Maple Leaf Rag

Bay to Breakers

The whole family went to watch the race today. We ended up almost drowning in urine instead. Everywhere you looked inebriated people were pissing. Lined up by the wall of the gas station, about 5 guys nonchalantly voiding their bladders on the wall, in full view of the multitudes. Who were mostly too busy looking for an unoccupied square foot to urinate on to notice. The DMV parking lot actually had the beginnings of a complicated tributary system of piss going. We decided to head home, so we turned around and took a side street back. A group of revelers walking the other way mistook a chain link fence for an open-air coed bathroom. I was skeptical that the girls in the group would be able to pee through the fence, but they did. Nice job! The whole affair brought to mind Urinetown (the musical).

Haight Street Marching Band

A while ago I had a vision of a lot of musicians just taking to the streets and starting an impromptu marching band. They just went by. Down Haight Street. Sounded like the Captain Beefheart Magic Marching Band. Who the hell was that? There was a drummer, lots of horns and guitars, and a few photographers. What a wonderful sound and spectacle!

I'm Putting Together a Band (literally)

Got a lego mindstorms robotics kit. Uh, for benjamin's birthday...

No, actually for my birtdhay! Just a little bit early. It's really really fun. I made a little drummer guy. He's got one motor that turns some gears. There's a high-hat arm, and a bass drum arm, and a kick drum arm. The high hat goes 4x as fast as the other two arms, which alternate. So it's like this:

Hi-hat x x x x x x x x
Snare   x    x
Kick x    x    

Pretty much every AC/DC song covered right there.

Then I added an audio sensor and wrote a little program that waits for audio input to go above 50%. It resets the timer the first time it goes above 50%, then it waits for that to happen four more times. On the fourth time, it figures out how much time has elapsed since the first time, and uses that as a parameter for how much power to give the motor. So what you end up with is a program where you count off "one, two, three, four" and the drumbot starts playing a rock and roll beat. The programming API for Mindstorms is really interesting. You drag blocks (of course) that represent various functionality around. There's a block for "move", and another for "wait for input from sensor #2". Very minimal, but it seems like you can do just about everything you need to with a little jiggery. Is it Turing-complete? I'm not sure. It sure is fun to program something that actually moves around in the physical world in response to your words. I still need to fashion a little drum kit for him to play. And I have 2 more motors for his bandmates!

Open Mic Night

The hotel utah has a nice open mic.  A little too nice, actually, if you're interested in performing.  They draw names in a lottery to determine the list.  I was #43.  This ended up meaning that my slot would be around 1:30 AM.

I guess this means I don't have to work on expanding my meager repertoire, since I'll probably only get to play one song every month or so.

Saw some really terrific performers, though.  Stitchcraft was really fun.

Broke

Update: my pick broke. Fortunately I have a handlebar mustache.

Lucky 13

You need a guitar pick?  You want the "Lucky 13" 0.73 mm by Dunlop.  Or none at all, preferably.