Carefully Random

Tonight at approximately 3:54am EST, flexagon will be one billion seconds old. She wasn't aware of this until I told her at dinner a couple hours ago. I think she was glad I decided to tell her in advance, rather than wake her up and tell her on the spot.

( my cheap custom gift )

But still kinda illiterate. List and instructions copied from cook_ting, who implied that the list came from The Big Read, although I couldn't find it on their site. Supposedly the average adult has read about six of these.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
5) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

I'm not saying this because I think I'm particularly likely to have concerts played in my memory after I'm dead. It's more in the hope that other people will agree with me, and the idea will be generally accepted and standardized.

If anyone ever performs a Heisenbug memorial concert, I would like it to feature absolutely no talking. If you happen to be present and someone starts giving a speech, please run up on stage, take the microphone by force, read this paragraph to the audience, and sit down quietly.

I was playing in one 10-minute piece at the end of the concert. The concert started at 8pm; they told us the final piece would start around 10:00 but we should be ready by 9:50 just in case. We started at 11:28.

I have one movie quote for you. Be first person to identify it (no Internet cheating, obviously) (uh, or other kinds of cheating) and you get a new song, at least 20 seconds long, custom-written and recorded just for you.

"We're living in a shop. The world is one magnificent fucking shop, and if it hasn't got a price tag, it isn't worth having. The Greatest freedom of all is the freedom of choice, and that's the difference between you and me, [character name]. I was brought up to believe in that, and so should you, but you don't want freedom, do you? You don't even want roads. God, I never want to go on another train as long as I live! Roads represent the fundamental right of man to have access to the good things in life. Without roads, established family favorites would become elite as delicacies. Potter's soap would be for the few. There'd be no more tea bags, no instant potatoes, no long life cream. Chewing gum would probably disappear, so would porkpies. There'd be no aerosols, no tin spaghetti, or baked beans with six frankfurters. Foot deodorizers would climax with the hope of replacement! When the hydrolyzed monosodium glutamate reserves ran out, food would rot in its packets. Jesus Christ, there wouldn't be any more packets! Packaging would vanish from the face of the earth. But worst of all, there'd be no more cars, and more than anything, people love their cars. They have a right to them. They have to sweat all day in some stinking factory making disposable cigarette lighters or everlasting Christmas trees, by Christ, they're entitled to them! They're entitled to any innovation technology brings. Whether it's ten percent more of it or fifteen percent off of it. They're entitled to one of four important new ingredients. Why should anyone have to clean their teeth without important new ingredients? Why the hell shouldn't they have their CZT? How dare some smutty Marxist carbunkle presume to deny them it? They love their CZT! They want it, they need it, they positively adore it, and by Christ, while I've got air in my body they're going to get it! They're going to get it bigger - and brighter - and better. I'll put CZT in their margarine if necessary; shove vitamins in their toilet rolls. If happiness means the whole world standing on a double layer of foot deodorizers, I, [character name], shall see that they get it! By God I will. I shall not cease, till Jerusalem is builded here, on England's green and pleasant lands!"

So I'm riding the stationary bike at the gym, rediscovering the awesomeness of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, but also being distracted by the pretty moving pictures on the screens hanging above the cardio machines. One of the pretty pictures is an infomercial for something that looks like a flattish sort of generic MP3 player, except that it can only show photos (holds up to 50!). My first thought was that it probably cost $19.95, and wouldn't be worth any more than that. It turned out to cost $19.99, but you get two of them so maybe it's worth it after all.

Anyway, the awesome part, the real reason I'm telling you this, is that at one point they actually displayed the slogan Share and Enjoy on the screen. I think it may even have had an exclamation point.

In related news, I'm thinking of writing one of those songs that consists of just a whole bunch of cultural references, except all the references would be to "electric [something]". Possible lyrics:

Got an electric sheep and an electric monk,
An electric guitar to play electric funk

and also

Video killed the radio star,
But I don't know who killed the electric car.

Except I also want to use the "guitar / car" rhyme. Maybe later in the song I'll have all the same references, but mixed up in a different order.

In even more tangentially related news, Samuel Taylor Coleridge once wrote the phrase "fast thick pants". It's not quite as awesome in context.

No, I didn't have one of those disturbing dreams. I'm talking about the food products in Google Boston's microkitchen, which include:

• Stacy's Simply Naked pita chips
• Bear Naked Granola
• Naked Juice

All of which are excellent (especially the last one), but seriously, WTF?

I don't feel like I've done very much that was creative lately (although hopefully I'll be doing some composing and/or recording when I get my new Presonus FireStudio), but today I discovered some stuff I did a long time ago. We were moving bookshelves around, which required us to take all the stuff off them, and tucked inside some sheet music was this story that I wrote in high school:

( What Happens When Creativity is Forced )

And also a couple of doodles from around the same time:

( Doodles )

And finally, some parody song lyrics from a couple years later:

( After the Tone )

1. Hooloovoo. Needs to consist entirely of blue ingredients, and I think there should be three of them just for balance. The obvious ones would be Bombay Sapphire gin, blue Curaçao, and Pepsi Blue. I was going to try it once, but it turns out you can't get Pepsi Blue anymore.

2. Black and Blue. Guinness and and some kind of blue stuff. Actually a web search turns up several drinks with this name, some of which contain stout, and some of which contain something blue, but none of which contain both. Disappointing.

3. Mudblood. Obviously a cross between a mudslide and a Bloody Mary. Contains Kahlua, Baileys, vodka, and tomato juice. Try it, it's delicious!

Just in case your conscience still isn't clear: now you can offset other harmful activities.