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// posted by Me @ 1/09/2004 03:43:00 PM

Postmodernism 

I suppose I'm guilty of Jargon in my papers too but I like to think that a lot of it is necessary as a shorthand for what would otherwise be more complicated descriptions. I am not, however, well versed in literary criticism and have trouble truly engaging the epistemlogical hermeneutics of syntactical signifiers in musical problematics. Or something like that. But this guy does. The best part:

The essential paradigm of cyberspace is creating partially situated identities out of actual or potential social reality in terms of canonical forms of human contact, thus renormalizing the phenomenology of narrative space and requiring the naturalization of the intersubjective cognitive strategy, and thereby resolving the dialectics of metaphorical thoughts, each problematic to the other, collectively redefining and reifying the paradigm of the parable of the model of the metaphor.

// posted by Me @ 1/09/2004 01:40:00 PM

1/07/2004

Say What? 

Speech recognition is getting there...but ever so slowly. Of course, if you're mean to your recognition engine, the results can be pretty bad. Don't talk with food in your mouse, don't speak too loudly, don't slur things, etc. But when you give it music...well, it can actually be pretty poetic in a screwed up random kind of way.

I fed the MS Speech Recognition system a Ben Folds Five song (Magic). After the first verse and refrain, this is what it came up with:

From my own land and and a two-man a plan Pan am up the zero there's a good man a tan and And they uses new as is today and you knew In her hand who so a and stuck And they a gang and gave a ten Z. A. A.

// posted by Me @ 1/07/2004 04:57:00 PM

I want funny "haha" not funny "hoho" 

I've always loved going into Chinese supermarkets. First of all, I love the food there, my being as mainland as one can possibly get. But also, I love the labels. Everything's wrong in wonderful ways and when I pretend to be some ignorant foreigner, it's hilarious. Everybody laughs cause it's funny. But I just wanted to share some amusing examples. These were taken with my phone so the quality isn't great but here goes:

Does whatever a Spader can! Got his Spader powers when bitten by a radioactive Spader. What's a Spader? And he is obviously cool because is "unmatched." To the eXtreem!	Ok, really, there are plenty of other stereotypically Chinese things you could slap as a brand on your noodle...but Kung Fu? And we wonder why all foreigners think every one of us can do martial arts and scream as if we had no balls like Bruce Lee...
I kid you not. I think Gatorade has some pretty disgusting commercials with their neon-colored sweat but who would really want to drink sweat??? And no, I don't think it's "sweet".	Other stores hope you come back again. Chinese markets thank you for your patronage but then demand that you not only come back but HURRY back.

And I'm done.

// posted by Me @ 1/07/2004 10:49:00 AM

UCSB Teachers Blow! 

Well, no they don't. At least not all of them. But some do.

After Monday's big fiasco with weight training and Hayashi sensei, I get up Wednesday morning thinking "well, no Japanese, but at least weight training will finally start." That would be an incorrect thought. Our lard butt[1] of a weight training instructor failed to show up AGAIN! Once bitten, twice shy, if we get to three, I'm just going to call him a retard. This, coupled with my fumes at Sugawara sensei and a certain head of the piano department elitist shiri yaro[2], taints the reputation of UCSB teachers a bit.


[1]I don't know that he is a lard butt or that he even has lard in his butt. I just dislike his absence.
[2]shiri yaro, directly translated from Japanese, would probably be something like "Butt-Bastard." I'm pretty sure nobody in Japan uses this phrase but I like it so there.

// posted by Me @ 1/07/2004 10:34:00 AM

1/06/2004

Cardinality 6 

PCSA now has display options and Forte names work up to cardinality 6. I think I'll generate the rest of the info (cardinalities 7-9) with already-entered info (deducing it from cardinalities 3-5).

Japanese is hard! or, at least, there are way too many things to write. The katakana/kanji/hiragana system wasn't quite as confusing as I thought, but if it took almost half an hour to get good with writing and reading a/i/u/e/o. Never thought I'd just sit down and practice characters again but here I am.

Been vegging (sort of) and just *thinking* random thoughts all day. Time to go practice me some pia to the no. This 11:00PM bedtime thing is kinda nice in that I don't get up at 12PM anymore. It's also freaky when I do fall asleep at 11:30 but don't wake up until 9:30. Sleeping 10 hours a day is not normal, I swear.

Oh, and Bilbo and company are running away from the goblins, it seems, with Orcrist and Glamdring in posession. The silly little hobbit also just fell down a dark tunnel and now has Gollum's precious.

// posted by Me @ 1/06/2004 07:24:00 PM

Screw You, Hayashi Sensei! 

So first day of classes was half a bust.

I get up early (8AM!), get ready, and go off to the RecCen (Gym) for my first class of Winter 2004 quarter - weight training. God damn you stop laughing. So I figured I would warm up and stretch before the instructor got there. Ended up doing half a workout before the instructor DIDN'T show up and one of the gym admin dudes cancelled the class at 9:30, half an hour after when the class was supposed to start. Screw you, whoever.

So then I go to Japanese 2 class at 10:00. Turns out that there's a Japanese 1 and so I was way behind on mhy Nihongo. It's my fault for not finding out, I guess, but when I asked the teacher if I could catch up in anyway, she just shot me back a flat "no." Come on sensei. In English even! So she wasn't helpful at all. Even less helpful when I went up and asked her if I could buy the class books and study on my own. It wasn't that she withheld information or anything. She just seemed so reluctant about helping me learn Japanese in anyway. Well screw you Hayashi sensei! I'll show you. I'll gozaimasu your akemashte up the freakin' omedetto! Yeah that's right. You don't even know what that means!

German and Serialism went alright. No classes today.

Let's see if the instructor shows up to weight training tomorrow...

// posted by Me @ 1/06/2004 04:19:00 PM

1/04/2004

Mithrandir's Got One of them Damn Rings! 

...and other such little bits of trivia, like Aragorn, son of Arathorn, who in turn is son of Arador, descendant from the line of Isildur, who smacked the dark lord around with Narcil...or that the Prince of Dol Amroth is named Imrahil (I think...), or even the name of the brother of head poomba eagle Gwaihir (Landroval). Why do I know these things? Because I've read Lord of the Rings one too many times. So why am I reading the trilogy again? I dunno. God knows I already have enough things to do. Maybe I just want to know the father of Elrohir (who is Elrond actually) or maybe I have a thing for Glorfindel (yeah, he saved Frodo, not Liv Tyler!). I dunno. But here I go with the Hobbit. Wish me luck.

// posted by Me @ 1/04/2004 09:52:00 PM

Some Storiesss 

So my mom came and visited me in Santa Barbara. She only stayed for one real day (she was en route to China) so I decided to show her around Santa Barbara. Not that I know my way around Santa Barbara, mind you, but whatever. So after walking around UCSB for a while and visiting the buildings, etc., we took off for downtown SB.

We arrived and parked at the visitor center and asked the people there when the sunset was, since we wanted to catch it along Stearn's Wharf. The people said around 5:30. We had a good 2:00 hours before then so we decided to walk up State Street (the main drag) and look at the stores/people/trees.

The first really interesting thing we hit was "The Robert Craymer Collection". Not much of a story here but my mom and I both liked the guy. He designs furniture, gets them built with his own workers, and shows them in his own store on State street. What's more, the designs are quite good. I actually wouldn't mind having this guy design/furnish most of my house. Good entrepreneurial-self-motivation-skill-ship-ment-ness.

So it gets near 5:00 and we start taking the trolley down to the waterfront. 5:30 sunset my ASS! The sun had already long gone off to REM sleep by the time we got to the Wharf, which was at 5:20. Stupid visitor center *mumble mumble*. So we walked along the wharf and mom bought some over priced souvenir shells instead. We drove to a Mexican restaurant afterwards (Carlito's on State street), had some Mexican grub and a margarita each (with which my mom took some medicine...uh...), and decided to go bake to a bakery we visited earlier.

On the way there, I see a store with Kite Boarding[1] materials in it. I get all giddy and hyper and the owner comes over and starts getting all giddy and hyper too cause he's just stoked that somebody is stoked about kite boarding. Hell yeah! We get to talking and he seems like a pretty cool guy. Tells me kiteboarding stories, answers some of my questions, and insists that I take a quick ride around the block on his electric scooter. OK. Alright, it was fun, I admit it. Kiteboarding, I find out though, is damn expensive. Guy (by the name of Eric) quoted 4-6 lessons at $75 each and a ~$1400 package of board, bindings, harness, kite, and associated gadgets. Ouch.

