Bienvenidos Abordo

Para su seguridad, permanezca sentado y mantenga las manos, brazos, pies y piernas dentro del tren. Y cuide a sus pequenitos.

Welcome, Sharon! Now, I have one question for you: Who are you? Do I... Okay, two questions: Who are you? Do I know you? And... Three! Three questions: Who are you? Do I know you? And how much are you saving on car insurance? Okay, that last question really didn't have anything to do with anything else, but I had to throw it in there because, as everyone knows, lists come in threes.

Also, I'm with Cory. Eh, what do Dr. Palumbo and autoinscribing (don't know if that's a word) for public office have to do with each other?

Oh how rude of me. Sharon, my name is Jason and I was in the WSU band for many years, but have not been actively participating in it since fall of 2004 (something about needing to graduate.) Occasionally, however, I do come back for alumni functions.

Jon, what is Haloscan? Does it have anything to do with Halo/2/3?

Anyhow, I'll chat with y'all later! It's time for dinner!

President Palumbo?

Sharon - welcome to the blog. I'm a little confused about your connection of running for office and Dr. Palumbo. Can you fill me in?

Straw Poll

On the subject of presidential candidates

    To become a valid write-in candidate for a state or federal office, an individual must file a Declaration of Write-In Candidacy no later than 30 days before the regular general election.  

    Federal office candidates must file the declaration in person with the Lt. Governor's Office.  State office candidates may file the declaration in person either with the county clerk in their county of residence or with the Lt. Governor's Office.  Write-in candidates must meet the qualifications required for the state or federal office they are seeking. Filing the Declaration of Write-In Candidacy means that write-in votes for the candidate will be counted.  The candidate's name will not appear on the ballot.

Good Luck getting Dr. Palumbo to do THAT

I think there is some kind of fee, too, but the whole in-person thing sort of wrecks the idea (unless someone were to pose as him for the interview, which I DON'T suggest).

Let's

all give a warm band blog welcome to our newest member: Sharon.

what is the world coming to?

Donny and Marie are doing a Vegas show...
The French think the Americans are arrogant...
The world is at war and Germany isn't involved...
A Democratic presidental hopeful is touting individual rather than governmental responsibility...

Not too shabby

I just got back from the DCI countdown broadcast at Cinemark Theaters. It was a pretty good compilation of shows. I was particularly excited about the preview of the Blue Devils for this coming season. They will be using some mini/marchable Taiko drums in their show. It looks to be a great year!

A Hitler-Youth Propganda song

that never was, and never will be.
to the tune of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (which is obvious)



I'm a Nazi doodle dandy,
Nazi doodle do or die;
A true and proud son of the Fatherland,
I'll be the pride of the Reich.
I've got a Nazi doodle sweetheart -
Thus the Master Race will trhive!
Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles,
Alles in der Welt,
I'm a Nazi doodle boy!



and Jarrett has done it again

It's beginning to look

a lot like Christmas. I think I'm about tired of snow for this year.

Ricky, I would so be there but I have new american tonight and I've already missed a rehersal and can't miss any more. :( Everybody else - go! Enjoy it for me.

Anyone going?

Just curious but is anybody going to the DCI Countdown tomorrow night? If so, which one are you going to? I'll be in Layton. Hopefully I'll see some of you there!

This Is a Great Country

Hello, one and everyone. You are all cordially invited to come see myself and Beth and the choirs and folkdancers from the Institute in the spring variety show. The last show is this evening at 7:30 at the Browning Center (Austad). I totally get to wear an officer's uniform and fight the urge to march marching band style during the Armed Forces Salute medley. Sorry about the short notice. It's a great patriotic show, though, and you should totally come. Ok, bye.

lol

Geek + Music

Whenever music and geeks get together it is beautiful. Here's something that M$ is doing do allow the musically challenged of the world prove that they are. It's called MySong. Props on the deli jingle. The end credits tune isn't bad either.

Thanks for the heads up, Ricky. I'm way excited about both Phantom and VK. I'd heard they re-incorporated. The last (and only) show I saw them play live was their Magical Mystery Tour in Space. 'Twas awesome. Everybody: go!

Update:
And speaking of geek, did you know that there's a website that has surpassed youTube for daily video uploads, and is second only to iTunes for online song purchases? Surprise - it's a South Korean website. It's a social networking site that between 25% and 40% of that countries population is a part of. The world wide web, eh?

metaplace looks interesting.

Also, I've added amung.us widgets to the sidebar so you can better visualize the arid winds sweeping tumbleweeds lazily across the blog.

Update Again:

You may enjoy this offering of a new way to look at books.

Corps Encore!!!!

Just wanted to let everybody know that Corps Encore tickets are on sale! Click here for details on the event. The show is July 10th and tickets on the 50 yard line are $25 a piece and go down from there the closer to the end zones you get. I'm planning on buying my tickets within the next couple of weeks. The line up looks pretty good and is as follows:

Blue Devils
Blue Knights
Phantom Regiment
Spokane Thunder
Troopers
Velvet Knights

Should be a good show and good fun! Also, this is very tentative but I've been thinking about doing a little road trip. I was thinking about going to the Boise, ID show on July 9th, the Ogden show on July 10th and the Denver, CO show on the 12th. For me, the main reason to do this is to see Phantom 3 times but the other reason is that Santa Clara Vanguard will be at the Boise show and The Cavaliers and Madison Scouts will be at the Denver show.

later.

