Sometimes we give little thought to having the basics: a home, heat, food. And many of us have much more than the basics.

I'm a basic beotch

-3 plus strong winds for my area tomorrow. Got my parka and thicc socks, so I'm ready for when the North Pole tries to come at me.

One of our department secretaries has two little girls, about four and one. She said, "Wanna see a mom fail pic?" She gave four year old adult coloring book by mistake, so her daughter did a great job coloring in the **** a Duck page in the book.

lol great story, encapsulates a lot about where we are now.

It made for a nice picture.

My daughter and a friend take their daughters to NYC to see a Harry Potter exhibit and to see a spin-off play about Harry Potter. They go to the evening performance, which they didn't realize was, unlike the matinee, the adult version. Fortunately, the kids didn't pick up on the anal sex jokes in the adult version.

When I woke up this morning my computer told me the temperature was -25. But as I just logged in now its all the way up to -24 so its starting to warm up a bit.

That's nuts.
Currently in white out.

i learned over the past few days that when something like a polar vortex hits the great lakes the parts of the country on the tail shift towards the other end of the spectrum and experience warmer than usual weather.

it's been sunny and in the low 50s for the past few days in PDX. of course when the vortex breaks over the next few days the tail will crack and we'll get some rain and back to cooler temps.

my buddy was out fishing all day yesterday at minus 15. you guys in the east are a bunch of weenies .

Fishing itself is nuts. Fishing in below zero temps is insane.

Besides, it won't be cold until tomorrow. Today was fine.

will you then wear wool socks in your flip flops.

Damn it, sandals, not flip flops. And these days I'm sporting that professorial look--shoes and socks.

Oh, and now that I have returned to faculty I also have an office mate for the first time in over seven years. She seems, so far, to be able to put up with me.

glad you are now upgrading your foot ware john. its about time.

I'm with ya John wrt fishing

my Dad tried to show us how to fish when we were young.. he went through this 15 minute spiel accompanied by putting the invisible leader line and all the weights and bobbers on... then he cast the rod, the hook got snagged on a submerged log and the entire thing got shredded and need to be redone

Dad, I love ya, but no thanks... never again

lol Goat

spielDictionary result for spiel
/spēl,SHpēl/Submit
INFORMAL
noun
1.
a long or fast speech or story, typically one intended as a means of persuasion or as an excuse but regarded with skepticism or contempt by those who hear it.

Since the vernal equinox is 45 days from tomorrow, and the depth of winter was 44 days ago from tomorrow, tomorrow must be the first day of spring. Besides, Punxatawny Phil says so.

a little early for the spring thread. but anyway john will never let us enjoy a new thread a little early before some official change of seasons happens.

so you guys that think fishing is stupid dont think watching tv or listening to videos, or sports on tv is just fine and dandy and not a waste of ones life.. you may be hooked on the wrong thing.

You really are into that sort of instrumental music, huh?

As an instrumentalist, thank you for supporting this sort of music. I'm not a huge fan of it myself, but since I'm in that world...

One of my music friends (we are always happy to see each other on the rare occasion we do) is also an instrumentalist who can shred just like that guy in the video, but he plays a much more laid back style on stage, taking it slow. Last night, he performed this crazy piece that had a heavy pulse, like some Deadmau5 or something. It was really cool with a bit of shred. It sounded and looked obnoxiously difficult to play.

He and I were discussing about the scene here in LA. As expected, it's divided between genres for the most part, and we determined that instrumental work is starting to get some respect out here. I think it's more a function of people giving up the idea of playing with other people and just giving a ****. He's more along the thinking that it's just what people want to hear.

He was going to see a friend play at a place that's pretty tough to get into so he could introduce another friend to the local singer-songwriter scene. The singer-songwriter friend is actually a total hard-core, straight-up rocker and shredder, but to the music world, he's a doting singer-songwriter? Why? Girls like that stuff.

You can play to guys or you can play to girls. You can't play to guys first and expect girls to come along, but you can play to girls, who will bring their lady and guy friends along. That's just the reality of music (and entertainment in general). I struggle with this, but at the end of the day, money, audience, and creativity are in a constant war with each other, so you often have to toss out your favorite music simply because no one gets it.

***

I also talked to this one girl last night. Knowing she's the sister of someone else, I decided to finally break the ice. She was talking to her friends and family, so I tapped her on her shoulder with the intention of saying "hello" and walking out the door. That didn't happen... we joked about the fact that we've been coming to the same place for 6 months, no, she and her sister do not look like twins, then ended up chatting for 30 minutes. Or maybe it was 15 minutes... or maybe it was an hour. I was drinking, so who the heck knows?

***

I turned down a show about a month ago. The promoter contacted me again a few days ago. I said well.... I have no draw, my music sucks, and I give a horrible stage show. I also just bought an acoustic that I have no idea how to play. I'll be more than happy to do it.

He writes back, gives me one show and tells me that he'd like me to do a second show a few days later, so now I have two shows two days apart.

Heat lags light. I think that explains the confusion ITT.

Don't overthink it, you good to go

pulse

You know what, I think this might be what's happened to Zeno: