Just got home from work, gave Greenies(tm) to the kitties who showed up for them. The Tiny Kittens missed their cue–too involved with the little tweeting birdies in the sunshiny backyard. I’m eating a harvarti, pickle & romaine-lettuce sandwich (whole wheat brot & canola mayo) and listening to the Christian Marclay cd I just bought (along with several single guitar strings) at Shawn’s Museum of Unfine Art.  The CD is More Encores and you can read about it here.  Wow, Amazon wants $22. I got it for $15, new, at the Museum. Being able to buy single guitar strings very cool, too. Roit. Onward w/teh afternoon!

PART ONE

First of all, as a favor to Mr. Howard Libes, here’s an announcement!!!

FRIDAY, November 27…John Henry’s…The Quick & Easy Boys, The Visible Men (reunion show), Heavenly Oceans and Scrambled Ape. $5 without Mustache. $3 with Mustache. Ty Connor is MCing. 9:30pm start time.

PART TWO

So the other night I made pizza, two pizzas in fact. For pizza #1 the ingredients were capers, sliced brie, and sliced/sauteed cremini mushrooms. Pizza #2 had goat cheese, sliced/carmelized onions (sauteed in butter & olive oil until browned), chopped arugula, and grated mozzarella. This is how it went down. First I split a Breadstop pizza dough in half and made two dough balls with it. Each one got rolled out and put on a lightly oiled pizza pan, and holes forked all over (to prevent big bubbles during baking). I prebaked both pizza crusts in a 400 degree (F) oven for about 5 or 6 minutes, until they had skinned over and cooked a bit but pulled them out before they browned. On the prebaked crusts, I added the ingredients, thusly: For #1, I layed out slices of brie, evenly covering, then sprinkled capers liberally, then added the sauteed shrooms, evenly. For #2, I spread the goat cheese like butter, fairly thickly over the crust, then distributed the sauteed onions evenly. On top of the onions I piled the arugula on (probably there was too much—things ended up getting a little soggy; next time I’ll cut back and maybe even pre-steam and squeeze liquid from the arugula before added to pizza). On top of the arugula went the grated mozzarella. Then both pizzas went into the 400 degree (F) oven for 10-14 minutes, until edges were browned, and cheese was well melted and a bit browned. Arugula on #2 “melted” way down from the large pile that it started as, but as mentioned above, I used too much and the pizza was soggy. But everything tasted great!

I’m showing faith by hitting the “new post” button. Confidence in my ability and willingness to string together some keyboarded characters, possibly even words and sentences, perhaps even semigrammatically connected.  I just tossed out a bunch of little bottles containing the drying dregs of tempera paint. I decided I was done trying to ooze out the remaining bits. I dunno why I saved them anyway. Just use up all possible paint in a bottle and rinse it, that should be my rule. And it is now.  I am still overwhelmed by dreck vinyl upstairs. I keep thinking I’ll wanna use the dreck in mixes. The difference between the dreck and the dregs is that the paint gets used up, but the albums are there even after being used. Recordings are just that way. Usage is a form of copying. Usage of paint is an actual consumption that empties out the bottle. I could make a policy of breaking the records after they have been sampled. But that’s an imperfect analogy. This is obviously a psychological problem, and I’ll deal with it, one way or another… or not. Either way, boths ways, always: blog material! Huzzah!!

Morning blahs, hard to get moving after going to WOW Hall for Mission of Burma last night.  Embarrassingly light crowd for such a legendary band. Also, what’s up with your sound crew WOW Hall?… first band Explode Into Colors (Portland) was forced to do sound check from 8:20 to 8:40 and we all were subjected to it, including the people downstairs. Show was advertised to START at 8pm.  That’s just rude. Do sound checks before audience gets there! EIC were awesome, though, and the sound was great. Three players, all female: 2 drummers, one of ‘em on vox too, and 1 guitarist/vocalist.  Not at all like The Slits, which press copy had compared them to. If anything, Siouxie.. and a friend mentioned Mudwimmin.  I could have gone for a much longer set from them.  Mission of Burma of course totally rocked us, but the sound SUCKED.  WOW Hall, are you listening?