So we get back to Andersen's (the bakery) and have the best coffee/dessert we've ever had. The place is, for some reason, lined with great desserts, 3/4 of which contain marzipan, the almond past of the Gods. I would gladly club baby seals for that stuff. No I wouldn't, but trust me, it's good. Eventually we find out that the owner came over from Copenhagen about 30 years ago and all the desserts are her own recipes (influenced by traditional Danish desserts, of course). Awesome. We finish our Sarah Bernhadt (butter rum, marzipan, and chocolate mousse on a coconut macaroon, covered in dark chocolate...holy...just...it's holy), complimented the owner, and left satisfied.

Dropped my mom off at LAX today and came back to SB all tired. I've got abstracts due, piano practice to do, papers to refinish, Japanese/German/Weight Training (stop laughing!) to start tomorrow and I still want to buy a Z3 and go kiteboarding. Just so happens I'm wasting time checking out craigslist LA and find an easy to do web job that I applied for (update a site, write some HTML, upload some stuff, get some money). Guess that will go to the kiteboarding/Z3 fund. My mom is right. With my aspirations of sports cars, 9-foot concert grands, and new boarding sports, what am I doing trying to be a professor in a field with very little money? Why am I not staying at Paris and watching Metallica (since Metallica Kicks Ass, remember) in Las Vegas on New Year's eve?

...


...


Music Theory had better be good to me. That's all I'm sayin'...

[1]Kiteboarding: where you strap your feet into a board (snowboard style), hold on to a big kite, and have the wind drag you through the water/sand/snow. SSX-length airtime is possible, if still somewhat dangerous.

// posted by Me @ 1/04/2004 06:50:00 PM

1/03/2004

Happenings 

New Year's Eve was spent in New York. A good time was had by all. Iron Chef was watched by me and my homies. Didn't find out who won the tournament of the iron chefs though...

Flight out to SB on the 2nd (yesterday). Long day of traveling. Oog.

Walked around SB and vicinity today. Met cool people by the names of : Kraymer, Eric, and Andersen. More on that later (one's a furniture designer, one's a kiteboarder, and one's a baker).

Uploaded my new version of PC Set Analyzer. Now tells you prime form info as well as transposition/inversion/retrograde/retrograde inversion info. Go check it out. There's even a FAQ. More features to come. The link is also in the sidebar now. Yeah, it's still in JavaScript...blah.

Mom visited SB (hence the walking around SB today). Got to drive her to LAX tomorrow morning. Sleep time.

Down/up-loading more anime. yippee. More imouto love, random powers, and vampire princesses.

// posted by Me @ 1/03/2004 11:42:00 PM

12/25/2003

Christmas is Past 

Whoa. There goes Christmas. It made a whooshing sound...

UCSB's winter break is a little bit short for me. We get out around mid December and go back Jan. 5th. That's plenty fine as far as a vacation goes but it's a bit short for someone (ME ME ME!) who's used to the >month long vacations at Brown. Though I do need to get back to UCSB and start crankin' on those abstracts...

More work done on the PC-Set Analyzer (see previous post). Got a "NOOOOO!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ANYTHING BUT JAVASCRIPT" comment, which is understandable since JavaScript does suck the proverbial nut. Still, I stand by my points: I want it to be able to run in IE fairly simply. I have one (1) coputing reference. I want to design stuff and code. No doubt when I figure out how things work with this program in JavaScript, I'll tackle it in C# and some Palm OS's. Would be a good thing for a music theorist to have. I mean, we aren't exactly 007 types (we're more like <037> types...you know, 4-9 and all?). But that would be as close to cool new gadgetry as we could get. You see a piece and you FLIP out your PDA and punch in a couple numbers, hit enter, and WHAM!, villains are sent flying across the room. Orrrrr....you get some PC-set data. same thing. I'm like, Q, except I'm not.

Also, it seems that BLOGGER does do RSS feeds, except it only works in Blogger Pro. Damn. Really got to think about moving to movable (haha) type when I get some free time.

I miss ethernet...

// posted by Me @ 12/25/2003 09:34:00 PM

12/23/2003

I 0w|\|z Prime Form 

So fresh off my getting hyped up on CS again, I go and think up a CS idea. I'd like to whip up something in C# at some point but since the only computing reference I have at home right now is the JavaScript Bible, 4^th ed., I gotta code in JavaScript. But it's ok because...

The project I've decided to give myself is a PC-Set Analyzer. Go to the PC-Set Analyzer page to get an idea of what it's all about. In short though, it's a music thing. It's a data-generation tool designed to help theorists and musicologists get through the mechanical aspects of PC-Set data generation and onto the real analysis of looking for musically meaningful connections. Turned around, it could be used to quickly identify possible relationships between sonorities that one may hear as meaningful. In any case, it's only a couple of hours of work so far but go look at the PC-Set Analyzer. Jigga wha? Jigga PC-Set Analyzer.
...Oh right, it's OK it's in JavaScript for now because I want it to be portable. This way, anybody with IE (I'm not going to fool around with Netscape/Mozilla/Opera compatibility quite yet) can just download my scripts and run them.

Planning to be in New York (city), New York (state) for New Year (holiday). Can't wait to see Sooms and some old Brunonian friends.

2 weeks of vacation isn't enough. It's also too much. I think what I really need is a month of no classes, no papers, but still a library and reserach resources. That way I can have plenty of time to see friends, go skii or whatever, but still be working on what I want to work on. As it is now, I've got abstracts to write and no time to write them. And piano? Jigga Beethoven Sonata?

Oh...and I guess since I probably won't get around to it tomorrow:
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

// posted by Me @ 12/23/2003 08:19:00 AM

12/19/2003

Returning to my Roots...ervers... 

Seems to be a Latitude type of day...

I'm a computer geek. For all my dreams of getting a PhD in Music Theory, I'm still a computer geek. One mention of RSS from the Dude and I'm off reading about syndication and XML/XLS/XHTML/whatever for an afternoon and thinking "damn! I gotta get me some of that!" It's gotta be a sign when you look back fondly upon times where you were wrestling with browser compatibility issues in JavaScript, messing around with SQLServer parameters through a windows control panel, or hitting the key sequence for another buggy build of your project.

Along those same lines of Nostalgia, I visited Latitude on my roadtrip out to Santa Barbara back in September (we stopped in Silicon Valley for a bit). I said hi to some of the folks there and had a chat with Ted, VP of operations. Ted was (is) a Brown alumn and was our (me and al) extra-CS connection to Latitude originally. We were also recruited by Ted in the beginning. When I went to chat with him this time, he threw out the possiblity of my working for Latitude again, even if just for the summer, and now I'm really considering it. I want to take the next half a year and get back in CS gear. Start getting familiar with all the new standards and ways of doing things (.NET still makes me think of spiders...). Maybe tackle a couple of small projects for fun. I'm such a nerd.

But after all, I am a music theorist. I need to do some work in the area of the theory of music. But with all these CSish plans, what am I going to do with music? Fear not, I have come up with a theory, a law, a rule, as it were, that will revolutionize music and I will no doubt live off the fruits of this divine inspiration for the next half a year at least (with no need for additional work!). And this great idea of mine is:
Metallica Kicks Ass

Don't any of you steal this idea or anything...

Damn it...I want to switch to movable type...

// posted by Me @ 12/19/2003 12:41:00 PM

Go Latitude 

Whoa.

Latitude was acquired by Cisco.

I worked at Latitude for a summer back during my CS days, as did Al. We had a blast there. The people were cool, it was our first time living in Cali, and the pay was better than anything I'll ever earn again ;) We worked on some dorky features of their main product, Meetingplace. Not like any of it is in the product still (we both would feel bad if it were...), but they treated us lowly interns like developers and that was damn cool. I went back for a winter break after that summer and worked on something which I did not really understand (*mumble mumble T120 mumble load-balancing mumble*). After a couple weeks of futzing around, it didn't quite work. And then The Dude[1] (my boss) came over and fixed a line or two and it did sort of. Uhm...cool. Apparently, some of that code is still in Meetingplace...frightening :)

[1]The Dude is not The Dude Lebowski Dude, though this Dude abides as well, I'm sure.

