funny picture

No matter how hard you try, pregnancy can happen.

Nintendo Wii

The other day I was in best buy looking around. I got a gift certificate for Christmas so I wanted to see what new games were out. I first went to see if they had a Nintendo in stock. As usual, they didn't have one. I didn't have enough on the gift card to get a Nintendo. However, between the gift card and the money I had saved for something that I actually didn't end up getting I did. I went back to look at the computer games.
The Orange Box immediately caught my eye. I stared at it for a while and then continued browsing.
I stumbled upon Bio-Shock. It looks like a cool game. From the box I read that you go around and kill stuff. You can also drug your enemies and make them do stuff for you. You can do stuff to yourself and turn yourself into a lightning flinging wombat. Weird, but I thought it looked cool. I turned it over to check hardware requirements. My Pentium 4 wasn't fast enough. I could pull a Travis and somehow make it run. I am not sure how he does it. I think he just wills it to run. No matter how hard I try, my will just doesn't seem to influence my computer. I went back to the orange box. I checked its requirements. Yes! I had the hardware to run it with ease. However, I don't like buying stuff twice. I already own Half life 2 and episode one. but, I don't own the other stuff. I took it to the register and bought it.
All of sudden I see a gleeful employee run to the back with a Wii held over his head. "Spreeloink," I thought. He must have gotten first dibs on it. I went and asked him where he got it. He said, "Yeeeeeeeee! we just got in a shipment!" I had already gotten the orange box. I wanted a Wii but I didn't have enough for the orange box and the wii. I made a decision based on logic. I already own two fifths of orange box. I don't own anything to do with the wii. I took the orange box back and bought the wii. I also bought Zelda: Twilight Princess. I had to dig around in my wallet for that one. So far The wii is the coolest system I have ever played. Tennis is awesome. Sword fighting in Zelda is even better. The internet connection is very nice. I sent myself a message from my computer. Send me names and wii addresses and I will add you to my list of people I can Wii mail. I won't publish them as comments
The Nintendo Wii receives the H. King Houston III Stamp of Approval

Portable Apps

I recently found a new program that I have really enjoyed. It is more of an operating system than anything else. The cool part about it is that you run it off a flash drive. I downloaded it from PortableApps.com
So far I have five programs on it. I have Abiword, Audacity, Sumatra PDF Viewer, Mozilla Firefox, and Sudoku. They all run great. I am running Firefox off of my flash drive right now. It is running smoothly. I cannot detect any significant slowdown in the program. There might be a barely perceptible amount. I believe that it might just be the computer.
The programs that I downloaded are designed especially for the portable apps program. They are available for free on the website. They are portable editions. However, they do not act in a crappy and slow fashion like the title portable implies. The ones that I have tried seem to retain all of the main functions of the full program.
Being able to run your own programs on any computer is definitely a plus. You can save all of your links on your web browser. Then, you can have them available on whatever public computer you are using. You can use audacity to capture sound off the Internet or record yourself. Not all computers have this program. The school computers probably won't let you download it either. With Abiword you can make word documents on any computer.
The website claims that you won't leave a record of the programs that you used on the computer that you are using. I am not sure how to test this. Leave a comment if you know.

This program receives the official H. King Houston III Stamp of Approval

Songza

Here comes another great music website. http://songza.com/
This website is a music search engine. Basically, anything that is on I-Tunes, it will play for you. It was a project done by Aza Raskin son of Apple computer cofounder, Jeff Raskin. The site is supposed to be popular for the design of its user interface. I don't particularly care. I just like it because of the music search abilities. I have one criticism. I recently listened to a song and the audio ended exactly the same as a youtube video I watched. I believe that the songs are not the cd recordings. Some of them might be. I believe the audio came from wherever they could get it. However, the ability to listen to any song you want is awesome.

