I have one fewer reason to use MacOS 9 anymore. Apple just released Mac OS 10.1.2 this evening, which adds PC Card support among other things. I have a drive that I use with a PC Card for backups and things. I still need Classic to sync my Visor and scan once in a while, but other than that I think I’ll be enjoying the crash-free beauty of OSX.
I found a free copy of The Economist from last week today at the library. After looking through it and reading some articles, I’m seriously considering subscribing. Unlike Newsweek and Time, it doesn’t leave me with that dirty feeling afterward. The articles are well-written so far as I’ve seen, and the worldwide coverage is refreshing.
If I do that, I still need to catch up on local news too. Sigh.
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There are many cats living in our neighborhood, some of which like to prowl around and keep the peace. There are probably three or four that we see regularly in our diminutive front yard or out back. Tonight as I was fetching a ladder from the basement, one of our regular visitors came over for some kitty lovin’.
Note 1: If you squint, it looks like I’m looking the opposite direction than I really am (down over my right shoulder). Fun!
Note 2: That hashing is something caused by the scaling algorithm in GraphicConverter, which is the best image converter on any platform, and a pretty good editor to boot. Were it not for this little strange problem, it would be among the few applications I consider perfect.
This photo was taken with a new camera I picked up a month ago. I spent a long time doing research, and this Olympus really seemed like what I wanted: great quality optics, full manual control, usb, everything I needed for less than $500.
In terms of overall photographic control and quality, you still can’t get the same from digital as you can from film for the same money. However, for around $1000 you can start wondering if you’ll ever use a film camera again. I’m certainly enjoying shooting photos whenever I like of whatever I like, not having to worry about film costs and processing. MacOS X has a very nice digital camera application that recognizes the camera as soon as I plug it in and turn it on, so the whole experience is very nice.
The other thing I’m beginning to discover about digital photography is the online communities surrounding it. Here are a few sites I’ve found that look very good if you’re interested in buying a digital camera, or learning how to use it.
http://www.dpreview.com/ - amazingly comprehensive reviews of cameras. Mine has not been reviewed by Mr. Askey, but many of the cameras I considered were, and this site has been tremendously helpful. The reviews are long and exhaustive, and usually have extensive galleries of sample photos to complement the quick comparison shots many sites offer. The forums are good too. http://www.dcresource.com/ - one of the other top review sites for digital cameras. http://www.imaging-resource.com/ - this site recommended the Oly2040 as the camera for an enthusiast on a budget. That’s me, and I have to agree. http://www.steves-digicams.com/ - more good reviews of digital cameras http://www.cliffshade.com/dpfwiw/ - a wonderful, if kind of poorly designed, site that has lots of information on digital photography. You’ll want to look at this site after you’ve purchased your camera. http://rpdfaq.50megs.com/ - the faq of the rec.photo.digital. Not the most up-to-date site, but still useful. http://groups.google.com/group/olympus_digicam/ - egroup for Olympus digicam users. This is where I discovered a trick to let my camera beat the specified limit for macro mode, cutting the distance to the subject from 8 inches to 2 or 3 inches!
One more thing: more book recommendations are up from both me and Lisa. I know you’re reading, share your finds.
I’m playing a couple gigs over the next week with Matt Brubeck and John Schott. They’re not super duper famous or anything, but they’re people that I and almost everyone else who lives here knows, so I’ve gotten the occasional very satisfying really?! out of people over the past day or two. It certainly is cool to get calls to play with people whose music I already know; it makes me feel like I’m arriving musically. They’re great players too, of course, which is the ultimate.
Everyone here is so nice to me. By and large, I only ever hear nice things about my playing. The critique that I get is always well thought-out, never mean, and usually on target. It’s pretty astounding, as I came to realize recently.
When I was in college, I played a decent amount, and people seemed to enjoy playing with me, but I definitely had a lot of insecurities. I didn’t feel like I got the respect that I get here. Certainly there were many people who were and are wonderful to me from there, but my experiences been overwhelmingly positive here.
It’s a combination of many things, I’m sure. I’m practicing and improving much more now because I’m spending more time and energy on music. I have a long way to go, certainly, but I’m much more satisfied with the time I spend. As a result, I’m a better player than I ever have been.
In addition, I’m in a much bigger area, with vastly more musicians to work with. In Pittsburgh, I wanted more than anything to be the first person people would call to play. When you have a few people who are all pretty good, though, it just boils down to who your closest buddies are, which in many cases wasn’t me. Even if I wasn’t playing on the gigs, the scene was small enough that I knew where everyone was playing, and knew when it wasn’t me they called, that I wouldn’t be playing. Out here, even if I’m not the first call, it doesn’t matter because there are so many cool people to play with, and almost everyone wants a good drummer. As long as I’m playing good music, it doesn’t matter if I’m the first or 27th drummer on someone’s list.
