I think it's time to start practicing guitar again. I've pretty much abandoned serious practicing since I realized I'll never have the patience to become half as fast as Yngwie or Steve or John or even Jimmy, who's the best even if he wasn't the fastest. But practicing seems to be correlated with improvement. Time to investigate that correlation.
Moonwalking practice is going pretty well, or so claims the wall-length mirror on the wall-length wall in my student's house. My student claims otherwise but I think I see the gliding coming through. I wish I could set a 5 second time delay on the mirror so I could see myself from my student's intertial frame of reference. Mirror scientists, you know what to do.
I've been suffering from a cold the last few days, though suffering is a wild exaggeration. More like perpetually inconvenienced. Meaning my nose opens its floodgates during the day to prevent bihandular typing, seals the doors with a vacuum seal at night to prevent shnobular breathing and my throat houses an evil little perpetual tickling machine which the laws of physics have yet to assuage. The only thing that's been out of the ordinary with this cold is that this time I'm being a good boy and taking some medicine. I have no idea what the medicine is; it was sent over by Yuan Yuan's mom, all I know is that it's blue. I also know that I haven't turned blue yet myself, though I've yet to inquire whether that's a good or bad sign. I'm also taking the usual anti-cold concoction prescribed by Professor Karlsson on the Roof: copious amounts of candy and faulty thermometers.
Showing posts with label guitar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guitar. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Guitarnapping
I had to say goodbye to my acoustic guitar today. It wasn't mine to begin with, though neither is it the person's whom I returned it to. A French guy named Cyril brought it to the hostel a bit less than a year ago and when he wasn't able to take it with him upon departure, left in his Spanish friend Alex's care. When Alex temporarily returned to Spain, he left it in the exquisitely carved hands of a Russian Jew named Mark. By pure coincidence, whatever Gibbs might say, that happened to be me. Alex came back a month or so ago and I've avoided broaching the subject of his guitar, figuring if he wanted it back he'd have to demand it from me explicitly. Yesterday he did just that so I begged a day's time to bid my farewells and recorded a couple songs today: Genetics and Strings. Hopefully at least one of them will offend someone. If not, I'm going to have to start looking for more radical viewpoints to write from. Like a vegan's or crack addict's...or a vegan crack addict's.
I also wrote another song today, about dieting. It's in first person from the point of view of a girl whose boyfriend is forcing her to lose weight by giving up sweets. With my affection for sugar, I have to classify that in the horror genre, PG-13 at the least.
The Trilene Knot...
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
...is the knot of the day. After this one there are only two left to learn before this trial is over. Medieval people had it right: there should be a healthy variety of torture devices at one's disposal. I'm psyched for my future suffering already, just let this one be over.
I also wrote another song today, about dieting. It's in first person from the point of view of a girl whose boyfriend is forcing her to lose weight by giving up sweets. With my affection for sugar, I have to classify that in the horror genre, PG-13 at the least.
The Trilene Knot...
image borrowed from animatedknots.com
...is the knot of the day. After this one there are only two left to learn before this trial is over. Medieval people had it right: there should be a healthy variety of torture devices at one's disposal. I'm psyched for my future suffering already, just let this one be over.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Good Luck Chun =)
Watched Kit Kittredge today. Finally, a movie that met expectations. Very low expectations. The popcorn, on the other hand, was exemplary. It was so good, we popped the family free refill cherry, and downed the second serving with forty minutes of trite overacted time-filler to spare. You know you're suffering when you begin to miss commercial interruptions.
Michelle is leaving us again. I know I know, I don't deserve it, who else gets two vacations a month? To celebrate, I have a date with Barnes and Noble's and then perhaps some hours of guitar inadequacy. Life is good.
Also going to try and get back to Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal which has been gathering dust on my harddrive. Not doing anything useful can be really time-consuming, and I've been neglecting my foreign language studies.
I think I might visit some of my relatives this week. They all suffer from a congenital defect called "family values," and risk getting a heartattack if kin enter their vicinity and don't drop by. I definitely don't want any dead family karma. Those tend to take revenge on you by manifesting as some horrible disease. You can hope it's merely physical like cancer and not truly insidious like "family values."
Less than two weeks left till I get to visit my girl! She's probably fainted twice reading the previous sentence, expecting horrible jokes on her account. If so, I hope today is not the morning of July 10th, and I haven't made her late for her date with the MCATs. Yes, yes, she's one of those - aspiring murderers. Steady hands, loves blood, kills your rabbits for free (I'll never let this one go), and refuses to settle for a lesser profession than sending people's insurance rates through the roof. But...that's all in the faaaaar future. For now, she's a little study-monkey, working her butt off to earn herself debts and slavery for the next X years. Aaanyway, por donde iba?...It's so easy to get distracted when people have ambitions to poke at. What I wanted to say...I think...was: let's all help her with a cheer. Join hands you homophobes...and:
Chun, Chun, she's our man,
Even studies on the can,
Verbal, physics, bio, chem,
Wait a minute...what the hell is she thinking? She's an electric engineer...ahhh!...must salvage the cheer...Good Luck Chun!
Michelle is leaving us again. I know I know, I don't deserve it, who else gets two vacations a month? To celebrate, I have a date with Barnes and Noble's and then perhaps some hours of guitar inadequacy. Life is good.
Also going to try and get back to Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal which has been gathering dust on my harddrive. Not doing anything useful can be really time-consuming, and I've been neglecting my foreign language studies.