Pandora

I just found a really cool site using stumble upon. It is called Pandora. I went to the home page of the site. They claim to be able to play any music that you want for free. This sounded cool so I typed in a song. To my surprise they played a slightly different song. Apparently, they can't play exactly what you ask for. They play something similar. The program is kind of like a radio. You tell the dj what kind of music you like, and he plays music similar to it.
I looked around the site to see how they do it. Apparently, a team of dudes sat down and listened to a whole lot of music. They categorized all of it. When you select a song, every song that is in that category will be played. They are able to play stuff that you will like because each song is in several categories. They simply play songs that match categorically to the one you select. Right now I am listening to ska music. I typed in "The impression that I get." They are playing me a bunch of different music by different ska bands that have a similar concept of sound. They have played some stuff by the bosstones, reel big fish, as well others. They all have really good horn sections. Give it a try with the music that you like.
Pandora

True Story

This is a slightly scary story. I will relate my whole day. I believe

I was having a slightly busy day for Christmas break. I woke up around 9:30am. I went and had two cookies and a bowl of granola for breakfast. I did nothing for about thirty minutes. I then played with my mp3 player. I selected "random surprise". It came up with Strauss Ein Heldenleben. I was going to have to buy a cd with this recording on it. I had obviously gotten it somewhere and forgotten about it. Now I don't have to buy the cd. Finding this isn't the best part of my story. I sat down on the couch and listened to the whole thing while reading articles about it. Ein Heldenleben roughly translates to "a hero's life." Strauss wrote it about himself. He was a bad ass and he knew it. I then looked up my new favorite band "The Black Eyed Peas" on youtube. I then had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind. You know the feeling that you get when you are about to fail at life unless you do something. I remembered that I had to rewrite some music in a different clef. I have learned that if I have something in treble clef I need to rewrite it in bass clef. The last thing I need is to be struggling with reading the music when I am performing it. My mom called me about this time and told me that I would be in the paper as an "Academic All-Star." I went back to writing music. I did this for about an hour and then went to lunch. I got a giftcard to chick-fil-a for my birthday. I went there and I ordered from an angry black woman. She served up my lemonade to me sideways. the top was on it, so it didn't spill. She then tore some white boy a new one. I just got my food and left. I went back to my house ate my lunch and wrote out music for another hour. I then started making mistakes and decided I needed a break. I went to my computer and looked at random videos on youtube. My dad called me and asked me if I had anything planned for dinner. I told him he'd have to do himself because I had a rehearsal. He then called again and asked something similar. The phone then rang again and I was about to not answer it. The caller i.d. said "Blocked call." I decided to answer it. At this point in my day life became exciting.

Me: "Hello
Pre-pubescent male voice: "Are you Elizabeth?"
Me: "No, but I'm her son."
PPMV: "We have Elizabeth's bag."
Me: "How did you get her bag?"
PPMV: "We found it on the side of the street."
I found this quite alarming.
Me: "Where are you? Tell me so I can come get the bag from you."
PPMV: "Uh . . . I can't tell you that.
PPMV: "Do you have any history of hurting anyone?"
Background girl voice: "Don't ask him that!"
Me: "no"
This let me know I was just dealing with kids. This is what I hoped at the time. I was afraid that it was some kind of twisted plot to get me to go to a weird part of town. I was being moderately careful. Probably not enough
Me: "I need to get the bag from you. Are you in midtown right now?"
Me: "Can you leave it in front of your house."
PPMV: "I can't tell you where i live."
This was starting to get frustrating. The kid was smart for not telling me where he lives. For all he knew, I could have been a terrorist with an absent-minded mom. however i still needed to get the bag and find out how my mom had lost it.
Me:"Do you know where that church is?"
PPMV: "Yes"
Me: "Can you leave it at the front desk?"
PPMV: "Maybe.'
Me: "Can you leave it in front of one of your neighbor's houses?"
PPMV: "Yeah, we can. What's that house over there?"
PPMV: "We'll leave it at 400 split rock or at the church?"
he hangs up here. This had seriously harshed my groove. Me mom works at that Church. I was concerned that something had happened to her. I decided to give her a call. I called her cellphone and immediately got the answering machine. This made me feel worse.
He calls back.
Me: "hello"
PPMV: " His dad isn't home so ,we're going to leave it at 416 split rock."
Me: "Good, It will take me twenty minutes to get there. Watch it to make sure it doesn't get stolen before I can get there. Could you wait a while and then put it out?"
PPMV: " yes we'll wait ten minutes and then put it out."
he hangs up. I went and frantically grabbed my shoes, trombone, and half finished music. I then said goodbye to my dog and ran out the door. On the way there I was nervous that I was on a rendezvous with something awful. It seemed to take me forever to get there. I missed every light and got stopped by a train. I then drove past the house twice. I did this to see if I could see anything that felt very wrong. The area was in midtown. Big houses do not mean that it is a good neighborhood. The only unusual thing that I noticed was that the neighborhood was crawling with yard men. I parked, grabbed a mouthpiece for protection, and jumped out of my car. I looked around and then quickly grabbed the bag. Some little kids ran out of a back yard across the street. I waved at them and jumped back in my car. I immediately left the area and headed for the church. When I got there I found my mom. She said "what are you doing with my bag?'
"You left it on the side of the street."
"oh, I remember now. I was in that neighborhood playing harp. I put down the bag to help someone into a car. I then must have walked off and left it."
Feeling relieved, I went upstairs and made music with an african drummer and a choir. I did have time to finish my music. Life turned out ok.
I am going to go throw up now.
Peace out

