mushinnoshin

It’s probably too soon to write much about it, but it would suck to miss the chance to make the first entry on this date (yeah I know it’s the 3rd already, but I’m sure it’s still legally the 1st until sometime tomorrow morning).

Well, I got the upstairs unpacked. Many species of disc and tape were shelved, egg-crates of cables and widgets got sorted and stacked. The porn stash was relocated. After some thought and trying out a few arrangements, I got the station layout down: racks to my left, the xp-30 to my right, and a desk in front with the juno on the workspace, the 101key in a tray below, and the studio monitors and video monitors sharing the riser in back. Though that last one may take some finagling when the lcds actually get here. The whole rig takes up about 3/4 of the room; I have the back of the desk about two feet from the far wall. I need to work on how move a little closer to center on the other axis, without blocking an inconvenient but needed closet.

When I packed this stuff up to move, I did as much as I could to leave all the woven cable snakes intact; unplug as little as possible, catch as much as possible in the power crate. Pulling it back out now, between time and tangles I’m not having much success just plugging everything right back in, *but*, by following the various cord paths, clumps, and clusters, and picking up my patterns and some clues I left, I was able to snart snapping together some memories of how it all hooked up. I did get the power crate (an egg crate that keeps together three powerstrips of plugs and wall warts and associated cabling, external pieces, etc) cleaned out and reorganized, and all the outgoing power cables re-snaked back to the rack and re-attached to their devices. And I got a good start on running the audio cables, but that’s a bit more complicated and will take a little while.

Meanwhile, I need a new machine to run things. I take the 2Ghz athlon that I was using as a dvr-pc back in the dark days before tivo, swap the 40GB hard drive for a 320 I had laying around. Got XP installed after a few tries (old xp disc didn’t want to see >137 of that drive). Installed Gina (multichannel audio card). Then I go to install the midi card, but find it uses a really old isa connector, no way to plug it into a newer machine (well, no way that’s not more expensive than just replacing the thing). Which is funny because I could have *sworn* I remembered buying a pci card to replace this isa one under similar circumstance. I must be remembering when I had to buy the isa card to replace whatever the hell it was that came before that.

So that’s where I am. I’ve got to figure out what to do about the midi controller, and finish running the audio, and then I should be ready to start turning things on.

Oh hai!

Yes, as a matter of fact I *would* like for my air conditioner to stop conditioning air right around the time that Satan decides to head back to Hell because Tennessee is getting too hot for his tastes. But, could you make sure that I come home to discover this right after Southwest leaves me on the runway broiling without A/C in a tin-can bacteria trap for 30 minutes, so as to make sure I have a massive head cold, can’t breathe, and have to blow about a gallon of snot out of my nose every 10 minutes or so? And if it’s not any trouble, could you also make sure no A/C repairmen can come out to take a look for at least 2 days, as I learn that the fine print around Hiller and every other company’s “24 Hour Service” apparently indicates that they don’t promise *which* 24 hour period they will come?

kthxbye!

update: woo-hoo! Repair Dude came a few hours early. Won’t have parts for proper repair until mid-week, but he was able to MacGyver it or some shit so that it will work in the meantime. House is already down to a nice chilly 93 degrees. And the repair seems reasonable, new capacitor and something about pressure, no hard sales pitch for a new system or anything like I feared. So, good on Hiller, seems like a company I can use again.

Dear Internets,

Once again I must lament the lack of a furniture search engine providing advanced searches by dimension.

OK, so, I’m trying to find a tv stand. TV console might be a better description of what I want. Problem is everything I find is either wide and short, or tall and thin. I need medium-tall and medium-wide.

I like my tv to sit a bit high. So I’m thinking 30″ high at least. Give or take -2/+8 or so… Most everything I’ve found in that range are also around 30″ wide. But I want something probably between 40″ and 60″ or so … 45″ to 50″ probably being the sweet spot.

Open shelving for gear in the middle. I don’t really care what kind of small shelving or storage flanks the sides, but *some*, eg not an all-open shelf thing.

Probably black. Prefer wood, metal/glass/other considered. Straight lines, modern or classical

This “Low Cabinet with Sliding Doors – Antique Black” is sooo very close that I very nearly pulled the trigger — before I found precise specs for the interior space on another site, and found the interior shelves won’t hold any gear. You need at least 15″-16″ depth, and on the width, figure the devices are usually 17″ and you want some breathing room.

