It's Cold Outside

What happened to this whole global warming thing? Palmdale clocked in at 3° F the other day. That's a tad chilly.

Life is trudging on as usual despite the cold. District honor band is coming up on Wednesday and Thursday so I'm really looking forward to those 45 minute drives out to Pete Knight. I might get a chance to play Tiny Tim (the Eb) so that will be cool. Although it might require a bloody lip and a few new reeds due to those altissimo notes.

Other than that nothing overly exciting is going on.

All the more reason that Canada is awesome: how many counties do you know of that have natural landscapes shaped like a face? Pretty cool.

A woman emerged from a Cambodian jungle last week after spending nearly 20 years there. Being deemed the "Jungle Woman" she's apparently having some troubles adjusting to society...I'm not surprised.

Sorry Darling, but Spain won't let you become a citizen, at least with that kind of name. A woman applying for Spanish citizenship was denied because her name was "unacceptable." I'm glad my name is fairly normal. At least I can become a Spanish citizen if I ever desire. I have no idea why I would want that, but at least the option is there.

I don't know if you've been attempting to follow any of the recent Telecoms industry mergers and such, but Steven Colbert explains it very well. Pretty funny stuff.

That's all for now...I need to start practicing my melodic minors for All State.

Be Safe...Don't Get Eaten

A Day Off

I could go for this three day weekend thing more often.

I'm still sick. Yes, 12 days later here I am. I do feel better, so I should be back to normal soon. Hopefully.

I was lucky enough to make All State again this year. But it gets better...Tani and Julian also made it, so congrats to them. Three of the same instruments from the same school. That is pretty awesome. It will be really cool this year not only because I actually know people, but it is the CBDA 50th Anniversary, so they are doing all kinds of neat stuff. Just like last year, I didn't make All Southern, but this year apparently I'm an alternate. So, if some bloke happens to dislocate his shoulder I get to fill in. Hey, it's happened before. Casey, Lauren and Brianna made Southern, so congrats to them also.

CES is this week in Las Vegas. So far nothing too revolutionary has come about. There's a few neat little things on the subject of High Def DVD's but it still appears to be a toss up between HD-DVD and Blu-ray. I'm an HD-DVD man myself, but who knows what could happen.

Too bad nobody steals our wireless connection. Following the example of this guy, I could have some fun.

You know those annoying people who always take up two spaces when they park? Well, here you go. I don't fully understand it but it looks pretty funny if true.

John C. Dvorak gave is prediction for the iPhone in typical Dvorak fashion. He basically condemned it to failure (as he has every other new technology since the 80's) and he also bashes CES. Kind of an interesting watch.

Well, that's all for now. I'm awaiting a phone call with results from my hip MRI, so that should be fun.

The iPhone

All State!

I Hate Being Sick

The title says it all. It's absolutely amazing how much snot the human body can produce. I was forced to take the day off, so at least I get a chance to catch up here.

Marching in the Rose Parade was an incredible experience. I have never done anything like that before; there were 1.3 million people lined up on Colorado Blvd, not to mention the 140 million others watching at home. Making that turn from Orange Grove to Colorado was simply astounding. There were people and cameras everywhere (I've never seen grandstands that high), and by everywhere I mean left, right, up and down (yes, there was a camera dude kneeling between ranks). It was an incredible experience and I'm looking forward to doing it next year.

The TV coverage was really good. Since we were the host band for the parade, KTLA did a three minute feature on us which was really cool. You can see just about everybody from QH. I also finally uploaded the article from the AV Press.

The day after the parade, my dad and I flew out to Colorado and met up with the rest of the family. We had a great time as usual, and even Matt was getting a tad vocal (at 2am…but it’s all good). I got three days and 30 runs of skiing in, so that was nice also. On the last day there was a foot and a half of fresh powder; I've skied in powder, but nothing like that...it was pretty cool.

All Southern auditions were on Sunday also (getting the picture why I'm sick yet? I haven’t exactly had time to rest). I think I did fairly decent, but it's hard to tell. The sight-reading was a little bugger, but other than that there were no critical errors or anything. Results should be in today or tomorrow (for All State too) so I'll keep you posted.