What to do

Well, Christmas break is upon me. I tackled my exams and passed them all. I now have to find something to occupy my time since i don't have to wake up before six in the morning. I have a few plans. They are of the nagging kind. You know, the kind that if you don't follow through you will feel like a dirt bag. You could possibly ruin your life. The kind that will cause people to nag at you if they are aware of your plans.

1. Learn audition music for college. This is my main plan. It involves a lot of really hard boring work. This one will draw some nagging from complete strangers. ex.

Old Dude: "I hear your going to be a music major."
Me: "Yes"
Old Dude: "You got your audition music memorized yet?"
Me: "No"

Old Dude: "Better get on that. Let me tell you a story."
Me: (****)
Old Dude: "You know that homeless guy over there? Well . . ."
three hours later
Old Dude: "That why you should have learned your music by now. You might turn out like that guy."

you get the idea

2. Learn to type on a Dvorak keyboard. This is just something I decided to try out. If I don't learn it, I will feel like a dirt bag.
3. Go through my most recent ear training CD. This is something that I actually enjoy doing. I actually seem to have a knack for it.
4. Overdub some orchestra parts. This will be for my new CD.
I believe that is enough for a Christmas break. If I don't play too many video games or talk to too many old dudes I will succeed.

Funny Website

here is one of the funniest websites I have ever seen. It seems normal at first. Read the product descriptions and messages on the site. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have.
http://www.midstateoffice.com/

Playing duets with yourself

I recently discovered that you can play duets with yourself using the program audacity. After playing around with it, this is what I discovered. I will list my method.

1. Open audacity and click Generate, Click-Track.
2. Set the number of measures and the tempo that you want. Remember to put in about two extra measure so that you can get ready to play.
3. Plug in headphones to your computer. This will allow you to hear the click-click track. It will also keep the microphone from recording the click track.
4. record the first part
5. hit the record button again and record the second part. You will be able to hear yourself playing the first part. You can use this to play in tune.
6. adjust the volume and balance

I would like to be able to post a recording of myself, but I can't figure out how. Maybe in the future I will.

