But if the apocalypse ever rolls around, whether it be nuclear, zombie or other, I’m pretty sure I’ll wish I had one. So at what probability should I put on doomsday happening during my life will buying a locker full of guns and ammo be the ’smart’ move?
I’m not a musician, or an educator. My living room window does face the window of a kid who is learning to play the saxophone…very slowly. If you read the blog, kid who’s name I don’t know, don’t mind me and keep trying. I think it’s good that many people cram music education down the throats of their children, but looking back on the process I wonder if the cramming is necessary?
The public schools, at least in my experience, give kids two options to learn to play an instrument: orchestra and band. Choosing band seems similar to labeling yourself a nerd, and all to learn to play an instrument nobody should want to know how to play. In the history of school bands, nobody has ever continued to play the tuba for the enjoyment of it. Trumpet and sax are options, and there were three or four guys who made those seem cool…fifty years ago. Drum might be the best choice, but you don’t get drums, which would be cool, after all, drummers are always in short supply for making the kind of music people actually like, but you just get the one drum. Nobody ever got laid for playing one drum.
Orchestra might be a better option, a few folks actually play cello’s and violins who aren’t forced to by teachers or parents. And thirty years after you were in the middle school orchestra you’ll probably start to appreciate the music you were trying to play. But 30 years is a long time. Why don’t we let the kids play guitars, and teach them to play the kind of music they like? Let them bring in turntables if they want to, there’s a lot more paying gigs for dj’s than bassoonists. There would be some problems at the get go, I don’t think there is a lot of music written that has parts for 10 guitars, 3 full drum kits, 2 base guitars and 8 dj’s, but the music teachers of the world should be able to figure something out.
And please let the kid next door play an electrical instrument, anything he can play through headphones when he practices.
Go here to get $3 bucks at the Amazon mp3 store, which, for unrelated reasons is no longer my music vendor of choice. I’m all about LaLa now, you can listen to an entire song (once) before you buy, and they keep track of what you own and you can stream it those tracks from any computer you choose. That’s not for suckers. You have to use the Amazon money by the end of the month (that’s November 09 to those of you who enjoy reading old WFS posts).
Go here to get a free remix of the Beastie Boys Check Your Head. It’s Check Your Head over other Beastie Boy instrumentals, done by the Jaydiohead guy.
Go here to get some free mashups of one of my five favorite Somali rappers, K’naan, over various music legends. You should also check out k’naan’s last album Troubador, but that’ll cost you some duckets.
Once upon a time a created a magical Excel spreadsheet to tell me where I wanted to eat. I didn’t think it was magical when I made it, but after consulting it on several occasions I found I was always satisfied with my meal when I followed it’s direction and often disapointed when I ignored it’s results.
This flowchart has given me some inspiration for possible upgrades to that spreadsheet, which I no longer have.The flowchart is somewhat disappointing for, as the first three questions show I will always end up at In-N-Out or Jack in the Box if I use it. I’m not sure why that’s disapointing, if I eat fast food it is at Jack in the Box, In-N-Out or the Costco food court. Perhaps it should have an added branch asking if the reader is in need of massive amounts of t.p.
If any venture capitalists are reading this I would be more than happy to take your money to develop a suite of applications to help the masses decide were to eat.
I would claim to be too big to fail.
I never plan ahead for Halloween. This year I put ‘Get a Halloween Costume’ on my calendar, for September 1, and here I am without a costume on the night before the night. Now that the costume store is sold out and turning into a Christmas store, here are some ideas that’ll help you avoid being the guy who was too lame to dress up. None of these are my own ideas, but I’m not sure anything on this blog is.
- Sexual Harassment Lawsuit – Put on a suit, write sexually harassing comments on pieces of paper, pin them to your suit. Probably best to use a cheap second hand suit. If there is one piece of advice I’d give a 16 year old it would be to buy one or two second hand suits (also known as drinking suits), as they can come in handy for all kinds of shenanigans over the years.
- Doctor/Nurse - After the costume shop has sold out of it’s cheap doctor costumes, you can always head to your local nurses supply store to buy some scrubs. Personalize it a bit by adding bits of your favorite tv doctor. Ladies can cut and tighten for a new twist on the always popular ’slutty nurse’ costume.
- God’s Gift to Women – Shout out to the Shark on this one. find a box big enough to wear. Cut a whole in the box. Put your junk in the box. Wait, that’s something else. Cut holes so you can wear said box, wrap it in wrapping paper and add card “To: Women, From: God”.
- Box of Wine – Another box costume, probably a lot of things you could do with a box. This one requires some artistic skill or the means to copy and enlarge a Franzia box (don’t they have 24 hour Kinko’s?). So you draw/copy an enlarged Franzia (or your favorite box wine) onto your box, you can even add an actual bag from a box of wine. Bob G. tells me this can lead to back pain if you just have the box sitting on your shoulders and you include the wine.
- Chip-n-Dales Dancer – Girls don’t have the market cornered on slutty costumes. Actually the kind of do, but if you have access to tight black pants and a bow tie your ready to fight for man slut equality. The laides will ahve to add cat ears to this one and its a slutty cat (but if your going out in public add some sort of top).
I don’t have time to write all 101 right now. Basically, everyone should own a wearable box and an old suit, and then their costume options are virtually unlimited. If you’ve got any great comments for the Sexual Harassment suit, feel free to leave them in the comments.
Max Fisher, the precocious private school student from Rushmore seems to be blogging on Economic matters at the Atlantic. He saved Latin, what did you ever do?
14% of Twitter users have no followers. I’m surprised by this because I have a follower, and I’ve never tweeted a thing (like 38% of all users) or made any attempts to gain followers. I used to have two followers, but apparently one can’t keep those kind of numbers without sending some kind of gibberish into the Twit-mosphere.
Here is my source for the Twitter stats.
Go here if you would like to be my 2nd 2nd follower on Twitter. I still have no intentions of writing anything there. I can’t be constrained to 140 words.
Now that his site is all but defunct, I wonder if Tom from MySpace has signed up for Facebook. He probably doesn’t have as many friends these days.
Why does Apple host movie trailers on their website? I believe they’ve been doing this since long before iTunes was selling videos, so I don’t think it’s advertising for that. If they want to host them that’s their business, I just don’t get it.
