Cold December hibernation time

On PNOP today I set the videos for the songs from this album.. A really great set of songs that Paul set for this album from way back when..  Here is the true running order:

Tracks

1. Doing It to Death (Brown)
2. Something About You (Badarou/Gould/Gould/King/Lindup)
3. I Was Made to Love Her (Cosby/Hardaway/Moy/Wonder)
4. Burning Down the House (Byrne/Frantz/Harrison/Weymouth)
5. Mysterious Ways (Clayton/Evans/Hewson/Mullen)
6. Inner City Blues (Gaye/Nyx)
7. Black Dog (Baldwin/Page/Plant)
8. Doing It to Death (Brown)
9. Middle of the Road (Kerr)
10. Don't Dream It's Over (Finn)
11. Could You Be Loved (Marley)
12. Chest Fever (Robertson)
13. 1999 (Prince)
14. Jamp (Fig/Lee/McGinnis/Shaffer)
15. Fantasy (Desbarno/White/White)
16. Not Just Knee Deep (Clinton/Wynne)
17. Don't Bring Me Down (Goffin/King)
18. You Shook Me All Night Long (Johnson/Young/Young)
19. Beds Are Burning (Garrett/Hirst/Moginie)
20. I Can't Make You Love Me (Reid/Shamblin)
21. Medley: Time Is Tight/Hiphugger/Green... (Cropper/Dunn/Jackson/Jones/Steinberg)
22. Dance to the Music (Stewart) 

Doing it to death is listed twice here and in reality the first version was a short clip to get things going..  1999 was  a huge disappointment, I couldn't find a single video to add there..  Chest Fever was by the Band but also covered by Three Dog Night and there  is a live version where the keyboard player was getting into a riff that was so cool but I couldn't figure out how to get that video to show up here or rather there using the search mode on Blogger so I went with what I could.. Don't Bring Me Down was somewhat disappointing as well, I did come across a version with Carol King doing the song with her daughter but it was a medley and included a few really great songs but really all I wanted was this song only so.. I got the Animals studio version..   Oooops, Jump by Van Halen... umm.. That reads as Jamp.. An original by Paul and the band.. Oh well it was a bit late when I did the entry last night and so  there's  a mistake..  Dance to the music, I really like that song but the anthem I Want to Take You Higher was just a must.. A long version from Midnight Special..  Had to have that instead.. I don't like to veer off course but in this case I didn't feel bad for it..

Three days in a row of music entries on the PNOP site..   Should keep everyone entertained..

So it snowed last week just before Christmas and it has been staying cold so the white stuff is staying around.. No complaints from me, the cold weather is sort of welcome..  I mean it could be worse, it could really be cold out there..  We have full coverage in the yard.. I was thinking about the growing season forthcoming and there is little change from what I wrote this past late summer.. Only three tomato plants will be grown, and all three will be a variety that is common to the area.. No more experimenting with the odd "Rutgers" or anything like that.. It will be early girl or beefsteak or something very common.. And a roma variety.. Three pumpkin plants will be started the first of May and transplanted around Memorial day..   The plan was to water this winter if the temperature would allow for it.. After my last watering around the tenth of December I decided to hold off on watering the rest of the year and possibly not water again until March at the earliest..   Now with the drought being the main concern, I will likely water the front mostly and the back will get watered twice a week.. Maybe even less, unless the drought lifts.. But that is a few months away, let's enjoy the chill.. Chill everybody and .. Have a Happy assed new year...

Badge Henry

Some enchanted evening..

Trying to think what tomorrows music entry will be and then I decided to make it a split entry..  Tomorrows entry will be the first half of that worlds most dangerous party, or disc or tape one.. So I'll get the artists videos of those songs as best I can, might have to do some of the songs myself.. But remembering back in '99 when I went out new years eve and listened to that tape.. Might be the best time I've ever had not being with anyone, just cruising and listening to that tape.. Because I had to be home and back to town a few hours later to work I couldn't be out with anyone...  Couldn't risk it.. Whatever that means..

Watched a few things on the streaming player yesterday.. Things are settling down a bit now and I'm seeing a few channels that are repeated somewhat on others.. The Huffington Live channel is fully represented on the AOL ON channel so it is gone.. Other channels that don't have anything of interest to me are getting deleted.. I set Amazon and VUDU to be on, but just to see what they really do have on there.. They aren't full subscription channels.. Well Amazon is I guess but vudu is a true pay per view site. Hulu plus is a pay site that runs commercials on the programming sort of like their computer access version.. So why have it??  I've read where some people got so irritated by the commercials that they got out long before the trial period ended.. So what do people want, to pay more for the channel like cable and have no commercials or pay less with commercials on there??  I keep putting off doing the trial period because I'm afraid I will get hooked on it and want that as my second paid channel..  Doubtful that would happen..  On the streaming media sites.. Streaming media as in my media from the computer, I am yet to figure out how these any will work.. I can't get them to go and then checked for a stand alone media player and for less than thirty dollars I can get one so I think that will be the route I will go.. Being able to watch so many shows that way is why the Sony streaming media player was so attractive this past summer..   The channels Roksboks and Plex were the two that showed the most promise to do this.. Right now only Plex has a chance to prove itself but I will only try for so long before giving up.. I truely only got the Roku for the main site of Netflix, the rest is just gravy truth be told.. And there is plenty of gravy!!! 

It's this part of the holiday season that is that purgatory feel to it.. Between the most anticipated day (Christmas) and the dread of new year and the hope that things will get better.. Well shortly before the elections last month they talked about the fiscal cliff thing and everyone said they will have to take care of that really quick.. Really quick isn't in the congress vocabulary.. They proved that with their debt ceiling debate.. I knew we would be going over it, and so here it is just literally hours before it happens.. So much could go wrong in the next few months..  But I'm sure they will "kick the can" down the road, not face the true fact that in order for them to not straddle our kids and grand kids with this debt that they will have to actually try to fix it now.. It won't fix over night, it will take many things to fix things.. It didn't grow to this point overnight and it won't get fixed really quick and easy.. They keep blaming Obama for his spending but forget that Bush got us into two wars without paying for it then.. We are paying for them now and will for a long time.. But why can't they try to fix things.. The tea party republicans "won't raise taxes on anyone".. Actually that isn't true at all, Romney said he would cut taxes on everyone, but before he said that he said he would raise the taxes on the middle class and cut more from the rich..  When they say Obama was after just a two percent increase tax rate for the rich I thought he should have gone after more like seventeen and then gone down to the two percent unless he could have gotten more.. But there will be no haggling, he wants 2% and more than likely won't even get that.. Oh and cut the social security .. Good idea..  I know if I were younger I probably wouldn't care about that.. But the young should care, everyone gets older, you don't stay young forever..  Wish as you might, everyone gets old.. It sucks but that is life..  Pay attention to what the crooks in D.C. are doing.. 

Badge Henry

Life imitates art

There are just a few sites I really do visit when I get on the computer.. So why, while cleaning out my RSS reader, am I still keeping so many irrelevant sites??  By irrelevant what do I mean??  Well I found myself early on trying to hold on to the sites I thought were good, good enough to catch my eye once must mean good enough to bookmark/RSS feed..  But once I Started down that road to keeping those sites in some manner (usually Twitter or Facebook) I fell into a situation where I was keeping those sites by way of Twitter which until I reached the 2000 mark was working fine.. 2000 is the cutoff point on Twitter and thankfully it has a limit.. I follow nearly 2000 and did have that list filled at the limit twice before going through and getting rid of some to be able to add more.. Why add more if I deleted so many to add more??  The cycle continues and after the second time clearing a few out I thought just weigh how important these really are.. So now as I am nearly through all of the folders of the RSS reader I have a new plan of attack.. Don't keep the sites if there is no relevance to what I look at.. So suddenly it makes cleaning out the RSS reader easier..

It's amazing how many sites on the RSS reader are "dead"  or what I used to put in a folder marked "NO LONGER UPDATING RSS" and would check every now and then and if they had updates I would try to find a place for them.. Well when I went through and checked that folder the majority of the sites were just deleted.. I used the  cutoff date of early November to decide which stayed and which get deleted.. Some sites might be seasonal, so where they might have gardening or summer activity I left them and will check again in late April or early May... Hopefully I will make it through the first time by then, cleaning the reader out has been on the agenda for a few months now.. When I would add a site after getting the folders set last March I would add a few and think I'll find a place for these.. And here eight months later I am finally getting to it and doing the whole thing..

Since Tuesday I still haven't watched regular tv yet.. Although truth be told the regular viewing is suspended due to the holiday season but I still think a good lot of the shows would just be missed.. Trying to set a few of these sites up to see what they will do (talking of course about the Roku streaming player).. Several of the sites have to do with streaming from sites like YouTube which on the first day (Christmas day) I already had the site set on the player.. What do these others do then??  Well last night I was checking one of them and it gives me clips to shows that I am interested in, and a few sites I have always wanted.. Universal sports has been something I tried to follow after the last winter Olympics and now one of the sites has that ability.. Getting network television seems to be prime for everyone.. What I would like is clips of shows.. This might not sound like the best thing but I know there are some shows that aren't that good and can be better enjoyed in two or three minute clips.. You get the gist of what a show is about just seeing a short clip, and I'm gonna see if I can find a site with this type of thing on it.. Hulu (plus) will be a site I try, I think they have free content and clips that way, if they are the way it is on the site via computer I could see having that maybe..  The Retrovision site seems very inviting.. I might have to check it out.. So many sites, so little time.. I remember feeling this same way with the dish.. Just being overwhelmed but excited to have such an incredible choice.. Which then became overbearing with so much sludge.. And that is kind of the way it is early on, wading through what I set and trying to decide what to keep and what to send back.. 

