Eek

Tuesday, July 25 2006
25:40

I was shocked tonight to discover, while entering my receipts into my accounting program, my birth date on a grocery store receipt. The receipt had faded (which they do if they stay crumpled too long), but after scanning it in and enhancing the image, it was pretty clear that it said "Birth" followed by a date – including the day of the week, which was correct. And it was my birthday. I can only guess right now that it was a glitch in their debit card auth system that somehow caused that info to print (I'm not sure why any terminal would need that info, but am not too surprised that it'd be accessible).

Not so hot out today. Actually cool and breezy this morning – awoke at 6:45 in a very tense and chilled state, as all the windows were open. Yesterday was hot, and despite the fact that the cooler weather arrived around 10 PM, I came home at 11:30 to an oven of an apartment.

Decided to feel out the "preferred lender" for the condos – who advertise the ability to lock-in an interest rate now, despite the long time until closing. Of course, their rates aren't very good (a quarter percent higher than comparable ARMs from my first choice, and the same as #1's 30y fixed). After a few days talking to the rep, I left a message tonight indicating that I wasn't going to bite just yet. I think rates might not go up much between now and October, and so hopefully worst-case is I get the same rate from some other lender when the time comes.

I don't like the sound my car makes when I accelerate, it's a bit raspy like there are some loose valves or something. It's not bad, just not something I think a car with 18k miles on it should be doing.

Took a few things to Goodwill on Sunday: two record players, a VCR, a large bag of clothes, and a chair.

car music: Gtrrstrfe; Crimson

p.s. that reminds me – the guy at Subway on Sunday stared at my chest w/ a funny look for about 10 seconds (I had on the red Discipline t-shirt), then said, "Where'd you get that shirt?". I said at their show a few years ago. "OK, that's what I figured, but . . . yeah, I saw them last year. . . or at least one of those bands, they all use some variation on that name, King Crimson, the Crimson King, or whatever. . . . . . so, are they Celtic folk? No? Like metal or something?".

Sunday

Sunday, July 9 2006
24:58

Was just watching TV (the "Band Camp" movie. . .dumb and predictable, but still funny. Oh, and I wonder how many people will catch the Bolero rip-off before they mention it at the end.), and thought for a second that one of the actresses may have been someone I knew once. Nope. But Googled her anyway out of curiosity. All I found was that apparently she was one of the models in The Stranger's annual "Strangercrombie Gift Catalog" features. Hmm.

A pretty lazy day today. Watched some TV (ah, mentioned that already). Got some Chinese take-out from the Thriftway. Took a chance, and it was much better this time than the last time. It looks like the QFC next to the new condo will be torn down some time in the near future – not sure when – and then rebuilt w/ some sort of housing (I've heard condos, I've heard apartments) above it. The Notice board was posted in 2004 I think. Huh. Speaking of which, I'm curious to find out what the condemned house a couple blocks up on 24th is all about. No luck on Google there.

And, moving one block North of that: there's a sign at the Java Bean saying, "Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy". I laughed when I first read it. Then today I got an email from a family member w/ a picture of a similar sign in some place far away. Apparently, it's a pretty old joke. Oh well, the Java Bean staff aren't quite as cool as I thought they were, but it's still funny.

apt. music: Dead Can Dance - Into the Labyrinth

7/4

Tuesday, July 4 2006
26:51

A thoroughly enjoyable 4th of July. Slept in, then spent some time at home doing a little work, then taking a look at Triangulation and what it'll take to arrange / present that to the group. So much of that piece fits certain patterns, but there are two little interludes, that don't. Much more just going with the flow – "something different needs to be here". One result of that is it takes almost as much text to describe these short sections as it does to describe the entire fugue section. For some reason, the original MIDI file begins in an odd key. I'm thinking about shifting that down a half step. It modulates several times, so it may not matter that much, but at least for the initial presentation I think it'll go down a bit more easily if it's mostly "white keys".

Anyway, then up to the Gibson/Gray residence for their annual rooftop bash. It was wild, in the "six children making complete chaos of the place" sort of way. It rained off and on, so we spent a good amount of time inside. Was dry for the fireworks though. Some new effects in there that were really nice. I described one as "like time-lapse photography of mold growing". But I meant it in a good way. Stuck around for an hour or so after the fireworks, waiting for traffic to clear. It didn't, really, still going strong on Stone way until after midnight. But luckily I just had to cross that once, and 99 was pretty clear.

car music: Tony Williams Lifetime – The Collection; Rush - Exit, Stage Left

Not the End of the World

Friday, June 30 2006
25:43

Officially it's actually July now. At least in this time zone. Pretty hot again today. Almost started sweating going out to get some dinner, walking on the sidewalks and hot asphalt.

Whipped up a new WolframTone just now. Doesn't sound very good on the phone itself, but I like the MIDI. I wonder if there are / have been any WolframTone "contests" out there. I'd enter a few of those.

The whole Eon8 thing was weird. I heard about it only yesterday via something on www.ytmnd.com. Not too surprisingly, the whole thing is a hoax. Well, an "experiment". There's no hoax really because they never actually gave out any information or indication of anything which could be considered falsifiable.

Watched Aeon Flux tonight. Eh. It was OK. Didn't really have much of what made the cartoon interesting.