If the Kathy Ireland IMTL363 – Tribeca Loft Tall Console has a little cousin it could be a contender. But still, really looking for more open space in the middle, smaller utility shelves/drawers/doors/whatever on the sides. And, uhh, I won’t cripple the search with an exact price requirement, but, umm, not that much. Just figure I already broke the budget getting what goes with it :)

If anyone finds the winner I’ll definitely buy you beer. Two if I like you!

UPDATE: I might have found it. It’s a little more than I want to spend, but maybe not more than I can realistically expect. I’ll sleep on it and give it some time in the morning before I say go. Beer offer still applies if you happen to find the same one. In fact I’ll buy three just in appreciation of your accuracy :)

UPDATE2: OK, done deal, we have a winner.

Well I was totally prepared to wake up yesterday with a raging hangover. I wasn’t prepared for it to be completely eclipsed by a brutal and relentless head cold. Well at least it gives me an excuse to take Nyquil :)

Gah. So yeah I spent most of yesterday wrapped up in a blanket, drinking tea, blowing my nose, and catching up on Netflix. I saw Raging Bull plus the last disc of Curb Your Enthusiasm season two. I wasn’t wowed by the movie — De Niro and Scorsese did a masterful job, but it wasn’t a subject that compelled me. My short summary: jocks can be assholes. Yeah, we knew that already. Larry David made me much happier. I actually wasn’t all that crazy about the show after watching season one, but I liked it enough that I figured I’d give it another shot, and I think he seems to have really found his groove in season two.

Meanwhile today the cold is still with me, but I’m feeling better than I did. Sadly there was no way I could make yoga though. Which makes three weeks in a row that I’ve skipped, and I feel pretty shitty about that. Oh well, next week…

Well anyway Thanksgiving was excellent. My goal had been to have the parlor / living room project that I’d been working on done in time for the holiday, and I basically made it. I ran out of time and budget to finish up a few details — I need a corner bookcase / library thing to replace this stack of milk crates & plastic drawers over here to my left while finally bringing my books out of storage, and then once I get that and see how it looks I’ll know how to decorate the rest of that wall. I also probably need to replace the old mini-blinds at some point. And that bookcase may turn into a project by itself — it’s sort of a weird cramped corner that I need to maximize, and I haven’t found anything even close to what I picture, so I may have to try my hand at building something myself. But I don’t know, that might be biting off more than I can chew. We’ll see I suppose.

But anyway most of the pieces were in place — the painting is done, curtains are hung, the piano has a fresh coat of shine & varnish, the CD collection has a new home in a beautiful hanging wall unit, and most importantly the computer is set up at the new desk, at which I’m typing as we speak, as Dark Side of the Moon drifts in from the good speakers in the living room, which I can now hear as I work. Which is all to say I’ve finally moved into the front half of my house :)

And it looks pretty damn good if I do say so myself. I would post pictures, but I’m trying to entice you to visit, damnit! And speaking of visitors, there were of course the Thanksgiving festivities themselves. This makes the second year since my sister and I have taken co-ownership of the family ritual — I provide the house, the booze, and the bread, and she brings the rest of the feast. Of course we don’t have a whole lot of immediate family around any more, so it’s usually just the two of us plus my dad & grandmother. But we had an awesome addition this year, as the ever-fabulous Kate O’ and Karsten joined us for drinks and desert. Good times.

Whichever one of you comes up with a way to search for furniture to fit specific dimensions will have an awesome, possibly patentable edge on your competition. And since most of you seem to have dimensions in your database already, it should be brain dead simple to implement.

No charge for the idea, my reward will be finding the right desk to fit the fucking space I have to fill. Of course I wouldn’t say no to a discount.

• I had one of those absurdist “things-I-learned-today” tidbits in my head that I meant to post, I think it was Friday night maybe? Unfortunately I don’t remember what it was now.
• This is England — fantastic film, and a new addition to the list of things that anyone flirting with nativism/xenophobia should be required to see. Great line (paraphrased): “We’re not NAZI’s, we’re Nationalists!”. The speaker, and our own “nationalists”, would do well to remember just what that “N” stands for. Think it’s a coincidence that our own “nationalists” are also lately more and more critical of the paleolibertarian tendencies of the old-right toward free enterprise? I mean, just look at the theocrats latest savior Huckabee’s score on CATO’s report card, if you want an example. It seems the transformation of the GOP into a full-on National Socialist Party is almost complete. Oh I’m sorry, I forgot, they like to be called “populists” on this side of the pond. Less baggage, ya know.

  Update: Be sure to read Jim Ridley’s fantastic review.

