It's music to my ears

Omg, omg omg omg! I just went for band practice and it was awesome! (Waves hands in the air... freaking out in a good sort of way.)

So I joined the Santa Monica College Concert Band, thanks to our friend, Mark Painter (Fred's ex-coworker), for recruiting me. Touched a FRENCH HORN for the first time in like a gazillion years. Oh how I missed you, dear friend.

I really didn't know what to expect, but it worked, It worked! Thank goodness I still have it... a little rough, though... ok, very rough. The pieces weren't exactly beginner stuff and I did, not play for years, you've got to give me that.

My ears are so bad. Can't get the pitches right like I used to. Felt like the first couple of weeks I was playing the french horn. But I have to say, I'm proud of myself for remembering how to get a great sound.

I can still feel the buzz in my lips, ouch. It hurts, but it hurts so pleasently.

Now I have a real reason to beg for a french horn. All donations accepted. =) Know anyone selling their old mouthpieces?

Ghost

Smitten

It's one of these common knowledge things you don't remember where you learned or why it stuck. You don't know why you remember that image of a praying mantis decapitating its mate... Did you read about it somewhere? Was it one of your older cousin's attempts at trying to impress you with his wealth of worthless amazing facts? Maybe it's that nature documantary you watched at your grandma's house when you were a kid.

Whichever it was, I thought it's a good time to revisit this subject... got the itch for some compulsive googling.

The internet tells me there are over 2000 species of mantises. Some engage in sexual cannibalism more often than others. Those that do, apparently, are responsible for giving those that don't a bad rep.

Although the praying mantis is insanely famous for its cannibalistic mating process, in actuality it only occurs 5-31% of the time. Especially in laboratory conditions of bright lights and confinement, the female is more likely to be a bitch and eat the male. They do it as means of survival.

Or do they? Hmmm... more like femminist-extermist terrorists masquerading as survivalists.

It's a real fake youtube thing

Did your world fall apart the day you discovered lonelygirl15 was neither lonely nor 15? Well then, now is a good time to reinforce your skull with some brain-splatter-proof material.

This just in. NoHoGirls and WeHoGirls are really as real as Ashlee Simpson's face. Why, oh why must you do this to me.

And why is this important? Some day when you get that PhD in media theory with a concentration in chicks-doing-stuff-for-webploitation you will thank me. Until then, us common folk will just have to keep watching those videos for intellectual stimulation. Somebody please make more of these movies, my life is in dire need of more fulfillment.

saw it at laist

Don't jinx it

People on the radio reminded me that it's my lucky day... it was quite normal otherwise.

Sounds like?

And that's how we rolled out of bed laughing.

I wanna be like the USA

According to the BBC: Ms Rice again ruled out direct talks between Washington and North Korea. "Why are the North Koreans so insistent that there be bilateral talks? "

Don't speak american? Ok, here's the translation: Diplomacy is so un-american because only sissies talk. Besides, North Koreans didn't even bother to learn English. Where's China, Japan and Russia when you need them... Jesus Christ. Until your nukes are as good as ours, don't come back.

Incidentally this week's word for illustration friday is "trouble." And no, I'm not going political on you.

Quote of the day

Came across a quote today and thoughts led to how it's a pretty good summation of why I'm against DRM.

Immature artists imitate, mature artists steal."

Lionel Trilling
literary critic

After all, something informs everything.

Unless you've never read a book, seen a movie, watched tv, or interacted with anything other than yourself. (Human beings are things too, ok.) At this point, if I offended any blog reading amoebae, I'm sorry. Should have known that even amoeba aren't spared by the media.

My favourite quote on this subject is still one by the guy who taught me about it.

Stop intellectual property from infringing on me."

Fred LeMaster
cute geek boy

As always, don't let me give your all the rong ideas. Go get your own.

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Wikipedia article

Draw this

Beach

Summer's gone. Sadness. You can tell by the amount of people at the beach. And by seeing me shivering like a chihuahua in the mid afternoon sun... brrr. No, I'm not crazy, just evolved for survival in hot tropical conditions.

Fred and I decided to head out to what we call the "Culver Beach." Near the mouth of Marina del Rey where Culver Blvd ends. Wanted to relive our art school days and see if our gesture drawing skills died.

The lack of choice picks of interesting characters left us with mostly the environment to work with... if I didn't absolutely have to thnk about these things, I usually avoid them as much as I can. I'm scared as hell of drawing things that have no eyes and are infinitely larger than me, aka landscapes and architechture.

So big and intimidating! How on Earth am I supposed to fit all that crap on my piece of paper. So much stuff, all that detail, eyes hurt, brain hurt... argh. It's like, you think about it and you marvel at how the Impressionists did what they did.

Got to let go, got to let go... and in that spirit, I composed something really quick out of the first things I saw before I had a chance to decide to just call it quits. (And Fred was doing such a good job concentrating on his sketch book... I didn't want to look bad in public.)


The results were suprizingly good. It felt good at least. I actually enjoyed drawing that building. A lot. Fred had to make me stop before I start ruining it by... I don't know, putting in the bird poop that that flock of birds deposited on the ground?

Quiet

Give a girl a tablet

I stole Fred's new tablet and it's my new best friend.
Magic, magic, I say. It cures procrastination.

The people at the local library are going to be happy. It's a thingy for their career section that I've been putting off for a while. Now it's done!