mouthpieces

This is a copy of a letter that I almost sent to a friend. You might find it interesting. it deals with new mouthpieces and several phenomena that I have noticed
I tried the 4G today and couldn't play it. Your are right,it is too big. I encountered a strange mouthpiece thing that I have discovered for myself and read about.When you first try a mouthpiece you might temporarily forget bad habits and sound really good. The time that it takes to know if the mouthpiece fits correctly varies. For me, it is about ten days. I sound the best about 5 days into a mouthpiece change. I actually timed that change to peak the day of my all-west audition. I usually digress after five days. If the mouthpiece is good I will only digress a small amount. If it is bad, it will cause me to sound terrible in about 10 days. I know that if I work hard enough I could probably make any mouthpiece sound good. I don't really want to and I don't have time to struggle with a major mouthpiece change. So far, I have discovered that I can play just about anything the size of a 5G, 6.5 AL or 7. I have discovered that the bigger the mouthpiece the less characteristic sound you get. On a 3G I sound like a foghorn. the 4G makes me sound extremely resonant but the body of my sound fades in and out. Have you listened to the Jay Friedman solo recording? He plays on a 3G. The 4G made me sound similar to him. If you listen you will notice that the characteristic sound fades in and out. Sometimes he just seems to get resonance. If you were to isolate one of these "super resonant notes," I doubt that anyone would be able to tell that it was a trombone. They might think that it was a euphonium, or maybe some kind of whale. I really like that recording and that was the sound I used at all-west. However, I now believe that a trombone sound should be identifiable. I listened to a recording I made shortly after all-west and I had moments where all the mic picked up was resonance. I am looking at a Griego 4.5G. I believe that it will be a balance between my Bach 5G and Bach 4G. I wish that Bach made a mouthpiece of that size.

Tune up systems

This is just a preliminary review of a new program that I got. I am always seeking ways to better my trombone playing and this looked very good. I had met someone who used it over the summer. His intonation had improved a small amount. It is called tuneup systems and teaches you how to play in tune. It took me about two weeks to receive it after I ordered it. This made me a little nervous. I paid about sixty dollars for it and I was afraid that my package had been lost. When I got the package it came with two discs. One was a PDF file of about sixty pages and the other one was an audio cd. The PDF goes into detail on how to use the discs and about intonation. It shows the mathematics behind intonation. After a brief technical overview it goes into exercises. To do the exercises you put on the specified track on the cd and hum or play. Humming is a huge part of it. It somehow gets you to really hear the pitch. You can feel it in your sinus cavities when you do it right. I will put up further posts as I get farther along

all-west

I have had a very successful year this year with my all-west tryouts. I will relay some things that i have learned.

1. Be able to perform the music. don't just be able to play it. If you perform the music in front of people they should at least think about clapping for you.
2. remember to breath. This is very important. When I play, I tend to take a lot of small little breaths. This causes me to not have enough air to live on. This leads to panic. it will also cause your adrenalin to go out of control and lead to uncontrollable shaking. when you have time in the audition take a few full breaths through your nose.
3. Begin the scale not more than ten seconds after they tell you to play it. This lets them know that you know the scale and didn't have to figure it out.
4. play the scale aggressively two octaves. play it a little over mf and fast. However, maintain a good sound and a sense of firm control.
5. Play the chromatic in a triplet pattern. This just sounds cool.
6. Do not, under any circumstances, talk in the audition. This pisses off the judge, the proctor, and God. The Judge doesn't want to hear your voice because it lets him know a lot about you. this destroys the blind audition. It also makes it not fair for the other trombone players. He might recognize your voice and be tempted to give you a higher chair. He might also hate girl trombone players. If you are a girl, speaking would cause you to lose where you might have won. The proctor doesn't want you to speak. His job is to guide you through the audition and make sure that it stays blind. You might get him fired if you speak. You would invoke the wrath of God because it could put undue temptation on the judge. You might cause the judge to sin and give you an unfair advantage. God hates sin. Don't cause of it.
7. don't point your bell directly at the judge. The sound that comes directly out of your bell is not very clean. it has all kinds of little impurities that you don't know about. it will also sound less focused coming straight from the bell. In order to keep the judge from hearing the trash in your sound, don't let him hear it straight from the bell. I usually point my bell at a right angle to the judge. I actually pick up the stand and move it so that I can point my bell at a right angle to the judge.
8. Play with joy. The judge is able to almost read your thoughts. Your emotions will come through in the way that you play. I smile at the proctor to try to get myself to be happy. It also creeps out the proctor. I find this funny.
9. Learn scales and arpeggios to help with sight reading. Music is built on scales and arpeggios. If you know your scales and arpeggios you will recognize them in the sight reading. This will be one less thing you have to think about. it will let you play more musically
10. In your thirty seconds to look over the music do the slide positions and fingerings for the whole thing. when time is called, you can empty your spit valve to gain a few extra seconds.