I was looking at these dvd collections of old movies at the local walmart before Christmas.. And I am not sure why I am starting to get into old movies now.. I try to get an older movie on Netflix (dvd) about one every three months or so.. Now I have older movies choices on several sites on the Roku and might try to watch some..  I think mom would really get into this thing as well.. She watches the TCM channel all the time and I think she would watch movies this way.. I thought of that the other day and she gets in on the movies somewhere, and on the Roku she could start the movie from beginning, or move it forward and have it be just like watching cable tv.. 

Badge Henry

Distractions

I was checking my entries on the PNOP site and realized that the entries are set through the new year but not on new years day so.. What to do??  I decided to move the entry up from the 20th to that Tuesday.. The music entry that has the trips to the southwest that we went on (Moab, Silverton, Farmington) and mostly it was done because I didn't have a clue what the entry should be to celebrate the new year..  So instead of it being the 20th as promised, it will be Tuesday the first day of the thirteenth year of the 21st century..  So there you go then..

I felt comfortable on Tuesday (Christmas day)  with the entry back into the fold of Lucy..  It was sort of like nothing happened..  My first crack right out of the box, with everyone snottin' and snortin' was "So I guess the big question is how do we get rid of this cold.."  and it is a mystery still... I got some hot sauces for Christmas, I think I will drink those (pepper sauces, I wanted to try those)... 

I edited the video that I shot on Christmas day, got it all set and uploaded to the 'tube and got it live..  I noticed something and it goes back to the early videos that I shot.. I do a lot of "extras" type of videos.. The video of the little lighted tree and other things, and when I went to put the video together I use these shots to seg from one scene to another, just as in the wedding video this past summer..  Helps to move from one location to another.. All the videos that I have on my account could have been cut in half if I could have combined and edited them together.. There might be half the videos there and those that were up there prior to the first part of the summer are all "raw" footage videos, something I can honestly say may never happen again since I can edit them now. It's like the video for the wedding, there was a LOT more shot and as I'm looking at the video after I got the final video burned to disc, there was just a shit load that wasn't used.. The rehearsal was cut to less than half of it.. The pictures was around half.. The wedding was nearly all of it was used, and the reception was as well just slightly altered (shortened).. And the disc that has all of the footage was going to be given to them as  a sort of bonus disc, but after I watched it I thought this is yawn material so didn't include it..  

One more quick blurb on the Roku streaming player.. Spent part of yesterday getting it hooked up about the way I want it.. Added a few more "private" channels.. Some of the channels are true beta (testing) channels and are works in progress, while others are complete.. several are network (cable and that type) designed to help people cut the cord..  I had wondered why cable tv didn't go streaming and just have people rent their box and decide what company they would rather have.. Might be in the future some time..  But the channels I checked yesterday are yielding some promise.. I'll try to get them operating today and see if any are worth keeping..   To think CBS and those channels could be there and most of the best cable channels.. When we had the dish we only watched a few channels and when you think you have to pay for the 250 channels tier to get that one channel in there makes no sense.. I would rather have a pay per view thing.. true pay per view rather than pay for a channel all month if you just watched it for an hour then never again that month..  Could that ever happen?? Dare to dream..  I think that is why streaming devices are becoming very popular with people..  I set my Youtube up and am setting playlists up to watch ..  Last night I found several concerts that I want to watch and crank up on the sound system..  Youtube was a big reason I wanted to get a streaming player and when I saw Roku could do that site I decided it was the way to go.. Way to go..  Later..

Badge Henry

Boxing day

There is that strange feeling when EVERYTHING goes RIGHT.. And so it was that yesterday went as planned..  EVERYTHING.. and then because I lost the bet, I will be eating a pair of my shorts some day soon but it is a nice price to pay... I WAS WRONG and happy for it... Move forward.. 

Getting the Roku for Christmas was a known event from as far back as  June or July.. The thing there as well was finding the private channels list and finding out that these channels want people to use them, they want to stick it to the cable companies...  Came across a private channel that could be the "cable cutters" dream channel if it works.. I will put all the effort into making it work, it has all the networks on it, and not just the "locals" but the main feeds from the east time zone and the west, just like the good old days of having dish network having those.. Having those channels made watching any show you wanted to a breeze..  The sheer number of open channels blew me away but there are still some that make no sense to have on Roku.. The radio reference channel works great on the computer but doesn't seem like the perfect match in the Roku because of the one channel design.. On the computer I can open several related "channels" at the same time.. So that got deleted from my channels lineup.. I added as many "free" channels as I felt like checking on.. Last night I checked Gabby and found I couldn't get it set up for what it does, and also that ABC (Australia Broadcast Company) channel.. Watched a few videos from down under and deleted it as well.. I like the idea of checking so many sites..  Seeing if there is anything to see beyond the obvious Netflix which is the main reason just about everyone gets a streaming device.. Hooked up YouTube to be watched, was a little disappointed when it seems to be limited to just a very few of my subscriptions, I'll have to work on that sometime.. Getting one of the "apps" to work so I can watch some of the stuff that is on my computer will be the prime event today.. there are several of these to try, but I was happy when the second private channel  I tried yesterday got youtube to work.. There are a few others that I will try, see if they give more of my subs.... 

The batteries were another great "get" yesterday.. When they crapped out during the wedding this past August I knew I better start trying to find something to replace those two.. The OEM battery was still quite up to the task.. So the three I got seem to be good.. Three batteries that could have cost nearly $75 and if they were the OEM type could have cost that much each.. I was so happy to find the three I got for a fraction of the cost.. They might not have the same ability as the original battery, but they just need to be close enough..

Video shot yesterday will yield at least one fairly good and long video to YouTube.. I will start the editing process shortly..  Could be two separate videos, or just one strong video...  Monday I uploaded February's infinity project videos.. I would like to have all the videos uploaded for all of these by the end of the year..  The full amount will take through May I think and Phase two (which still isn't completed) will be the summer video set, through August I think..  Phase three which there is no concept for yet.. But I think there will be a phase three... Hopefully I will be over this cold by then.. Oh yeah................::::::::::

The cold.. How the hell do you get over this thing?  My guess was that four out of the nine people who were here yesterday were bumming this thing.. Me, I know when mine started.. It was two weeks to the day yesterday when my eyes started to tear up.. This does have an end RIGHT??   The salt water taffy part is only fun for a while then it gets old.. My fear is the longer it holds on the more likely it develops into broncitis which is no fun at all, having that at least once before it lasted from just after labor day through April ...   The cough.. cough...  That was the first year I was in the band and it was just no fun at all...

One other thing I got for Christmas, a heated throw.. When mom asked what else to get for me I told her maybe this thing.. Going to a cold bed gets old.. The past few years I used a lamp to heat the bed but it was tricky staying awake when you get comfortable.. Last night was the first time I climbed into  a nice warm bed in a while.. Why not an electric blanket??  She said she would rather get me one.. I told her I can't keep an electric blanket working for more than a few weeks.. The throw is small, heats the bed for three hours, shuts itself off and that is what I needed..   So life is good.. And the babbling continues..

Badge Henry

...and when it was over we all sighed..

Grumph...  So here it is, the eve of Christmas and all through the house as we got up this morning knowing what we have to do to get ready for the big holiday.. Supposed to snow??  Is it yet??  Not yet??  But they say by tonight it will snow a little bit.. A white Christmas, and to think a month ago I was looking at the weather and it was showing a better chance at having a bar-b-que  for Christmas than snow.. There have been years where we could be outside in our shirt sleeves.. The year we got a horse shoe pitching set, we actually spent that Christmas playing outside in relative nice weather..  The year we got sleds, I can't remember the weather that day but more than likely we got snow shortly after, because back then it did snow here in the winter/early spring.. Those were the days..

Then this year.. How did it all start this year??  Well rather than say it.. The way last year ended wasn't great but it was... alright..   Then shortly into this year everything changed, very much so.. It was an odd thing to hear..  Tabitha was pregnant.. Well that was surely something to celebrate?? and then shortly after that news it became even bigger... TWINS...  And then..  Well there was that "funnel" effect as things went from here to there as time moved along and the 11th of August approached.. What was so big about that day??  Nothing really.. Just Jordan getting married..and the twins might be born about then as well..AND EVERYTHING GETS HUGE as things like this happen. Having the babies was big enough.. And on July 20 they were born, then a couple weeks later Jordan gets married.. Then a couple weeks later a nuclear bomb went off destroying half the country...

