Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in wmur_fm's LiveJournal:

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Friday, August 1st, 2008
5:37 pm	Chicago I was talking about how downtown Chicago was all busy and crowded and crazy due to a festival. then someone said this: [someone] chicago festivals aren't so bad [someone] usually they revolve around either food or gays, or both (Comment on this)
Sunday, May 4th, 2008
9:08 am	music I went to a musical concert last night. I had nothing planned for a Saturday night, or better said, I had planned to stay in, watch a DVD and make a deep dish pizza. But around 8:00 p.m. I got a little too restless, so I looked around and decided to go to a local nightspot to see music. The headliner was decent, folksy/country named Joe Pug, and the band before him was jokey kind of alternative, somehwere like Ween meets TMBG, but more normal than either or those two. But the opener was the one worthy of note. Helen Money. She plays the cello. The cello looks like your standard cello you'd expect to see at the symphony, but she has a rather amazing set of effects peddals for it. She would set up a sample loop and record a bass line or a rhythm-track riff, and then once that was in place she would play over it. ALl this with so much distortion that the celloness of the cello was not recognizeable. She was basically making the sound of an entire band all by herself. It was a pretty neat technique, and very gutsy. She had a cold stage presence to reallly make it work. She was all business, the affect was: I am putting my all into this. It was only when she reached down to adjust a pedal could you see her hand shaking a little. I am not even particularly recommending her music, but it was enough of an unusualment that I had to put it to words somewhere. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 10th, 2008
11:10 pm	Guitar 1, class 2 I am moving this off the main LJ since I can post my obsessive things in this LJ. THe second class was even more fun than the first class, if that is possible. Five people did not show up from last week, pretty typcal in such settings. I got there early and chatted with a woman from Guitar 2, she was pretty nice, and said she never practices but still gets a bunch out of class. She gave me the tip tht it is super important to know the chords. We only had 2 chords from last week, so it ws not hard, but she said to keep working on the chords you do not use that often, too, since it will help a lot as you learn more. And since sometimes a chord might only appear once in a song, and it is good to have that ready to go rathe than be sidelined by somthing simple. I am trying to figure out how to explain the class, since most of the stuff we learn is stuff you cannot realy explain in print. I had tried to learn from a book last year and did not get too far. ANd here I was already having a lot of fun aftr just two classes. I guess the overarching philosophy is "just play." ANd we'd jump into things. If oyu did not get it right, then that is fine, play what you can, and work on the rest between classes. We did 20 minutes just on tuning, getting everyone in tune, but the instructor had neat tips even for that. And he showed us some shortcuts for things that will not be something we will have to deal with for a while. Maybe that is what I am trying to say here. It was not all stodgy and keeping it simple all the time, more advenced stuff was mentioned that we cannot fully get yet, but that will be neat down the line. The after jam was super fun. We got two new songs, Every Rose Has Its THorns, by Poison --- way too hard to play for a 2nd week student, just too quick for the chord changes, but the chorus is very playable, so I got that part down, and "shooting star" I am blanking on the band, but you all know it "don't you know that you'll be a shooting star, and all the world will love you jsut the same" or some such lyrics. The upper classes were all drunk, and passing out beer and the instructors were letting off steam and made sure everyone was singing along. Woooooo, a lot of fun. ANd now I have a lot to practice for next week. (this past week I only had 2 chords, now I have a handful, and a whole lot of concepts to work on.) Party on! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008
5:47 pm	bagel, attempt 2 I am posting this here just for my later benefit. THis batch went better than the first time I made bagels, though those were really good, too. This was my first time using the full recipe for dough. Six cups of flour instead of three, so I am getting a little more confident in my bread abilities. I used two key differences from last time, and that is I used some Splenda in the mix and I added dry powdered milk. The milk difference is quite noticeable, it is a lot moister. I did the pre-rest and mid-knead rest again and that made for a much more integrated final texture to the bagels. I also used a lot more egg wash. Too much, really, but it coated a lot more evenly. Sure I had to throw out maybe 2 eggs worht of warsh, but the result was quite good. I salted half of these after the wash, and since it was only the tops I am not sure it was all that great an idea. I might put some salt in the egg warsh next time, but I am not sure. Four bagels deflated after the first half-bake, and were way too dense, maybe even uncooked, and were tossed. But the other 15 turned out super well. I still have to see how they are when cooled. Last time the became more like normal bagels after cooking. But hot at pure Heaven (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 29th, 2007
