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George Carlin, What I've Learned
This link to George Carlin: What I've Learned was sent to me by my dear friend, Erica. Thanks!
Goodbye, George
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George Carlin, died yesterday at age 71.
I read a tweet from Scoble and learned George Carlin had died. I was on the phone to my brother Chris within five seconds. I asked him if he was sitting and had heard the news. He hadn't. I told him.
Chris said, "Fuck!"
I replied, "Fuck!"
It seems apt.
I'm upset and saddened by Carlin's death.
No offense dad, but in a weird way, that goofy old George Carlin record was one of the first adult male influences in my young life. Growing up in Berkeley, after my parents divorce, it was my mother, my older brother, and me. Chris and I listened to George Carlin's record together over and over.
Carlin is the reason why at 5 I knew the 7 words you couldn't say on television. It's probably the first list I memorized outside of school, and can still recite it for you today.
Carlin is the reason why when I met my dad's girlfriend on a visit to Phoenix at age 5, I told her my teddy bear's name was Fuck Face. Dad still tells that story in certain company. I love it.
After a pretty big shake up in my personal life a couple years ago, when I went to reconnect with some old, classic, "Phil" things, I bought the most recent Carlin album I could find and listened to it repeatedly.
His unusual observations, his exposition on the English language, his cynicism, his obscenity, his brash political commentary, his manliness... the man himself, was an inspiration and constant delight to me.
George is an American treasure. He will be missed.
Resume
I dug up my MR8 from the closet recently, turned it on, and found it to be dead. After futzing with everything for several minutes, including the power cord, I set it aside, but left it plugged in and turned on. I don't know what possessed me to do that.
A day later, I had to move the guitar case, and bumped the surge protector plug from the wall. When I plugged it back in, I noticed the MR8 was glowing and ready to go. I guess the surge protector plug had been loose all along. Lucky!
I messed around with it the a couple of days later and recorded a musical version of a poem by Dorothy Parker, which my mother introduced me to after a long talk about suicide:
Resume
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.Dorothy Parker
The music is lifted from my favorite rif by Jason Mraz, and the melody I just made up on the fly. My apologies to everyone for the poor sound quality and cheap "drum machine". These are all one take tracks, so be kind.
Enjoy!
Timing Rubik's Cube
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I downloaded a rubik's cube timer which I've started using to time myself. I downloaded it primarily out of curiosity over the scrambling algorithms. The program uses the same algorithms as the official scramblers in competition. It's been good practice on my cube nomenclature.
As for my time? I'm averaging about 3 and a half minutes to solve. I'm not keeping track of number of moves. I use the F2L method, but not with her 43 algorithms, just with the "3 standard situations", i.e. "differing face on top", "same face on top", and "corner on top".
It's been fun to time myself. I can do under 3 minutes sometimes, if I get lucky and can skip a step. Right now I'm focusing on solving the white cross when that face is down. I use green for the front. It's helpful to keep the same face front, because you can learn the same "directions" for the faces.
I have a feeling Michelle knew it would come to this...
Make Someone Happy
3 Comments | Latest by: Matt Gray | Add Your Comment! »»
It's so important to make someone happy,
Make just one someone happy;
Make just one heart the heart you sing to.
One smile that cheers you,
One face that lights when it nears you,
One girl you're everything to.Fame if you win it,
Comes and goes in a minute.
Where's the real stuff in life to cling to?
Love is the answer,
Someone to love is the answer.
Once you've found her, build your world around her.Make someone happy,
Make just one someone happy,
And you will be happy, too.Make Someone Happy
Sung by Jimmy Durante
Eight Year Old Son
2 Comments | Latest by: Phil | Add Your Comment! »»
I'm so glad that my son is eight,
because now he's more emotionally mature than I am......and has been for four years.
Chris Harrington
my brother
Give Plasma
3 Comments | Latest by: Matt Gray | Add Your Comment! »»
I gave plasma earlier today. It made me sleepy later, but I was OK over all. I encourage you to contact your local community blood center and make a donation, especially plasma or platelets. Chemotherapy patients especially need platelets.
Update: Here's the link for Community Blood Center of South Florida. There's a link on there to the America's Blood Centers too.
You can dooo eeet!
A Service Agreement is Better Than a Terms of Service
A woman named Ariel Waldman was harassed on Twitter, and complained about it for two years. She asked them to take action because the harassment was in violation of Twitter's terms of service. Ariel sounded off about it on her blog and other people have posted about it too, like Violet Blue.
In response, after two years, Twitter has decided the best course of action is to modify their terms of service. Thomas Hawk says it's like changing the law after the fact of a crime, which doesn't help the victim.
My thought is that by having a terms of service, Twitter's stance is self-protection from the get-go. Changing the terms of service to further wash their hands of the situation is actually keeping in character with a "terms of service", if you think about it.
"Terms of service" feels like: "Here are our terms for your use of our service." Get my drift?
What's really needed for online "tools" that are going to support a community is a service agreement. In major technology contracts or services a consumer can expect what's called "service level agreement". A service agreement would have more the feel of: "Here's what you will agree to abide by with your use of the service, and in return, here's what we will do for you if there are problems."
I think more sites should adopt a service agreement instead of, or in addition to a terms of service.
Matt Is Blogging (again): It's a Songful Life
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Matt (of Matt & Phil's Band fame) is blogging (again). This time, he's at: It's a Songful Life. Matt will be discussing why he got into songwriting, talking about important and inspirational songs, and interviewing songwriters. Your truly is mentioned, and may be interviewed, who knows?!
Check out Matt's It's a Songful Life and subscribe to his feed.
Changing Comment Approval
4 Comments | Latest by: Phil | Add Your Comment! »»
The people who comment around here are typically the people who comment most around here, if that makes any sense. It's infrequent I get a comment from a new visitor.
Therefore, I'm going to make a change to the comment approval process:
- I'm making an "approved commenters" table. If you're in this table (by email addy) then your comments always go live no matter what. This will be a short list of my family and friends. Use it, don't abuse it!
- I'm going to add something where a commenter who has been approved on one post can continue to comment on that post w/o needing to be approved.
It's custom software. I can do that. I'm not a web nerd for nothing.
I still reserve the right to delete anything people put on my site with prejudice.
When will this be implemented? What do you get when you cross and elephant with a rhinoceros?