Wait it wasn't that big of a deal..  The 26th (or there abouts) of August my back had a major UP YOURS moment and I went to bed with the heating pad in ninety degree weather and tried like hell to get it to mellow out.. It had other plans.. And then I thought of something I never should have in that moment, and why I did??  I guess that is just me.. Thinking back, and knowing now what I didn't know then, I should have ridden the heating pad and the ice pack all day and taken my chances the next day.. But I was so sure this wasn't getting better and might not for a day or two that I decided to do a foolish thing and warn Ian's mother that I might  (MIGHT I say) not make it down to watch him the next day.. And then the bomb exploded... Didn't see that coming.. Actually that is a lie, I did see that coming and through so many other little situations through the prior months I knew that if something like what did happen were to happen on a grander scale that it would be a massive BLOW UP which did happen.. And shortly after that I remember writing on my other site that I would bet (at that time was the week before labor day) that she would make excuses not to come up for any reason. For Thanksgiving, and now Christmas.. I would have bet any money that she won't be up for the holiday season and last night on her FB she put the entry that will guarantee that I am right ...  "Sick again?seriously!!-perfect timing:(((((("    ...  Perfect timing indeed...  Last week we told Donald we saw that that she put on her facebook about being "really sick" and so her not being at the boos performance was very little shock to us..   

Why does it feel like we are the outcast in this situation??  Why can't she forgive and forget??  Could she??  We talk about this every once in a while and as the big holiday is just tomorrow we have talked about it more often.. She had gone to Poland a couple years ago and was there through the holiday season  and while there we are pretty sure she got her fill and more than likely pissed off at her brothers enough so that every time mom asks about them she says she doesn't talk to them at all.. Free as Skype is she doesn't talk to them, hardly ever if at all..  Why??  More than likely, they, like me, pissed her off enough for her to disown them..    We keep saying that she can't remain pissed off at us forever, can she??  My one word answer is YES.. Yes she can and right now I want it to remain this way.. I could give a shit if she comes for Christmas to be honest, I like having our lives back.. If she would have wanted to get back at us she would have made like nothing happened the day after her brother went back home and we would have been right back where we were.. Walking on eggshells and wondering when the next blowup would be... My back.. Or in the past two weeks, this crappy ass cold which in the first three days were watering eyes and burning sinus fun time.. Now it is the thick goo salt water taffy part of the cold, still not my favorite but  the end is near.. If she shows tomorrow we will both be stunned.. Pleasntly surprised, she would be welcomed here..   I want this done and buried and moving on.. Enough already.. I've said this so many times.. How long is long enough..   

Anyway I know now that through this past year that without trying very hard at all, I can piss people off..  And I also know that through observing people I know how to piss people off and how to not piss people off..   But I can't for the life of me figure out how to get someone to stop being pissed off at me.. I think she doesn't want to take a chance on "mending fences", afraid she will get to where they and we are family again..   Family should figure out how to be in the same room together..   Mom says she knows Donald is uncomfortable when he is around us, and by us I mean the rest of the family not just us two but the entirety of the rest of the family because Lucy is pissed off at the entire family.. I feel more sorry for her because she can't communicate with us without feeling she can't let her defenses down.. And the same with Donald, it's like he is constantly measuring his response to anything.. This has gotten worse in the past few months and he starts down the "well he's pissed off at me" tract when in fact there is little to nothing there.. The ol mountain out of a mole hill thing.. Everything irons out over time (except for Skootr)... There really is no problem with him coming down here..  All of them, and everyone.. The family as a whole.. 

The idea of setting that "entry from hell" up to be shown on the 8th of January.. I did and I have gone back and forth on it.. All it really is, or shows is from the time that the immigration turmoil through this blowup, trying to show that of what we have as a whole family have gone through.. I can only write from my side, my own feelings and whatever that did happen in the months prior to and through that six month ordeal through til the August "blowup" through the fallout from that to now.. Nothing horrible.. Just my vision of what happened, and if anyone were to really want to know what it was like it is all still there on my MySpace page..   The immigration stuff is there but not the most recent crap..  So will that remain set to be seen on the 8th??  Right now it isn't.. And I go back and forth with setting it or not setting it.. The 8th might not happen.. Might be sooner might be later.. MIGHT NOT HAPPEN AT ALL.. depends on how tomorrow goes..   The saga that is .. or was...  

Badge Henry

4:45

A look behind the scenes..  This past Friday night they had a episode of Gold Rush where they showed what the camera men and crew of the Discovery channel do to get that shot and be able to show everyone at home what these guys do to get the gold..  I really like these shows and is well on dvd movies that show the technical side of things, to show what they do to get certain shots on movies.. I try to incorporate some of the ideas I get from these shows and movies in my shots.. Lighting being the more interesting aspect of both video and photography.. Both front and back lighting as well as low angle (from the floor) to get rid of shadows.. This brings us to the latest movies I have gotten, the Roger Corman collection, a triple feature from the king of "b" movie (schlock to some)  but I like watching his technique.. The movies from the early sixties that have horrendous special effects but are so interesting still to watch.. The lighting at times seems very low budget but when you figure he was making dozens of movies a year I guess this is what you get.. The shadows and just poor visibility on faces and it makes you wonder if this is what he was after or was that the way it was back then..

The latest video is up on the PNOP site, "travelog" with the song Flashflood by Tangerine Dream.. And it has all the pictures I took on the trips we were on.. And the trip we came back roads to get back is where the picture for the majority of my sites was taken.. At the 4:45 mark it is there, without the effects applied so it is the original picture.. After that, the next trip[ would have me trying to duplicate that type of shot.. There is just something about the open highway that I like and in the mountains it seems more dramatic than anywhere else, where the road can be seen up ahead either going up (or down) in elevation.. And at one point the road twists and turns a full circle to where you are facing the same direction you were going and then reversing, kind of like the old electronic slot car race track, only this is real..  This set of videos is set for uploading sometime around April or May but might be a set that gets uploaded in an earlier month since it isn't related to the infinity project, which are videos set to fractal type of visuals.. These videos that I just did get  completed are more all my pictures as the visual.. So will more than likely be uploaded earlier.. Maybe..

Badge Henry

Hell have froze over

So today mom hops in the car after work and as we are driving away she unloads this little bomb.. She says well guess what the big news is from the place today??  I instantly thought of two things, either Jeff finally quit or they sold the place.. Turns out A.Hoal is selling the place.. That's right, the big money mogul is selling three of his seven stores and Sidney is one of them.. The others are Scottsbluff and Ogalalla... What this means??  Nothing, it's still a Mc.Donalds (barf bags optional)...


Super shopping and the soon to be "why didn't we  get this done sooner"  saying that I started to think today.. Well why didn't I get done sooner??  I have no idea what to look for for anyone.. So I'll get everyone something original.. A one of a kind nobody else have it type of thing.. So great, nobody saw that coming..    Ok... 

Imagine from years past that at one point shortly after getting ice skates for Christmas that we skated at the ice pond at the creek and one year I came up with a screwy idea, why not skate on the streets.. I think mom talked about doing that up where she lived and so I thought why not.. When I say we skated on the streets here in town I mean we skated on the street around town, all the way to the other end and up to the top street..   Did I mention the hockey games we played at the old skating pond in my last entry?? We did play a couple of times but for reasons beyond our control we couldn't play much, hard to say playing hockey is a good idea when guys were getting pucks to the face and getting stitches and stuff..  Oh well..   Imagine getting ice skates this year for Christmas?? There is no place to skate, there's no ice pond because there isn't any ice.. Well that's not entirely true but there just hasn't been the cold weather to have a skating rink built still yet.. Although it has been cold, just not enough I guess.. It might be cold enough for a skating rink for three weeks, but they haven't built it yet and more than likely won't this year.. 

Badge Henry

Winter wonderland

Yesterday's snow storm reminded me of the time we got that snow storm on Christmas eve when we had to trek to the library to get the years presents.. Mom worked at the library at the time and she stashed all the years "loot"  (presents) there, only she didn't see that storm being as bad as it was to be.. That was the year my little brother got his first bicycle, the one he would push around for a year or two..  What I got for Christmas that year??   I don't remember..  But the snow storm was memorable for a few reasons.. First having to go down and get the presents, the second was when a "friend" got his parents car stuck several times and I was thankful I wasn't with him at least the first two times.. I remember later that spring as the snow started to melt and I was out driving around and he was out as well and there's a hill in town where kids would sled down, I was driving up the hill with that guy just right behind me and I drove really slow up to the top, it was a sheet of ice, and as I made it to the top I gunned it and sped off knowing he would gun his engine to try to catch up but instead he spun out so bad his car started going backwards..  A little ditchum story for all you kiddies out there.. Thems were the days.. I think I wrote about the days of ice skating.. Those days when it really was fun until someone got hurt.. I jammed my fingers so many times, while skating.. It seemed every Christmas was Donald getting sick or me jamming a finger...  Ah the good old days..

Starting with tomorrows "end of the world" entry I will be adding a clip from the third rock from the sun that I said I would do.. Maybe not everyday but as much as I can, as often anyway.. 

With the snow it FINALLY feels like Christmas.  Up until now I really didn't feel like it was Christmas..  Enjoy the snow it might be the last we see for a while..

Went to the mail a little while ago and saw a few piles of snow here and there and it reminded me of the year we built what we called schnapps fort.. Built it across the street from one of my friends house and of course we were drinking some schnapps, peppermint and a few other flavored drinks.. it was one of those rare perfect times where getting in trouble could have happened but because the highway was closed most of the day we were able to do that and get away with it.. Drinking right out in the open, without even trying to hide it..