I'm goin'!!!

I'm going not only because my 06 show was one of the shows chosen but also because the person that I asked to go with me to last years Countdown couldn't make it but lucky for me, she can go this time!

What's funny about the Countdown this time is how many theaters it's playing at. The first year it wasn't even in Utah, the next year I believe it was down in West Jordan and last year it was in Ogden. Now it's showing in Ogden, Layton, SLC, Sandy and West Jordan.... Since I've gone to both the Ogden and West Jordan ones, I'm planning on going to the one in Layton. Hopefully I'll see some of ya there!

Also, there are some concerts coming up. There is a chamber music concert featuring the freshman honors quintets coming up on April 11th at 7:30pm. This will include a woodwind and brass quintet (I'm playing tuba with the freshman quintet cause their original tuba play can't do it anymore) and also a Tuba-Euph quartet that I'm a part of. The next concert is the combined bands concert on April 16th at 7:30pm. The highlight of this concert will be both bands joining together to play The Lord of the Rings Symphony by de Meij. This is going to be my last concert up here at Weber State as well.... Kinda sad but a little weird at the same time since this was the feature piece I played at my first concert at Weber.

later.

The Final Countdown

This just in from Cory:

Tickets: $10
Location: Layton Tinseltown

Happy April 1 Every 1

For your mirth, several notable companies have placed April Fools web pages up on the interwebs.

Try Google
Also, youTube rickrolled all the Featured Videos.

Also, this is hilarious, although not related to April 1. It's the Swedish Chef version of google.

interesting field of research-

and band name

"Acoustic levitation"

so there

Including SLIP, PPP and a TCP/IP stack

Today is happy birthday #10 for the Mozilla Foundation. In honor of this, Mosaic's site has been put back online for Auld Lang Syne. Some of their pages are a nostalgic trip down memory HTTP request.

Go geeks.

Videro Gamez

Just sitting here in the intermission of Video Games Live - a concert put on by the Utah Symphony (although it looks like it's a production that tours nationally, playing with local orchestras).

It's pretty much the awesome. They picked a guy from the audience, had him put on a t-shirt that had a picture of the ship from Space Invaders on the back of it, gave him a tethered fire button, and had the orchestra play the game music as he played a level of the game by firing with the button and moving across the stage (they tracked him) to move the ship on the big screen left and right. So, yes - the awesome.

There's lasers and fog. And they had the guy that did the viral video of himself playing Mario Bros. music on his piano blindfolded play 10 themes from the Final Fantasy series for one of the numbers. That guy has the maddd keyboard skilsz.

ftw

Jon and I are going to video games live, you should all be jealous! All y'all should feel pwnd!


Smash Brothers for the wii is amazing!

do you ever say something and wonder, "has that precise combination of words ever been spoken in the history of the English language?"

I just said, "actually, I'm not sure that Penguin Souls are subject to the forces of gravity."

and on the left one of the most ridiculous attempts at an automobile

quote

Things which are complicated tend to disappear and get lost. Simplicity is difficult, not easy. Beauty is simple. All unnecessary elements are removed - only essence remains.
- Alan Hovhaness

ohnoes!!!11!!!!!1!!11!!!one!!1!11111

l00k out 4 teh cuddli shakr

Let's see it in 3D

Once in a while an application comes along that breaks the model for similar applications and poses the question of why it was done. Consider for a second, if you will, your common everyday Web browser. Flat, one-tab interface, BORING!

Now try this on for size. You might need a pretty peppy CPU (as in 2.4GHz Pentium 4 or better), but I tried it on my old Pentium III 1GHz and it was functional, but not great.

Of course, there's always the standby classic of the Project Looking Glass which challenges the idea of what a computer desktop is capable of. Try it for yourself and see what I mean. Now, after taking a look at that, can anyone really say that Java is slow? The whole thing is written in Java.

Okay, I've had my geeky moment.

Chao!

drfotografia.blogspot.com/

found poetry

1108 do not include
the penguin and the duck
thus logically we must conclude
that Wagner gets us stuck

Cool Video

Jon, that was definitely a cool video. I loved the animation. I guess if I knew more about cellular biology, I might better appreciate the "micro machines" featured therein.

However, all is not well. At the end of the film, there is a BMW commercial for the Hydrogen 7 (the first hydrogen fuel cell performance luxury car.) People are under the impression that consuming hydrogen in their cars is responsible and good for the environment. Uh, you'd be wrong there. While burning the hydrogen in the engine doesn't produce any emissions (other than water), producing the hydrogen fuel for the car requires a lot of energy which hydrogen can't produce. Therefore, to obtain the hydrogen for the car, the "factory" must burn petroleum or coal to extract it. Hydrogen cars simply shift the focus rather than actually doing something for our environment. Where the real clean energy is to be found is in diesel derivatives. Now, burning petroleum-based diesel (kerosene) is bad, but burning biodiesel is fine. It doesn't pollute any more than burning paper. In fact, why can't we make our cars run on paper?

