killer-robot-clan.com

This is at once the best Onion article ever published, a masterful piece of literary satire, and a poignant and insightful commentary on the current state of religion and politics.

Take the time to read this article!

Pastors, priests, rabbis, and other religious leaders of the world, I encourage you to read this direct message from God word for word to your congregations this week. Our creator has spoken.

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Oscar the Monster Puppy is six months old today, weighing in at 51 pounds.

Matthew had an early birthday party this Saturday in order to avoid the holiday squeeze. Quite a few kids showed up and they all seemed to have a great time. Seems like he is finally settling into the new town. Almost all of his friends are also musicians, so its a very interesting bunch.

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Today I stumbled upon an excellent 15 minute explanation of chaos theory, requiring no background in math or physics. Check it out!

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted a particularly unfortunate website. Let’s make up for lost time.

FavIconMaker
I’m not sure that there’s much to say about this, except
-It hasn’t been used on the author’s own website
-Its list of “Solutions” aren’t
-The only thing it can be used for is selling itself?

A TechFAQ article
Bad even by the standards of an obvious link farm, this article offers just 73 words of content buried in pages of filler. It’s like Where’s Waldo for information.

Dick’s Pawn Shop
A very prosperous local business with numerous locations. Their website is like wandering into circa-1992 Geocities (and then getting mugged before you can leave.

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I usually start the day off with an hour or more of email checking, feed reading, and social network maintenance. Its important stuff that does need to be done everyday, but on a morning where I’m really not looking forward to the day’s work it provides a perfect avoidance mechanism.

In both Firefox and Flock you can set the browser to display the tabs that you were browsing last when you open up the browser. To do this go to Firefox (or Flock) -> Preferences -> Main. The first drop down box will give you this option.

I set this up last night. This morning I opened up my browser and Voila!, there was my work. I dove right in. I’d done thirty minutes worth of work before I stopped and said “heeeeyyyyyyy…this isn’t fair.” LOL.

I think that switching my daily maintenance routine to the end of my workday and using this nifty start page feature is going to make a drastic difference in my productivity. You should give it a try!

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Christmas is around the corner, and I just stumbled onto a cheap gift that I would really, really, really love. National Geographic is offering a huge discount on first-time subscriptions. You can get an entire year for $15!!!!

The Smithsonian is running a similar incredible sale, offering a year’s subscription and full Smithsonian membership for just $12!!!!

Finally, Natural History is also running an introductory subscription special for just $22!!!!

So, my three favorite magazines are ultra cheap right now. If you’ve been wondering what to get me for Christmas, your dilemma is solved.

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Matthew has been getting very excited about playing violin. He recently showed me a YouTube video of violinist Vanessa Mae playing The Devil’s Trill. This prompted me to show him video of a band called Apocalyptica, long time favorites of mine.

The group is comprised of three classically trained cellists who started out doing heavy metal covers for fun. The group is now an internationally known act, selling over a million copies of their most popular album. In the video “The Path” they are playing a duet with their shadows.

Matthew has been inspired by these modern takes on symphony music, and has already done an amazing job of learning The Devil’s Trill. In search of further muses for him I did a search on google for the musicians that influenced Apocalyptica.

They recommended a Russian composer by the name of Shostakovic, whose name I plugged into Pandora. I’ve been rewarded by a stream of some of the best symphonic music I’ve ever heard by a string of minor Russian composers that I otherwise never would have unearthed.

This is the thing that I have tried to explain to people for so long…metal and classical music are so closely intertwined. I posted an earlier post relating how the exploration of an Eastern European metal band by the name of Drudkh exposed me to the beautiful writing of Ukranian poet Taras Shevchenko.

Metal (especially the highly obscure variants) music is intelligent, a modern day take on symphony and opera. What’s really rewarding to me is to find classical pieces that reflect the same passion and complexity. I find that the pastoral music that is widely popular is a poor reflection of the range and scope available in classical music, and its blandness is the very thing that turns so many people away from appreciating the symphony.

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I have two hound dogs living in my house. They howl.

I telecommute. This necessitates silence while I am on the phone.

Unknown man parks his damn truck on the road directly in front of my house, not 100 feet from my front door, and lets his pack of dogs loose to run deer.

Ergo, my dogs go nucking futs while I am on the phone with Mr. Important Client.

In the words and indignant tone of Jar Jar Binks…

How Rude!

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Matthew is practicing Christmas carols on his violin. He plans to be a street performer this December.

Gavyn is learning to play the harmonica as part of his homeschooling music curriculum.

All of the music floating around has inspired me to start playing the piano again.

All in all, the house is very melodic.

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Ashes is a grey tabby cat that sort of came with the house. He is just a mean animal that lives for stirring up drama. I don’t know why I didn’t immediately assume that he was at the center of tonight’s theatrics.

The chicken is trying to roost on the porch. Ashes waits till he is comfortable and sleeping and then pounces on him. He can’t actually kill the chicken, which is three times his size. He just upsets the chicken and makes it go running around in a panic in the middle of the night, crowing and clucking its head off.

That wakes up the dogs who start howling and pacing. That in turn disrupts me, makes me get my gun and go outside to find out what’s wrong, and then necessitates me sitting on the porch in the middle of the night petting an upset chicken so that we can all calm down.

This scenario has repeated itself six times tonight. Its not cool. I’m tempted to shoot that damn cat.

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