// posted by Me @ 12/19/2003 06:44:00 AM

12/18/2003

Homeward Bound 

Well, I am already back here in good old Rhode Island. No, it's not Long Island. It's not part of New York. It is a state. Really.

No easy connection to the net so uhm...I'll probably be negelecting the blog for a while...Happy Holidays!

// posted by Me @ 12/18/2003 07:37:00 AM

12/14/2003

Competence Rules 

Competent people rock!

So I notice yesterday evening that I've got a flat tire...but the puncture or tear where it is can't be big, cause I drove around with a 3/4 flat tire and it didn't deflate much. So I drive it to CostCo to get it fixed by they require a membership, which I don't gots none of. So I come back to the house all defeated and get lazy. Get up this morning, changed to a spare, and started calling places. Not many places open on a Sunday but a firestone center is, so I drive up.

Dude at the counter listens to my problem, goes and takes a look at the tire, airs it up, finds out it's a leak in the valve and not the tire itself, replaces the valve (in 30 seconds literally...not sure how valves get replaced so quickly), jacks up the car, puts the tire on, airs up the spare, and we're done. The whole thang took less than 5 minutes and there's no charge. The great thing is he didn't just throw away the old and replace it with a new. The great thing is he knew exactly about how long it would take to fix it. The great thing is, he actually knows his stuff and can toss something like this off quickly without some sort of procedure. Yay. He's got my business...I'm going there for my brakes. So anyone in the Goleta area need tires/brakes/fluid changes, go to the firestone car center.

Firestone Tire & Service Centers
3948 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
(805) 569-1451

Good stuff indeed.

// posted by Me @ 12/14/2003 03:33:00 PM

News Snippets 

Saddam has been caught. Even Slashdot reported this one ;)

Some pictures.

Powerpoint makes you stupid.

But wow...a dark era ends, so claims Bush. I'm not sure that's true for Iraq or the US...but at least one more bastard is caught (ignoring the costs, of course).

// posted by Me @ 12/14/2003 01:04:00 PM

Check Your Premises 

1) I am stupid.
2) Stupid is as stupid does.
3) Unreconciled problems need to be reconciled.
4) Cowardice through denial is powerful.
5) Kidding around as a mask is useful.
6) !Sabado Gigante!

Well, that wasn't all that subtle now was it...Ayn Rand would be...confused.

// posted by Me @ 12/14/2003 04:15:00 AM

12/13/2003

Not Gonna Say the Word 

Paul thought that a particular part of an IM conversation we had should be posted. This part was inspired by a certain comic at MacHall. Namely this one, this one, and of course, the associated song [oops...damn...song got taken down]. So without further ado:



Awwwwwwwwwwwww Freak-out!

// posted by Me @ 12/13/2003 10:19:00 PM

12/12/2003

Age: Only Good for Wine 

Got up at 1PM today and did not feel like butt (I actually feel almost rested). Not a bad start. And then AIM consolidates the multiple logons. Now I can be on the same screen name at multiple locations without needing 2 screen names. Conductor of BSO will now reign supreme. This is perhaps to make up for the advertising kick in the balls. Every once in a while the stupid IM window will scream a movie trailer at me and that is NOT appreciated.

So I guess I'm "older" now, by some arbitrary standard of time, planetary, and solar alignment. No privileges come with this ascension in age though. I gotta wait till 25 until I can be all pimping with the car rentals. So what is this day good for? Who knows. It is truly arbitrary in essence but practicality, you get an excuse to call on your friends and play, to be introspective, to assert your youth (or geriatricity if that's more your dish), to really just do things you want to do and nothing else. It's also a pre-New Year new year where, again arbitrarily, you can ponder about the future, and set goals (how many years do we have? The birthday year, the calendar year, the academic year, the fiscal year...). What are my goals for the next year? Hmmm...surprisingly, I have a good idea (in vague chronological order):

1. Play the piano when drunk enough to be dizzy
   
2. Ski/snowboad whenever I get a chance
   
3. Give a talk at SMT West Coast
   
4. Give a talk at AMS Regional
   
5. Submit and get published at least one article in a journal
   
6. Achieve basic proficiency with German and Japanese.
   
7. Don't sit around on my butt all day [Read: Running, Weight Training, Nunchucks]
   
8. Work at Latitude Inc. over the $ummer and earn $ome money.
   
9. Go visit relatives in China during the summer
   
10. Get a convertible (Z3 or Miata or something of the sort)
    
11. Get into a decent apartment for next academic year and squat there for the remaining 4.
    
12. Pimp out (in a non-pimpish sort of way) said apartment
    
13. Get around to surfing or kite boarding
    
14. Give a talk at SMT National (and at AMS national) <--unlikely though
    
15. Have a life <--also not likely
    

// posted by Me @ 12/12/2003 01:57:00 PM

12/11/2003

Bittersweet Completion 

DONE!

I can hardly believe it. The page count for this end-of quarter turned out to be 40[Ligeti] + 22[Stravinksy] + 17[Biblio Essay] + 8 [Shostakovich] + 3 [Book Review] + 2[Biblio Handout] and 0[Shostakovich final]. That puts me at a good 92 pages. Oh my god... Of course not all of it is high quality work (have to add more things and clean up both the Ligeti and Stravinsky, the Shostakovich was bad, and Biblio was not comprehensive at all) but except for the Shostakovich paper (which turned out to be a "well-organized and elegant summary"), I stand by what I wrote.

While I'm working on these papers, and especially when I have them all going at once, giving me the illusion that I'm doing something BIG, I have a sense of excitement. I am, after all, doing analyses and putting forth ideas and explanations nobody has ever done before. That's exciting and even more so when your ideas help you understand the music on a deeper level. There is also a sense of STRESS, of course, but you learn to deal with that.

There is a moment of elation the moment you decide to stop working on a paper. There is always more to say and there are always more errors to correct and sentences to tweak but when the compromise between available time, quality, quantity, and health has been reached, you hopefuly feel good about what you've written. That's the moment I like. I can truly say I'm done.

But there's also a sense of emptiness that comes from the sudden lack of creative flow. In the midst of writing more papers, the moment of elation soon turns to slow acknowledgement of more work and eventual submission to that fate. But now, at the real end, there's a bit of loneliness. I don't want to touch these papers for a while but what do I keep my mind occupied with in the meantime? I mean, I could be writing more papers!

In any case, I am DONE (well done, burnt, even) with this, my first quarter as a graduate student at UCSB. One last errand to run (have to priority overnight my paper to the professor tomorrow) and I will be free to do as I wish. Alas, what I wish (some of it) is not something I can do freely...

// posted by Me @ 12/11/2003 03:50:00 AM

12/10/2003

Verbositudeness 

I remember how in high school we'd take the minimum page requirement for a paper as the maximum and perform all types of deception to achieve that minimum maximum. Huh? Well for example, if a paper was 5-7 pages, we'd write barely 4 pages, 2.2 space it, use a wide font, and eke the margins in ever so slightly so that we'd get 4.5 pages. But 4.5 pages can not be contained in 4 pages. No. The last .5 goes on to the fifth page an this is key. After all, there's a nunber 5 on the bottom of that page. There you go. 5 pages.

Maybe I'm more verbose now or maybe I have a better understanding of subjects I research, but the page limit problem has magically vanished. Now, for a 7-10 page paper, 8 pages of thoughts flow out painlessly, and that's for a *bad* paper. A good subject/paper just net me 30+[read:40+] pages. There's a 15-20 page paper dude tomorrow that I've been fretting over. I mean, how in the WORLD an I write 15-20 pages? But here I am at page 15 and I still have 2 points to make and a conclusion to write. Even in the last year of college, I remember using 1.35 spacing, a narrow 11pt font, and shrinking the margin to emaciated proportions in order to fit my 4-page thoughts into the two-page limit. I've got the quantity down...now I've got to work on this quality thang...

Speaking of qunatity, back to Stravinsky paper...

// posted by Me @ 12/10/2003 05:02:00 PM

Friends and Fashion 

What's with these alliterative titles?...anyway...

So some friends threw me sort of a birthday party today.[1] Since it's the end of the quarter, a lot of people are either gone (physically) or gone (mentally) or gone (physcially and mentally) so it wasn't a riotous occassion or anything. I personally have a 15-20 page paper due Thursday noon of which I have only 8 written so far so it's not like I had time for any sort of celebration. Then again, it's not my birthday today so it all balances out.