Anyhow, I digress. The video was fantastic. It's one of the best science-y films I've seen recently.

Thanks for sharing.

Wow

That was phenomenal!

Normally

I would post this only on my video blog, but it was cool enough I'm including it here as well. I've only ever taken one biology class in my life, but I remember that it was fascinating stuff if you can get past the learning curve for the stuff you need to understand to be able to appreciate the intricacy of microbiology. But David explains it much better than I do and makes some excellent points about the nature of education. The images are great, but the video is mind-blowing.

Hmm

Ben, that's awesome.

Waterfowl on wheels? Roll 'em.

Also, these:

Marble rye our reuben

As you probably know when Arby's is promoing a new sandwich they often place a large flyer with coupons for said sandwich in the Signpost. One side of the ad has tiny coupons, and the other has a large picture of the new item with blocks of text explaining all of the great things that will happen when you purchase their product. It is important to note that the coupons are perforated, so when you separate all of the coupons it is possible to arrange the blocks of text to form eloquent poetry.

Marble rye our reuben
Bread? is deli delic
rye wraps o either way
y's, marble rye our reuben.

Reuy's
Bread? marble rye
is delidelicorous reuben

Arben
Bread? marbye rye
is delicour reubenous

Rye wrap o
Either way
y'ben
marbious

arb
Arby's
arket
resh
Bread?
is deli delicorous

Sweet

You've heard of Guitar Hero. Perhaps even played it. Now, the real deal.

O FOR TUBA

Well, strictly speaking Euphonium...

Okay: two things coming up, one past.

Starting with the passed: Last Thursday night I conducted the world premiere of my own composition, 'suite in... g?' for band. Dr. Root was kind enough to lend me the band for that number. So I had my conducting and compositional public debut. It was exciting.

AND

on Tuesday, March 4 at 7:30 is a little recital of new music by student composers and also me.

BUT ESPECIALLY

on thursday, march 6th at 7:30 in rm 136 Heather Carlson is giving her senior recital and I, Jarrett, am giving my Junior Recital. It should be pretty cool. You all should come.

Aren't People

Odd?

With knit and/or furrowed brow

Make a checkerboard, and alien, a Jolly Roger, or *gasp* a pinano!

Amazing!

Hey all! I know I haven't posted in a while, but I have awesome news, no I'm not engaged, no I'm not going on a mission, no I'm not graduating or anything cool like that...just that.

The Utah Symphony

will be playing

At WSU

On March 27th

playing

wait for it

wait for it

Symphonic Versions

wait for it

Of Video game music!

Huzzah! I think we should go to this concert as a collective of nerds/geek/dorks/whakado's! I also found a great youtube project that all of us should become obsessed with. Username vlogbrothers. It's these two brothers who for a whole year didn't textually communicate and only spoke to eachother using video blogs. They are both self proclaimed "nerds" and call their followers "nerdfighters" the gang sign of which is crossed live long and prosper signs. Yeah they are freaking amazing! John the older of the two is also a writer. If you ever saw the accio deathy hallows song you have gotten a small taste of the awesomeness that is Brotherhood 2.0!

Batman out kids!

How 'bout that now?

To win a bet, composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886) died standing upright.

incongruity

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."



The sentence is phonologically fine, syntactically correct, and semantically impossible.

Screen Savour

Is your display grungy? Do you need to clean your screen off? Now there is a handy web sight that accomplishes just that.

Remembering Ledger

Apparently I was the last one to find out. Andrew, your gTalk handle clued me in. I wonder if they'll adjust the ending of the Dark Knight at all or if they weren't planning on using him in the third installment. Pretty sad, really.

And the winner on the guys side is....

Not to toot my own horn but, yup, I think it's fairly obvious why I not only won on the guys side, but won over all!

Also, while everybody that voted and was voted on was in Symphonic Band (I think), the contest actually started with the trombones in Marching Band and was to determine who had the best kiester in Marching Band. No offense to people that are in or have been in other sections but we decided to keep the low brass as the only voting section. We thought that some people might have found it offensive.

Anyways, at first there wasn't supposed to be anybody in the low brass to be on the ballot but after a while of arguing, fist fights and instruments being thrown around, we decided that it could and should include people in the low brass (because NOBODY has better butts, NOBODY!!!), they just couldn't vote for themself. Oh, and Kaela couldn't vote for me cause we're dating..... It went through a bunch of names, first being Kaela's Kiester Contest (because even though somebody said that it should be a contest, she was the one that said kiester...). Then, being low brass, that wasn't good enough so we decided to call it Kaela's Kiester Kontest. But we very quickly realized that that wasn't a good name (KKK, yeah, not good). So it then became Kaela's Kiester Kontest King and Kueen. The winners got nothing at all other than bragging rights to other people in the section which I'm sure you all can guess what I did..... I bragged the crap out of winning!