Steve Jobs in his usual formal attire of blue jeans and a ratty t-shirt announced the new name of Apple Inc. and the new iPhone to his scores of very loyal (and loud) fans. The iPhone looks pretty cool...the specs are pretty heavy duty, as is the price: $499.

Google Earth v. 4 was officially released yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to play around with it yet, but it looks pretty neat.

Live at the WIRED NextFest in New York City, an Infrared X-ray Machine displays your vessels and muscle directly on top of your skin by just moving your body under the beam. Pretty cool stuff.

Well, my nose is beginning to drip again, so I think I'm going to go pop a Sudafed and take another nap.

AV Press

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Rose Parade

Happy New Year!

Just a quick happy 2007 to everybody. Wow...between all day practices and throwing up in a bucket the last few days have been really busy. Its all good.

Remember:

• Channel 5
• Around 9am
• Pasadena City College Tournament of Roses Honor Band
• First rank of clarinets (rank 13)
• Center

Right after the parade I'm flying out to Colorado then coming back for All Southern on Sunday, then...School! Oh well.

Happy New Year!

My Elfamorphosis

By popular request, click here to see the elf version of me. The things I do for you people. Enjoy.

Merry Christmas!

Just wishing a happy Christmas to everybody.

In the spirit of Christmas, here are a few links for you:

• Be sure to track Santa this evening utilizing the technology from NORAD. As I type, the most recent sighting was London, England. Check out the video.
• Leave it to Americans. Prisoners and suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay are receiving holiday greetings. Some of the better ones could be, "Dear Avowed Enemy of America: Merry Christmas," or "Dear Friend of Usama Bin Laden: Happy New Year."
• Finally, last but definitely not least, you now have the capability to turn yourself into an elf thanks to OfficeMax's Elf Yourself. I'll let my dancing elf counterpart tell the rest.

I'm off to go play bells in church then make some tamales. That warm and fuzzy Christmas feeling is already setting in.

AV3 News

Winter Break

I guess I'm a little past due on a post. I apologize for the delay; stuff was really getting busy. Hopefully this will make up for it.

It's finally winter break, so there is 3 weeks of freedom ahead. That will be really nice. There is still T of R, so we get to look forward to marching in circles for hours on end. Apparently I'm the tallest clarinet so I get center guide. The odd thing is that I happen to be the shortest center guide. Oh well. Just watch channel 5 (locally) towards the middle of the parade for PCC and the person behind the Goliath trumpet player in the center is... me!

Apparently the 16 of us T of R folks from around here are getting a little press. There should be a piece running in the AV Press soon (I'll post it when it runs) and we have an interview scheduled for good 'ol AV3 news. So if you're home Monday morning around 9:30, watch channel 3. Or don't. It's up to you.

Finals were last week. Everything went pretty decently. The cat test for anatomy was a tad moldy but otherwise cool. Honor band auditions were on Thursday as well. I didn't feel to hot right after the audition (the sight reading was a bit impossible) but apparently I did pretty well getting first chair again. Everybody else (Julian, Tani, Holly, Shivani, Tiffany, etc) was right up there to so that's cool.

This has to be one of the coolest videos of all time (with the exception of the one posted above). This dude plays music by rolling by stationary bottles on roller blades. Pretty awesome. I should try that. Then again with my balance I'd probably fall on the bottles.

These are pictures of the most unusual buildings. Some look photoshoped, but I believe these are genuine. Interesting.

Be glad you weren't in Taiwan recently when a dead whale exploded all over the street. I'm sure that was a very pleasant experience for observers. I wasn't aware that whales actually exploded, but I'll keep that in mind.

A few weeks back we brought you Will it Blend? Marbles! Here is a new segment: Will it Blend? I pod! One question: Why?

That's it for now...I think I'm going to go take a nap.