Skootr and I tangled a bit today.. Her lack of control with her claws and her screwy insanity is just..  She nailed me with her claws and I'm used to that but in this case today I was getting ready to do something else and she nails me royaly and it pissed me right off..  But then we are able to be around each other a little while later and stuff..  Wish someone else could be like that but oh well..  Maybe she will grow out of her pissed off at me.. Or Not...

Badge Henry

Through the air

Here's something.. I hate doing this, taking entry ideas from another site, but when I read this I just thought "I gotta share this a little bit of it anyway... From the reddit site: TOPIC : Why does the mainstream media blame video games for "desensitizing" people when they themselves use stories of murder, war and other crimes to draw in viewers?              

ANSWERS :

"The media aim to maximize their audiences and push their own agenda. Violent stories attract viewers and violent video games are a competing substitution.
In short: What? You've never seen a hypocrite before?"

" Ha yes, but it seems that some people are blatantly ignoring the fact that their kids and themselves open themselves up to violence, war, rape and death on a daily basis by watching the news, but when a child does it on his own by playing video games suddenly it is 10 times worse."

" A nation thats been at WAR for decades. Generations of people idolizing the military.

And its video games making you violent?"

" Genghis Khan must have had some sick-ass video games."

" Just imagine how different history would've been if Hitler hadn't spent all those hours playing Xbox."


I don't know why the world is becoming an extremely cruel place to be but it seems like it is becoming more common to stick up for the gun loving lot, the rednecks as it were, then to come up with some sort of reasonable response for the shootings that are starting to become common place... There may never be gun control laws in place in this country.. But the reality is this is just a very cruel country to live in and it doesn't matter if you live in a big city or rural area it is just the way it is anymore, welcome to the life in the Thunderdome time.. Remember Thunderdome (Mad Max sequel)..  Oh what fun..


Badge Henry

One week til the man ...

A couple weeks ago we got a catalog from one of those sites that has really nice things in it and mom finds something and has me order it online and we get an email saying it will be in on the 24th of December.  Whew, that's cutting it close...  Then today I check the confirmation email that said it would be in on the 24th to check the status hoping to see it was in route.. IT WASN'T ... and in fact the email had an updated estimated shipping/arrival date    3/5/13...  !!!!!!   Ok, in honesty I should have checked that sooner but I just figured it would be fine.. She ordered it last Tuesday and that email said it would be here on the 24th and that seemed a bit long but ok.. I told her it would be that date and she got pissed right now.. Because the catalog said it would be here by Christmas if ordered by the 20th..  Well to be fair the catalog does say it will be here by the 20th of December "In time for Christmas"  but it doesn't say THIS YEAR!!  my mistake.. Mom cancelled the order.. Shoping resumes shortly..

Gun control seems like a hot topic but it was after Columbine and again after the next and the next  and will be for the next.. See the pattern forming here??  While the NRA and gun owners will speak of the second amendment, they forget that back when that was enacted or ratified back in 1791.. I would bet they never envisioned the type of guns we have now.. Like I said on one of the Facebook sites that Fridays massacre could have happened with guns from that era, he just would have had to set a hundred guns up in those rooms and hoped that they didn't jam or misfire, but it still could have been done.. Should we go back to those days??  I didn't say that...  I like the "guns don't kill people" slogan.. GUNS DO KILL PEOPLE, the bullets in them but the gun is the device to deliver the blow.. Just like drunk drivers don't kill people  the cars they are driving do but it takes the drunk driver driving the car to do the deed..  What I don't get in the argument of guns don't kill people is.. the whole argument.. Guns do kill people, the person with the gun pulls the trigger.. the trigger strikes the bullet.. the bullet travels down the barrel.. travels through the air.. finds it's target and rips the living shit out of it..  And then the argument that "well if the teachers had guns..." yep, if the teachers had a gun who knows if they would have shot the guy, another child, THEM SELVES....  I read about the guy who had a gun at the mall shooting last week drew it but didn't shoot when he saw someone beyond the shooter in the mall and decided the risk was too high of missing his target and hitting an innocent bystander.. You see the shooter doesn't care who he hits, he isn't even aiming he is just trying to cause damages to as many people as he can..  

So where do I stand on gun control??  I am of the sensible side.. Why do you have to own a semi automatic or anything of this nature?? Who is going to take you out??  For me I feel about as safe as I do.. I figure if anyone wanted to rob us they would get away with.... not much of any real value...  Would I own a gun if I were mugged or threatened??  I would go after a nine or 22.. Something I've shot before.. As far as a 45... 45 magnum... Yep that would be nice to know that if anyone threatened you that a single shot would change the way they felt about you.. But any sized gun can do that really, I wouldn't want to be shot with anything...  So should people have the right to "bare arms"?   Yes, I believe in the second amendment, but to a certain extent..   Just the same as freedom of speech.. Knowing that you can say what you want, but know that there is a lot of responsibility that comes with all our rights..   The guy (people) that go on these killing sprees are of a strange mental capacity.. How can you tell if someone is going to do this type of thing??  "He was a model citizen.. never saw that coming"  Isn't that just the way it is..  "I saw something in his actions but never really thought he was capable of doing that..."  If anyone might snap I would think it is a veteran of the current conflicts in the middle east..  They get help regularly apparently.. Maybe they should start checking the children at school, give them a certain mental aptitude test.. Not sure how or what that would be.. Are video games to blame??  Is a certain food to blame??   Music, movies....????   

Badge Henry

GUESSWERKORANGE

So what will the new video project be called.. Not that I've moved on from phase two, but I got hit with a thought last night.. A completely different idea, I was wanting the songs to fit the fractal ideas but they just weren't doing it so instead of forcing the matter I decided to make the visuals fit more visual contemporary as it were.. The song Canyon Carver came to mind for the starting point and the subject matter there would be the arches national park, the pictures that I got there that day.. I had always heard that song while at that park and looking at the videos and still pictures and the idea hit me to do a couple videos of the trips we took to Silverton/Moab and the lot.. The arches park was the initial idea with the trip being another idea.. So the first song/video idea was completed fairly quickly, simply known as "travelog" the song that backed that video is "Flashflood" and although it doesn't completely have the feel I was after, it will do..

Second video is arches with the song "Canyon Carver", influenced by the "Canyon Dreams" video... When I was first starting the video it was looking like there weren't a lot of pictures to chose from.. However after seeing what I had I set the music track up and it all came out about right.. Brought back memories of that day, being around a hundred degrees easily but not to horribly bad just plenty warm.. drink lotsa water.. 


The third video is Silverton having the pictures from the trips there..  the song "Colorado Dawn" being the soundtrack for this one.. The picture session ended up being just about the perfect amount..  Feels good to nail one, although as I have said I'm not sure the music mood fits the video subject perfectly, but as with some of the "infinity project" videos, some of those have grown on me after watching the discs..

Video four has a little bit of a toss together feeling, even the folder name "idea 4 guesswerkorange" makes the overall idea for what it will be a question mark.. Some of the oddest pictures I have taken over the years will  comprise the video with the song Chia Maroon being the soundtrack ... Guesswerkorange turned into a work, taking the better part of two plus hours to complete.. The idea wasn't supposed to be the name of the video but I decided that was as good of a name as any to give it and it kinda fits..   A strange lot of pictures from as far back as my very first ever that I took.. Some experimental shots, and just some oddness.. Add that I used captioning for the first time extensively and you get a pretty original video...  When will these be seen??  Not sure, since they aren't part of the infinity project they could be added to the PNOP music entries just any time.. I figure maybe late January, maybe.. Anyway.. This was just a quick four video blow the afternoon project..  And it was nice to have three strong ideas and a forth that shaped up quickly to have a set like this get completed..

Badge Henry

Fartunate

So whataya getting for Christmas this year??  What did you ask for??  What do you think you will get?? When I was younger I think the thing I had anxiety about was just what I would get for Christmas, and mostly the reason I might have felt that way was after you have gone through enough of them, you begin to realize that when you have one and then another brother that you will be more than likely getting the same thing in triple.. Times three we did and it made for looking like we were getting a lot for Christmas but in reality we never got a huge amount.. As we all got older we got our own toys and less three things.. In fact there were years where we got one thing for all three of us, the Lego bricks come to mind.. For whatever the reason I really got into Lego bricks and would build things for hours..  This brings me to the topic, the little guy, the nephew.. Last weekend just like every play date we had with him prior, he comes in and the strange part of his playing is what I always talk about after he leaves.. When I was little we had this drawer in a desk that mom put some of our toys into and I would go over to it and would look through it scrounging for "that toy"  or if it wasn't there I would look in the toy box, pretty much the same way as the drawer, look for it, really scrounge.. Well Ian isn't that way.. He will grab a basket of his toys and pick it up and DUMP THE WHOLE THING.. And not usually the one, he will dump everything.. The hotwheels/matchbox cars/trucks will all get dumped.. The wood train set gets dumped.. Everything gets dumped out, but not  at the same time if we can keep from it.. So we ask him what he wants for Christmas and he says a tractor and a car and then......... EVERYTHING..  Yeuuup  saw that one coming up the pike..  So I did recon an the 'mart the other day and could see toys that were perfect for...  well    for someone.. See I am yet to see him sit down and actually play with something for very long.. Is this ADD  or something??  I don't think it is but he doesn't play like I remember playing.. I would play in or sand box for hours on end... Anyway every toy I saw was perfect to play with, so many toys, so little time I guess..

