy busy this weekend with Bikes, Blues, and BBQ in Fayetteville. They're shuttling people back and forth from Dickson street and all sorts of things. They've also got the contract for shuttling around the for big band performing at the Amp on Friday and Saturday night and they're short one driver. Would I be interested in driving a 15 passenger van down to Fort Smith to pick up Blue Oyster Cult from the airport on Saturday? He can pay me somewhere between $15-$20/hour and he can get me tickets to the shows if I want.
ummm...YES!
So, Holly and I went to see SteppenWolf & Joan Jett and the Blackhearts on Friday night! Steppenwolf were not that great, especially since they didn't have a bass player and the bass was sequenced. But Joan Jett ROCKED!
So, then in the middle of Joan's set, (actually right as she was starting "I Love Rock-n-Roll", Hal comes and finds me and says there's been some scheduling changes and asks if I can take Joan & the Blackhearts to the airport in the morning before heading to Ft. Smith to pick up Blue Oyster Cult.
ummm...YES!!
So, I needed some money and the work I found was to drive around rock stars. It could be much worse.
9.27.2005
Your Linguistic Profile
So, I've never put anything like this on my blog, but this was kind of interesting to me. Of course, I'm not really too sure about the accuracy of these little surveys...
Your Linguistic Profile: |
80% General American English |
10% Upper Midwestern |
5% Dixie |
5% Midwestern |
0% Yankee |
9.21.2005
Foster dog...no more?
I think that I've mentioned that we've had a new border at our house, and her name is B'Elanna. She's 11 years old, at least mostly dachsund, and a sweety.
Well, her true owner is now in Europe for a year and tonight I gave B'Ellana a bath for the first time. I'm not sure if we should call her foster dog anymore or we should start calling her adopted.
Well, her true owner is now in Europe for a year and tonight I gave B'Ellana a bath for the first time. I'm not sure if we should call her foster dog anymore or we should start calling her adopted.
9.16.2005
9.14.2005
track 8
It is well-documented (by one of my songs) that I am fatter than I want to be.
In attempts to skinny down, I've actually got my mountain bike out and rode around the lake twice this week and it's only Wednesday! And I didn't really come as close to myocardial infarction as I thought. (I just like to say infarction...)
Unfortunately, I don't think I'm any skinnier or lighter yet.
In attempts to skinny down, I've actually got my mountain bike out and rode around the lake twice this week and it's only Wednesday! And I didn't really come as close to myocardial infarction as I thought. (I just like to say infarction...)
Unfortunately, I don't think I'm any skinnier or lighter yet.
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