Download the Internet

Black Friday

Even though we were in Vegas over Thanksgiving, tradition had to be continued. So, Karl, Jon, and I woke up at 3:30am and ventured to wait in extremely long lines and deal with chaotic crowds. Fun stuff. While we weren't out for anything huge, we did score some pretty neat stuff. I came home with 100 DVD-R's (that should last a while), 50 Cd-R's, a 2GB flash drive with U3, and a few other Christmas items that would not be in my best interest to mention here. In all, despite running on three hours of sleep, it was pretty awesome, as usual.

Thanksgiving was great; there we're 15 of us at my Uncle's house and we ate a lot of good food. The tomato jello thing wasn't my favorite, but otherwise the food was great and it was nice to spend a great Turkey Day with family. And yes, that's our turkey.

I mentioned above that my new flash drive supported U3. While I always knew this technology existed, I never realized how cool it is. You can customize applications on the drive, so when you plug it into any system that system basically becomes your custom system. Very nice.

Too bad no stores had this mega-monitor on sale Friday. I could definitely go for one of those suckers.

Hungary? Make a sandwich. Oh, wait... sorry, you can't do that. At least you can't if McDonald's gets their way and puts a patent on the sandwich and, more specifically, the "simultaneous toasting of a bread component." I'm sorry, but that is absurd. One more reason to boycott McDonald's.

This has to be one of the most amazing basketball baskets ever made. That thing seems to defy the laws of physics. One word: wow.

Compliments of my Uncle, here is a comedy on airline pilots. Pretty funny stuff. Scary thing is, I can somewhat see him acting like that.

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to go try and figure out why I'm getting a rash from a fake Christmas tree.

Happy Turkey Day!

Five Days Off!

Finally...a much needed break. I was actually able to sleep in until 7 today, so that was really nice. I think we're heading out tomorrow for Vegas to spend Thanksgiving at my uncle's, so that will be nice.

I just spent 4 hours this morning recording my audition cd for All State. It's nice to get that done with semi-early (unlike last year's day before thing). I think it sounds good now, but I'll probably listen to it later and end up redoing it on Sunday.

Other than that, life has been busy as usual. School's been good, band has been...bandish, and T of R is coming together nicely. Jon's surprise birthday party was at my place on Saturday, so between the people, food, and Karaoke, it was pretty cool/fun.

In case you're new to the planet, the Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii were both released last week. Naturally there we're people in line a week before with riots occurring at Palmdale Wal-mart. Yes, we made CNN. It's wonderful to see what our community is nationally known for. William Warford had a column in the AV Press on Friday that puts this whole craze in prospective. I couldn't find it online, so I scanned it in. Pretty funny read.

Continuing on the theme of stupid people, here is what has to be the stupidest criminal in the world (or maybe just the unluckiest). Make sure you watch the whole thing, it's worth it.

This guy photoshoped a picture of his kid to look like famous people. Pretty funny yet sort of twisted. Poor kid. Don't get any ideas, Karl.

That's it for now...have a happy Turkey Day.

Happy Veteran's Day

A nice three day weekend…finally. Definitely much needed break.

Once again I apologize for the lapse last week. We had our first practice for T of R (more on that later), and I didn’t get home until pretty late. I will have to find a temporary new posting routine. It will probably be just whenever I can get to it.

The T of R band can only be described with one word: awesome. It is a true marching band with 21 (no typo) tubas. Yes folks, 21 tubas. That’s a lot. It is really quite nice to play with a hefty low brass section. After one week, it already sounds pretty good. It’s going to be a little time consuming to memorize everything, but it will be worth it.

The QH band played at the Chino Invitational last week. While we could have done a tad better parade wise, we still placed 5^th with the overall combined score, so that was pretty cool. This morning we played for the AV Welcome Home Veteran's Day Parade. It was just a regular parade…nothing too special (besides the B-2 and Apache flyover). I heard it was on national TV or something, but haven’t seen anything yet so who knows.

I got the Copland Concerto! I’m really excited…if you haven’t heard it let me know and I’ll get you a copy, it’s a really nice piece. Too bad I don’t have any time to practice it between the Mozart and T of R stuff.