12:57 am	Venetian Night I went to Venetian Night with B/C. This has been an event in Chicago for 50 years now, but most Chicagoans don't know about it. it is a boat paradae followed by fireworks. The boats are all decorated up like in a regular parade and then they putter along blasting music in the Monroe harbor, which is a little over a mile long and holds hundreds of thousands of people watching. Before we went B/C sounded a bit dubious about it being fun. "I'll watch five of the boats and then take a nap and wait for the fireworks." But in reality she ended up likeing it even more than I did, and I have loved Venetian Night for over 25 years. I brought a blanket and we found a place under some trees, which sounds like a bad way to see fireworks, but it worked out. She got nachos and a smoothie, I just brought water. So the boat parade started, and B/C got way into it. As listed earlier I am taking Salsa lessons and she is considering taking lessons with me. And so tonight we would dance to the music the boats played from the floats. Like a Blues Brother float would go by playing "Sweet Home Chicago" and we'd dance to that. I dance like a dork, and B/C likes to point that out, she even does an amusing imitation of my dancing, and she tried to show me some dance moves, and then she'd laugh when I did them dorkily. So I just started making up different dance moves to each new boat float that sailed by. She was excited when one float did "Who let the dogs out," which was a theme song to the Cleveland football team. So to give you an idea of the fun we were having. At one point a woman came up to us and asked to take a photo of us. She said we looked like we were having so much fun. And of course we were. After the boat parade, as we were sitting back down, B/C said, "I am never leaving Chicago!!!! This is my Utopia. I am not leaving here even for vacations." She decided that next year it would have to be a bigger event and we should invite others to come with us, and maybe even show up at 3:30 in the afternoon and get a primo spot right on the water. We were on the other side of the pedestrian path so it was hard to see the boats with all the people, even for me whom is tall. The fireworks started and it was a really good show. Most people don't know that it is better fireworks display than the July 4th fireworks pretty consistantly. They timed it to music with a local angle: Sufjan Stevens, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. And it was neat. We took a long way home so that we would not have to stand the whole el trip back and by the time we made the train B/C was in somewhat of a bad mood. But overall it was neat to see her having so much fun. And I had a really neat time myself. The end. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 19th, 2007
7:56 am	Dance lessons Tuesday I took my first-ever dance lesson. It did not go very well. I'll try to post about it later. [This entry is a Stub and in need of expansion.] (Comment on this)
Monday, July 16th, 2007
3:44 pm	That is Venus Pointing to the bright light in the western sky just after sunset and saying, "That is Venus," makes you cool and knowledgeable. Adding, "It's a planet," makes you the biggest asshole of all time. To the extent that whenvever you say something obvious, for the rest of oyur life, like "Those are called Segways," when you are in Millenum Park, she will say, "Oh, are those a kind of planet?" (Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
7:47 am	A nice deed The women in the library yesterday did a nice deed for me. I had checked out five books from the main library downtown three weeks ago, and yesterday they were a day overdue. These books were all in various languages and nothing I could reasonably finish in three weeks, so nothing I felt guilty about having so long, but also books I wanted to finish, and a trip downtown seemed silly since I have what I need, just needed more time. I handed the library woman my card and told her I had five books and they were all overdue and that I wanted to pay the fine (10 cents per book, per day) and renew all five of them. She gave me that look, the "Five books all overdue? Sheesh." I sheepishly said, "They are just a day overdue." I felt kinda guilty. And she punched up my account in the computer. And she looked at the list and her expression changed jsut a little, or maybe I imagined it. I imagine she was expecting them to be James Patterson books and not books in French and German. And she then said, "They are not overdue at all, and I just renewed them, they are due now July 23." So basically she renewed the books and through some magical library wizardry she waved the fines for me. I smiled and sort of played along as though she had done nothing special, but I was sure to thank her. And it was cool she had done that, and cooler still that she was looking out for me and did not want to make a big deal of it. The end. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, May 27th, 2007
2:21 pm	notes from the last weekend in April Things I learned in the last weekend in April. 1. If you call your sister a "ho," even in jest, and even in passing, she will remember it the next day (and for weeks to come) and ask her friend five diffeent times if it really happend, despite the fact that your sister was drunk and cannot remember anything else from that night, including what bar you had been to. 2. Pirates of the Carribean 2 is a much better movie the second time around -- it helps a lot to watch it at a friend's home where you can leave to take a pee or pet a ferret or get a caffeine-free Diet Dr Pepper while the person paying attention keeps watching. It also helps to yell out "PAUSE" now and then and talk out just what the hell happened and "Wait, it that the guy who was on the ship, or is that the guy from the Governor's men?" 3. Ferretone -- there are two ways to say it. Ferret Tone. Ferret One. And if you say it the "wrong" way [though how it is technically spelled), the person you are with will be miffed at first, and then downright angry as you persist. 4. Two biscuits = bliss. Three biscuits = barf. (Figuratively [just barely figuratavely.]) 5. It is possible to have an argument about whether it is day or night out, even when you are both standing outside on a deck with a clear view of the sky. 6. It is not okay to say "pee" loudly in a supermarket [me], even when no one is nearby. But it *is* okay to say, "blowjob" with an eldery Asian woman trying to get past [B/C]. 7. Garlic bread sticks at Father and Son Pizza sound great on the menu -- but they look like dried crouton twigs when brought to the table. 8. But they are awesome goodness to eat. MMmmmmMMMMM. 9. The Walmart website -- which includes directions and maps -- does not descriminate between stores that already exist, stores being built, and stores which will not be built for many years to come. Turns out you have to know already if the store exists, and whether it is open. 10. If the sexy cashier at Borders gets all excited at the TPB comic book you are buying, way out of proportion to what it is, she is flirting with you. (This is something I wish I had leared right then and there and not have had it explained to me many hours later.) 11. It takes two people and a lot of hitting of the pause button to make any sense out of Pirates of the Carribbean 2, even when one of the viewers is paying anything like attention to the movie. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 28th, 2007
