Friday, February 27, 2004
The murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums - Peter
De Vries
Posted by Daev @ 04:23 AM CST [Link]
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
The Flash video for Autumn is going to be really cool, if I ever find the time to finish it.
Posted by Daev @ 12:41 PM CST [Link]
It's Karl May's birthday, so here are some pics from English Club's KM Museum visit a few weeks ago. [more]
Posted by Daev @ 08:52 AM CST [Link]
Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Happy 70th B-Day, Ralph. But maybe you coulda waited til your 74th?
Posted by Daev @ 08:16 PM CST [Link]
Crazy-ass rabbit thinks your mouse is a carrot. Very sharp. I squealed with delight. It's Flash.
Posted by Daev @ 04:38 PM CST [Link]
Posted by Daev @ 04:17 PM CST [Link]
Twain called the game of golf "a good walk spoiled". He obviously never played Ninja Golf! Download the rom.
Posted by Daev @ 08:41 AM CST [Link]
Sunday, February 22, 2004
It is now time to listen to insane music. TheRaymond Scott Orchestrette
Posted by Daev @ 12:07 PM CST [Link]
Friday, February 20, 2004
Here is a fascinating interview with a fascinating woman, Alexandra Aikhenvald, talking about a fascinating subject; one which is overdue for attention on this here blog: rare languages.
Imagine how different politics would be if debates were conducted in Tariana, an Amazonian language in which it is a grammatical error to report something without saying how you found it out - as Alexandra Aikhenvald tells us its speakers tell her.
...
Once I asked, "Can I use this word this way?" and the response was, "Of course, you're foreign, you can say a wrong thing. But I can't say that."
...
English I can tell my son: "Today I talked to Adrian", and he won't ask: "How do you know you talked to Adrian?" But in some languages, including Tariana, you always have to put a little suffix onto your verb saying how you know something - we call it "evidentiality". I would have to say: "I talked to Adrian, non-visual," if we had talked on the phone. And if my son told someone else, he would say: "She talked to Adrian, visual, reported." In that language, if you don't say how you know things, they think you are a liar.
This is a very nice and useful tool. Imagine if, in the argument about weapons of mass destruction, people had had to say how they knew about whatever they said. That would have saved us quite a lot of breath.
Posted by Daev @ 08:03 PM CST [Link]
Happy Birthday Kurt Cobain.
Posted by Daev @ 07:16 PM CST [Link]
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Thanks for the Memories courtesy of bushflash.com
Posted by Daev @ 06:15 AM CST [Link]
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Open Sauce.
As if you guys really needed to read another article about it, here is a very long, very good article about open source software.
And my other favorite axe-to-grind:
A message from Don Henley, you know, the Drummer for the Eagles, about the state of the music industry.
In their world,
music is generic. A major record label president confirmed this recently
when he referred to artists as "content providers."
I have a new axe to grind.
If you clicked on that last link, and I hope you did, you'll find that the WaPo.com now has a login requirement. If you're reading from abroad, they might not let you in without a matching zip code and city. So use mine: Nashville, TN, 37212 (ahh, my beloved Hillboro Village, I think fondly of Thee).
It only goes to show that the system not only allows you to lie, it provokes you to. The Washington Post thinks I'm an 90 year old woman, the CEO of an Aerospace company with 10,000 employees. Who does the the WaPo think you are?
Posted by Daev @ 04:31 AM CST [Link]
Test grading time
Is a really fine time
No, not really. I hate it. But so far, so good. Nobody has failed. I think the questions were maybe too easy. I have until the end of next week to get it all done, so I am taking my time. I have more pressing things to deal with just now, like being a rockstar and stuff.
There has been a bit of a scare over at my esteemed colleague Sarah's place last week. When she was holding Lil Wee in her arms, Lil Boots jumped on Sarah's lap and went straight for Wee's neck. It was a shocker because the cat has never acted openly aggressive to the bunny before. And to do it right under her nose. You have to wonder what that cat was thinking.
Sarah swore if that happened again she would put the cat down. That would be kind of too bad, because the cat was really just acting out its cat nature. But everyone involved is totally mad at Boots, and again going along with cat nature, he doesn't care.
Posted by Daev @ 03:26 AM CST [Link]
Monday, February 16, 2004
We're back on line. The lads from T were nice enough to come down. They came in and said "what a friggin' dump!" Then they said the NTBA was kaput due to a power surge, because of the storm last Thursday. I asked them if they bought their jackets, which were pretty sharp except for the big pink "T" and reflectors, at the same store.
Posted by Daev @ 09:08 AM CST [Link]
Saturday, February 14, 2004
Telephone line is dead, [more]
Posted by Daev @ 11:29 AM CST [Link]
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Love Conquers 2004
I've been buggin' since I haven't finished any new tunes since last November. Finally I added two more verses to Love Conquers All.
I wrote this little ditty for last year's Valentine's Ecard, but I could never write it to its fitting artistic conclusion without the right inspiration-or desperation. But hey, just wait a year, young songster; then you'll have plenty more axe to grind. And voila. Three minutes, but a narrowband friendly 1.7 Meg.
The mix is a bit shabby, so is the orchestration, but hey, it's all in a day's work. I had to do away with the on-the-fly fx and automation because it overtaxed my little compy in the rendering to mp3.
But it has some nice open D bottleneck action, and the empty bottles are back. It was tough drinking four beers at once at different rates to get that pentatonic scale right.
