Jackelopette

Figaro! Figaro! Training the Multitasking Brain

I always wondered how Jeffrey and Mrs. J managed it.

Brain Surgery Lets Woman Listen to Music

I wonder what the link between Sean Paul’s music and the epileptic trigger could have been…

Now that I have my computer back, I’ve finally been able to condense all my music into one set of folders.

Here are some stats (though inexact when you get down into the MB range since I’m not being precise about my parameters):

Total Library Size: 26.53 GB

Genres (according to my mental categories)

• Rock (in its myriad subsets): 7.65 GB
• Showtunes: 3.22 GB
• Classical: 2.96 GB
• Choral: 2.45 GB
• Pop: 1.42 GB
• Alternative (loosely defined): 1.26 GB
• Celtic: 1.20 GB
• Soundtracks: 1.14 GB
• The “Popera” crowd: ~1 GB
• Holiday: ~875 MB
• Jazz: ~825 MB
• Opera: ~650 MB
• Medieval: ~625 MB
• World: ~575 MB
• Folk: ~500 MB
• New Age: ~500 MB
• Country: ~400 MB
• Techno: ~375 MB
• Disney: ~225 MB
• Hip Hop: ~200 MB
• A Cappella: ~180 MB
• Marching Band: ~170 MB
• Bluegrass: ~125 MB
• Humor/Parody: ~120 MB (not counting PDQ Bach)
• Children’s Music: ~50 MB

If you take into account that I got TONS of varying kinds of rock, hip hop and pop from Steven and Allison that I haven’t really decided I like yet, that brings the balance of “preferences are reflected in library size” a little back into perspective.

My most-played song:

Beethoven’s 9th Symphony – 5th Movement

Yes, yes I’m taking the repetitions in my skull into account. Someone get it out.

Catholic Time Travel – Gregorian Chant

Anyone remember the classic Grunt: Pigorian Chant?

Since you can commit a sin in thought, word, and/or deed, I may be going to hell for blasphemy. In fact, chances are extremely good that I’m already on my way.

So I’m checking out the Amazon.com Kindle.

I don’t want one – yet. Even without picking the thing up, I know that I’ll agree with most of the reviews. It’s a big improvement on e-readers and it will be the most content-filled “book” yet released. But I figure I can wait until the price goes down, the design is improved, and Amazon figures out the solutions to the following problems:

• File formats – not supporting PDF or .doc will be a hindrance.
• Charging for blogs? Seriously? And how will the bloggers benefit from this arrangement? I don’t mind paying good writers for what they do, but why would I pay to read news articles and blogs on the Kindle when they’re already available on the nearest web-linked computer for free? Granted, Amazon is paying for the broadband on the Kindle (for now) but the internet connection I pay to use on my computer will also deliver video, games, social networking, graphics, and color.
• I’m a functionality geek. Make it work, make it minimalist, make it pretty. In that order. So for functionality it looks like it’ll do pretty well, it’s not quite minimal enough yet, and it’s not pretty. But I’ll give it some time and let it get there.

Either that, or I’ll let Apple come out with one too.

I hate working on this Mac laptop. Give me my right-click context menus! My delete button and a backspace button that CALLS itself a backspace button! My Guild Wars! My tweakable open-source programs! Then again, the iPod is still on my good-functional-minimal-pretty list, so I won’t be upset if Apple answers the Kindle with one of its own.

Last night was a bust. Fortunately there was one other person roughly my age with whom I had an intelligent conversation, else I’d have left much earlier. I was the only person from my class. Ick.

Tonight is Mrs. Jardine’s choir’s concert – I plan to go for a little bit and meet up with some old choir buddies whom I’ve not seen in… 7 years? Also dinner at Boccali’s with my dad and de facto big sister Amy.

Carmina Burana CDs and DVDs came. I am now reliving the glory of Bibit.

Carmina Burana (CD)

Yeah, the DVD is taking forever to complete (they’re still waiting for the a/v department to finalize it!) but in the meantime they’ve given us a means to order multiple copies of the audio…

Order, listen, enjoy.

Apparently the UCDSO (Symphony Orchestra for you non-music types) has podcasts. You know what this means.

This means Cindy now has access to ALL the music performed by the choir and orchestra over the last five years. AND that there’s no haphazard ripping of DVDs necessary to obtain said audio.

Now, only to figure out how to save and burn the podcasts to CD… Ah. There we go.

I don’t understand the poem, and yet it’s in my mind tonight.

The Hollow Men
TS Eliot (1925)
I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer –

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

First, I beg you to note the time of this post. The sun has not yet risen, and therefore it is still night.

Today was cool, in several different stages.

1. Spent the night at Mom’s hotel room, in a lovely bed. By the way, I highly recommend Comfort Suites off Richards, next to Wendy’s and IHOP. Lovely rooms, soft beds, relaxing, well-laid out… and walking distance from semi-decent fast food.

2. Leisurely breakfast, bit o’ shopping in Fry’s, the usual logy unplanned laziness of a warm Sunday in Davis.

3. Barbecue by Steven, with much aid and abetting from Allison, Kyle, and Omar while Mom, Sara, Tilly, Sandy and I hung out and laughed. The majority of Steven’s presents are actually for his car, including the long-threatened “My Other Car is the Dealer’s Shuttle” license plate frame.

4. Warm-up for Carmina Burana, with the usual frenzied Omigawdismyhairallright, Oooohoohdoweexitstagerightorleft, and of course, Likedoesanyoneknowwherethebathroomis? before entering Jackson Hall.

5. Carmina Burana. One of those rare occasions when I stop thinking about the music and simply perform, letting the breath and music combine, and it sounded UTTERLY MARVELOUS. The baritone was a ham, of course.

6. Reception. Brief moments with Mom and friends, a bit of looking off the Grand Tier balcony onto the lobby to get away from the crowd, and a good phone call with my dad. I wish he could have seen it. Also, I successfully managed to avoid people that annoy me. Yay!

7. Choir party. 10:30 PM to 4:30 AM. Including drinking games to Carmina Burana movement #14, In Taberna, aka the Endless Bibit song. So, “Bibit” and its various other forms/references appear about three dozen times in the song, and naturally we had to drink for each one… Ex-TA Dave claimed the win both times, but Britney and I know better. Then the strip-off between Dave and Stephen(?), the various dance-offs, and the lapdance-offs, all of them by choir people who simply can’t dance (with the exception of the lovely Claire of course). After the complaint by the neighbor at about 2:30, we moved into the garage. Er, we being Jeremy S, Dave, Margie, Claire, Britney, and alumni-Paul. We hung out in the garage till 4:30 admiring the wall (on which only drunk people are allowed to write), the mattresses attached to the wall, each other, and most of all, carrying on ridiculous conversation. I wish I’d started going to these sooner. And no, at no point was I drunk, and wimpy beer doesn’t offend my taste buds nearly as much as normal beer/ale/whatever.