Also, YAY FOR CAMPUS CLOSING AT 4 P.M. TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a limerick

There was an Old Man of Hong Kong,
Who never did anything wrong;
He lay on his back,
With his head in a sack,
That innocuous man of Hong Kong.

-Edward Lear

Katie Tingy's Butt

I'd like to let everyone know that the low brass of the Symphonic Band voted Katie Tingy as having the best rear end in the symphonic band, minus the low brass of course. Congratulations! The vote took place atleast a month ago, I just kept forgetting to post it. Oh well...

Changeup

Weber's CIO will be leaving Feb 1.
There's a meeting at 9am today to (presumably) discuss his replacement.

Yule Be Rockin'

Hello one and everyone. By way of Christmastime greetings I have composed a simple video for all y'all. I'm probably only going to leave it up for a short while since it adds a fringe to the copyright of the music which accompanies it. It may be found here. I apologize if you read this and do not see your shining smiling face in the video. It was hastily thrown together. Perhaps a lame excuse, but there you have it. May the season find you all happy and without loss of limb or addition of taxes.

an unknowwwn holiday

Well, not a holiday as such.
But I would like to take this opportunity to announce:
4 January is national Trivia and Random Fact day.
Upon discovering this day, obviously designed in my honor, I elected that festivities of some kind should be held that day or evening. If you can come that day I will inform you of details. Either the Wagner festival or much more likely it is time for some people to see Uncorked... hmmm.

You know they say - how it was later said of Scrooge, he kept Christmas all the year... well... I keep random fact day all the year. so there.

Supply and Demand

If all the diamonds stored by major diamond companies were released, a perfect two-carat diamond would be worth about three dollars.

Edward Lear

CHAPTER IX
THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN YOUNG GUINEA PIGS

The Seven young Guinea Pigs went into a garden full of Gooseberry-bushes and Tiggory-trees, under one of which they fell asleep. When they awoke, they saw a large Lettuce which had grown out of the ground while they had been sleeping, and which had an immense number of green leaves. At which they all exclaimed:

'Lettuce! O Lettuce!
'Let us, O let us,
'O Lettuce leaves,
'O let us leave this tree and eat
'Lettuce, O let us, Lettuce leaves!'

And instantly the Seven young Guinea Pigs rushed with such extreme force against the Lettuce-plant, and hit their heads so vividly against its stalk, that the concussion brought on directly an incipient transitional inflammation of their noses, which grew worse and worse and worse and worse till it incidentally killed them all Seven.

And that was the end of the Seven young Guinea Pigs.

Going like hotcakes

Get yours while they last. Think of it as a gift to your quite distant descendants.

And speaking of changes in the earth, whichever side of the global warming debate you find yourself on, I think we can all agree that scams don't really help anyone. Well, I suppose they help the scammers. My favorite parts of the article and comments: possibly 1/3 of Indian offset projects fail the additionality test, and the Norwegian organization that is flooded with $ from carbon-offset sales and is unable to execute projects that fill the orders. Bottom line for some people is that global warming provides a great business opportunity.

Ben, that is a wonderful piece of music. I had difficulty getting past the first few bars, though. I guess I need to practice more.

Hey, who all would be down for a holidays-time party? Time, place, activities?

I love living here

Early one Sunday morning in 2002, a phone rings in Yu Ling's Beijing duplex. She's cleaning upstairs; her son is asleep, while downstairs, her husband, Wang Xiaoning, is on the computer. Wang writes about politics, anonymously e-mailing his online e-journals to a group of Yahoo users. He's been having problems with his Yahoo service recently. He thinks it's a technical issue. This is the day he learns he's wrong.

Wang picks up the phone: "Yes?"

"Are you home?" asks the unfamiliar voice on the other end.

"Yes."

The line goes dead.

Moments later, government agents swarm through the front door -- 10 of them, some in uniform, some not. They take Wang away. They take his computers and disks. They shove an official notice into Yu's hands, tell her to keep quiet, and leave. This is how it's done in China. This is how the internet police grab you.

*twitch*

The Sixth IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality
Tue, Nov. 13 - Fri, Nov. 16, 2007
Nara-Ken New Public Hall, Nara, Japan


ISMAR 2007 is over with great success!!

The conference general chair Haruo Takemura would like to thank everyone who helped to make the conference the success that it was with 241 participants. In particular, I would like to thank all of the sponsors, chairs and student volunteers for their financial support and dedication to the conference.
ISMAR 2008 will be held in Cambridge, UK, on a week of September 14th, 2008. More details will soon be available.

Riddle me this

A heterological word is one that does not describe itself. So... is 'heterological' a heterological word?


Don't injure yourself trying to figure it out. If you get tired, leave - go get something to eat, maybe take a little nap - and come back to it later. It will still be here.

If you don't like the implications and don't mind a bit of language theory, you can eyeball this article. It essentially points out that "'heterological'" and "heterological" are two different things.

When you have that down, consider the object in this image, which contains 3 copies of the phrase 'mobius strip', having the phrase only actually printed 1.5 times.