These are just a few of my thoughts. I have field tested them and they have proven useful. you might also find them useful.

Rant against chairs

I hate the chairs at my school. I believe they are the cause of many problems in the world. I hate them for many reasons. First, the chairs are designed to make you slouch. The features of having the seat tilted back and the back tilted forward accomplish this easily. THis slouched posture causes you to unwillingly bow to your teacher. The next time you are in class look around and you will notice that I am right. No one is sitting up straight because the chairs prevent this. It has been proven that those who sit up straight are able to think more clearly. These chairs prevent this. That's why high school and college kids are notorious for doing stupid stuff. The chairs hamper their ability to think. These chairs also cause back problems. Because the chairs prevent good posture all of your weight goes onto you lower back. THe weight of a person sitting with good posture goes through the spine and into the Ischium. These chairs teach you to sit with bad posture. Notice, if you will, even when people have the opportunity to sit up straight they don't. This is because the chairs have gotten them into the habit of bad posture. Look at little kids before they are exposed to these chairs. You will notice that most of the time when they sit they don't slouch. THey sit up comfortably erect. These chairs cause you to lean forward in your chair. to look at the board and the teacher you must crane your head back. this is the same thing that you do when you look up. Doing this all day causes tension in the neck. THese chairs are literally a pain in the neck and should be banned.

Culture Shock

I was doing a project in anatomy today. I go to a Christian school. The teacher was having us look up bible verses that had to do with the shedding of blood. I was making use of my bible concordance and generally making progress. However, I started to get tired and I looked up a verse in the wrong book.
What I stumbled upon was the culture shock of the century. It had to do with promises. Usually, when one makes a promise, one shakes hands with the other party. When you take an oath you might raise your right hand. You also might sign a notarized agreement.
The next time you make a promise try doing what one of the servants of Abraham did. It might create an interesting situation I will now quote the verse.
Genesis 24:9
"So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore an oath to him concerning this matter."
I believe that this was a normal occurrence in those days. When you swore an oath to someone you put your hand under their thigh. I don't believe that Abraham made his servants do creepy stuff or anything like that. However, you wonder where exactly this servant put his hand and if Abraham was wearing undergarments.
These days, if you swore an oath to someone like Abraham's servant did, you would get into a lot of trouble.
This proves that there are some funny things that happen in the bible. It is not a completely dull and boring book. I think the old testament is way more interesting than the new testament. Many people dismiss the old testament as irrelevant. I believe these people are really missing out.

Loci Method

I recently discovered a really cool way to memorize stuff. I learned about it in the most recent National Geographic. It is called the Loci Method and it has been used for centuries by succesfull memorizers.
According to Cicero it was developed in ancient Greece by a man named Simonides. The legend states that Simonides was at a dinner party and had to step outside for some reason. While he was outside the building collapsed and killed everyone inside of it. The bodies were unreconizable. Simonides was able to identify the bodies by going around through the building and remembering where everyone was when he left.
The method is very simple. First, you think of a place that you are very familiar with. Next, you mentally walk through it and think of distinct locations. I used my house. I started at my bedroom door and came up with loci along the route. My locations are as follows:

1. Bedroom door
2. Attic door
3. my sister Ruth's room
4. my sister Laura's room
5. The light at the top of the steps
6. the point where the banister begins on the steps
7. the front door.