God DAMN it. Blogger f*cked up my post again! Why is does it always do that when I have a HOJILLION lines written down. This time, not only does it lose most of it, it replaces it with somebody else's post so I know TWO people are getting some attention on the backside from Blogger. This is unbelievable..I'll try to recover what I had in a more concise fashion...

As I was saying, friends are nice. They're good for whining to, listening to, talking to, getting bizarre stares at when you talk about dominant versus half-diminished sevenths, etc. But more than that they're probably the most accurate indicators of the image you're generating for everyone. They're the magic mirror on the wall that tells you that, no, you're definitely not anywhere being even remotely considered for being the fairest of them all but they'll tolerate you anyway. A million wonderful reasons to have friends and I come up with self-reflection. There's philosophical narcissism for ya...

So anybody who knows me (or knew me) knows I'm not a fashionable guy. That's a litote for you. I do pretty much polos and khakis and my trusty reversible belt all the time. But that's different on the East and West coast. Short of it is, I don't pay attention to how I dress or how the way I dress reflects upon me as a person in the midst of the prevailing fashion trends. I mean, I don't clash primary colors and so I end up being monochromatic or doing matching dark stuff. Not exactly a trend-setter here. I also don't mind doing weird combinations every once in a while (think micro-sueded sports jacket over tight fitted short short sleeve v neck t shirt) which may confuse the hell out of people. Understandably so.

But here on the West coast, I don't know what it is. My image has changed and I'm forced to acknowledge that it has to be because I've changed somehow. It started out as a haircut and going gay (or metrosexual rather) styles every once in a while for fun. The haircut necessitates a geling of my head-fur lest it become a tentacled mass bent on sexually abusing young anime girls. I tend to wear polos and khakis (ironed of course!) to class and am all neat about it so people have the "well dressed" image of me in the "dressed up" sense. But either the image has influenced me or I'm running away with the image, fashion has become inexplicably a bigger part of my life.

To come full circle: some gifts I got from my friends today: clothes. Back East, people wouldn't have gotten me clothes because, frankly, I wasn't the type of guy to really care. Well, Al and Lixi did get me adidas exercise pants once (and a hoodie too) to get me off khakis at least when I'm trying to imitate wushu moves and those turned out to be the most useful pants I've ever gotten. Still, nothing along the fashion lines. Yet here, I get a sweater from Express. I don't think I've even ever truly acknowledged the existence of that store. And to be honest I don't think I've ever really thought that I'd wear anything from that store (especially since I have no idea exactly what their styles look like). But now, the idea of wearing something other than polos and khakis are gaining ground in my mind. I still have not a CLUE what's fashionable and what's not but holy cow I've actually thought about Banana Republic as a store rather than as a country. For better or worse, what a change, however slight. And you know what, I love the gifts. Who (back East) would ever think that I would like clothes as gifts but my friends were right on, Express sweater and all. I guess most of my friends know me better than I know myself in some ways...

Off to a good night's sleep (I hope dearly) and continue work on the Stravinsky paper. Work can be overwhelming and at such times, it can also seem pointless. An endless flow of words from my mind to the page, all to end up as trivia in my field, helping no one specifically, or practically. Having faith in the value of your contributions in a timeless academic and cultural sense is not always easy and when you don't have that faith and nothing else to replace it with, the world gets lonely. Guess I found another reason why friends are good...

[1]Since it's not actually my birthday today. But by the time my birthday comes around, everyone will be gone back home so we decided to do it today in the midst of finals and papers. Whee.

// posted by Me @ 12/10/2003 02:00:00 AM

12/09/2003

Bush, Bakersfield, Big Laughs 

Bush on Taiwan

Who knew our president could speak in palidromes. Though he would have had to switch the placement of the "unilateral" part and the "status quo" part. Still, a small technicality. I say we give him full points:

"We oppose any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo," Bush said, "and the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally, to change the status quo, which we oppose."

// posted by Me @ 12/09/2003 11:46:00 AM

12/08/2003

Oh...look at that, a title 

Well, I feel stupid. A title. What could be easier....

// posted by Me @ 12/08/2003 10:17:00 PM

The weird things you come across on blogs...amusing though, and better written than most *things* I see.

// posted by Me @ 12/08/2003 09:49:00 PM

Hahaha..."Bokuno nihongono senseini natte kureru?"

http://home.interlink.or.jp/~syl/indexE.html

The English within these pages is to DIE for. I am not with the kidding make. The Japanese slang dictionary is pretty funny too (possibly even useful?) but the rest is just...well, go read. For the lazy, here's a sample: "Fond of when was previous British innovation and be not translation that I was listening to Reggae and Hip Hop only originally, and the music of England was listening to well. And generally of person sbj so be as, I even like artist of musical backbone sbj anxious about come to, interview article obj looking at be when, most of artist sbj, some sort of form with black music of influence obj receiving be that sbj understood. a the a that. " Naniiiiiiii???????

// posted by Me @ 12/08/2003 05:22:00 PM

Matt put in a vote for Blogger, having used Movable Type and since he seems to know what's goin' on, shall we say, I guess I'll stay with blogger. Thanks Matt! Less work on my part. That and I finally figured out how to put titles on my blogs. May still have to do two different blogs for subject-sorted blogs...we'll see...

// posted by Me @ 12/08/2003 04:52:00 PM

So I succesfully failed my Shostakovich paper, aced the midterm, and probably will get a semi-decent grade on the final...erm...yeah...if I had more time...

Holy mother of Hanoi

Stravinsky to go. FACK!!!!!

Seems like I've sacrificed some things for the Ligeti paper...oh well...there are always casualties in war...just not this many...

// posted by Me @ 12/08/2003 10:46:00 AM

Thoughts about Blogs

// posted by Me @ 12/08/2003 12:27:00 AM

12/07/2003

So Al joins Xanga. Gets me to join Xanga. I then switch to Blogger/Blogspot. But then I switch to my own web space on 1and1.com and encapsulate blogger content as part of my page. Then Al goes and creates a different blog off Xanga using BBlog. So now I'm all like "well he can do customization up the butt and here I can't even put a title to my blogs, nevermind put them under different categories." Well 5H*7, I mean, I've GOT to be able to customize right? So now I'm thinking of going over to Moveable Type. Been checking out some blogs with it and it seems fairly well done and it has a non-technical version to boot. Will have to setup MySQL and Perl but have seen a variety of sites using MT (not Megatokyo, Moveable Type) on 1and1.com so it should be possible, if not a little bit of a hassle. I'll deal with that for customization. Of course, I'll also have to think of a way to redesign my current homepage just a tad bit, but that's alright. Looks like I'm queueueueueing up procrastination items before I'm finishing my old work. And what'll happen to all my old blogs here at blogger? saa...

// posted by Me @ 12/07/2003 03:27:00 PM

12/06/2003

Shosatakovich final on Monday. Ooph.

15-20 page Stravinsky paper due Thursday. OOOOOPH!

I am ready to keel over.

And yet, I still need to write abstracts and finish the Ligeti paper over winter break (Let's see if I can keep it under 10,000 words though it's at 9,000 already and I need to add a good 5 more pages at least). I'm a moron.

// posted by Me @ 12/06/2003 11:30:00 AM

hee hee...one of the more amusing posts I've seen in a while...

http://science.slashdot.org/science/03/12/05/1729215.shtml?tid=133&tid=186

// posted by Me @ 12/06/2003 02:20:00 AM

Oh dear. Physics jokes. What could be worse.

Heisenberg is pulled over for speeding:
"Do you know how fast you were going?" the police officer asks, incredulously.
"No," replies Heisenberg, "but I know exactly where I am!"

article at http://physicsweb.org/article/world/16/12/2

In other news, I am apparently a Gay Asian Reptilian Hobo Butterfly. There were more adjectives applied to me but I can't remember them all on account of my brain being too fried.

uhm..yeah...so I didn't finish but I handed in the Ligeti paper (at 34 pages plus graphs). Ugh. Will have to finish that later.

Also, time to work on an implicative model of harmony and voice leading for the graveyard prelude of Stravinsky' The Rake's Progress. The waht model of what? Yeah, see, I'm not really sure either, but somehow, and don't ask me how, the Neo and the Riemannian will be worked in there. No kidding. Joudan da nai mou. Or something like that.

Did I also mention that I laugh at myself when I evaluate just how stupid I am? Watashi wa honoto ni baka desuyo. Something like that...

