Bet on Ted!

I will rarely encourage people to gamble; I get a kick out of it sometimes but I know it's not for everybody. But this is something I hope lots of people throw money at: I read an interview with Susie Bright and learned that she's starting a betting pool for when Ted Haggard falls off the straight wagon. It's not one of those morbid dead pools, this is for a great cause so place your bets!

Goat report, 2/27/07

Usually I'll try to space these out more but I couldn't resist posting this story: Bock Wars: Episode V: The Goats Strike Back!

PS - I guess the big goat survived this year.

Goat report, 2/19/06

Make way for Goat Day parade!

Pathetic

In a recent post, Yodelling Llama asks whether it is 'creepy or cool' that his talk about a 'bean-eating monkey' has given him a high rating on a Google search of that phrase. It's neither creepy nor cool, however, as it's just pathetic. He's only talking about it to make his the first site to come up after a search for 'bean eating monkey' (which, as of this writing, he is). He's a smart guy (well, not always), it's a shame he has to repeatedly drop phrases like 'bean eating monkey' to raise his web profile and make himself feel better. And he could at least give a direct link to a story about the truth behind the 'bean-eating monkey'. Is this what the blogosphere's really all about? Repeatedly dropping phrases like 'bean-eating monkey' to raise one's profile and self-esteem?

Free music - Toledo, OH

Ever since my dad heard I was dating a goat from near Toledo, OH, he's been asking me about the John Denver song about the city (3.6 M mp3). While it's amusing, I disagree with some of the song's sentiments; Toledo does have a few good record stores to recommend it and a nice gay bar downtown. I have to wonder if the city celebrated JD's death a while back...

3/15 Update: File has been taken down. Maybe you can find it elsewhere.

You Know What I Did Last Summer?

I had saved these links last July and just never got around to posting them. I'm happy to plug those that deserve it so here goes:

We took a drive up to Napa in early July and enjoyed the chance to escape some desert heat. With some local friends we visited a bunch of nice wineries and I tasted wine that someday I'll be able to afford to buy by the bottle: Sullivan, Summers, Cakebread and Silver Oak were all excellent. After a couple of days there, we visited some friends in Davis before heading down to Monterey to check out the fun Monterey Bay Aquarium and enjoy the lovely shores of Pebble Beach.

On the way home we stopped by the Cat House, a feline conservation center (not a brothel). I had hoped to take a nice picture of their ocelot for this blog but he didn't feel like posing that (very hot) afternoon. Maybe next time.

Kenny G

While it's not uncommon to hear people express distaste at Kenny G's music, it's rare to hear a musician as accomplished as Pat Metheny take him on. And destroy him.

Reason #1138 we don't have TV reception

The folks at Think Progress compare the amount of time 'news' media spent on some recent issues, via Atrios.

Normally normal

You Are 60% Normal

Otherwise known as the normal amount of normal You're like most people most of the time But you've got those quirks that make you endearing You're unique, yes... but not frighteningly so!

How Normal Are You?

Who Owns Music?

My post yesterday brought to mind a few things I've been wanting to post about but haven't gotten around to just yet, all dealing with the ownership of music:

1) The keyboardist on the original recording of Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade of Pale recently won his lawsuit for partial songwriting credit. On one hand I sympathize with the original songwriters, who had the song before they formed the band, but on the other hand the keyboard part is probably the most distinctive part of the song. In a nice irony, this keyboard part that just got somebody a lot of royalties owes a huge amount to JS Bach's Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Sleepers Awake) cantata.

2) Recently the homies at the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum did the world a great service and put Wolfie's original recordings online. I know, not 'recordings' the way we think about them today but recordings nonetheless, in a non-aural format and arguably superior to audio recording. To give it a spin I downloaded the score to his Variations on 'Ah vous dirais-je, Maman' (a theme most know as 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star') and it came out to about 1 Megabyte in jpgs. It's nice to know that in these days of the RIAA chasing down little girls for filesharing activities some of the greatest masterpieces of western music are available for free.

3) Then there are those who are not determined to own music, like one label that is actually embracing file sharing. When I encounter intelligent and thoughtful situations like this I'm tempted to go buy something there just to support the fine folks at Magnatune.

Striking common chords

A former coworker passed along funny musical rant from comedian Rob Paravonian about how often the chords from Pachelbel's Canon in D has been reused so often as well as how boring it was to play on the 'cello. I've never played it myself but I do know that I used to like Ravel's Bolero before having to play it with an orchestra. I'm pretty sure it uses only about 6 notes in the bass part, I couldn't wait for it to be over.

Waste time with a conscience

Bored at work? Of course you are, that's why you're reading this. So why not do something helpful while you're aimlessly surfing around? The friendly folks at Ideal Bite had a nice tip the other day about ways to do good things while aimlessly clicking away. IB is a nice little newsletter I started a few weeks ago, I think I heard about it in the Better World Club newsletter. BWC is a responsible auto club that has several advantages over the big competition in terms of social responsibility and has provided me with excellent service in several situations when I needed it, I recommend it highly.

Iran, Here We Come!

I haven't given much thought to the scuttlebutt about possible coming war with Iran but Crooks and Liars had a great clip from Keith Olbermann's fine show that does a great job of showing parallels of current rhetoric and rhetoric before the Iraq war.

Goat report, 2/2/07

God is a Goat, a look at the very intriguing and compelling Pan's Labyrinth.