• I should remember to snap a picture, but for now a link must do: one of these bad boys has taken up residence just outside my carport, thereby claiming the latest entry in the “freaky shit I see in my yard” category. Oddly enough, even though the little brown spiders freak me the fuck out, this guy doesn’t bother me, terrifying as he looks. Still I’m keeping my distance…
• Also this weekend I watched the entirety of the nearly six-hour 1996 BBC mini-series version of Pride and Prejudice. Oh! It was so much better than the recent movie (which I like well enough for what it was, but you just couldn’t capture this book in a single ~2 hour film). Really, I thought the entire cast did a fantastic job of presenting the characters almost exactly as they had appeared in my head. And Ms. Ehle was enchanting as Elizabeth — truly if there was a flaw in the production it was that I had to suspend disbelief in order to accommodate the plot’s assertion that Jane was the pretty one.
• As much as I like Miss Austen’s work, I am bothered somewhat by her tacit approval — if only by way of accepting it as the norm for her time — of a terrible class-ism that one could not begin to justify today. Still I’d prefer not to let my passion for egalitarian justice for the proletariat taint my appreciation of a lovely romance : )
• The living room makeover continues, slowly but surely. I had to put a third coat on two walls and will likely have to go yet another round just to touch up some spots. Red is a beast to paint. But hopefully I can get that done Tuesday or Thursday this week, then finally get back to the parlor to tackle the glazing this weekend. THEN I’ve still got to do the trim in both rooms. I think I must paint slower than most people. I’d say I’m just being a perfectionist, but the results are far too imperfect …

D’OH! I totally remember now. I learned that if your dental hygienist breaks off a piece of floss and leaves it stuck between your teeth, you may be able to get it out later by “flossing” with one of those twisty-wires that you use to tie up electronics cords.

Not only did i get to see The Simpsons this weekend, I also saw Rear Window at the Belcourt, so I finally get the references in this:

I’m tempted to say “It’s all connected” but I’d hate that to be taken as a subliminal endorsement for Karl Dean. Not that it isn’t one. Eh. I don’t know. I’m leaning a bit towards Dean, but Briley, Dean, and Gentry all seem acceptable. My natural tendency to gravitate towards the outsiders actually has me somewhat sympathetic to Eaton. But I suspect he’s probably both a lunatic and a troglydyte. Nothing to base that on, just instinct. But given that I still can’t vote, I haven’t really dug into this race. Anybody but the tired political hack (Clement) or the raging homophobe* (Dozier) is fine with me.

Back to the movies, Netflix set me up with The Rock. I’m normally not into “action for the sake of action” movies (kung-fu excluded), and I’m really not into Bruckheimer tripe. But I was curious because of the Alcatraz setting, and it was cool to see a few glimpses of spots that I remembered. There wasn’t much of that though. But this all reminds me that I need to get my Alcatraz pictures up for the next post in the California trip recap. Soon, soon.

Maybe I’ll do that once I finish the living room/parlor work that I started at the beginning of the month. So far I’ve gotten two coats of one color in the parlor beneath the chair rail, two coats of another color above the chair rail, and two walls done in the living room. The living room is taking a while because the walls were in pretty rough shape so I’m doing some heavy sanding and spackling. Not to mention constant cleaning up from all that sanding and spackling. Anyway, next up is back to the parlor, where I’m going to try my hand at some rag-painting/glazing. Then back to the living room for the other two walls.

Finally, just – awesome:

* Seriously dude, you’re so homophobic you’ll vote against a person on unrelated issues just because you know they support equal rights??? Meaning you’re willing to subvert the basic mechanics of democracy just to satisfy your prejudices? And you think you have the character and integrity to lead this city?

In 2004, for instance, he voted against a nomination to the Metro Traffic and Parking Commission of a former Metro Council member who had co-sponsored a gay rights bill in the previous council term.

“There was a message that … we don’t want that to come back up this term, and she was the symbol of that,” Dozier, who didn’t serve in the previous term, said after the vote.

Whilst I wait for a gargantuan file to complete its trek by ftp, lets catch up on a few tidbits from last week’s Vacation-Mini. (I took Thursday & Friday off after the holiday).

Well the main goal was to paint my living room & parlor area. It didn’t get done. But I sorta figured that was overly-ambitious, and the real goal was to get the cable, phone, and network jacks installed in the parlor wall, so that I will then be ready to paint. That part got done, plus I taped up the A/C duct, as you may have inferred from previous posts.

To call my basement ‘unfinished’ would grossly understate the point: my basement is one of those old-school creepy stone dungeons, with earth breaking up through the thin layer of floor cement and a nearly constant puddle of musty rainwater (itself a real problem that I probably need to solve sooner rather than later). While all this would make it an excellent locale to shoot an S&M video, the downside is that it’s a natural haven for spiders.