7:58 am	I nailed Sencha Adagio sencha tea is a very tricky tea to brew. It comes out so bitter if done the standard 3 minute steep at 180 degrees. The past week I have been playing with steep times. 3:00 is way too bitter. 2:22 is prefect flavor but way too watery. I have pushed the steep time just a little each time I tried it and I finally hit today upon 2 minutes and 32 seconds as the right balance to get body and not burn it. I also was playing with more than one variable, and added mayb 40% more tea leaves than I usually do. So I am going to pretty much stick with this. I even wrote all this down since there is no way I will remmeber it all. Sencha is really not worth all the extra effort in itself. But it is good to have another tea in one's arsenal. We greens have so few teas to work with. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
10:55 pm	30 books I have read 5 German books this year, and I want to read 30 for the entire year. So I figured 10 books every 1/3 of the year and I'd be on pace. I read 0 books in January, since I was reading a 900 page book. And so I did the math and I saw, "yikes I have to read 5 more books by the end of March to be on target." And so I went to the library and I got a whole bunch of short books, just to get me up to speed, and I should be able to read 5 more by the end of March. But then I was doing the math in my head...jan..feb...march... that is three months, and 1/3 of the year is four months. So by the end of march I am on track to read 40 German-language books this year. The end. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 7th, 2007
9:00 pm	the rain the rain has caused an accidental nap. Out on the balcony and the rain is still falling. it was falling last ngiht when I arrived, and it is still now in the morning. the cold is not too bad, just damp and unpleasant, maybe miserable, but nothing too bad. I hear the rain near, as it falls on the windows of the other apartments, and the balcony above me, and at my feet on the damp concrete. And on the trees, not far off, but they seem so far below as to be another land. rain in the trees. constant sound. thuming and drumming. nothing too bad, a white noise, gentle and lulling. the air is cool enough to turn my breath to smoke; my feet are numb from the cold balcony. but I stand out here and listen to the rain, fall fall, drum, tinkle. rain. I know the sun is up, but the sky looms grey all around. I think it will always be grey. it is always grey. I am awake before everyone for as far as i can see. which I know cannot be true. but no one stirs outside. and the people inside are still asleep. which is why I am out here, on a cold balcony. The only man alive. in a world of rain. of grey. and the water keeps falling. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 22nd, 2007
2:25 pm	nonsense with German This post is not going to make a lot of sense. I posted last week that I was reading a book without a dictionary and I was amazed at how well things were progressing. Well, the next day or the day after or something, I decided that I was wrong, and that really I was just looking at words on the page and looking at page after page -- I convinced myself that I was not really "getting" that book which I was reading just in pure German. I returned that book to the library after reading about 120 pages. It took a week or longer to find another book to read. I started maybe eight books and each seemed too hard. Finally I found this other book that is at a Freshman in high school level of writing. And as I read it I find that if I go at jsut the right speed I don't need a dictionary for this either. I can pretty much figure out words from context. So now I am thinking that I need to finish the other book I gave up on last week. That maybe my original assessment of last week's book was correct and I was "getting" the book. But I don't know what the book was called nor its author. I hope the library has a record of what I have checked out so I can find it again. What weird problems I have. (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 21st, 2007
5:55 pm	Things to not say Things to not say to a woman. "I heard Snoop Dogg on the radio the other day and I thought of you." (Comment on this)
1:37 am	toilets Once your toilet has flooded You will never go back to unflooded toilets (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 18th, 2007
10:13 pm	Love Love is a game played by fools full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. -- Bard of Avon (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 11th, 2007