And finally, realize that it is possible to visualize more than 3 dimensions. (If you look at the number 4, you'll see that each axis can be seen as being at a 90 degree angle to each of the other three axes, although you can't really get your brain to see all 4 at once. Fun, huh?)

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.
--Igor Stravinsky

Well, can you?

Get geekier, that is.

Talent Show

There are lots of videos out there on the Internet that show talent, but I think this one shines particularly brightly.

Wow.

Ricky that is by far the funniest thing I've seen in quite a while. I'm still trying to figure out how to make a shift. I'm on a laptop where the plus sign key is on the equals sign. I saw the little plus sign icon come up for a second, but can't get it to come back so I can play too.

We should totally make an official Band Geeks trail that leads to shifts on whatever web pages we alter. It could be like a contest. Or something.

Anywho, I just thought I'd mention that that was hilarious.

Update: Ok, I figured it out. I've added a couple to weber.edu

Update again: "A computer search up to 10²⁰ suggests that about 12% of numbers are happy, though no proof is known." - from the Wikipedia article on Happy Numbers

File Recovery

Hey Jon! You had fun recovering deleted files eh? Oh, I know the feeling. "Help me!! I deleted the spreadsheet I've been working on for weeks! Oh, and by the way, I think I deleted it four days ago." Wow! How technology solves our problems, eh. I think it's hilarious. Or, there's that Labor Day weekend I found myself in the office working on upgrading MAS, our accounting software. Oooh, that was fun. Not only were we upgrading the software, we were moving it off our Exchange server onto it's own server. Yeah, that was a riot.

But, there's something strangely enjoyable about IT work. That's why I keep going back day after day. It's always enjoyable to have people tell me that I'm their hero for fixing their seemingly critical problem.

Project for the now: upgrade our current 100Mbit switch to a new 1Gbit switch and install Gbit NICs in all the company computers. Oh, and that has to be done without interrupting anyone. :)

Chao!

Cage fighting

Jon, your triple version of Ross' sounds like Steve Reich or, as I mentioned above, three guitarists Cage fighting.

There is your terrible pun for the day.

I just tried Shift Space and it's AWESOME!!!

So Jon, that Shift Space thing is so much fun!!! I've already left random notes on various pages! And I enjoyed using the SourceShift to take over this blog, mwahaha!!!! You all really need to check it out.

later.

Own your very own Internet (tm)

This is one of the geekier things I've seen in a while. It's similar to an idea I had a while back.

ShiftSpace

And speaking of very own, I offer this useless tidbit. (It's been a while since we've had any of-the's around here.)

factoid of the day: the Band Geeks blog record for most posts in a month is September 2005 with 64 posts. The record for least posts in a month is February 2004 with only 3 posts.

fun of the day: trying to recover deleted files from a Mac in the faculty lab. This is not something I care to ever attempt again.

song of the day: Evacuating London from the Narnia soundtrack

important thing of the Right Now: me going to sleep

Bye all.

This is really cool!

This is a simple thing that can decrease your chances of identity theft, decrease junk mail, and decrease paper waste. By calling 1-888-5-OPTOUT (1-888-567-8688) you can "opt out" of getting credit card applications in the mail! It's great, and it really works. Just thought I'd share.

Hey Hey

Yes, it has been a while. It's good to hear from you, Andrew. There is something somehow fulfilling about getting to work in (or at least close to) your field of study after you graduate. Kind of makes it seem like it was worth the years and dollars you put into school.

Jarrett, thanks for the tickets. I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it, especially since I do like a good Pictures at an Exhibition performance. And although I wasn't there in person for the special-needs group concert, I do remember the Rootism on the the subject.

I love this weather.

Long time, no C...

Quite litterally, since I haven't played my instrument for some years now.

Anyhow, I just wanted to swing by the ol' band hall and say hello to all my old friends. I think about you guys often and remember our fun times fondly. I hope you are all well.

As for me, for those who don't already know, I gradumated back in May from the U with a degree in Film Studies. So, now I am a legitimate adult, even if I may not feel like one. I moved away from life on campus and currently rent an apartment in the Aves with three other guys. To make ends meet, I work at KUTV Channel 2 as a studio technician, but am moving into becoming a master control operator. That's pretty much all I have been up to.

I have been meaning to come up north for a while, and maybe one day I will soon so I can say hello in person.

Cheers!

Ross Collective

Good times times three. If you can't do something well, do it three times at once. Some people might not notice you're not doing that well, and at least you can aggravate your (ostensible) blog readers.

ACHTUNG!

And again I say,
ACHTUNG!

I am just thinking that this is the place to announce, and it would be wrong not to:

The WSU Symphonic Band will be performing this Saturday in the Browning Center at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $3.50 students, $4.50 adults, $0 talk to Dr. Root before and get a ticket. Bring your friends, relatives, the local noisy special-needs group (well now - who remembers that?), children over 8, gremlins, and so on.
Repertoire to include
Pictures at an Exhibition, by Mussorgsky
To Take the Children Home, Thomas Root
American Salute, Morton Gould
Jubilee, Michael Hennagin
and everybody's favorite Zaninelli version of the Star-Spangled Banner.