Something I haven't written about in a while; the Lucy situation.. Well that isn't really true, I've written about the situation with her, I just haven't pushed "publish" with any of it.. Will the entry (entry from hell) ever see the light of day?? * It took a step closer today with Christmas getting right close to happening.. And the truth is the entry isn't bad in my books, I feel like she has probably told all of their friends what a overall piece of shit/asshole I am.. I try not to let it bother me and mom says she doesn't let it bother her but it does bother her more and more all the time.. When she talked to Donald a couple weeks ago she did break down but you know, she wants the family to be together not just at the holidays but ALL THE TIME..  He told her we hold on to things like that (the blowup) and told us that he and Lucy can have a near knock down drag out brawl and then she goes into the bedroom and half an hour later she is fine..  I find that one hard to believe, because tonight I did try to talk to her but she said nothing in response so I figured "A number one asshole am I"... That's ok, That's alright..  The day is coming where that will either change.. or it won't... I'm ready for this snit to be over.   Burp the baby and get over it...  Anyway.. What else was I gonna say..

Anyone who looks at my Facebook might notice the "likes" section has grown a lot.. And through my trimming of the RSS pages I put some on the Facebook and as much as I can will be on Twitter and so Twitter has grown nearly doubled in the amount I follow there.. More than likely will be twice the number by the time it is over and done with..  in other words close to four thousand follow.. Still hoping to have ten percent following me when I get there, that would put the number nearly four hundred.. The one strange thing I have noticed recently is some of the sites have the four sites that are used the most common, they are Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and the strangest of them all   MySpace.. It was so strange to see Myspace be on some sites but as I am doing this the number of Myspace sites are increasing.. Supposedly the site is revamped and is doing a "by invitation" type of thing like Google did with their Google plus (+) site.. But all I have to say is don't screw people around too much, they will not like that.. It took me three times to get an invite and when I got there shortly the excitement wore off.. The new wore off although I do visit there once in a while, the joke is on them, they waited to long to start people getting signed up automatically when starting a Google account of any kind..


I'm watching Third Rock From The Sun (repeats) two a night and have to re watch some of them, when I snooze I lose.. That was just one of the most off the wall funny shit shows out there.. I'll get some of my favorite clips loaded up here in the next day or two..  Last nights "manly" show was just  too ass funnier then shit.. 

Count down to Roku.. Sometimes I hate to know what I am getting for Christmas, but this year I know.. And so I am preparing for either disappointment or whatever.. Pre own troubleshooting like this and maybe that is good.. I have several sites that have things to watch for including Roku itself a forum for people who are having troubles.. Some (most) are from the older models.. Seems like Roku are doing what dish does with their customers, when they get a new receiver they make everyone buy it, and the thing with that is how fast technology is changing.. Case in point, the dvr that we have our own cable tv company trying hard to make everyone get, they are becoming obsolete.. Dvr's record the shows to be watched later.. Roku doesn't record, it streams from a site that has the show you want to watch and you can watch it when you want to.. i know you can do that with a dvr and you can hold it indefinitely but then again can you??  You have to watch it fairly quick, you only have a certain amount of space on the hard drive where on the Roku there is no space limitations..  That just blew me away when I read that.. Anyway..  nine days & counting...

Badge Henry

(P.S.  *The date for the entry to be seen right now will be set on the eighth of January... I figure why not show my cobbled together memory of the BS.. Maybe it will be wrong to do but I will put it up here and let the crap fall where it might..  But there's always the possibility that everything will be fine and the holidays will be alright.. Doubtful but you never know..)

Day after

After what happened yesterday with the mass murder of innocent children I wasn't about to put an entry here and then read it the next day and edit it or delete as I have done a good number of posts about other things.. I decided to let it just build overnight and give me a better idea of what it was I wanted to say... Gun control is a very touchy subject here in America.. I wouldn't want to tell anyone they shouldn't have a gun, I really don't own one myself (an airgun) technically, but.. And I know if I did own any number of guns I wouldn't want them taken away, but there are guns for sport and there are guns for ..  not sport.. Semi automatic and fully automatic are not sport guns.. When I would hear guys talk about going hunting it was always that one single shot that got the animal they were shooting at.. There would be a point of pride in them getting their game in one shot, taking it down with as few shots as possible.. Most of the time that is to preserve as much meat as possible, also if the animal is in stress it taints the meat somehow..  An instant death is preferred to multiple shots/wounds..  I have never heard of anyone taking a gun out and shooting an animal with a multishot type of ammo gun.. It isn't a sport that way.. So to me there really is no good in a semiautomatic or full automatic gun... I would have no problem with these being outlawed but they won't do that.. Not until enough people are killed.. And will what happened yesterday happen again?? Yes, and more often than not it will happen with more regularity..  I think of the nephew and he is just that age of going to grade school, and that is what scares everyone the most..  That that happened yesterday the principal had just changed the security for the school but the idiot that went on this rampage was known by everyone, HIS MOM WORKED AT THE SCHOOL  and was his first or one of his first targets.. How can you secure against someone who seemed (at the time) to have his shit together..  To think.. And I worked at the school here as custodian and I couldn't think of such a thing happening.. When I was in school I couldn't think of such a thing going on.. But they drill for such events now, much the same way they used to drill for nuclear attacks in the fifties &  sixties or fires when I was in school, tornadoes now and now they will add dipshit attack drills BECAUSE THEY HAVE TOO!!..

Badge Henry

Flood gates OPEN position

Something strange on the latest video that was just completed, I edited it with one song going and then tried to replace the song with any number of songs.. I spent well over a half an hour if not longer trying to find that song that would be perfect for this video.. The timing was just not quite right, so I went back to the song that the video was edited for.. That song is called "Outland (the colony)" and was a favorite off of the Mars Polaris album by Tangerine Dream.. I wanted another song or two as was the idea.. By the end of this week Phase 2 will be completed and then I will shelve the ideas for the holiday weeks and then see if any new idea comes to mind.. I want to have "Song of the Whale" done shortly with a few other ideas.. Maybe some other ideas and this stuff just isn't that easy to time with the changes on the video, not like the Jonn Serrie songs to videos, and believe me I tried to do a song that I had done on phase 1 but then figured it is time to move away from that idea lot there..  The most of the songs by TD have a beat to them, unlike some of Jonn  Serrie's music that some were zero beat (Stratos being a prime example).. So when will these videos be seen?  I think maybe around April or May of this coming year and it will likely be only a single day entry.. Phase two has been interesting and maybe it's the cold I have that is clouding my judgement but I hope the project gets easier as the cold leaves me..   It's like every idea has been a giant chore to figure out..  If Phase one would have been this hard there wouldn't have been a phase 2...

My last entry I talked about this crap assed cold and the others that I have had.. It takes a little racking of the brain to remember the last cold I had, the cough drops packaging said they were trademarked in 2007 so they were that old.. I usually get a cold every two to three years, sometimes longer...  And that is good. I have little patience for snot production control.. 

Badge Henry

Pass the tissue

Just a quick entry here.. This past weekend I had two discs from Netflix, one called "My Bloody Valentine" which was the remake version after having the original a few weeks ago I thought I'd give the retelling a shot.. Not usually a big fan of the remake or retelling as this was but it was also a 3D version and although it wasn't the 3D version that I had you could see how that effect would make watching this movie more interesting.. What made it more interesting was the sound.. It was the rare full surround sound that was there and it was fun because my date for the movie Saturday morning was Skootr kitty and there was a point where the sound effects raced from the right rear to the left rear and she looked at the speaker that each sound was coming from and wasn't sure what was going on.. We had Ian here as well so she wasn't sure it might be him doing that somehow.. Overall a fairly good retelling of the story, but I don't remember ever seeing the original way back when it was first out at the theaters..

The second disc (movie) was I Have Loved You For So Long, which was a reader originally a French audio track it had a dubbed English track so it wasn't so bad to read the subtext and listen to the English dub track.. A very good movie and for some reason I knew it would be..


Todays video was for the song Tutankhama and not the song I thought it would be.. Not for any other reason than the song fit the mood and the changing sequences of the video.. The song that I started with was Flashflood but it didn't fit the video mood and although I cut the first minute or so of the start of the video out, it still wasn't there.. Tutankhama is a three stage song in that it does the same thing three times and on the forth it faded out, one of the very few songs of theirs that does that.. 

Today is royalty day.. My nose is pumping out a seriously royal pain in the ass amount of snot.. You know I can only complain a little, this is like the third cold I've caught that started with the watering eyes rather than the sore throat that usually signals the onset of a serious cold.. The runny nose is just a gigantic nuisance with the continued draining and the ongoing fight to keep it from going everywhere.. But hopefully it will progress to the "salt water taffy" era of the cold which is the most tolerable time and usually signals the end of the cold.. Thick & rich and very chewy snot, just like salt water taffy, my favorite..