3:26 pm	German I reached a new level in German, and pretty much by accident. I am reading a book with a lot of descriptive stuff in it. The plot moves very slowly since it describes stuff like a trip in an elevator that takes over a page of stuff like "the ring of light ignighted around her finger as she pressed for the ground floor." And I got tired of looking up all this vocab since it is not furthering the plot. And the weird thing is that I am getting it anyway. A lot of the stuff I can guess what it means in context, or I had seen it before and if I just press myself a little I can remember what it means, and some of the stuff is cognates from within German itself. I can take apart a word and figure it out from parts of other words. Which is not something that is safe to do in German, since there are so many exceptions, but so far it is working fairly well. I have read about 25 pages today without opening the dictionary once. And the other part of this is that I finally see an end to the vocabulary. I have enough vocabuilary now that it no longer seems endless. I mean, there are tons and tons of words I still need to know, but it all feels manageable. I am at the point where I see the language about to level out in front of me, where I see using the language instead of acquiring it, it is not feeling like a big climb up a mountain, but more like a stroll across a long plateau. And it is a pretty neat place to be. And also I am going to start thinking of getting a German to German dictionary, instead of a bi-lingual one, and then stay in German all the time. I really think it is way too early to go this way all together. I mean I could prolly do it, but it would be more a stunt to say I can rather than something I could be comfortable with. But in six months or a year, I can see this being a real way to read German. And I might as well get a dictionary and play around with it and learn its ins and outs a little so when I am ready for it I will have it. Okay, too much typing. And too much German. Good thing only two people read this LJ. (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 14th, 2006
9:58 am	sometimes Sometimes I can see the way I want to go, the way I want my life to be. At this point they are only small glimpses, and then they go away and I only see the direction they lay in and not the path itself. Then the noise comes back and I am back to who I am. When I see the flashes it is wonderful how good it can be. And at this point I know I can do it. But it is so so hard. it is so much easier to do the things to block out a happy life, rather than pursue it. But that is not working for me. I saw this movie about Mt Everest and it made a huge impression on me. I had used to think I wanted to climb Mt Everest, but then I saw the insane amount of work and determination it would take. Now that sounds like I don't want to do anything hard. But really it is just Mt Everst that I don't want to climb. I also took from this movie that... wait, let me explain. So they are climbing the mountain, and it is this huge, big mountain. ANd they want to give up, and I want to give up for them. But though it makes no sense to them at all at the time, they have programmed their brain to just take one more step. We are talking maybe three steps a minute. Super slow. But they take the step and it is done on faith that if they stand there or go back then nothing much will happen. But if they take the next foot forward and pull themselves up, they will get to the goal eventually. So I took that from there. That even if I don't want to put that foot forward or go in that direction, I have the game plan enough in my head that I can move the foot forward and then the next, and I know that it will be worth it eventaully, no matter how much pain it is now. Wow, I really did not mean to type this much, I must he trying to explain it to myself and now you all. And sorry for not being able to navigate around the cliches in the language, sadly it is all apt, no matter how misguided it has become wrongly-used in our mainstream mangling. -- here, i can write the original post a lot more succinctly now: I have no idea what I am doing, but I know I am heading in the right direction. -- even better: My rule for life right now, You know how you can sometimes see that person standing where you want to be standing? Go that way. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 19th, 2006
7:47 pm	El girl book I decided I would not go home tonight until I had some sort of social interaction. Any kind would do really, except maybe a cashier chat; that would not count. Well, I was on the first train, and really only ten minutes into the El ride and this really attractive woman asked if I was reading "The Lathe Of Heaven." She knew this from seeing only the *back* cover of the book, which is pretty darned impressive. I am getting better at unexpected chats and I was able to ask her a few things, mostly normal stuff, but I still need to throw in oddball questions to keep the conversation going. My oddball one tonight was when she said she used to read a lot when younger but does not have time now, I asked was that because she had kids now. Sort of a odd question for me to ask and a bit forward. But it kept things moving. She told me how much she loved the book and had read it over and over when younger. At one point she decided maybe I was reading the copy she had read many years ago, and I handed the book over to her but the random inscription inside the front cover did not match her name. Then she said she had sold the book in California. She insisted I read The Disposessed, too, and so I asked her for a pen and and wrote the name on my bookmark. She had a toothbrush in her purse more readily available than a pen. I found that odd. That was about that. I then read for the last three minutes of that train's ride to the transfer station. I did make a point to turn around and say goodnight to her when I got off that train. As a side note, this book was given to me by Heather in Minneapolis this past weekend, but I forget what we had been talking about that was important enough for her to give me her book. But it is a pretty darned good book so far, and based on Traingirl's reaction it will get even better. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005
11:35 am	IT And the rain fell for several days. Wet dark clouds. Farmers working in the ricey fields would toil away pulling out weeds by hand with the water sloshing around their feet and the water rolling off their hats. And the tigers came out of the hills and walked around the towns, occasionally eating a field worker. And then came the dry season and the fields of rice dried up, no weeds needed to be picked, and the lions lay dead in the street, and all was quiet. But then came the Jonguliers, singing their songs of good times, and all the farmers and field workers were happy -- if only for a little while. (Comment on this)