Cat Show!

I finally uploaded the pictures I took from the cat show that Susie, Rachael and I went to a couple of weekends ago. Yes, a cat show. Just like a dog show, only with, you know, cats. It was half pet store/flea market and half competition. We couldn't really get good seats for the judging, so the best part was this area where a judge lady was talking about qualities of different breeds (with handsome examples, naturally). From this lecture, we learned that cats play essentially three types of games:

• Mouse, in which the cat chases a small, quick object on the ground (such as a bit of string or a ball).
  
• Bird, in which the cat likes to bat at or jump at things off the ground or above them.
  
• Rabbit, in which the cat seizes a bigger object with its forelegs, and bites it and rakes it with its back legs. Claudio is quite partial to playing rabbit, especially when a nice, juicy hand presents itself as said rabbit.

One of our favorites was the fluffy and friendly Norwegian forest cat. To quote the Cat Fancier's Association:

These are the cats that explored the world with the Vikings, protecting the grain stores on land and sea, and which are believed to have left their progeny on the shores of North America as a legacy to the future.

I ended up with a lot of blurry pictures of cats. They just wouldn't sit still, dang them! The one that came out the best was of the cat that was trained to play (read: move its paw up and down on) the piano.

I also got a blurry shot of a cat dunking a basket ball. Awwww.

Back at Work

It's almost a relief to be back at work. Weird, I know. But I got so little done at the beginning of last week that it felt like more than just four days off. Plus I get to go back the gym (gymn? -- what do the young folks call it these days?). It's probably been 2 weeks since my last workout.

In related news, I've gotten several (ok, a couple of) comments on my new, improved physique in the last month or two, which is nice. I suppose it's easy to add noticeable muscle to a scrawny frame like mine. Not bad for 4-5 months of 1-2 workouts a day -- sorry, did I say day? I meant week. No, it's nothing like Sherwin's Project Diesel.

Sorry for the paucity of posts of late. I promise to get together a couple of juicy new posts with pictures and everything as soon as I get a chance to download from our camera.

Lute Down!

I had my first lute-related injury yesterday (if you don't count the backaches I get from holding such a deucedly uncomfortable instrument). Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), it was the lute that was injured, not me. As I was trying flatten my heavy book of lute instruction to get it to sit properly on the piano, it slipped and fell directly onto the lute's rose. A small portion of the rose was damaged; a bit of the delicate wooden carving was smashed. It doesn't affect the sound of the instrument at all, but it does look pretty bad up close. Kind of sad to have damaged it only two weeks after buying it. At least I will now be able to justify buying another lute at some point in the future.

On the plus side, I can now use the lute as a rattle, as a piece of the rose is now loose inside the body of the instrument.

On the real plus side, the lute rose wasn't that great to begin with. It's not one of the fancier roses used in more recently-made (and more historically-accurate) instruments.

It looks nothing like this:

All I Want for Christmas

So there's this guy who sits in an adjacent cube who's always going on and on about this Guitar Hero PlayStation 2 game to anyone who will listen. I get to hear a good 2-3 lectures per day on how to play the game, and also have to put up with the clanking sounds coming from a cheap plastic guitar controller. I would tell him to stop slacking and do some work, but that might draw attention to the fact that I'm not exactly the Prince of Industriousness over here.

In any case, the game actually sounds pretty fun. I mean, it's got classic rock and metal songs, and who doesn't like that? It's got a controller shaped like a guitar -- an instrument I play, hello? And, well, it's a video game. What's not to like. I'm a little concerned it would be a little too easy, though. It might be kind of like if EA made a cycling game that came with a stationary bike controller, and Lance Armstrong got a copy. I mean, he would totally pwn that game. Of course, maybe I wouldn't exactly be Lance Armstrong in this analogy. Maybe more like, well, what's one of those other really good cyclists that no one's ever heard of? Yeah, him, what's his name? Oh, no one's ever heard of him? Well never mind.

I Don't Want Your Blood Money!