So all you veteran Band Geeks should come behold the new generation of geeks.

Machine Gun for Rent?

I thought this was a particularly funny news story: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2084475

Try This At Home

Just for fun, pretend you were someone else. Someone who only knew your name and the city in which you live or work or go to school. Take that information and see how much personal information you can find about you online using google, pipl, whitepages.com, etc. If you can find it, so can Anyone.

I was surprised at what I found about me. And that's without paying $20 for a more in depth report from one site.

Whether you're amused or disturbed about how much and what kind of information can be found online about you, it is still good to know that the net is a very, very public place. And if you delete something, it could live on, cached, in the databases of Google or someone else for a very long time. This came to me after reading (another) article about how young kids should be warned about putting personal info online and blah blah blah, but it reminded me of some article I read a while back where the journalist doing the article interviewed some internet search guru who took 20 minutes and pulled up all kinds of info about the journalist, which surprised him/her. Don't remember what article it was though, it was a while back.

FYI

By the way, we're up to 1248 posts (including saved drafts) on this blog. Aren't you all proud of us?

Books

So, I don't know how many of you have a facebook profile, but if you do...you should check this out.
My friend and I are starting a book club on there.
So, if you're interested and have a profile, find me and add me as a friend (Heather Marie Carlson) and I'll invite you to the group. Our first book is Ulysses by James Joyce.
Yay for Fall Break!

That is awesome

Here are some other awesome things:

Privately-owned nuclear weapons are legal in 47 states, though they must be registered with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the State Department.

A variation of the idiom "easy as pie" exists in almost every major language, ranging from "simple as cooking wontons" in Chinese to "easy as making snow-cake" in Swedish.

Montana is the only state that does not enforce a speed limit on elevators.

And finally:

Vehicles at the U.S. bases in Antarctica have the lowest auto insurance rates available in the U.S. due to the complete lack of vehicle-on-vehicle accidents.

White Hat, Gray Hat, Blue Hat, etc.

Hey y'all! It's just your friendly neighborhood Jason stopping by to let you know that our lovely Band Geek page is currently sitting at #11 in Google's ranking for the term "band geeks." Not bad. Could be better, but not bad. :)

If only I had the time/resources to do this... The complete schematics diagram to build your own theremin!

And completely unrelated, but phenomenally cool, M.C. Escher with Legos.

Be Prepared

Congress has drafted in advanced a dozen laws and three constitutional amendments in preparation for the invention of the first fully conscious artificially created robotic human.

Also this:

The UPC code 4815162342 had been assigned to the 8 oz. can of New Coke, introduced on 4/23/1985 and discontinued on 8/16/1992. It is unclear whether the connection to the TV show Lost is coincidental or intentional on the part of its producers.

Update:

The Zen of the cube.

Being able to solve Rubiks cube very fast is a near useless skill, that takes a lot of time to acquire, and does not typically impress the opposite sex. If you think you have better things to do, I can only agree. You probably have.

Still, I think that learning to do something really well is important for anybody, and it's not too important what it is. If you have mastered one thing, it is a bit easier to master others. And doing something you're really good at is uplifting, relaxing and fun.

So if you want to strive for perfection in some field, cubing is certainly cheaper than golf!

That's Chicago

Hi Jon,
I also am quite jealous of your visit to Chicago. I used to want to visit New Orleans, but not as much now that it got put under the ocean. But ever since I saw the reality series "My Big Fat Obnoxious Boss," I've wanted to visit the windy city. So Kudos to you.

For all those instrumentalists: Consider this an invitation to come work with my students at Ben Lomond High School. I teach Band, Orchestra, Jazz Band, and Bagpipes, and would welcome any help on any of that instrumentation. To get a hold of me for scheduling info and purposes, contact me at jensenc which is located at the ogdensd period org email address.

Quote of the Day

"Some days you get up and put the horn to your chops and it sounds pretty good and you win, some days you try and nothing works and the horn wins. This goes on and on and then you die and the horn wins."
- Dizzy Gillespie

So not fair

Jon, I am so jealous that you're in Chicago! I miss it so much!!! It's a really cool place and it sounds like you're having fun.

K, I just had to get that little jealous moment out of me, later.

Hello from Windy City

Just sitting here noodling around waiting for my first session (Hands On: Deploying Flex and HTML/JavaScript Applications to Adobe Integrated Runtime) at the Adobe MAX 2007 Conference.

The scoop:

I like Adobe. They make good software, and they are in tune with where the industry is headed. They appear to have good leadership in directing their efforts to meet the current and coming needs of developers of everything from audio to video to websites to applications to print media.

The flight to Chicago was both uneventful and enjoyable as flying has typically been in the past for me. I like the takeoff - I admit it. It's like a theme park ride.

Chicago has tall buildings. Salt Lake City is kind of small in comparison. But I like it that way. Still, it's quite the experience to see the big city.

The breakfast this morning wasn't too bad, and the opening General Session (the keynote) was quite a kick. They announced some fun new toys, most of which are available on labs.adobe.com right now. One of the ones that I'm very interested in is the new Adobe Media Player (AMP). And I'm sure my boss is going to absolutely love the Google Analytics AIR app.