I feel very fortunate this year to have seen three legendary and highly influential bands: X, The Jesus Lizard, and Mission of Burma.  Key bands, not as famous as they deserve, but they influenced many others who became rich and famous.

I’m digging deep for some energy to get through the work day. Blog atcha later.

While the oatmeal cooks, I sip the coffee. My face feels relatively normal the morning after getting a temporary crown on a lower left molar (#19 for you dental fans). Over two hours in the chair. I seem to take longer than normal to “numb up” as I get older. And my gums stay “moist” (aka bleeding) longer than normal after crown prep. It took 3 impressions in the quick-hardening (3 minutes) silly putty before the doc got a perfect-enough one.  In two weeks I go back for the permanent crown.  I really like my dentist and her staff, which helps prevent overly long procrastination in getting dental work done.  Teeth are important!

For a commenter on the previous entry: thank you for your support! I do understand how Twitter would be hard to get into (and boring) if you aren’t participating. Twitter is one of those services that you get out of what you put into it, more or less.  It doesn’t seem to work for bystanders or those who tweet lightly.  I’m a heavy user much of the time, and I have a lot of fun and get a lot of value out of it. Many international and local connections. It’s as much chat/exchange as it is “microblogging”–a very unique net animal, even though Facebook et al are trying to imitate it with Twitter-like status update streams.  Hey, I didn’t know you were on Facebook! (By the way, Dr. Nontiny Noncat, you can selectively hide the apps like Farmville, Mafia etc … float on a post and you’ll see a “hide” link: you can select whether to hide the person or just hide the app.)

Well, oatmeal is nearly done. Need more coffee (ie. “health drink”)…. bye for now.

That was a long hiatus. No blogging in October, and now approaching middle of November. Mrs. Random said yesterday she’d like to see me blog more, hence this post.  Twitter–and to some extent Facebook–have taken over “net presence” activities for me. But they aren’t really substitutes for blogging. However, I think I’ve probably covered this subject matter before and I don’t really have much to add to it. Frankly, it’s difficult for me to focus on putting together good blog entries. Not sure there’s numerically significant audience for it, not that that matters a whit.  I’m much more about quality over quantity.  But if I’m not offereing quality blogging, then what is the point? Yes.  Back and forth my mind goes. Motivation lacking. Net time taken up by other forms. Blah blah blah. Hey, it’s time to go to work. Maybe I can extend this meditation further in the near future. Have a good day!

Painted space money this morning, early. Dubbed LaunchPad 9/27 Swarm to DVDRs. Yesterday dubbed from cassette to wav file & then emailed mp3 of last Some New Thing jam. I really think there is a new song there.  Listened to a bunch of  Human League last night at home, and Mrs. R liked them.  I think both of us only remember the big hit.  This week so far at work I’ve been listening to the likes of Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, The Jesus Lizard, Unsane, Sonic Youth, Talk Talk, and a couple others I can’t remember right now.  Speaking of TJL, I’m excited that I’m going to see them later this month in Portland! I’ve been trying to get back on a more strict health regime, including walking to work when I can, and biking when I can’t.  Climbing Pisgah with Mrs. R. Eating more whole foods, less refined foods. Etc. Speaking of food, I made Melanzane al Forno last night, from the Veggie Ep 2 recipe.  We’re getting a bunch of work done on our car, hopefully getting it back this afternoon.  Money!  Plums are pretty much done. Thanks to a loaner orchard ladder, we were able to get to more of our tree than we’ve ever been able.  Hoping to score an invite to the preview edition of Google Wave today.  I would be 1 of 100,000 ppl they’re supposedly going to invite.  Time to finish coffee and oatmeal.  I think we’ve got some rain today.  I’m okay with that.

Walking to work, 9/15/09

The past few days have been eventful, with ups and downs.  My heart goes out to the ones who lost their old cat friends.  My mom lost her kitty Lady on Saturday. Old and very sick.  And my friend Stardust lost her Oscar yesterday.   Our cats are like a combination of friends and children because we are responsible for them and we become very attached to their companionship and personalities.  It is very painful to lose them. I wish healing and peace for you who have.