Over the weekend I received a $40 check -- my share of the profits from the ill-fated concert I participated in a few weeks back. (See http://oldwinyards.blogspot.com/2005/10/worst-concert-ever.html if you missed it.) Given how awful the experience was, I feel a bit weird about taking money from the group; I had originally planned on refusing it. However, I did earn that money after all -- I have the mental scars to prove it. Oh, and the program too. No, I did throw that away.

Now the only debate is how best to spend the filthy lucre. Paying for a single singing lesson might have a certain amount of poetic justice. Or I could get 3-4 used CDs from Amoeba. Or I could buy $40 worth of MacDonald's (MacDonalds'? MacDonalds's?) cheeseburgers. How would that exemplify poetic justice? It wouldn't. Not really. But it sure would be funny making MacDonald's employees get together an order of 85 cheeseburgers. Come to think of it, that would take an awful long time. Maybe that's not such a good idea. Oh well. I guess I could just say that the $40 will pay for that $40 sweater I bought at Norstrom on Saturday. But what would be the fun in that?

Carmine Banana

So Susie and I went to hear the SF Symphony do Carmina Burana last night. It was totally awesome. Like Beethoven's 9th, it's something everyone should hear performed live. The double choir, the horde of percussionists, the extensive brass section -- everything combines to form a massive wall of sound. Very dramatic, much more so than listening to a recording. If only more concerts could be like that.

Lute playing's coming along. I was a little freaked out when I realized that right-hand technique was so different from guitar. The thumb plays the strong beats of the melody, unlike with guitar in which the thumb pretty much just plays bass notes. Chords are also played differently. In chords of 5 courses or more, the thumb and/or index finger have to cover multiple courses. This leads to the awkward feat of strumming down with the thumb and up with the other three fingers simultaneously. Kind of hard to describe, but possibly like trying to play two arpeggios on the piano in opposite directions at the same time -- with one hand. Anyway, I think I'm getting the hang of it (Ask Susie for a dissenting opion.), and should be able to play some nice simple tunes shortly.

Ph4t l00t

So Wednesday I bought my lute. It's an 8 course lute made by Aria in 1975. It seems appropriate somehow that my lute is as old as I am. Like most lutes made pre-1980, this one is a bit guitar-like in that the bridge is a bit farther forward, the fingerboard isn't as tapered, etc. But I only paid $750 for it, compared to the $2000 or so I would have had to spend on a better, more recent instrument.

So far, the addage that I spend more time tuning it than playing it seems to be true. Hell, there are 15 strings (!) after all. That's like 150% more than the guitar. Well, the strings are all new, so hopefully they'll settle in. Keep an eye on this space in the future for lute jokes. There seem to be more lute jokes than there are actual lutes around, for some reason.

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with it so far. The sounds (at least the few I've been able to produce) are quite cool. I've got a lot to learn about how to play it, however. The right-hand technique (no jokes, please) is a fair amount different from classical guitar; fortunately the left-hand is practically identical. Still, no concert requests for a while, please.

No, Claudio. Lutes aren't for eating.

Randomness

Just wanted to jot down a few quick thoughts before my caffeine buzz wears off and I lose the will to do anything but surf the web.

• Driving to work today, I saw a truck from a Modesto Food Services truck with the following slogan on it: "Poultry in Motion."
  
• And another thing that made me wish I had a camera phone: while heading south on 280, traffic was slowed because a water main had burst and a 40 ft high geyser of water was cascading onto the freeway. Pretty dramatic sight.
  
• Just browsing on the Dell site (My laptop is 2+ years old and will be obsolete any day now.), I came across the following available option: Accidental Damage Protection (Except in Florida). Wow, are they that worried about hurricanes?
  
• While looking at laptops on Newegg.com (FOR WORK, GOSH!): **Dead Pixel Policy: There must be 7+ dead pixels in order to obtain a replacement notebook. Does it matter how they die? And does it count if you kill the pixels yourself?