Make sure that you can easily remember the route. The next step is to associate what you have to remember with the locations. I have been very succesfull with memorizing my spanish vocab words using this method. To recall the information you just mentally stroll through your route and recall what you have stored at the different loci. Give it a try, it works better than you might think.

Don't let people write on you!

I encounter a lot of funny and random things in my life. This is just a minor example. I believe that it classifies as both funny and weird.
So, I was sitting in my Spanish I class on Friday. The teacher was gone and we had the usual busy work packet. I got to work and was making good progress. Suddenly, I heard muffled grunting and the sound of a chair being moved awkwardly back and forth across the floor behind me. I know that some people have problems with Spanish, but this was a bit much. I turned around and asked the dude what his problem was. He said he needed a pen. I gave him my pen in the hope that the caveman like noises would stop. I thought that if the guy was upset enough to grunt and scoot his chair around on the floor then he could certainly borrow my pen. At the time, I thought that the guy might have some kind of mental problem. I felt sorry for him. I hoped that my pen would help to calm his neurotic anxiety. I had just turned around and resumed my work when the grunting and scooting resumed. I turned around to see the grunting chair scooter awkwardly trying to mark something on his arm. He was having a really hard time. I asked him what his problem was, and then he showed it to me. It was one of the most embarrassing things that I have ever seen. Someone had drawn a very obvious penis on the back of the guy's arm. He could not reach it to mark it out. Who ever did it must have been very cunning. I applaud their ability to draw a penis on someone where they can't reach it. I also congratulate them on drawing it in an easily visible spot. I offered to help. I started to scratch out the penis. I was about halfway done when he yelped slightly and swatted me away. His face looked like I had been branding him with a hot iron. He said that he couldn't stand it anymore. I didn't know a Pilot G2 was that torturous. Apparently, it was to him. As far as I know, he spent the rest of the day with two large and visible balls on the back of his arm. I end my story with one of my rules to live by. Don't let people draw things on you, especially penises.

orchestral trombone playing versus playing in band

I had a concert with my youth symphony last Saturday. I am in the trombone section. At the concert we noticed something very interesting. More about that later.
Now, playing trombone in an orchestra is slightly different from playing in a band. First, You have to be able to play dynamic extremes. This means being able to play very loud as well as very soft. Coming from a small band, this was a bit of a challenge for me at first. I had the soft playing down but the loud took some getting used to. My first year, I could not believe how loud that I had to play. If I played with the same volume I do in orchestra back in band I would be murdered. Second, you have to play much higher and much lower than you do in band. On the low extreme, I have had parts that go down to a pedal A. I have seen a high e flat as well. Both of these extremes were in one piece. The low extreme was in the 2nd trombone part for Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique. The high extreme was in the 1st trombone part of the same piece. Third knowledge of clefs is also very important. I have had music in bass, tenor, alto, and treble clef. Knowledge of tenor and bass clef is required. You will find that you will not be able to get away from alto and maybe treble clef. In Dvorák's eighth symphony, he writes both tenor trombone parts in alto clef. Flor Peters will occasionally go to treble clef in some of his chamber music. However, I think that might just be Flor. Lastly, time is a major issue in an orchestra. This is the interesting thing that I hinted about at the beginning. Sunday afternoon, the orchestra played a very difficult piece. It almost fell apart several times but the conductor got us through it. In the rehearsal before the concert the conductor told us that we were dragging. To our ears it sounded like we weren't. We soon discovered that the more we listened and tried to stay with the orchestra the worse the problem got. It finally came down to not trusting our ears and watching the conductor. We had to stay way on the front side of the beat in order to stay in time. We were not very successful at doing this. When we felt the orchestra begin to fall apart we listened more and stopped watching. This only exacerbated the problem. The moral of the story is, if you sit on the back of the stage you will have time problems. my next entries will go into each of the aspects of orchestral playing that I talked about.

Greetings

I am an 18 year old senior in high school. I spend a lot of time in band and orchestra. I also try to find ways to move smoothly through life. This blog will be about my various interests. topics will include: funny stories, music, general interests, trombone, and life in general.