I had a lovely time at Black Forest on Saturday night with friends and rockers Hot Drama, Alpha Dahlia and The Decliners.  It’s been awhile since I’ve rocked out at Black Forest. Fun!

It was Mrs. R’s birthday yesterday, and she wisely gave herself a day off to relax.  We went out to dinner at Zenon.  Our first dinner there ever.  The pecan-encrusted salmon special with chanterelles and peach-brandy sauce and deep fried spud cylinders was awesome.  The seafood linguine menu item not so much.  From our brief research I’d say avoid the pasta dishes and go with other things.

Hopping around temporally….  Sunday morning Mrs. Random, Stardust, and I hiked up Mt. Pisgah. Thoroughly pleasant, the air was still cool and the fog was just dissipating when we arrived there to climb.  I love the practice of putting your parking stub back at the fee station for another visitor to use. But it IS communism, just so you know. And I’m sure the Dept. of  Homeland Security will soon be investigating these shenanigans.

Sunday afternoon Some New Thing had an awesome band practice. Our songs are coming along, and there are new ones on the way.  We are to the point where we need a regular drummer. The glorified metronome that is the drum machine is not satisfactory for advancing the songs that are more completely developed. This  is good!

Okay, there’s enough blog for you for now I hope.

Some New Thing skipped practice tonight because Stardust needed the evening to prepare for Pony Prance’s gig in Medford Friday night. So I practiced my bass and painted space money and read more of the Lovink book (ref’d in earlier blogging) and took a nap. We’re planning a Sunday afternoon practice instead.

Mrs. Random is nearly finished with her week of working a later shift. The cats and I will appreciate the company as we’ll all return to sharing a more matching schedule next week!  We’re planning to hike Pisgah on Sunday.  We both want to get back into that routine.  I’ve been walking more.  We’ve been eating more in line with the “new regime” we started two years ago or so, when the doc said I was pre-diabetic.  Been a little slack.  Last week halfway through my shift at work I noticed that I’d forgotten my belt.  It’s not okay to not notice I forgot my belt! When I bought the pants I needed the belt to keep them from slipping down. Now I don’t need a belt. Unacceptable!

Fleur is being very cuddly and in the way right now.  The kittens turned 6 months old last week.  Griffin is much larger than Fleur.  G and the other two boys, who now live up in the southwest hills of Eugene–Zeb (formerly codenamed Pascal) and Jet (Torpedo)–are all now larger than their mother Dr. Tiny Cat.  Fleur is significantly smaller than all of them.  But she’s probably got more Alpha in her than most of the others do.  When she’s wrestling with Griffie, she attacks first and throws her whole body at his head.  He just fights with the upper half of his body sometimes because he’s so much bigger.  She may be a Micro Cat, but Fleur is healthy and full of vim/vigor.  Right now she’s a total purrbody loveykitty stretched on my lap.

Fleur behind Griffin

Friends just bought a house and are going to paint over the current colors. Here’s a sample. It’s being called the M&M theme:

I decided I wanted to blog more, nihilistic though it may be (see Geert Lovink book summary in previous blog entry).  Mrs. Random blogs almost daily.  I used to, long ago. Now I tweet and facebook almost daily.  So do a lot of you, I suspect!  Right at the moment I’m on the netbook at the dining room table, and we’re about to start making dinner which is couscous feta chickpea salad.  R’s birthday is coming up. I did some e-shopping today! That was fun. Will do some local shopping too.

lelu traded me a Yamaha DD-6 for a broken keyboard.  What a deal!

Yamah DD-6 Drum Machine

It’s got a built in speaker so I can use it for practice along with my acoustic bass guitar.

Ibanez Acoustic Bass Guitar

And I use print outs of blank bass guitar tabs to write down note sequences, from www.blanksheetmusic.net.  And to document timing, rhythm, etc., I use a little mono cassette recorder.

Sony TCM-200DV Cassette-Corder

The dinner salad was wonderful, and now I’m drinking whiskey.

I am sitting at the dining room table, oatmeal cooking on the stove over in the kitchen. Mrs. R has a later work schedule this week, covering for her assistant who’s on vacation, so I’ll likely be leaving for work before she gets up.  The cats are up, though.  I’ve got the gas stove in the living room on for Daphne, although it’s not really cold enough to need it.  Her old bones appreciate the heat.