// posted by Me @ 12/06/2003 01:37:00 AM

12/04/2003

http://www.hoogerbrugge.com/

good stuff

http://www.zefrank.com/

more good stuff

And this is one of the better "games" I've played in a while

http://www.trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/

I REALLY need to do my paper...No sleep for the Ma tonight

// posted by Me @ 12/04/2003 10:45:00 PM

There's something I haven't really tried before and I really want to. Playing piano inebriated. It's got to be a riot. I just need someway of being near a piano when I'm drunk...will have to work at that...

And also, 9 double spaced pages of bibilographic essay and 7 single-spaced pages of annotated bibliography later, i'm done with...well, those things. Still need to finish a handout for class presentation and a book review. Will do those tomorrow, along with finishing up Ligeti.

Page count of written *stuff* so far: 50.

about 25 to go, plus figures to draw. And a final.

// posted by Me @ 12/04/2003 01:25:00 AM

12/03/2003

And I quote:

"to spork, perchance, to have a heart mushroom, nay; a blue is ever autromatically thus"[1]

OMGWTFROTFLMAO, but not really.

[1]Luke Ma, sometime this evening, previously, with the talking make do

// posted by Me @ 12/03/2003 06:11:00 PM

On Verbal Diarreah

I can't write a paper until I've written a paper. What I mean is I can't actually write down all of my thoughts in a logical format until I know everything (or almost everything) I need to know to write it all down. I don't need to have it completely organized in my head, at least not consciously. I just need a general idea of what I'm getting at and how I'm going to approach it. Once all that's done, writing is fast.

I finished my Shostakovich paper (about 8 pages) in a day, though actually really only a breezy 4 hours (with an hour of proofreading and inserting citations afterwards). I just knocked off 5 pages of my bibliographic paper in an hour. I've spent very little time actually physically writing my Ligeti paper but that's upto about 26 pages (I doubt I've spent more than 10 actually sitting down to write...most of the time I sit down, think I'm going to write, and then go off and analyze some more things instead).

Writing is easy. You just take the ideas in your head and rearrange them in all different permutations and find the one that follows some sort of decent logical path. (E.g. I have to do homework. I don't like work. I'm blue....rather than I don't like work. I'm blue. I have to do homework.) If you can say what you write and it makes sense, then you're off to a good start. If, after a paragraph, the sentences hold together to form a large-scale thought, then you're doing great. If all the entire paper holds together with the same sort of logic with which each paragraph holds its sentences, then you should go be a writer.

But I say all this because I don't like agonizing over each sentence. I don't like spending 3 hours with an output of 2 pages. I'll agonize all I want before I start writing but once I start writing, I don't want to stop for too long to think. If I do, I lose momentum. Perhaps I can take some comfort in the fact that there's a built in quality control there: in order for an idea (whether it be 3 or 30 pages) to flow quickly from thought to typed words, it's got to be a well-structured idea in the first place. Otherwise, it's going to get stuck in your own mind. Or so I say.

Writing is hard...

// posted by Me @ 12/03/2003 12:50:00 AM

12/02/2003

I have all sorts of gadgetry. I'm a gadgety kind of guy. But what do I realize I am missing just now? What, amidst my multifunction machines, iPods, laptops, Home Theater in a Boxes, and Nunchucks do I not have? That useful necessity of every office. A STAPLER!

*smacks self in forehead*

So now I have clean, laser-looking ink on nice paper expounding at length about the Thirteenth Symphony of Shostakovich and it shall remain unbound. The travesty!

Of course this means that Shostakovich is complete. Boo dash yeah exclamation mark. I'd say bring it, but I'm afraid of what you might bring.

// posted by Me @ 12/02/2003 03:19:00 AM

12/01/2003

OK, great, now, after almost finishing the (crappy) Shostakovich paper, NOW, NOW I figure out what I would have liked to do. Oh well, better late than never. The idea is thus: humor as defiance in the music of Shostakovich. Many people have observed Shostakovich's characteristic wit in his music and the same people have observed the defiance shostakovich shows. In fact, it seems that shostakovich uses humor during his periods of defiance in order to survive. Laughing at tragedy to come to terms with it almost. But there is surely some sort of topic in that. A survey of all the music that Shostakovich has written with definitive comic elements to it (don't include grotesuqe, less applicable) and see the political context in which it was written and draw some observations from there. The flashpoint for this idea is non other than "humor" in the thirteenth symphony. Surely there, in such a dissident symphony, something should come up. Also in careers, when the soloist and bass chorus banter back and forth: "tolstoy!" "Lev?" "Lev!" Seems like it shoudl be a wonderfully interesting topic...almost seems as if somebody must have done it before...but Fay/Wilson/Ho all comment on it but none have devoted a detailed study to it. Mmmm...wish I had come up with this idea earlier. Oh well. Like I said, better late than never. I think I need an idea-pad section of this site where I can keep this on tap for future endeavours.

// posted by Me @ 12/01/2003 10:03:00 PM

11/30/2003

Quick note:

// posted by Me @ 11/30/2003 05:30:00 PM

It's late at the night when Ligeti's on my brain and then I drool about this. That is like the messiah of stainless steel kitchenware, the leader of all good steel appliances during the second coming in the kitchen.

// posted by Me @ 11/30/2003 03:36:00 AM

Updated project list:
Short term (Due mid December at the latest):

• Paper on Ligeti's Musica Ricercata
  
• Paper on Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony (Re)Considered (Again)
  
• Bibliographic Essay on Neo-Riemannian Theory
  
• Book Review on Chromatic Transformations in Late Nineteenth Century Music by David Kopp
  
• Paper on The Graveyard Prelude from The Rake's Progress by Stravinsky
  
• Listen to Au Fond du Temple Saint too much.
  

• Submit abstract on John Adams paper for West Conference of the Society for Music Theory
  
• Submit abstract for either John Adams or Ligeti paper for SMT national conference.
  
• Submit abstract on "Spiritual Complexity and Exoticism in Opera" for AMS national conference.
  
• Learn notes to Beethoven Sonata No. 6
  

• If West_Coast.true() then prepare John Adams talk.
  
• If SMT.notLikely.true() then prepare either Ligeti or John Adams talk.
  
• If AMS.notLikely.true() then prepare Opera talk.
  
• Write "Spiritual Complexity and Exoticism in Opera" paper regardless.
  
• Find conferences to rejected talks.
  
• Find journals to publish papers.
  
• Write paper on "Introduction to Neo-Riemannian theory"
  
• Research paper on "Ligeti split"
  

// posted by Me @ 11/30/2003 03:15:00 AM

11/29/2003

I kid you not: Super Mario Brothers 3 defeated in 11 minutes. Even if he did use an emulator to slow it down or spliced multiple attempts together, that's some crazy shite. Thanks Bryant! (I don't know that he used an emulator..just saying even if...)

// posted by Me @ 11/29/2003 07:06:00 PM

Note to self: do not put picture of self easily accessible on front page or blog. Bad idea.

I want to take Japanese. I'm going to take Japanese. Hai.

Uhm...yeah, so I'm screwed for the end of the quarter papers. Oh boy.

// posted by Me @ 11/29/2003 02:14:00 AM

11/28/2003

Thanksgiving came and went. Some damn good Turkey made by Jimmy. Good mashed potatoes too. And scrumptious gravy. Moo.

Have a handle on bibliography. Do I ever. It's like a big pot and I just grabbed it good. Ligeti is going to be interesting. It gives me a Ligeti split...ting headache sometimes. Still no idea about Shostakovich though going through source materials now. Oh boy. Somebody might as well just tell me to bend over right now...

In other news, been watching Da Capo, among other multimedia diversions. The web vernacular "WTF?" describes this bits of this series in a precise fashion as it does Excel Saga, which is like ludicrosity on crack. I don't get the big pink bear. It's bizarre. It's kinda funny. But wtf?...oh... it's originally a japanese dating game...and the big pink bear is just the way the player sees the girl but not everyone else...and there's a hentai version of this game too? Once, twice, thrice, WTF?

// posted by Me @ 11/28/2003 01:34:00 AM

11/24/2003

At Santa Barbara, the "24 hour study room" is actually, the "listen to people not study and talk about which chicks are hot loudly room". Oops. What was I thinking!

And wouldn't you know it, you study Musica Ricercata and fun things just pop out at you. I'm talking structural pitch classes here. One big "joudan desuyo" that actually delineates the form of a piece. So simple, yet...well...so humorous in a dorky music theoretic kind of way. I'm talking about Musica Ricercata IV here. It's a veritable orgy of musical jokes.