Badge Henry 

I should known

The Pixel Pirates video redo was better than I thought it would be..  In fact it was another one of those crash performances today where just like yesterday I had the video nearly completed but this time the music was shorted.. I needed more pictures or so I thought.. Turns out I was doing it wrong.. I was trying to load more pictures and it just wouldn't go so I had to axe the original video and start over after a restart of the computer.. But as things worked out I was happier for this one.. As written about the idea this time, it is  concept with a great number of my pictures from the werx folder in the foto lab folder..  foto lab phinished pix.. The two words spelled wrong via exact opposite misspelling.. So the second idea of the second song.. And with that is there an original idea for the next song?? A concept for it??  NO it will be a fractal video set, or several videos.. The next song should be Flashflood but no guarantees here...

Clearing out the RSS reader has been  a long process and will be.. I'm hoping to be through with this by the end of January, I am having to not only open every page (site) but look for it to have either a twitter feed or a Facebook feed or both.. Some that are very interesting get on my Facebook while if they aren't too overly interesting I will just go twitter and every now and then I will get both, but in any case if they have the Facebook they are deleted from RSS since they are identical in content.. I decided this was a good way to go, but I think I might have too much on Facebook.. Might have to list something or see how important these are or whatever..

My right eye was watering and bothering the hell out of me this morning.. Then as I remembered earlier this morning, around two, I was awakened and could not get back to sleep until close to five (I was listening to the B&T show and it was too funny to sleep through).. So here this afternoon the watering eyes have turned into a nice little stream of snot.. Great my first cold and me without any chipoltle peppers to try to burn it out with.. Oh well, try jalepeno instead..  Many  many jalepeno peppers.. and maybe some vodka..

Badge Henry 

Cold and then..

After a few hours to think about the videos I got done yesterday the one with Pixel Pirates as the name of the song got me thinking while I was in the executive chair last night, that I want that to be more of a concept video.. When I talked about messing with pictures, erasing pixels and then combining the pictures with others, that is where the concept will come in.. So a lot of my pictures will be used in the second idea, plan B as it were, to sow what the song is more about in my mind.. I rather like instrumental music because this way the title can mean one thing and the song another but in this case the title will be the main topic for the video..  A second true concept video on this run through or phase 2.. How many phases could there be??  Truth is I don't know, and with this it may not even be phase two but rather just videos. Feeling that the original run of videos were related visually with those that were on entry one last week... More fractals and mandelbrots were acquired for this second run of videos and yet I am doing or am more interested in concept videos..  Try to get it right.. in my mind anyway..

So here it is three days after having the little guy for a few hours.. Mom was extremely happy to have him although he wears her out pretty much completely.. The events of the weekend are still being told to me even as late as today, some of his screwy Ianisms... I don't think they (his parents) know what it means to her to see him at least a few times a month.. She had said she wants to try and stop by every week for a little while but after this past Friday when we went to pick him up she thinks maybe she will wait until after the first of the year to try..

On Donald's FB he was writing about the way the band was being reborn with the new lead vocalist they (finally) got, a female which I had talked about for years about them getting but both Donald and Lucy both didn't like female vocalists (at that time) but if you were to ask them now they would say they like female vocalists.. I've been into bands with female lead vocalists for a long time now with Nightwish, Within Temptation and lately Lacuna Coil being the prominent three and all three from Europe.. I will admit there is no American band or vacalist that is very good in my books and that might be why they don't like female vocals, but you have to look outside your home country to see how great things can be..

Anyway with the band starting to work (practice) again I'm sure there is at least one more night he is not home.. What I wish is that he could see what this is doing to mom.. The band isn't the issue, it's his being blind to how things really are between him and us or more to the point  us and them.. But the last call mom had or one of the last calls they talked and he was trying to make it sound like it is a them against the whole family thing and the truth is I blame myself for the situation we are currently in.. I still wish I would have just sent the heads up thing, where I said my back was hurt bad and I wasn't sure I would be able to make it the next day, then just left it...  Why I felt like explaining the unexplainable to her was beyond me.. To me unexplainable in my ability to know exactly when she reacted the way she did that I knew that was how she would react.. I knew from observing her actions from as far back as the immigration and then again the wedding this past summer.. I join the ranks of Freda as most unliked by Lucy... I think I like the company I'm in..


When Bob and everyone came down Sunday afternoon,  that made moms day.. And every time she gets to see those little girls it just does make her day, her week.. She can be so down and then seeing those two just perks her up.. I keep thinking how dad would feel and he would be the same I think.. Extremely proud no doubt in my mind..  

The door was being knocked on yesterday as mom was trying to call the doctors office in Scottsbluff and I thought, better answer it.. Then I thought better of it figuring the J of W were there.. Turns out it was UPS delivering something we ordered, but when I opened the door it was a bigger box than what I thought we were expecting.. Turns out it was a plant and not just any plant but a small shrub like tree..  Mom found out it was sent by uncle Bob.. She called him up and thanked him for it.. Checked it out and along with the tree it has a small string of Christmas lights and some little ornaments.. Quite the little tree and when she opened the first flap of the box I could smell the pine aroma.. I thought perfect, to add a pine tree smell to the house..

Badge Henry

Fly this into the shitter

The start of "phase 2" of the infinity project. The video to start with was what I thought it would be, the song Siberian Lights by Tangerine Dream from the Transsiberian soundtrack.. The song has a concept feel, a railroad story feel.. Trains were the object to get a hold of and after downloading a few pictures and some videos we were off.. This video was to be edited with all the videos in the program at the same time.. This was to be a really cool video using three types of video and still shots.. The videos were the transsiberian railroad that is part of the video and then a few shots from a "chase" video that a guy did when the Challenger was in California some time back.. The video of that old steam engine going down a street in Oakland was just priceless and a few other shots as well.. And then there was a model train set that was added to the steam trains from Europe as well as Russia and here in the states and everything was going together so well.. Then the program crashed.. THREE HOURS SHOT TO HELL!!  there was a word that came to mind and was used repeatedly as I realized the program wasn't going to stop not responding anytime soon if ever.. Three hours shot and the original concept gone forever... Oh well, when you use windows programs you get used to the here today gone fucked tomorrow mentality that is this computers shortcoming or shortfall whatever you want to call it.. Disappointing is the way I feel but, it made me glad I didn't know to try this during the wedding video.. In that case I clipped and saved every shot and then pieced it together for the final video.. This today was an attempt to try the program as I have seen it done on Youtube tuts..

(Yaroslaw Station song on the same video not sure which will be the version on the PNOP blog)...



Second video completed with the song Pixel Pirates (by TD) being the music track and the video subject is Jordan's wedding pictures as done in kaleidoscope effect.. These were the first pictures I had done fully this way.. The pictures used in the video are.. well good question as to which were used, except for three that you can sort of make out what or who is in them, the rest are a full on abstract of anything that is there.. The full run of these pictures would have run over forty minutes.. The song pixel pirates is how I feel when I am messing with pictures, either by erasing pixels to make a second picture out of two ideas together.. Or many.. But it starts with an idea.. 





Badge Henry

Everest you wild mountain you

A little 'splainin' the entry for today's music entry on PNOP.. The Lacuna Coil show was done in 2006, which I wasn't aware of.. This is a fairly early show in their existence but still showed the rawness before they would gather all their muscle and write two extremely good albums, Karamacode and their latest masterpiece Dark Adrenaline.. Their American tour from earlier this year was their best yet and hopefully they will be back next year for  a possible headliner tour..


The videos for phase two of the project were acquired and the music that will be used has been ripped, after that I started to edit the music to make the songs be what I like.. There is a good lot of it will be Tangerine Dream but some if not all the songs will be edited to the way I want them.. What was different about this?? Earlier I had talked about trying to make a comp type or a sort of "dub"  type of thing.. Back about twenty years ago (has it been that long) I did this with such ease with a tape recorder and it was so easy, now with a digital editor I find that getting it exact is really hard to do, although if I could find a music editor that did what I wanted it to do t would be so much easier.. on analog the previous part of the song would still be there and the new part would walk over it and the two would sort of fade onto each other.. With digital it doesn't do that, it is exact or a form of perfection which if the stopping point and the starting point aren't perfectly set  as in the up beat cuts into another upbeat then the song sounds out of time.. The beat is the more important while the music is as equally important, the change in key or harmonic can be tolerated but the beat is the dead giveaway.. So it can take some doing to get it exactly the way I want it to be.. 

Then will come the video change of scenes from one activity or action to another to try to make everything kind of sync up in a way.. The railroad (train) one is getting me the most excited to do.. The train footage coupled with the Siberian soundtrack that TD did a few years ago, I'm really gettin a lot of good ideas for.. This should be the first video but more than likely won't be.. As things go, the song Flashflood keeps popping into my head, and a video with that song will likely be first, followed by that Pixel Pirates song has me equally intrigued..  Should be an interesting run of videos.. 

The RSS reader:: this has got to be the toughest thing, to see all the RSS that I have and know that some of it is interesting while some is just filler.. How to edit the enormous set that it is??  I think I have to have a set guideline, some sort of idea of how one might stay and another goes.. And stop adding RSS, makes editing nearly impossible..