I keep tripping over how much has changed Online since I started blogging in December 1999.  For one thing, the identity of “blogger” is not something I wear actively anymore, it seems.  It used to be unique and interesting to be an online person, to be a blogger, a Netizen if you will.  Now most of us seem to be living online, checking our social networks several times daily.  Being constantly connected to a global communications & micropublishing network has become the norm for many these days.  Mobile is growing fast. Netbooks too.

I am reading a book by Geert Lovink called Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture. Summary on Amazon:

In Zero Comments, internationally renowned media theorist and ‘net critic’ Geert Lovink upgrades worn out concepts about the Internet and interrogates the latest hype surrounding blogs and social network sites. In this third volume of his studies into critical Internet culture, following the influential Dark Fiber and My First Recession, Lovink develops a ‘general theory of blogging.’ Unlike most critiques of blogging, Lovink is not focusing here on the dynamics between bloggers and the mainstream news media, but rather unpacking the ways that blogs exhibit a ‘nihilist impulse’ to empty out established meaning structures. Blogs, Lovink argues, are bringing about the decay of traditional broadcast media, and they are driven by an in-crowd dynamic in which social ranking is a primary concern. The lowest rung of the new Internet hierarchy are those blogs and sites that receive no user feedback or ‘zero comments’.

Lovink explores other important changes to Internet culture, as well, including the silent globalization of the Net in which the West is no longer the main influence behind new media culture, as countries like India, China and Brazil expand their influence. Zero Comments also looks forward to speculate on the Net impact of organized networks, free cooperation and distributed aesthetics.

Okay then.  There’s that, and then there’s this hot oatmeal I’m eating and I can feel the heat traveling all the way to my belly with the first bite.  Newman’s organic California raisins and organic nonfat plain Nancy’s yogurt! The oats are Bob’s Red Mill organic extra thick rolled. Were those placement ads?

I am heavily deeply into music.  Every time I play with LaunchPad, it feels better and more interesting. We’re a five-year-old improv noise dance band, if you will.  Always exciting!  Maybe we can play some gigs soon.

Some New Thing (my new project with Stardust), a band consciously influenced by the likes of Joy Division, New Order, The Cure, among a few others, is making consistent and excellent progress, factoring in the fact that we meet once a week. We are still embryonic, with fewer than a half dozen partly-finished songs.  But every week we advance, fleshing out more of our songs and figuring out how we want to be as a band. Her roommate John drums with us when he can, which is awesome. I am spending lots of time at home playing bass guitar, trying to improve my chops and knowledge, as well as composing new bass lines.

Pony Prance plays at Sam Bond’s on Saturday (8/22), opening for Yeltsin and Wow & Flutter.  Very much looking forward to that show.  On Friday my duo band with tHE bOY plans to get together and make sonic mayhem.  First time Frantic has done anything since April.  On Sunday our normal Apollo space capsule of a Swarm will probably feel more like a Space Shuttle mission, with 2 extra musicnauts joing the fun, and wishing Kem a goodbye farewell for a few months to NY state.  I like making podcasts. Not sure I’ll be able to keep up the pace. Looking back at the record, August is often when I go into uber-mode with posting creativity. There, I blogged.

A flow of sounds is happening this week at my podcast page: http://radionot.wordpress.com.

The weekend was good. Friday lelu came over for G.U.L.P. and we picked out postable pix of LaunchPad from my Flickr sets. Saturday night Mrs. R and I went to a birthday party and then I went to band practice. Some New Thing had our first practice with a live drummer, which felt really good. Spent most of our time on Ceremony, but also worked on transitions in our work-in-progress codenamed Song 3.  Sunday included a Pisgah hike and helping a friend by moving some stuff across town.

We’re getting our new couch today!  May this one last longer versus the kitteh klaws than previous models.

The Space Money mint is active again.  I love to paint!

My 10 year blogging anniversary is coming later this year.  I started blogging in December 1999, almost immediately after seeing my first blogs.  Some of the people I had on my blogroll back then are still at it.  Including Garret at Dangerousmeta, who tweeted at me last night about the Mixtape I posted.