I swear this has been one of the most unproductive weekends. Or at least it feels that way. I did do laundry and iron most everything but in terms of work output...doesn't feel so great. And my piano...let's not even go there. God...if I could just go through some this stuff without feeling anything. Just let my brain take over and just do my work. The eternal battle of heart and brain. OK, well, no I don't think that was ever an eternal battle like good and evil or procrastination and more procrastination but it sounded good 35 seconds ago. I need to sleep...

// posted by Me @ 11/24/2003 02:08:00 AM

11/22/2003

Yeah, ok, it's 1:30AM and I'm playing around with my chucks. Oh boy. I guess I need to join the martial arts club or find somebody good at chucks willing to teach me or something. I'm probably doing everything wrong by myself since I only have low quality Real Video files to guide me. That and Maxi but he's kinda in a video game. Though his moves are somewhat attached to reality...I don't ever want to sound like him though...those are some high pitched screams...

// posted by Me @ 11/22/2003 01:29:00 AM

11/21/2003

Nunchucks came! Whoo hoo. Now I look like this:



I mean, before, it was just without the chucks. But now I have chucks. Been chuckin' away and already smacked my left nipple once. Oh well. That's why I got foam chucks I guess.

// posted by Me @ 11/21/2003 06:34:00 PM

11/20/2003

And so I know what to do about all my papers except the Shostakovich. What do I write about? I don't want it to end up as a summary research type paper. Then again, I guess I can't aim for an AMS-worthy eveyr single time, what with my being a theorist and all. And beisdes, I've got the spiritual complexity paper to throw at them for fun. So I guess...yeah...in exactly two weeks, I need to have all my papers written.

...

...

...

SH*T!

// posted by Me @ 11/20/2003 11:06:00 PM

and the answer to that last question in the previous post is...I can't...

// posted by Me @ 11/20/2003 12:31:00 PM

Holy butt it's late. I can't believe it's almost 3:00. And I can't believe that I didn't write more on Ligeti. Why is it that one tends to delay things one doesn't like doing until the last moment? It's just more pain and frustration. Then again, I guess if you really don't want to do something, that implies that there's some sort of a dilemma and you don't want to make the wrong decision. Well, ok, for things like doing your homework, there's no wrong decision in doing it but for other, let's say, more philsophical queries. Ugh. I should sleep. How am I going to wake up for Shostakovich tomorrow?

// posted by Me @ 11/20/2003 02:48:00 AM

11/19/2003

CNN-fest!

Whoo hoo! Right here in Santa Barbara! Although seriously, I kinda feel bad for the guy...

And Kasparov ties again. I like the computer's quote the best: '"With your brainpower, you challenged my Intel Quad Processor, Xeon 2.8 Mhz chip with four gigs of RAM," it said. "Not an easy task."'. Amusing.

Silly China. Taiwans are for kids.

// posted by Me @ 11/19/2003 12:13:00 PM

Blogs keep getting lost in the rain...and I don't ever feel like retyping things...

This littly ditty over at Penny Arcade about sums up my experiences with AT&T customer service. The reception I get out here is a bit flaky but I can get by. Still, the customer service is just dumb, if not as malicious as the new customer service droid...

And a folding bookshelf from Staples later, my books have much more breathing room. No more squeezing each other into one bookshelf for those babies. Now where are my nunchucks?

// posted by Me @ 11/19/2003 11:56:00 AM

11/18/2003

1) ASS!!!! I just lost all my blogs...oy. Well basically, Rake's progress fits into my spiritual complexity and exoticism thesis...yeah...

2) Ligeti paper is getting long...

3) Analyze Tromba Lontana

4) Need Stravinsky paper topic...just do something!

5) intro. to transformational theory for CMS

6) need shostakovich thesis...

Gosh durn it! stupid blogger....

// posted by Me @ 11/18/2003 01:00:00 AM

11/17/2003

I'm a nerd. w00t.



and



So my desktop is Mac-ish. And all transparent and stuff.

On my desk: a keyboard for when I type long things so I don't get carpal tunnel typing on nasty inclined laptop keyboards, one mouse for each computer, an iPod, cell, speakers, and a multifunction machine round out my accessories to my main compute r(IBM T40) and what has become the media center computer (Inspiron 4000). I need a bigger desk...and this keyboard isn't in the best position...

// posted by Me @ 11/17/2003 10:35:00 PM

"Excuse me."
"Huh? what?"
"Do you work here?"
"Oh..uh...no.."
"oh!...oh..sorry..."

"Excuse me sir?"
"Yes?"
"Where can I f...oh do you work here?"
"No!"
"Oh. Sorry."

That's what I get for wearing a short sleeve polo shirt to an OfficeMax.

Got a $10 64MB USB drive and a keyboard and a mouse free after rebate though. w00t.

I hate it when I lose focus. You're humming along, everything is wonderful, you just managed to read through a David Lewin article in half an hour and understand it all in the morning, things are looking OK, and then *kapow*. Focus gone. Blegphthoracicsurgery.

// posted by Me @ 11/17/2003 10:01:00 PM

So let's see, what have I purchased recently for not terribly good reasons?

// posted by Me @ 11/17/2003 01:19:00 AM

11/15/2003

Epson CX5400. More later.

// posted by Me @ 11/15/2003 06:42:00 PM

"Oh I see, the all intelligent machines came up with a convoluted way to use humans as batteries rather than just BUILD A TALL TOWER TO PUT THE SOLAR PANEL ON???!!!"

Huhuh. right. I didn't even bother to think about it but that's interesting. Why the hell did the machines need "human battery power" anyway?

And why do the machines need some convoluted way of presenting a FACE to a human?

Damn...I'm not going to think about this anymore...

// posted by Me @ 11/15/2003 12:29:00 AM

11/12/2003

Whoa...it's actually raining here in Santa Barbara. Doesn't happen often. Not only that, big flashes of lightning are streaking acorss the sky. Cool. I need to sleep. I need my beauty rest. Especially since someone just told me today that I look like ASS (to paraphrase). *ahem*

// posted by Me @ 11/12/2003 01:02:00 AM

So I think I might focus on "Development of the Technique Traidic Superimposition in the 20th Century" or something like that for my studies. Problem is though, people like Dmitri (Flash ho!) and Timothy Johnson have talked about triadic superimposition in stravinsky/adams. And since Adams is the reason I got into triadic superimposition in the first place (before I ready Johnson's or Tymoczko's papers, I'll have you know), I'd have to look at other composers/pieces to see how this technique is used in defusing tonality or, in Adam's case, going back to using some tonal harmonic vocabulary, though in a different context. That previous sentence made no sense. It's like a sentence I read in International Piano Quarterly that went something like "...and all the discples of Schenker, who died in 1953, blah blah blah...". Of course that morbid modifier was meant for the Deutsch guy but it sounds like all his discples pulled a Haley-Bopp on him and went with him in 1953. Watch those modifiers! And don't dangle your prepositions hanging around at the end of a setence don't ya know.

// posted by Me @ 11/12/2003 01:00:00 AM

11/11/2003

After finding "404 Nicht Gefunden" on a German site, I come across this:Anus' HomePage - Home. How unfortunate.

// posted by Me @ 11/11/2003 12:00:00 PM

11/10/2003

Ass-Grams!!!

// posted by Me @ 11/10/2003 08:35:00 PM

Wow...google is cool.

I'm always amazed at how one can find information on google if one really tries. Was trying to confirm somebody's name this time and a couple of searches later, there it is. I need to sleep.

// posted by Me @ 11/10/2003 01:07:00 AM

Hmm...if you feel are feeling lucky and you happen to use Google's "I'm feeling lucky" button on the query "butt", this is what you get. I guess that's the most relevant butt site on the net according to google...what is wrong with me?

// posted by Me @ 11/10/2003 12:28:00 AM

11/09/2003

This is an one post invasion. Booya.

// posted by Anonymous @ 11/09/2003 12:04:00 AM

11/08/2003

Some more pictures are up. Go to the pictures page to see them. Mmm...Angkor Wat.