I think I might visit some of my relatives this week. They all suffer from a congenital defect called "family values," and risk getting a heartattack if kin enter their vicinity and don't drop by. I definitely don't want any dead family karma. Those tend to take revenge on you by manifesting as some horrible disease. You can hope it's merely physical like cancer and not truly insidious like "family values."
Less than two weeks left till I get to visit my girl! She's probably fainted twice reading the previous sentence, expecting horrible jokes on her account. If so, I hope today is not the morning of July 10th, and I haven't made her late for her date with the MCATs. Yes, yes, she's one of those - aspiring murderers. Steady hands, loves blood, kills your rabbits for free (I'll never let this one go), and refuses to settle for a lesser profession than sending people's insurance rates through the roof. But...that's all in the faaaaar future. For now, she's a little study-monkey, working her butt off to earn herself debts and slavery for the next X years. Aaanyway, por donde iba?...It's so easy to get distracted when people have ambitions to poke at. What I wanted to say...I think...was: let's all help her with a cheer. Join hands you homophobes...and:
Chun, Chun, she's our man,
Even studies on the can,
Verbal, physics, bio, chem,
Wait a minute...what the hell is she thinking? She's an electric engineer...ahhh!...must salvage the cheer...Good Luck Chun!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Long Day
Mom's looking over my shoulder, so I can't unleash my full writing potential. Half will do.
Went to Hana's house today. They were definitely unprepared to entertain me. I was counting on at least some singing, money showering, and "we're not worthy"'s accompanied by heads banging against the floor, but all I got was a good meal and an even better serving of boooring. They all camped out in the den and watched a recorded Turkey-Germany soccer match, and no amount tears or begging succeeded in making them tell me to shut up and go home. I don't understand, if you have a match taped and can watch it any time, why would you ever watch it? Especially when I'm around waiting to be entertained.
Mom's learning Stairway to Heaven so she can go to Guitar Center and piss them off - all guitar stores have Stairway to Heaven on their blacklists. Luckily for them, she only practices once every couple of months, usually in different and not always consecutive years.
Chun studying for MCATs is reflecting poorly on my self-esteem. Every now and then, she'll come at me with a "hey, I've got a really easy question for ya...," just to make sure I feel like a moron when I can't even understand what it's asking. I of course proceed to do just that, and she has her fill of laughs. Then she leaves me and returns to her career-building, while I frantically shake my computer upside down so my tears don't short its circuits.
Michelle's having a sleepover today, so there are suddenly two Michelles in the house (her friend is also a Michelle). This is pretty much your classic domestic nightmare. Right now they're upstairs and judging from the sounds, they're either mudwrestling, practicing dropkicks, or sacrificing an uncooperative goat. I hear thud after thud, and lots of giggling that'll soon make its way downstairs, meet Mom, and seamlessly become sobbing if not screaming.
Went to Hana's house today. They were definitely unprepared to entertain me. I was counting on at least some singing, money showering, and "we're not worthy"'s accompanied by heads banging against the floor, but all I got was a good meal and an even better serving of boooring. They all camped out in the den and watched a recorded Turkey-Germany soccer match, and no amount tears or begging succeeded in making them tell me to shut up and go home. I don't understand, if you have a match taped and can watch it any time, why would you ever watch it? Especially when I'm around waiting to be entertained.
Mom's learning Stairway to Heaven so she can go to Guitar Center and piss them off - all guitar stores have Stairway to Heaven on their blacklists. Luckily for them, she only practices once every couple of months, usually in different and not always consecutive years.
Chun studying for MCATs is reflecting poorly on my self-esteem. Every now and then, she'll come at me with a "hey, I've got a really easy question for ya...," just to make sure I feel like a moron when I can't even understand what it's asking. I of course proceed to do just that, and she has her fill of laughs. Then she leaves me and returns to her career-building, while I frantically shake my computer upside down so my tears don't short its circuits.
Michelle's having a sleepover today, so there are suddenly two Michelles in the house (her friend is also a Michelle). This is pretty much your classic domestic nightmare. Right now they're upstairs and judging from the sounds, they're either mudwrestling, practicing dropkicks, or sacrificing an uncooperative goat. I hear thud after thud, and lots of giggling that'll soon make its way downstairs, meet Mom, and seamlessly become sobbing if not screaming.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Yesterday
Was invited to go to a wine/liquor tasting event in New York today. I declined, as I usually do most invitations, and instead sat at home and imbibed some Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal.
Michelle's steadily getting better at guitar, but more importantly, her patience is growing by leaps and bounds. She can now practice a song for 35 straight seconds before getting distracted by something shiny. What's even more amazing, there's a 50% chance that that shiny something is an item she already owns, and doesn't require me to drive her to buy immediately. These two put together explain the sharp drop in my frequency of driving to the store from 20 times/day 2 years ago to 4 times/day these days. The sneaky third factor is that she probably already has most of what's in most stores by now. I am slowly earning my freedom.
Still recovering from the emotional drain The Happening inflicted on me.
Michelle's steadily getting better at guitar, but more importantly, her patience is growing by leaps and bounds. She can now practice a song for 35 straight seconds before getting distracted by something shiny. What's even more amazing, there's a 50% chance that that shiny something is an item she already owns, and doesn't require me to drive her to buy immediately. These two put together explain the sharp drop in my frequency of driving to the store from 20 times/day 2 years ago to 4 times/day these days. The sneaky third factor is that she probably already has most of what's in most stores by now. I am slowly earning my freedom.
Still recovering from the emotional drain The Happening inflicted on me.
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