Well, we're getting started here, so I'll check in again later.

Peace

P.S. I've got pics on my flickr photostream and more commentary on my blog.

As I am writing this post (from the band hall) there is a theater kid by the black box playing an accordion. Very poorly. This incidence reminded me if a few music jokes I'd like to share with you.

What do you call 5 accordions at the bottom of the ocean?
A good start.

Dr. Palumbo quote from orchestra:
"Violists know three [hand] positions. First, third, and panic!"

Top Down, Windows Up

I can tell that cell phones have really taken hold on our society. People always have to be yammering on their phones, even while driving. Now that, in and of itself, is dangerous and stupid, but I'm not here to talk about that. No, I'm here to talk about one of the side effects of the cell phone addiction: looking stupid while being stupid.

I'm a car guy. I'm not a car-fixer guy, but for the aesthetic, stylistic and historic purposes of the automobile, I'm a car guy. The car is one of those canvases that's almost infinitely customizable. One of the greatest car designs, in my opinion, is the convertible. There's nothing quite like rolling around town or cruising down the highway in the evening in a sleek, sexy convertible. Drop-tops have been around longer than the car itself has. There's a stylistic component to driving a convertible. It's almost an attitude thing, too. People driving convertibles blatantly say to others, "I love to drive and I like attention." So, and here's my complaint, why is it that people this last couple of years have been totally ruining the whole idea of driving a convertible by driving with the top down and the windows up? Folks, if you're going to drive a convertible, roll the windows down. The idea of driving with the top down and the windows up almost totally defeats the purpose of having the convertible.

To bring my comments about cell phones into this, I think that's the reason people keep their windows up. They want to enjoy the open-air-ness of the convertible, yet still be able to chit chat on their cell phones while driving. Again, to a car guy, that doesn't make any freaking sense. I drive not only because I have to get somewhere, but because I enjoy it. I am coming up on 1 million miles under my belt, and honestly, in that time, I can't think of too many times I haven't wanted to be behind the wheel. I think that is lost in much of today's motorists. They simply have a car to get from A to B. Regardless of how nice their car is, it's merely a penalty box commuter. In my opinion, if you're just going to use your car as a commuter, why not just get some stupid little econo-box rather than a nice convertible. I think it's such a disgrace to such beautiful cars as the Saturn Sky and the Ford Mustang to leave the windows up while driving with the top down. Next time, people, just get a car with a sun roof on it. Then you can leave that closed as well as the windows.

'Nuff Said.

Jarrett Wheatley was here...

When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into
the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
-- Woody Allen

Percy Grainger

Amen.

Wild WildCats

You may not have known it, but part of the Homecoming week was a free showing of the movie "Wild Hogs." The cool part is that they school sponsored a Hog ride from the Stewart Stadium to the Davis campus where the movie was being shown. Kristin and I met up with three other riders on campus and rode out there. I felt bad that we had such a small turnout of riders going out, but it was a blast nonetheless. The coolest part is when we paraded through the crowd on our rides and everyone (read: all the people who came in cars) cheered. Of course, the movie was funny and there were lots of laughs from everyone. I think everyone involved had a great time. I just thought it was fun getting a chance to show off a bit. :)

Okay, I'm done now.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Another unforgettable thing is that the bike that Kristin was riding has a starter problem so I had to push start the darn thing several times. It's one thing to do that with a small dirt bike, but another thing entirely to do it with a 550 lb cruiser.

Okay, now I'm done.

Thirsty?

Stressed?

I am not exactly sure how it works, but this is amazingly accurate.

Read the full description BEFORE looking at the picture.

The picture linked below has 2 identical dolphins in it. It was used in a case study on stress levels at St. Mary's Hospital.



Look at both dolphins jumping out of the water. The dolphins are identical. A closely monitored, scientific study revealed that, in spite of the fact that the dolphins are identical; a person under stress would find differences in the two dolphins. The more differences a person finds between the dolphins, the more stress that person is experiencing. Look at the photograph and if you find more than one or two differences you may want to take a vacation.

see picture

Thanks for the link to the Piratranslation site, Kristin. And for anyone who already misses Talk Like A Pirate Day, you can travel backwards in time by watching this movie. Watch it enough times, and eventually you'll wrap around to yesterday morning when it will look more like this.

AAARRRRrrrrrrrr!

So, I found th' coolest thin' as I be researchin' International Talk Like a Shipmate Tide. `Tis this website 'ere ye can translate anythin' into Pirate Speak. Thar`s e'en a field 'ere ye can enter a URL an' be seein' th' entire page in Gentleman-o'-Fortune. I thoroughly enjoyed re-readin' th' Band Blog that way. Give 't a shot, yo!

Shiver

It be National Talk Like A Pirate Day, it be.

"R"

Pool Party

No, not that kind. What I mean is that I've created a Band Geeks flickr group. Creating a flickr account is free, joining the group is open to anyone, and it'd be an easy way to do stuff like this. Anywho, feel free to participate (or not).

quote of the day:
"I call it...very close talking"
- Shawn from Psych

Rootisms!!!