Posted by Daev @ 06:58 PM CST [Link]
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
I bought a Pummice-like sponge today. [more]
Posted by Daev @ 01:20 PM CST [Link]
Last weekend marks the 40th aniversary of the Beatles' arrival in the states. Not super newsworthy but it makes feelgood copy and it's a great excuse to push the brand down our throats.
But that's okay; who doesn't love the Beatles? Probably the same people who pull wings off of flies and takes candy from babies, that's who.
Here is some nice multimedia about those early Beatle days. They look so young, like little babies. Around five minutes into the first interview section (is that Cmdr Riker in the background?) we get to hear an early take with Pete Best at the kit. And yes, he was a lizzard.
Posted by Daev @ 12:28 PM CST [Link]
Monday, February 9, 2004
I could not hardly make heads or tails of
This.
But I know at least two New Zealand vegetarians and one guy who always yells Hare Krishna everywhere we go. Their comments are welcomed.
Posted by Daev @ 07:25 PM CST [Link]
The recent winter storms back in the states have made last weekend a sad one for me.
Dr Kurt and Mamie Jeter, both church youth counselors years back when I had great times at the Franklin 1st United Methodist, have lost their daughter, Katie. She was killed in a car accident two days ago on a college road trip. Katie was 19, about the age of some of my younger students at the University of Dresden.
I must admit, I hardly remember little Katie. The most time I spent with her was when I was about thirteen or so. She could not yet talk at that time. I used to ask her, "did you see what Katy did?" Katydids are these grasshopper-like bugs we have back home, also there was a fairy tale called "what Katy Did", so I thought it funny at the time.
I am pretty sure that at least one or two times I said to her as she was just a babe, "you is one ugly baby!" in this crazy voice. She found that funny, regardless of whether or not she understood what I said; she was a basket of sunshine. I thought she was absolutely adorable.
Mamie, Kurt, I've sat and I've counted how many friends and family I've lost in my life; it took almost the both of two hands. But no loss is greater than to not die before your own children. It is a sorrow I cannot fathom, and I cannot provide any words as salve to your pains.
I bid you grieve to the fullest. It is your right. And then at somepoint remember that you are still alive.
Then walk on.
That your footfall be divine verse.
[more]
Posted by Daev @ 06:15 PM CST [Link]
Saturday, February 7, 2004
cough cough cough.
Posted by Daev @ 10:38 PM CST [Link]
Beer plus microscopes equals art.
Posted by Daev @ 07:26 PM CST [Link]
Thursday, February 5, 2004
Lord Bishops Rocks Dresden with Lordly-yet-Bishoply Sex Rock. When you're a lord and a bishop, you've got two whole estates covered. You have serfs, a nice fiefdom, vassals, but you can also move diagonally, sell indulgences, and move for excomunication. Throw in a zebra-striped fez, some metal, and a dollop of sex, and you have a Lord Bishop show.
The two opening bands, Projekt Plazebo and Dosenbier, both rendered a good draw. D-bier more than P-P, which is why they played second. That was kind of a shame. In my opinion, Projekt Plazebo was ten times better than Dosenbier (which, by the way, means beer-in-cans).
PP had a much more compelling sound. The odds are against them. The singer looks like one of the guys from Blankton Forschung, a local hiphop act, and the drummer looks like a bemohawked Billy Bragg. So they looked scuzzy. What's more, their band name sucks. There already is a well known punk act called Placebo, with an androgynous vocalist who sounds like Geddy Lee. But their music was melodic and interesting, and the vocals were musical and merited attention.
Dbier, on the other hand, sounded mundane and trite. They rocked out sloppy unimaginative punk riffs and blödly blared out hack lyrics extolling the virtues of cheap Felsenkeller beer (in a can, of course) and drinking beer out of cans. Reads: Die Ärtze likes beer.
Their one redeeming value, in this context at least, was that they sang in German. So I guess they connected with their fans, seeing as they are German and stuff.
Well, it has been two and a half years since I played drums for LB and then parted on bad terms, but I cannot deny it was a daisy to see the old lad again. Yep, I was not the only ex-drummer there. Gero showed up, as did our drummer from Dude Dude Chick.
I must admit, as chaotic and unsound as it was to hit the road w/ LB, right on the first downstroke that old bug bit me and I remembered exactly what a blast it was to crank out them beats to such rocking hits as "You Got a Great Ass". Free booze, awfully friendly gals, no money, car breakdowns, barfights, nights in jail... It brought tears to my eyes.
I got some scans too, so click [more]
Posted by Daev @ 07:16 PM CST [Link]
Singing boosts your immune system. No surprise there. Why, I shudder to think what shape I'd be in without Dude Dude Chick.
Posted by Daev @ 11:03 AM CST [Link]
Whew. That was an ordeal. But now I am back online. And man, was I ever a-jonesin'.
Posted by Daev @ 09:42 AM CST [Link]
Sunday, February 1, 2004
Happy Groundhog's Day!
(send an e-card)
Posted by Daev @ 05:30 PM CST [Link]
Get Lindows for free
and legalee
via pee-to-pee.
No, says Mikee
We ain't crazee;
Our servers stay free
we save monee.
'twill help p2p
a fledgling industree
no bastard babee.
Strife with Bill G:
"L. sounds like mee."
also freeMSPC
Gets the six-and-eightee.
...
How does one pronounce Linux?
Our book's glossary: Like Linus: Ligh-nuhx
Most of my students: Lee-nooks
BBC radio this morning: Lin-nuhx
Posted by Daev @ 03:58 PM CST [Link]
Everybody,
Good luck on your tests this week.
rOn, the absent-minded professor.rm (121k file)
Posted by rOn @ 02:57 PM CST [Link]