// posted by Me @ 11/08/2003 06:45:00 PM

Lesson of the day:

// posted by Me @ 11/08/2003 03:39:00 PM

Wow....is the Matrix funny or WHAT. Almost as funny as LXG . Horrible script, predictable lines, making Keanu Reeves Jebus...all horrible crimes. While we do get one spectacular burst of bullet time (quickly upstaged by the hilarious deformation of Agent Smith's face), most of the action is so complex [read: messy] that one just can't take it all in, not that would actually want to. But still, the first Matrix made people think because it took an existing system and stretched it. You can dodge bullets. Great. That's not SO far-fetched. You fly around in mid-air and fight your enemy, all the while generating mini-nuclear blasts everytime you guys headbutt each other? No. That's just too far out there. And if you're going to go that far, fine, have some anti-matter explosions, but don't try to link it to "teh r34l w0rLd". With 80 hojillion sentinels flying about attacking 10 hojillion earth troops, the entire battle just looks like something any video game would do as an introduction. It's spectacular CG in some ways and lots of visual complexity but it's all done without purpose or motivation.

Oh GOD and the emotional moments, cutting in like the smell of a bathroom that's been left uncleaned for 8 weeks, is further dragged down by a predictably horrible script (so that's horrible AND predictable folks), and in the end, becomes farcical.

*we see Neo, blind, and Trinity, lying down on the floor, impaled by not 1 or 2 but 5+ poles*
Neo: "Trinity...are you OK?..."
Trinity: "Neo, I'm going to change the subject and generalize and express my love for you, therefore letting you know, very BLATANTLY that yes, I am dying, since we just crashed into a freaking mechanical pole going 200MPH all because you said 'we'll make it' but then couldn't hold off the 800 hojillion machine bombs that were coming at us."
Neo: "What's wrong?"
*feels around...gets to the 5 poles that's impaling Trinity to the floor of their ship"
Neo: "Oh...my bad."
Trinity: "Damn you oracle...why couldn't you have picked somebody else for me to fall in love with..."

Of course there are plot holes a plenty, though ironically, since there's really no plot in this movie, the holes exist as an unfulfillment of mysteries left by the previous movies of the series. The machines and humans are fighting why? There's a reason, supposedly. Now, as soon as Neo terminates Smith, the machines let up and don't hunt the humans anymore. Is there a reason? What exactly is the point of the movie really?

But aside from all that, it's a pretty darn hilarious movie. The Helix Loaded may prove to be more hilarious but for now, Matrix Revolutions is as good a parody of the The Matrix as anything.

Sleep time. Then more work.

// posted by Me @ 11/08/2003 01:10:00 AM

11/06/2003

Put some random picture galleries and some academic sh*te up. I have to really start organizing the loads of content on my computer. One of these days...it would be nice to get all my sketches/graphs into some sort of a digitally reproducible format too. I'm too lazy and don't have enough time to type all my sketches into finale though. Ah well. Tired. Lunch time. Then class. Ick.

// posted by Me @ 11/06/2003 12:10:00 PM

11/05/2003

U|-| 0|-|, i7 l00k5 45 1f t3h |\/|47riX r3V0lu710|\|5 |3l0\/\/5. R3\/i3ws 4r3 iN. 0H w311.

// posted by Me @ 11/05/2003 02:22:00 PM

11/04/2003

Oh, and did I mention Ghost in the freakin' Shell 2? [Read: Big Breasted Battle Babe Busts Bad Bums, but ever so philosophically] Translated version not projected until at least 2004 of course. Might have to resort to an electronic equestrian breed or maybe an m-less relative of Shaquille O'Neal.

And is Matrix coming out tomorrow? Why yes. Yes it is. Hopefully no aggrandized orgy-rave scenes in this one. As well as pesky Asian dudes who fight or withhold keys for no damn reason. Damn Asians...

// posted by Me @ 11/04/2003 11:46:00 AM

Interesting...so I didn't fail that Shostakovich exam. Sweet! Exact score will only be made known to privy parties due to oppression by RAPM. har har.

The T40 continues to be wonderful, especially when power settings are adjusted to your own needs. I've got the screen turning off after 1 min. of idle so that saves considerable amounts of battery power and allows me to be at a fairly decent brightness level even away from "Da Plug". It definitely holds for a couple of classes but of course, won't go all day without a charge (I'll have to bring in the charger to the library tonight...). Still, it's a wonderous change from my Dell Inspiron with 8 minutes (I kid you the proverbial knot).

I think I just like typing. It is like some sort of dexterous substitute for piano, which for me is a mild form of a narcotic. It has its ups and down and it definitely works itself into your system, forever altering your psyche to be dependent upon it to a certain degree. And by proxy the keyboard allows me to get my quick fix of moving the fingers. Nicotrol for the digits. Look at me mommy I can type quickly! wheeeeeeeeeee!

// posted by Me @ 11/04/2003 11:38:00 AM

Saw Orion tonight coming home from school (around 11:30PM). That's not particular exciting. Actually, that just isn't exciting at all. It's more sad, really. People don't look up enough. I find myself looking into the distance a lot more here in SB than in Providence. Part of that is because the weather is just nicer here and I can enjoy the stars at night, despite the light pollution, and enjoy the blue skies during the day. And perhaps another poetic part of it is I still am not sure what's going to be happening in my life in the future. I'm supposed to be studying for Ph.D. so I guess that's what I'm doing. But right now, it still seems not entirely purposeful enough. It sounds almost arrogant to say that I'm just doing a Ph.D. cause it's something I can and should do but that's how I feel sometimes. Why am I doing this? Is there a point in just burying myself in all this work? What's the point of studying music theory? And then I get back to the whole "I should just be a doctor" moral dilemma again, which I've resolved many times before but it always comes back...In terms of personal happiness, Music Theory isn't everything, but it's a step in the right direction...in terms of service to society, well, no contest there...

In other news, it's late and I need to go to sleep.

Good thing is I'll have the T40 in class tomorrow. Mmm...electronic notes from now on. Going to test Microsoft OneNote at some point and see how that works out for me. I've always wanted to have all my notes searchable/digital and OneNote might be a step in that direction (there I go with the stepping again) though initial reviews of it are not an orgy of ecstatic praise. We'll see...

// posted by Me @ 11/04/2003 01:15:00 AM

11/03/2003

See...Windows can be decently good if it wants to be...granted it always requires way more processing power than one has...but still, check it out:



So now I have 4 virtual windows wired to hotkeys, each of which has its own background and I can share or not share the desktops as I wish. No doubt this takes up a bit of proc power so when I'm away from A/C, I won't have that many programs running anyway so it's all good. But it's nice to be able to have a dedicated FTP desktop and another dedicated HTML editing desktop. Yummy.

Oh, by the way. The Jaguar visual styles (seen in windows 1&4) are from Iceman and windows 2&3 feature "Singularity" and "Tribal Darkness", stuff from Digital Blasphemy. Good stuff. The text editor in window is transparent now but usually when I code/write notes, I've got the window set on around 25% transparent. Reminds me of the good old programming days...

I really should be going to sleep...

One more thing: Lyrics page is up. Shameful thing from times past...go sing along...

// posted by Me @ 11/03/2003 01:45:00 AM

11/01/2003

And I totally forgot: Saw Stephen Hawking at UCSB (in fron of Panda Express of all places...he didn't eat there...). Caught me off guard when I saw him and I just assumed that there's another guy with an advanced LCD control system and wheelchair who REALLY looks like Stephen Hawking. But not. It was the man himself. Wish I'd...I dunno...done something...though it's not like I could have asked for his autograph or anything...

// posted by Me @ 11/01/2003 11:24:00 PM

Mwa. Delicious. Beautiful. Well done, if I do say so myself. And I do.

Pages and links and things are working the way I want them to. Navigation links are externally sourced in a JScript file that every file refers to so the formatting is the same across the board. Also, that means I only have to change one file for the content to reflect on every page. Same thing with the stylesheet that I use. I can change one stylesheet and it will apply to every page. Obviously, individual pages can be manually overriden to use different styles. Yum.

Well, not much content is up since I just spent 2 hours formatting and making sure everything works. So many bugs...so hard to get everything exactly the way I want it. And little things like adaptive spacer tables take forever to fix.

// posted by Me @ 11/01/2003 09:14:00 PM

And did I mention my desktop also now looks like this?



Thank God for photoshop...

// posted by Me @ 11/01/2003 01:24:00 PM

Well, following the bert, here be my workstation. It's not nearly as bert's ergonomic insane dual monitor CS setup. But for now, I can revel in having two laptops. Yeah, I know the picture "blows shit", to borrow a phrase. I don't have photoshop yet...