There might be some confusion caused by the links to the left of this blog stating "The Root Cellar" and "The Temp Cellar." Let me just say, that as the steward, so to speak, of the famed Root Cellar, the "Temp Cellar" link is the real one. I started creating the page on the other link, but then lost access to that site, so it has not been updated in quite some time. It has fallen into the realm of the more cobwebby parts of the Web. :) However, the Temp Cellar is in good working order. The name needs to be changed and the old "Root Cellar" link dropped.

Now, as I say these things, I must stress that if you do happen to have more recent Rootisms, please submit them. :) Clicking on that previous link should open your email software and address an email to me where you can submit Rootisms. I have had a very fun go at collecting Rootisms for the last five years and would love any new ones that anyone happens to have. If you've looked at the "Temp Cellar" page, you will notice that I have some from a concert in 2006 in the Layton Commons Park. Even in the presence of a public audience, the famous remarks still keep coming.

If you don't have an email client software (such as Outlook Express or Thunderbird), you can use any web mail (hotmail, gmail, yahoo, etc.) to send to jason[dot]schill [at] gmail [dot] com.

Thank you for continuing a great tradition. I only wish I could be there to see them in person. I was planning on coming to the Homecoming game on Saturday, but I think I will be involved in a massive upgrade of my company's accounting software that may take most of the day. Darn these adult responsibilities.

Chao!!

Things are funny

...when reading them after midnight. Taking naps in the late afternoon enevitably causes weird things. One being the fact that I'm writing this. Another being that...hmmm...not sure. And yet another would be me trying to finish an essay for a Spanish class and end up reading the Rootisms. Go figure. Anywho. I hope you all enjoy the photos below. I guess you could call it my 'tribute to the band hall'...if you feel so inclined. I'm so happy that they installed a way to load pictures from your hard drive so you don't have to put them on a different website (or maybe I'm just WAY behind on all this technilogical stuff....it wouldn't be the first time). Anywho. As I was reading the Rootisms...I noticed that it is way, Way WAY outdated. I know some of you (ahem...Jarrett and Jessica) have been keeping notes. Share the wealth! :)

Isn't cheese great?

Pictures to commemorate the first blog from the band hall

A landmark day in the band hall

Today a first for the band hall, and the band hall blog. I am the first person ever to write a band hall blog DIRECTLY from the band hall now that it has wireless internet access. They installed it to increase productivity for people who rent the theaters for shows. What they fail to realize is that we will use it to watch strong bad cartoons, and looking at macgyver.com.

Saturday in the lab, Jarrett and I came up with our million dollar idea. Gravy packets! Think ketchup packets, but with gravy instead.

Game Over

Draughts, that is.

You maybe can't win.

fact from macgyver.com

Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the
month. According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people
are experiencing severe marketing anxiety in China.
The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either
(depending on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax
tadpole".
Bite the wax tadpole.
There is a sort of rough justice, is there not?
The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's
hard to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to
bite a wax tadpole. Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad,
but broad satiric vistas do not open up.
-- John Carrol, San Francisco Chronicle

Next time you're in Europe, be careful

After all, "there are eight countries in the United Nations that still execute people through the method of crushing to death by elephants."

Or if it's Canadia you're off to, note that "a renegade militia in Montana has guarded 2.3 miles of the US-Canada border since 1969."

Also this from Antarctica:

The commander of the U.S. base in Antarctica was recently reprimanded after he submitted a bid to the International Olympic Committee to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. However, the IOC took it in good humor, rejecting the application on the technicality of Antarctica not being one of the continents represented by the five Olympic rings.

It is certainly good to hear that "according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, there were only 22 children killed in piñata-related accidents in 2005, down from 56 a decade earlier."

And finally, I haven't a clue what this is all about, but according to the source of my trivia, it is the largest call-center in the US behind that of Wal-Mart.

So...

...Abraham Lincoln....

I thought this was very odd but interesting, too

I need to invent something like this and become rich.

I recently came back from a backpacking trip to the Grand Canyon. While there I was flipping through a camping catalog and found this: A BATTERY POWERED BLENDER! Oh the technology.

Just Remember:

On average 253 external hard drives, each year, fail catastrophically enough to end in user injury.

The FBI estimates that six percent of government workers are foreign spies.

In a 2004 study by OSHA, it was discovered that people who will "usually" eat food that they've accidentally dropped on the floor report having 18 percent fewer sick days from work than those who "never" do that.

Users of earbud headphones, like the ones that come with an iPod, experience a 61 percent increase in ear wax production.

And perhaps most importantly:

A cat is twice as likely to be fatally injured if it falls between two and six stories, than if it falls seven to 32 stories.

Quote of the day:

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” ~Will Rogers

Artistic

Steam Punk - maker of new old stuff

Jam Session

Would that be Raspberry or Strawberry?

A jam session, eh? Do you mean something where we get together and play music for the heck of it? That'd be fun. I'll need to get my chops back in shape, but then again, I've been needing to do that to get ready for Homecoming. :)

Keep the rubber side down and the shiny side up!