Which is OK in and of itself, normally if I go down there and see a few, I don’t let it bother me, I figure they’re eating other bugs and it’s all good. But in order to do what I had to do, I had to crawl up onto a ledge into a dank dark corner, roll beneath a main A/C duct, sit up in the darkened pocket on the other side, and then reach around blindly into the completely black crevice on the other side of the the fixture beneath the parlor floor.

Yeah.

So I swept out the area, fogged it, went to lunch, came back and swept again. With all that done, it still creeped me the hell out, but I forged ahead and got it all done without incident. In fact by the time I was running the all the data cables, my confidence was up and I was rolling in and out with reckless abandon.

So by the time the weekend was done I had the cables run, the jacks installed, and the wall patched back up and spot-painted back to the old color, and maybe next weekend I can start the new painting. I still haven’t really decided on my color scheme though.

Other than that, there were a few movies on the agenda: Netflix provided me with Little Miss Sunshine and the House of Flying Daggers, while the Belcourt showed me La Vie en Rose and Paris, Je t’aime.

Not a whole lot to say on Daggers — magnificently shot wushu film, with a terrible and beautifully tragic ending — but ultimately just an entertaining fairy tale like most such films.

On Little Miss Sunshine — I wasn’t sure what to expect. Ridley pretty much panned it, and I generally find his reviews pretty well on target. But then the movie became such a sleeper hit… Well, in the end I don’t think it was as bad as its detractors say, but it certainly didn’t live up to the positive hype. Mainly I just thought it was much funnier when it starred Chevy Chase and was called Vacation.

On La Vie en Rose — nice biopic, not a whole lot more to say than that. I didn’t know much about Edith Piaf, I do know a lot more now — certainly never had any idea she had so much tragedy and strife in her life. I will say that in some scenes she looks so incredibly much like (young pictures of) my Great-Grandmother Ramsey that I still find it hard to believe that the Ramsey part of my tree isn’t French. Oh! Duh, Ramsey is her married name. I should find out what her maiden name was.

The real winner though was Paris Je t’aime — a series of touching poetic vignettes with 18 directors each taking a turn telling a simple love story from the heart of Paris. So many of them were wonderful that it’s hard to pick the best examples. But the very last one was a clear standout — the story of a lonely, doughy, late-middle-aged mid-western woman whose dream was to see the city, a dream that finally came true (save that she couldn’t stay two weeks, having no one to watch her beloved dogs). It was the sort of slice-of-life that was simultaneously heartbreaking and uplifting — made more amazing in that she saw it precisely the same way: simultaneous joy and sadness, loved for the glory of feeling alive. Just. Wow.

She told her story in a slow, broken, Americanized French, apparently doing something like a report to her French class, having studied the language for two years in preparation for the trip. When a number of my fellow moviegoers laughed at (no, not with) her, I momentarily wanted to be angry and indignant — how dare these assholes make fun and feel superior? I dare say her French was a lot better than theirs. But in the end I realized it was their loss — if they couldn’t see the beauty of the tragic-turned-to-strength in this simple character, I feel sorry for what they missed.

Here’s the latest in the “weird alien things I see in my yard” category. This little guy was just casually lounging in the little rock garden area about a foot away from the stairs leading up the deck. This was actually several weeks ago, I only just now got around to unloading my camera. It’s probably hard to tell the scale from the picture but he was actually surprisingly big — I wouldn’t have thought twice about a little gecko or something. He might have been 6-8 inches long and an inch in diameter (bearing in mind I’m horrible at eyeballing sizes).

So, does anybody recognize him?

1. If you’re having an extremely difficult time — and I mean, holy-hell-what-the-fuck-is-going-on type difficulty cutting a slice of drywall out of your wall, there’s a good chance that drywall was just tacked on top of a 1/2 inch piece of probably 70 year old sheetrock and that little hand saw which you’re you’re trying to use to cut through both at once just isn’t up for the job.

2. If you’re still having a beast of a time cutting out a slice of the sheetrock once you’ve removed the drywall, it may be because the sheetrock itself is supported on the back by rows of 1-1/2 x 1/2 inch wooden slats spaced less than a quarter inch apart which are nailed to the studs.

I guess they really don’t build ‘em like they used to.

On an almost related subject, I noticed that the A/C duct going up into this room had come apart from the opening, and was just lying on the ground trying to cool the basement. Figuring that I’ll need to fix that, I actually had to ponder for a second, I wonder if there’s some special tape that one should use to tape up a duct —

Oh, right. I guess it’s not just for terrorism-preparedness.