1. Cheapo Altec Lansing computer speakers
   
2. Sony Ericsson T616
   
3. IBM Thinkpad T40 + Port Replicator II
   
4. Crappy MS mouse
   
5. MaPod and MaPod carrying case
   
6. Dell Inspiron 4000
   

// posted by Me @ 11/01/2003 01:02:00 PM

Mmm. Halloween came and went. A costume? What costume?

Well let's see. Friends gave me the choice (since I wasn't really wanting to get into a costume) of being a butterfly/fairy-type thing or a vampire. Now a vampire is easy. I get to get into a tux and I just need some white face paint, maybe a bit of blood and some fake teeth, and a cape. But not cape could be found. So I didn't really think about what to "be". So friends came over, gave me some fairy wings, told me to put on some white pants and go as some sort of a butterfly [read: gay butterfly]. So I did, switched a shirt for a muscle shirt wife beater thing, put on some shades and wrist guards and went out like that. What was I in the end? Beats me. Suffice it to say, condemning picture were taken and just like all the other pictures I promised, they'll be up eventually...

And now it is most definitely sleep time.

But perhaps a little Ben Folds first...

// posted by Me @ 11/01/2003 01:08:00 AM

10/31/2003

Halloween? What's Halloween? I have to go in a costume??? oy...

Took the T40 to the library today and am I glad to have this thing. It's just light enough to carry it around in one hand among in the stacks. Copied Bibliographical info. (call numbers most importantly) on to some text editor and ran around the stacks looking for books. Granted, not quite as good as a piece of paper in terms of portatbility but much more versatile and connected to the rest of the digital world that I live in.

Since I think the external case is fugly, I downloaded some Mac OSX and Jaguar themes to overlay on my windows and toolbars since I've got the power to run them now. It's not a HUGE difference but brushed graphite certianly looks better than the default WindowsXP (Windows Xtremely Poor) theme.

Halloween festivities tonight...uhm...right...yeah...party. woo.

// posted by Me @ 10/31/2003 05:22:00 PM

I wake up in the night
All alone and it's alright
The chemicals are wearing off
Since you've gone

The days go on, the lights go off and on
And nothing really matters when you're gone
If you think that you feel nothing at all
If you don't (If you don't)
Then you don't (No, you won't)
If you won't
Then you won't
And I will
Then I will
Yeah, and I will consider you gone

Am I obsessed with this song? Why yes. Yes I am. w00t! T40!

// posted by Me @ 10/31/2003 01:05:00 AM

10/30/2003

Whoo hoo! Typing on my new T40 now. Nice lightweight all-purpose laptop. And sturdy. I still think thinkpads are fugly but at some point practicality overrules aesthetics. Mmmm...got two laptops going on my desk now. Fun. Got to go to a music jamming session now...maybe a pic or two later.

// posted by Me @ 10/30/2003 04:23:00 PM

Didn't go to the concert. Ah well. If it were Argerich, I definitely would have gone, seeing as how I'm in love with her playing. The pure passion of it is irresistable. But $30 for crappy acoustics isn't so good...especially if I'm hearing a damn good piano player.

So instead...Quote of possibly the *year*:

"OK, so there's this anus...have you licked it?"

'nuff said.

// posted by Me @ 10/30/2003 03:25:00 AM

10/29/2003

Murray Perhaia concert tonight at the Arlington. $30 for really crappy not-good-sound seats. Hmmm...Should I stay or should I go? If I stay there will be biblio. If I go there will be double. C'mon and let me know. Should I stay or should I go? Key point: I'm broke.

// posted by Me @ 10/29/2003 05:30:00 PM

Holy hell...I feel nice having a 1.3 GigaHURTS processor in my new computer and some people decide to release a freakin' 8 TERAHURTS optical chip. That's some mad hurtsage.

// posted by Me @ 10/29/2003 11:28:00 AM

Comments? Did someone say comments? BEHOLD!! COMMENTS!

Now all the people that don't read this site can berate me.

// posted by Me @ 10/29/2003 11:11:00 AM

Hell YEAH! I repeat: HELL YEAH!! Got Blogger to fully cooperate with my page, aesthetics, external sources and everything. The ability to design your own template with Blogger server-side filled variables is really nice. It took a couple hours to get this to work the way I wanted it to, but it's faster than writing my own program. And god forbid, a web-based interface.

Ah yes, my programming urge has been somewhat sated for a bit. That and I just didn't want to do music after today's midterm. I've been doing music non-stop for a loooong while now. Need a teensy break (which I took this afternoon and tonight, reading a book, eating some chocolate, programming, and in general trying not to think about all the work I've got to do by Thursday).

And there's plenty of things on this website to keep me busy...toying with the look, and adding all the content that I have. Alright, it's really time for sleep.

// posted by Me @ 10/29/2003 02:16:00 AM

Ben Folds (commercial site | fan site) of former Ben Folds Five fame (and currently of his own solo fame) is a frickin' genius. I've always liked the Ben Folds Five songs, especially Magic, Mess, Army, and Brick. The famous ones. Magic and Mess especially because they're both depressing as hell. After going solo, I'm terrifically glad he keeps the same sort of depressive subject for his songs on his Rockin' the Suburbs album.

I've just been listening to the album and been amazed at how many of the songs on it I like. I think I might buy the album ;) I've also always liked the harmonic vocabulary of Ben Folds. He's a nut on the piano and he actually uses interesting chords that are just freaking wonderful in their simplicity. I'm also just a big fan of Ben Folds's voice. So all things considered, I guess I'm a Ben Folds (Five) fan. Very few bands I actually like as a whole...of the random ones I've liked in the not-too-distant past: Offspring for various albums, Fuel, Guster, and Ben Folds Five. Not exactly a common thread through all those bands.

And that duet on the third verse of Gone is just effective...as effective as the creepy third verse of Carrying Cathy. Go take a listen. Simply great stuff.

And, to add to all of it, Rockin' the Suburbs (one of the funnier tracks on the album) was directed by Weird Al. Interesting.

I still want my computer! not coming until Thursday though...

// posted by Me @ 10/29/2003 12:26:00 AM

10/28/2003

So after an afternoon of reading and relaxing and now futzing around with JScript:

The only way to include an external file into a DIV seems to be to use IFRAME as a buffer and to load the source of the IFRAME into the DIV. One work around could be to use the SCRIPT tage with the SRC attribute to include in things. Problem is, then everything is read as JScript and everything then needs to be "document.write"-ed in, which doesn't work for dynamic files. Or rather, it would, but there would need to be a file parser, which doesn't work. So there we have it. This whole IFRAME thing works, but man is that annoying.

Alright, enough futzing around for one night. Time to draw transformational networks, don't ya think? Yeah...

Oh, and w00t! I got my port replicator. Now I just need that computer...

// posted by Me @ 10/28/2003 06:06:00 PM

Mmmm...yummy. First midterm of my UCSB career. Topic: Shostakovich. Length: 1hr. 15 min. Status with the ladies: They all still want me. What can I say? I'm a chick magnet...a babe conductor...a logarithm...for the ladies. The test was OK. Quite fair though there seemed to be a lot material to cover beforehand. Though now, in retrospect, it wasn't so bad at all. It's not like the teacher asked me how the manuscript of the as of yet unfinished seventh symphony was packaged when it almost got lost on the train from Moscow to Kubiyshev (to which I would have said "Cloth!"). Overcompensation and worrying the heck out of oneself can be a good thing though. You think you're going to fail. You go in and fail. And then you get your grade back, and hey! what do you know! You didn't fail! I mean, a D- is NOT failing.

So armed with a couple of tracking numbers, I can now say I've got an IBM Thinkpad T40 coming my way. Specs for the nerds out there:

• 1.3 Gig Pentium-M
  
• 30 GB ATA-100 hard drive (4200RPM)
  
• 512 MB RAM
  
• 32MB ATI Radeon 7500
  
• 14.1" Screen (1024x768)
  
• DVD/CD-RW combo drive
  
• Bluetooth
  
• No wireless (yet). Gonna upgrade me some Wi-Fi at some point.
  
• 1" thick, 4.5 pounds (travel weight) light, appx 5 hrs battery life
  
• Some light to light up a keyboard when it's dark, and a magnesium alloy casing
  

// posted by Me @ 10/28/2003 11:52:00 AM