The new Blogger Beta is available to anybody with a Google Account now. If you already have a blogger, it's worth the move...there's some pretty cool new features.

So the Dems now have control in both the House and Senate. And Rumsfeld is gone. Pretty cool stuff.

Will it Blend? In his latest installment of the wonders of the kitchen blender, Tom Dickson blends up a bag of marbles. One question: why?

This is a pretty cool slideshow of some of the best pictures people have uploaded to Flickr. Some of them are pretty cool...others are kind of "out there."

There are some pretty stupid people in the world. I'm sure you already knew that, but just in case you needed another example, here you go: "A man is in hospital with severe internal injuries after trying to launch a powerful firework rocket from his backside."

Adobe is offering a free beta of a new sound editing program (similar to Audition) called Soundbooth. Looks pretty interesting. Just in time to record those All State CD's.

While you're at it, pick up your free beta of Vista.

Considering tomorrow is another one of those insane days, I think I'm going to go sleep.

Happy Halloween!

Hart

Yesterday was the annual Hart Rampage. As always, it was really big and really cool. We didn't place (not that we were really expecting too), but the experience was still fun. We got back around 1 am...this morning. That wasn't real fun. We also had a football game on Friday which was Jr. High night, so that's always interesting. I got to lead a line of our future clarinets onto the 50 and they actually figured it out by the 3rd time which is pretty cool.

Other than that, its just been another one of those jam-packed week/weekends. Nothing overly new and exciting to report (well, I did set the curve on an anatomy test, but I won't brag...too much). After talking with India again today for a half hour, I finally settled my 2 month escapade at getting my new cell phone working somewhat the way it is supposed to. I don't even know why I have it. I hate phones.

We've all seen the videos of the people who have gotten the first question on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" wrong, but there's a new one out. As funny as it is, you have to feel bad for the guy. Yet again, you'd think he would at least know what a surge protector is, but apparently not.

In honor of our recent "fall back" time change, this has to be one of the coolest clocks you've seen. You can also download it and others as screensavers.

Here's a screenshot from ABC 7 news. Hmm, interesting...

This is a pretty funny/interesting story about one of those weird, daring people who like to be a pain to corporate America. For a few weeks, this guy faked signatures when using a credit card. He progressively makes them worse, even drawing pictures on the receipts and nobody notices until he tries to buy $16000 worth of TV's. Make sure you read all it, it's a pretty funny read.

Well I'm beat, so I'm going to go attempt to get some rest.

Happy National Nut Day

October 22 is National Nut Day, so go out there and thank an almond. Then eat it.

I apologize for the lack of an update last week; I was in Pasadena most of the day and sleep seemed to be the more favorable activity when I got home. But I do have good news (no, I did not save a bunch of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico...sorry): I made the Pasadena City College Tournament of Roses Honor Band, the official band of the Tournament of Roses Parade. Yep...I'll be marching in the Rose Parade along with 7 others from the AV. I'm looking forward to it, my sister did it ten years ago so I hear many good things. Here's the schedule if you want to see the insane amount of time it takes...it's worth it.

Yes folks, you can now store all of your valuable data on your key chain. For only $1500 you can get a 32GB thumb drive. Just what this world needs.

In case you ever need to know how to say "hello" in Egyptian, Kabuverdianu, or Guugu Yimithirr, here's a site that gives you greetings in over 800 languages. Very helpful if you ever need to travel to the deep forests of Tasmania.

How not to lean Karate. Ouch.

Firefox 2.0 its scheduled to come out Tuesday. It is essentially the same, but has a few new neat little features. If you can't wait until then, here's a link to RC3, which is pretty much the same as the final release. I'll have to get a new shirt now.

It's that time of year to bring back the old car commercial ghost. This has been around a while, but its still pretty freaky. Watch closely after the car leaves the trees and you might see it. Kinda spooky.

That's all for now...I'm gonna go find some peanuts and celebrate the day of the nut.

Rose Parade!