Of course, if I’m the first call on the lists of great players, so much the better.
And when did I become so long-winded, anyway?
Lisa is a great writer. I’ve mentioned this fact both to her and other people recently, but when I finally get the chance to read her new work (once I finally remember that there’s stuff for me to read, which takes a while), I get to think about it all over again.
Why is it literary journals make you jump through hoops, make you keep submitting work even though they probably don’t even read it if they don’t recognize your name? Why is it that for the first who knows how many submissions they just “reject” you? Lisa doesn’t complain about this stuff much, but I know it’s awful. So much of what you see published in these journals falls under the heading of TTBP: overly obscure “literature” that only other writers even bother to look at, let alone care enough to read and think about. There are certainly a lot of good writers out there too, but there’s too many of the other kind getting published while the good ones are trying to get in.
Is there any place for a good story anymore? I believe there is. I believe that even these journals that publish some crap will accept unpretentious, well-crafted stories like the ones Lisa writes, maybe even in spite of themselves. It will be good for them. Unfortunately, it’s going to take a little while for them to realize that she is “serious”, for them to recognize her name as someone who has submitted to them many times and yes, wants her work to appear there.
Just the same, it isn’t easy to send a piece of your heart and soul out into the cold, cruel world and have no affirmation from anyone but your beloved friends and family that you’re doing the right thing. Not that we aren’t worth a lot, far from it, but it’s hard to make a living on the kindness of your loved ones. Try as we might.
Moral of the story: writing is hard, and I have loads of respect for Lisa for sticking with it. Yeah, she loves to do it and she’s really good at it, but it’s still harder than most of the things I do all day.
Now it’s time for me to wait for her to see this and tell me how funny my writing is when it’s late at night. “Trav-elling! Ha ha ha!” As they say, “It’s a good thing you’re cute…”
Lisa has been telling me that I should put my portfolio back up. Har har. I guess that’s probably a good idea. My lame excuse for “sites I’ve done” is on the bookmarks page, but it really isn’t much. Sigh. Someday soon. At least I have the luxury of having enough to keep me busy not to need one desperately.
I played a quicky at the Jazzschool this afternoon. Three tunes, twenty minutes. I felt sort of dirty playing so fast a gig and then leaving. However, I had things to pick up following my lesson last Thursday, so we were on a mission. The Latin Real Book, and a Muñequitos CD are now in my queue of things to study.
Mac users: go grab a copy of Action Menus by PowerOn. It’s free from now through the end of the year, I think. I’ve been messing around with my Apple menu lately, and this is a pretty nice utility. Be sure to install it after rebooting with extensions off though. No, really.
I just finished my entry in Daniel’s (aka Waferbaby, and not my littlest brother) latest fusion project. My panel is number 45 out of 100. It will be a couple months before it’s finished, but it should be ridiculous. Check out existing fusions to amuse yourself before then.
While you’re there, look for a way to make his site look like mine. See if you can find it. I’ll give you a hint.
Happy birthday Mary!
Lots of cool stuff today. I booked plane travel for my brother to come out in February. Yay! He’s going to be doing a lot of traveling that month, but I figure he needs to get out here while he has the flexibility that being a student offers, as opposed to having a job. He should finally have a reasonable semester for his last as an undergrad. No more of this 6 classes, 3 labs foolishness.
I had a good lesson with Michael Spiro today. These go by fast, but I get a lot to work on. Clave is my friend, or will be I hope.
Lisa’s off to camp for a couple days tomorrow. Sigh. It’s good, of course, because it’s fun work that pays, but we both still look forward to when she’s back.
Woo hoo! Lisa and Google to the rescue!
Did I mention my little brother is cute?
Some pages on the site are going to look pretty funky. I realized what a terrible mess the stylesheets are that I use, so I’ve been trying to figure out a nice way to modularize all the code and make it work better. To help spur me on, I’ve deleted all the old ones. As I update pages, styles will return, but it might take a little bit.
I need to be more careful about this. I already wiped out my old bio page that I actually sort of liked. That’s what I get for having a local copy that’s way out of date. So, no link there for a while. There’s a new, improved music page that is somewhat informative now. It will get better too, I hope. The bookmarks are updated too, and now pr0n free (oaklandca.com apparently expired and is now used for debauchery, thus no more linkage).
How about this: look at my adorable little brother. They grow up so fast!
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