Mice

I had to take my car to the shop sometime two weeks ago, because I got to school that Friday and there was smoke coming out of the hood. Only evidently it wasn't smoke, it was steam that smelled like smoke. (?) Anyway, I was driving Grandmommy's truck while my car was in the shop. Sometime last week, I leave for school, and I realize as I'm going up the hill that the truck isn't accelerating.
"Hmm," thought I. "This isn't good."
I pulled out onto 801 anyway, thinking that it would start... but it didn't. I'm sitting there, going like 18 mph on 801, and continually slowing. I slightly freaked, pulled over, and realized that the incline I had pulled over onto was rather steep, and the truck was rather top heavy. I tried to go a little bit further down the road to a lighter incline, but the truck wouldn't go at all, and started sliding down the incline towards a fence. The sheriff shows up... gives me the brilliant idea of using 4-wheel drive (why didn't I think of that?) and I pull away successfully.
Fast-forward to almost to school, in front of the Food Lion in the line of cars that is always there.
It happened again (minus the incline), so I pull into the parking lot, try to get it to go, manage to get to school.
Dad told me that my car was ready that day (good timing), so I'm to drop the truck off at the station and pick up my car. That was also a bit problematic.
Anyway, we went to pick up the truck the other day to take it to G-mommy's, and it did it again before I'd gotten twenty feet, so we took it back to get it checked again.

What was wrong with it?

Very odd problem.

Doesn't usually happen to cars.

Mice had chewed the wires. And the aluminum in the air conditioning. And maybe the gas line.

WTF?
Since when do mice chew on cars?

PS- I found someone else who reads my blog.
:)

What to do?

What does one do with a musical ensemble that has high levels of animosity between the individual performers? Between the performers and the conductor? Between the performers, conductor, and the music?

There are reasons I turn down the bottle of water offered to me by my section when I ask to go get a drink. It's not because of germs... It's because I need to get out of a stressful environment, even if only for a minute or two.

You know it's bad when you prefer Calculus.

Mmm... banana splits and trig parties. I love Calculus.

Random unplaceable memory

One time, many years ago, I spent the night at a friends house. We stayed up late watching TV in his room, and he fell asleep long before I did. We saw many things: stuff on discovery channel about famous architectural structures (Sedlec Ossuary, which contains tens of thousands of human skeletons arranged in artistic patterns ), roller-coasters (The Bullet. Straight up, then straight down. Named after the shape of the track), infomercials, other stuff. One thing that I remember seeing (he had fallen asleep long since) was this anime film (this was when I was still into anime). I don't remember the plot at all, except it involved the world coming to an end, as so many of them do. It took place on earth, but it was some sort of alternate-universe earth. I don't remember why, but all of a sudden, there were all these places where earth had intersected with some other version of earth, and there were all these shots from news shows in the movie illustrating the jaw-dropping effects thereof. Most of these consisted of famous global landmarks (arc d'triomphe, statue of liberty, etc.) being in places they were not supposed to be: I believe the statue of liberty was projecting from the side of some random mountain at about a 60º angle to the ground. But not the entire thing. It was as if someone had taken a giant statue-of-liberty-toothpick and stuck it in the side of the mountain. But the thing was, the Statue of Liberty was also in New York Harbor. So there were all of a sudden two Statues of Liberty on earth, and the Arc d'triomphe was in two places at once, and I don't remember any of the others.

What really irks me, though, is that I would like to see this image again. It was dramatic, compelling, and strange.

I have no idea the name of the movie, any of the characters, the plotline... anything.
I dont' even know what channel it came on, not that it matters. It aired about 7 years ago, and I don't know what time of day, or even what day.

I hate futile battles.

This is even harder than trying to track down that one version of the Star Spangled Banner I heard at the All-State Band concert those years ago. I at least know what year it was (2005), who was conducting (Jeff King), and some details of the arrangement (Opening trumpet duet. Included a quote from another patriotic song, most likely "America".).

Stupid assignment

So, in my mockery of an english class, we were told we had to write a poem, 10 lines, about what poetry is.
What's further, we had to post it in a public forum, and let our classmates finish the poem by writing 5 more lines in our style.
While the assignment is BEYOND stupid, I was fairly satisfied with the result. (Minus the 5 lines by someone else, I haven't gotten any of those yet.)

Nameless

The tip of the pen brushes the vast field of paper, black water flowing from the spout
making puddles of letterswordssentencesparagraphsnovelsthoughtsideasloverevolution.
Each word a brushstroke on an imagined canvas, seen differently by all,
because each soul speaks a different language with the same words trying desperately to
get a message out to somebody who will listenreadhearcarethinkponderchangetheworld.
In the desperate search for meaning in this maelstrom we call life, using this arbitrary
system of communication that we've been taught since birth, wordspunctuationsyntax
giving form to the formless forces inside, that which we all know but cannot express
correctly in any form, no matter how hard we try, but try we must because that's what life
is: the the attempt to make something usefulbeautifulmeaningful with limited resources.

Net Neutrality 2

The more I learn about this issue, the more distressed I become.

Below are a bunch of clips from Bill Moyers' series Moyers on America, "The Net at Risk?"

I found it to be most informative. I think it's most of the show, I'm not entirely sure. I know there's a little bit missing, but I don't know how much.

Bill Moyers on Net Neutrality Pt.1
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Bill Moyers on Net Neutrality Pt.2
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Bill Moyers on Net Neutrality Pt3
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Bill Moyers on Net Neutrality Pt4
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Bill Moyers on Net Neutrality Pt5
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Net Neutrality

Save the Internet | Rock the Vote

My friend Abby told me about Net Neutrality recently. I don't quite understand it all yet, but I'm learning more about it. The video above is where I started, it explained things rather well, I thought.

Repentir

I went looking for the pronunciation of the french in Gounod's Repentir today, and I found this.


I love her voice. (That's Jessye Norman, by the way.)

Completely unrelated to the video above, I just watched Get Smart, and I thought it was fantastic. The end of it was filmed at Disney Concert Hall.
I want to go there so bad...
Their organ looks amazing.