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A Thread for Random Musings


Old Man

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  • 2 weeks later...

I hate Facebook. I mostly hate social media.

 

I hang out on a few message boards.

 

But, overall, I prefer to be reasonably anonymous.

 

Psychological nudity can be way overdone.

 

So, today, I was going in to deactivate my FB account when...

 

That red hair, those blue eyes, that lovely  face... I might know my former fiancée of five years!

 

Here's the thing though: the automated attempt to be helpful was the exact opposite of what I wanted.

 

Some things are meant to be left in the past - which the Internet cannot abide by.

 

I haven't thought about her in years, and didn't want to think about her or know about her life now.

 

It just reaffirmed my mission: good riddance, Facebook.

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I hate Facebook. I mostly hate social media.

 

I hang out on a few message boards.

 

But, overall, I prefer to be reasonably anonymous.

 

Psychological nudity can be way overdone.

 

So, today, I was going in to deactivate my FB account when...

 

That red hair, those blue eyes, that lovely  face...  I might know my former fiancée of five years!

 

Here's the thing: the automated attempt to be helpful was the exact opposite of what I wanted.

 

Some things are meant to be left in the past, which the Internet cannot abide by.

 

I haven't thought about her in years, and didn't want to think about her or know about her life now.

 

Nor do I really care what my friends are having for dinner,

 

Or the cute poop-related thing their toddlers said.

 

Or....

 

It just reaffirmed my mission: good riddance, Facebook.

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I really focus on drums lately when listening to music. I was reminded of one of my favorite drum performances on the radio last night, "Hold the Line" by Toto.

 

Billy Corgan used a drum machine in the early days of Smashing Pumpkins. Drums didn't really matter to him.In a world where many bands see the drums as a necessary evil, a simple beat keeping mechanism, some actually use it as a musical instrument to enhance the music.

 

Listen to the song and see what I mean. Also, listen to a good jazz trained drummer like Stewart Copeland or (early) Peter Criss and see how they make things really happen in rock music.

 

 

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I really focus on drums lately when listening to music. I was reminded of one of my favorite drum performances on the radio last night, "Hold the Line" by Toto.

Jeff Porcaro could play a shuffle grove like few others.

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Snorkeling with the kids and their cousins. Suddenly, across the way, where the scuba divers were setting up, a whistle blew. Shrill. Insistent. A whistle at the beach is never a good thing, I thought. But I am supervising four young children, I cannot investigate. Then the shouts: "Call 911! Call 911!" The response was fast--three minutes at most, before Everyone showed up. Lifeguards, fire, police, ambulance.

 

I found a pretty striped wana, and showed the kids how if you prod it, it angrily wiggles its spines at you.

 

The girl found some shells that she wanted to keep, so I put them in my pocket. One of them turned out to have a hermit crab in it, so we let it go.

 

After half an hour, the ambulance left, with its sirens on. That's a good sign, I thought.

 

Eventually we went back to the sand. "Why did you have to bring this ugly backpack?!" the wife snapped at me. That's what we'll be fighting about today, I thought. I was not wrong.

 

We stopped for burgers. They make great burgers on the North Shore.

 

Later that evening I checked the news on my phone. The diver didn't make it.

 

"You're wrong!" the wife shouted. "You're inconsiderate, selfish, stubborn, and pigheaded! Do you think I'm stupid?!"

 

I thought about scuba diving. It's so quiet, forty feet down.

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"The space between the stars is not empty. It is filled with rarefied but exceedingly filthy gas; if this gas were compressed to he density of ordinary air (that is, by a factor of ~10^21) the density of smoke in it would be such that objects would disappear into the haze at a distance of much less than a meter."

 

-- James Binney and Michael Merrifield, in "Galactic Astronomy" (Princeton U Press, 1998), p. 131

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heartbreaking.

 

My brother just sent me this: "Worst craigslist experience ever. Just called a guy about an effects pedal and his wife answered and apparently their daughter just died in an accident. I told them to call me if they feel like it whenever…

 
So sad."
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Ten years ago today, I was on my way into work. It was a normal work day. I was running a little late which was usual. The whole train was evacuated at Highbury and Islington amidst hearing that a power station had blown. Fair enough. Tried to get a bus. Big queues. So walked down to Kings Cross where the traffic was really jammed up. Walked further along passing Kings Cross and St Pancras stations and then Euston. Just after the station looking down I could see a bus stationary but something was up. Shortly after this I found out about the terrorist attack. I decided to continue on after telephoning home to assure them I was ok and work to say i was still coming in. Stopped off at a gaming shop and got something , I forget what. And then went on into work.

I was lucky. Had I been earlier and on the other line I could have been either in one of the carraiges or part of the one of the three trains that were hit.

It was shotly after this that there was a big rally to commerorate the end of the 2nd World War. It became even more poignant because of this.

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Chalkboards: Chalk dust is messy and, theoretically, harmful.  In large doses.

 

Whiteboards: Dry erase pens are messy, expensive, dry out, give off harmful fumes, and stain anything they write on (including, sometimes, the whiteboard).

 

Progress!

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