Badge Henry

Here's the undone

So the nephew stayed here over night last night, and he really hasn't changed very much.. He still hit the house and within an hour had gone through his checklist of toys and stuff he normally tears out.. Still has the attention span of a gnat.. Plays with a toy for ten minutes then moves on.. He needed me to put his railroad tracks together, and he asked me instead of demand which was a little different.. Then after I get it put together he played with it for a few minutes and then that dreaded tornado came through.. It took me longer to put it together than he played with it..  He kept waiting for the lights that I have set outside to come on, and kept saying why aren't they on yet.. I have them set to come on about six, or around then.. So when they came on he was surprised.. The tower is decorated and the small tree in front of it.. And the pine tree in back is lighted and there are lights around the gazebo and the deck, so we are a well lighted house..  He is fun to be around, and interesting to see how he sees things but his ability to comprehend is still lacking.. I'm sure he will start to kindergarten next year, because it will be easier than trying to have him go through preschool and really being ready for school..  Or not..

The weather turning more wintery and I'm wanting it to cool out more.. The idea was to water the lawn when the temperature was above fifty degrees.. Which has nearly been every week since the end on October.. The front now will be the target of watering when it is warm enough to, and the back won't because if there are watering restrictions this summer then the back will be sacrificed just like it would have been this past summer..

Remembering this past February into early spring and going into the garden area of Walmart and doing the usual thinking of the coming season to grow stuff, this coming season won't be the same if it doesn't get cold.. So far it has gotten my idea of chilly, an extra blanket on the bed type of weather..  But to me it hasn't gotten cold yet.. The bone numbing cold.. Not that I want that kind of cold but a little snow would be nice.. Remembering going to see the eagles in January and how strange that might be to see no ice this year.. So far I don't think there would be much ice anyway..

I checked the pictures I took during one of my walks on the walk/bike path and like I have said the lighting is so dramatic at this time of the year and I really like what I got.. The video of the train going over the bridge at the west end of town should be part of the video project.. I'm looking forward to messing with that video.. I have the music that will be used for that.. The second phase of the "infinity project" will start up soon..

And then there is the RSS reader.. Yesterday I started to do the slimming on that but then some of the sites look so interesting and yet up until yesterday I never looked at them.. Slimming down was on the order but then I came across some ten more sites that looked interesting and added them, but didn't put them in a folder.. I will start from the A's again and really remember to be an asshole towards them, remembering that most of these I don't look at.. it will take some time to get this done but A's   here we come.. 

Badge Henry

Double feature

Ok, I said it in my entry yesterday about the incredible amount of "stuff" that is on YouTube to watch, and then I was looking at some of what is there yesterday afternoon, and came across some video that sparked the idea of the infinity project from October/November, and it made me jump into that mode of wanting to do more of those type of videos.. Then I came across some more fantastic fractal videos.. A TON of these fractal/mandalbrot type, some might get a few of the Jonn Serrie songs, but mostly it will be Tangerine Dream and a few other groups that I didn't get to in the last project... This isn't the best time to start a project like this but, it might be better to work on this now.. Some ideas for songs popped into my head yesterday as we were going to town.. "Why didn't I include those songs on the first project?"  Well by the time I was into the tenth day of working on the videos I felt the sting of burnout coming along.. And the ideas were starting to run together, with several videos looking almost identical.. So a little break to rejuvenate the ideas instead or rehashing the same old ideas again.. So that is what I will do, and the other project wasn't supposed to be done in ten days anyway, it was supposed to be on going for  an open ended amount of time and that is why the end of that session was called end of phase one.. It was am intense session and I hope to avoid that feeling again.. The videos I downloaded were many but some were "test" videos that are around the twenty second mark which could be incorporated into many videos or use the same video multiple times.  This should be a lot more interesting this time around.. I did clip videos from before that were stills and set them into a folder for future reference to do a video of some sort..  

So how many videos will this "phase" of the video project be??  The last one was open ended and so might this one be.. Having some five songs that I know I want to do and include a few that I thought I did before but can't find them anywhere.. So there are at least five in this first run, and it could start as early as today.. Will they be put on the PNOP site??  More than likely yes.. The other site I was trying to develop into my video site fell flat, as much as I wanted it to be there, it just wasn't meant to be I guess..

I came across this masterful set of Pink Floyd songs.. I'm not sure if this yet another fan release or an aborted set that the band was going to release bu then decided against it.. This set is fantastic in that is spawns their entire career from as far back as before being signed and going through to the Division Bell album.. With so many of the demos for albums that would be well known, live versions of some songs and other songs that weren't released until the immersion sets got released.. I think bands are getting the idea (finally) that people really do want to hear the demos and first ideas type of song things.. I know that I like the demos for the wall and other groups demo material, it gives an insight to the creative process..

I got a dvd from Netflix and watched it last night.. It was a double bill, two movies on one disc called classic sci-fi ultimate collection and the movies were Tarantula and The Mole People both from 1955 which means black & white.. And corny as hell but interesting.. I can't say they were horrible, they were the shit for their time.. Being black & white movies there wasn't a blood bath situation..  Not a bad set really.. The Mole People was somewhat of a concept movie, set up by a quick synopsis clip at he very beginning.. Really just kinda cool, I spent the whole  of the prime time  time slot watching these movies, instead of the nothing that is Wednesday night.. 


Badge Henry

Build an empire, and then dismantle it

So the process started about a year ago, when the homepage on my Firefox browser got changed without my permission after downloading and indstalling a program from a software site.. It was the first time I noticed a program installed bloatware, and from that day on I would watch what I clicked instead of assuming everything I would install in the future was on the up and up as it were.. But when the homepage was changed I had trouble getting it changed and when it wouldn't go back the way I wanted it, I went in search of a better homepage.. Anyway the homepage I had was just the Google search page which means there was nothing more than the search box to start with.. I was wanting a new home page and I looked for one.. Came up with four, MSN, Bing, Yahoo and a new idea called I-Google.. Intrigued I gave the I-Google a shot and was stunned at how personalized I could make it.. In face it could be exactly the way I wanted it.. The "gadgets" could be added to perfection as every idea there was is presented and I added to the point where it took quite a while to see every aspect of the page.. For Three months I messed with it and then stopped adding and subtracting gadgets and settled with everything..PERFECT.. And then in March a little notice on the header of the homepage that read simply "I-Google will discontinue as of November 1 2013"... Up to that day I thought his was too good to be true and truth be told I wasn't very happy with the homepage.. What is great about it was I could access it from any computer, just type in my account info and there it was.. But the worst part about it was every Gadget draws memory and so on the laptop I would literally have only the homepage open and struggle with it because it almost maxed out the RAM from that only.. No tabs could be opened.. I was looking for something else and switched to the Bing, MSN, Yahoo homepage trio idea but then I was messing with the Opera browser and it has a speed dial setting and I wondered if Firefox did.. Turns out yes it does and I set it up to have everything I want on it and set it to be the starting point (homepage) and move on to all the immediate sites right off.. Things couldn't be any better..

The start of December last year saw me trying something new... The RSS reader.. This took an effort to load all the pages that had a RSS feed, I went through every bookmark I had and every site that had an RSS feed that was part of the I-Google homepage as well.. I think it took through February to get them all set and loaded to their own folder, the pages that had multiple feeds were all put in a folder without any want to check if they had the same content on them.. Then after setting that as finished I went through and got used to using it.. Everything was good.. Between the speed dial and the reader I can access  nearly three thousand pages.. So what could possibly be the problem??  Too much of a good thing.. 

Last night I checked a few of what can only be called dead sites, sites that don't or haven't updated on RSS in over six months.. Some were added even though they were dead at that time of being added.. So now I have decided to edit these down a bit.. I figured if I don't read the sites or haven't in the past nearly year since getting them that they more than likely won't start to get looked at suddenly.. I remember when I added all these how I could be able to read this for years without looking at the same thing twice.. Is that good??  So many that aren't interesting to me now might have had an interesting article when I added them, only to never be looked at again.. Where these came from??  for the most part a good lot of them came from Facebook as a site would put a link to the story and I would add the RSS and twitter and Facebook.. Then I was doing this I thought add as twitter or Facebook or RSS but not all three.. Plus the Facebook timeline I look through the majority of.. Twitter has gotten too massive to do that with, and is getting to the point where I don't look at that much.. Then there is Reddit and other sites like that.. I click through the entire 25 front page to see what has a RSS reader.. That might continue but I do need to sort through all the RSS feeds that I currently have and delete what I haven't looked at since loading them in the first place..

Entertain me::::  I was looking at the Tube  yesterday (YouTube) and am just so totally amazed at the amount of programming that is on there.. It is the reason to stream via Roku (I know, they don't have an official channel on there)..  Just unbelievable.. 

So it is supposed to get cold shortly hu??  Good.. I was just remembering that last year about this past Tuesday I had to take the car down and get new tires on it.. We had a little snow on the ground and twenty below zero temperature.. I remember taking the car down and talking to the guy about the tires and then him offering me a ride but I said no, there was not even a breeze and I can walk outside and do all sorts of things in subfreezing weather and it doesn't bother me.. I could have as well easily not been wearing a coat, but people tend to think you have something wrong with you when you don't get all heavy coated up.. Then later that morning I went and picked up the nephew from preschool and first thing he says, can we go to the park??  Granted it had warmed up quite a bit by eleven in the morning but could he play in the park??  He was wearing one of those fleece noncoat things as I picked him up and thought this is fine for now but wasn't it colder earlier??  Went to the park and he tried to swing, gave up.. TOO COLD??  He never complained he just wanted something to eat was all..

Badge Henry

Building the perfect beast

So we put up the tree yesterday, and it is always kind of a work to try to get it just so.. There were years when we "helped" put the tree up, and over the years it was interesting to do so.. I can honestly say i can't remember the old days with the trees that were in fact real pine trees.. The old pictures of the trees we had that were a fire hazard at best, the pine needles sticking in the feet, but that smell couldn't be beat.. When did we follow the trend to a fake tree??  Our first fake tree was back when I was still in grade school i'm sure and then the newer tree we got some time ago.. The topper we used to put up there was replaced by a lighted tree topper because everyone else had one like that.. Last year I decided to go old school and put the one dad always put on there and this year did the same, the old spire thing.. The lights from last year we had to replace some and I wanted to check to see if we needed another string.. The love of those little twinkly lights has faded over the past few years and been replaced with wanting to have fewer lights.. This year there are only four strings of lights on there and the bubble lights at the bottom and the LED snowflakes (which initially didn't want to work).. Then the garland and bulbs (cat toys) and it was completed.. While putting some of the bulbs on I remembered the old things we put on there, a few from when I was in grade school because one had my name on the bottom and was the one I took to school, way back in the first two years somewhere..   The lights have changed with the majority being the new LED type that burn brighter but cooler at the same time..  I remember back in the very early days of dad decorating the tree that we had those big bulb lights, and I went that route long before he passed away I had gone back to those.. The tower in the front have a crystal white bulb light string on it, and the little tree has a string of LED twinkle lights on it as well as the solar powered twinkle LED lights and the tree topper on the top of the tower.. The gazebo I put a string of twinkly lights around the top and a string of C-9 around the outer deck railing, and an old red string of lights in the bigger pine tree...  So we really went all out this year boy howdy... Bring on the disappointment of the season..

And the weather.. I have checked the weather through Christmas and while it can't be held to it, they are showing a fairly nice holiday although I think right now they are using averages and a guess this far out..  Three weeks can't be a real forecast, they can barely get it right 24 hours out..   But to see the ice rink in the park in town not even be set up yet, and we are in December.. I don't know that they will even bother building it this year.. I don't see that there are any days where the high stays below freezing yet..  How strange not to even have a skating season this year..

Badge Henry

From the ground up

I don't know why but last night I was sitting around and thought about the music collection and looked at some of my compact discs in the shelving.. The majority of what I have are best of, greatest hits or anthology sets.. and just was thinking about the different sets that I do have.. Later last night I was on Amazon and just out of curiosity I wanted to see a set by The Who just to see what it had in it song wise.. I do like some of the Who music, but again it is the best of collections that I have more than anything else.. I was looking at that "Maximum R&B.." four disc set and it has a deeper track set then I think I would have liked and that was the reason I never got it.. I did opt to get a few other reissue discs best of types that got me what I wanted, as well as the deluxe version of Live at Leeds which just got reissued with the next night or previous night at Hull (which I got via ....)  and sounds just a lot alike... So I was looking at the Amazon site and thinking well let's see what else there is that I have.. Dave Edmunds Anthology, that was nearly impossible to find back when I got it and was happy the guy at the record store found it, and double glad now.. It is out of print and becoming a collectors item.. In just a few short years that set has gone from the thirty something dollars I spent on it to just under $95 ... 

What got me to think about looking at cd sets was just wondering what might be available..  I was looking at a Johnny Rivers greatest hits set, seeing if there as a really good replacement single disc for the double disc anthology that I have.. While some are good, they none of them will replace the double disc anthology, and now that set is even more interesting..  In the reviews for the set only one person set the rating under the five stars, and was complaining that the booklet in disc 2 was the same as disc one.. This mistake made this set be a collectable and the current price is $150  with the same booklet set fetching $600..   I don't have this set, wish that I did..

One day I went into the local record store and was just looking around and the guy had gotten a four disc set called The British Invasion and it was by the great Rhino Records company.. Just checked that out of curiosity and that set that I bought for $20 is now selling for $421..    (wipe the sweat off my brow)  I was gonna get rid of that set a while back.. NOT ANYMORE..

Then there is that Gold and Platinum six disc set.. I found that at another record store and saw how great the music set was, spanning twenty five years it really is the showcase for how rock moved forward from the late sixties to the early nineties..  This set was one of those that I got with the idea of giving as a Christmas present but then thought it might seem cheap to give something that was previously opened away..  So I kept it.. I'm not sure what I paid for it but it now has a price tag of $135 at Amazon..   

Checked Amazon for the Found All The Parts by Cheap Trick, the original 10 inch record with the Everything Works If You Let It single and can't find it on Amazon.. They do have it on Ebay but it is just slightly less than what I paid for it.. I remember looking for it a few years ago and the price was much higher for it back then but ...    I'll have to check more of my sets and see what I really am setting on up there..

Badge Henry

(all Amazon prices for what are likely brand new sets of all of what I have.. Mine aren't brand new but I did have a policy to NEVER take a disc out of the house..  I would burn a disc of the songs I really liked and left the disc it was from home safe and sound in its box in my holders)

blood bath

Went to a birthday party earlier today and walked in and saw all these chairs arranged in a circle and I instantly thought "oh shit, this is an intervention, I've never been to one of those.." (geese anyone guess what I've been watching on the television??) 


Just got done watching the Nebraska debacle..  Wow holy shit.. Well  this is a case where anything that can go right for a team did, and anything that can go wrong for the other team did.. At the half I got on the computer and there was a site showing instant feedback for the effort in the first half.. Needless to say there was a lynch mob mentality towards Polini.. It just goes to show when you win you're great but when you lose you are FIRED!!  But I've said it before, if we let him go then we could end up like Colorado.. You have to be very careful, and besides remember Osbourn?? He had so many orange bowl trips where we were the opponent of the eventual national champions..  There was Clemson that one year and Miami countless times.. There were loses to Oklahoma that had everyone calling for Osbourns head..  My biggest critique was the defense.. They played great touch football and did in the UCLA game, can't fault them there.. The other team didn't know we were playing flag football rules.. Speaking of great hits (which we weren't but it's late and I'm tired)  that block by Kenny Bell was far and away the best hit of the season and COMPLETELY LEGAL... Everyone on the two radio stations and the television announcers all agreed.. He did launch himself but the guy he hit was going full boar as well, it was blindside but the guy was in a position to tackle the guy with the ball.. Talk about inconsistent calls, several plays later the badgers hit one of our player in the same way and NO FLAG.. Then later the badgers hit Taylor and dropped him on his head and no flag.. They were being criticized by the radio announcers for late whistles ALL NIGHT.. Anyway I would say that the Wisconsin team did run the score up, but that is the key phrase here, they RAN the score up.. Not passes like a certain Miami U team did at one of the bowl games against us.. They ran, and we were much obliged to let them..   But as I put on my FB that I was glad the team lost tonight because they would get their ass handed to them in the rose bowl and I felt that way after watching Stanford play the last two weeks..   At least the Broncos don't lose like that...  Oh yeah, that's right.. Remembering a few years back in the McDaniels era when they lost to the dreaded Raiders that time.. That's why when they had a chance to hand the Raiders their lunch the first game I was hoping for a blood bath..

Badge Henry 

Loops

Tomorrows first Sunday of the month music entry will be all videos I produced..  I uploaded them about ten days ago and the memory plays tricks on you when you don't upload when they are done.. That is how I had been doing any videos before, I loaded them up shortly after getting them done.. By shortly after getting them done I mean they had just gotten converted to that small file format minutes before.. And  these that are the first entry tomorrow were all uploaded after the completion of the entire project a little over a week later.. This is the first time I have done it this way, guess we'll see if it works this way.. January's music entry will be uploaded shortly, and so on and so forth through the March final entry..  I watched some of the videos that are on DVD and the STRATOS video still remains my favorite, the song is my favorite by Jonn Serrie and the video fits the song more and more perfectly the more I watch it, I can't imagine a better fit, and it is the final video on tomorrows entry.. I only wish it was better quality on the blogger site, but I guess you get what you can.. In full screen it is very hypnotic to watch.. The DVD version is 720p, and is crystal clear... 

One of the videos I swore I got done was the song Homeless, and I just cannot find that video anywhere.. Maybe it is on the PNOP site exclusively, I can't find it on any of the discs I have made..

Another little story from the other days trip to Cheyenne, we were in the Big lots store and I went off looking around and left mom to look pushing a cart, and I went to the two or three areas of the store that I needed to look (tools, toys, christmas stuff) and after I thought I had my looking completed I went looking for mom and finally found her she was facing away from me (opposite) and I was just about up to her and I noticed some more things up above and was looking when I thought I heard her say "there you are" when in fact she said "where are you?" and I turned and said right here, and she turned and looked and as it turns out she had tried to call me on the cell phone, which I still had turned off of course..

Badge Henry