Booyor's BLOGgh!

Gifts from fellow teachers.

Is there a place out there that’s like Blockbuster, but for books?
(Thank you, Peter and Laurel. This shall be printed and posted in the library tomorrow.)

Jeremy’s having a tough time coming up with graphics for the layout of the Joseph sermon series. Here’s my idea. (And an opening slide.)

Troy Bolton cow.

Holding the mtd J5, a handcrafted prototype, since he had burned out the battery in his blue mtd 535 that he’d been using since 1997.

Aside from doing clinics and concerts, Norm Stockton also teaches some online courses. Check them out here.

It’s all about context. Bass players are the bridge between the rhythm section and the rest of the band: lend pitch to the drum kit. (Since on most Sundays we don’t bust out marimbas. Although this past Sunday we had a whistle and congas.) Bass players who understand how to be that bridge and keep it in context will have their cell phones ring more frequently.

This afternoon I got to hang out with Norm Stockton, who is currently on tour with Lincoln Brewster.

Ponderings from his free clinic:
Groove – an establishment of a motif that is consistent, predictable, reliable, and a movement forward

Groove is important for the whole band and congregation because a bad groove (in this context of groove) is jarring and has potential to break people out of a worship mindset.

We (the bass players) are the ministers of groove. Don’t be groovicidal. Each motif should consider context rhythmically, sonically, and harmonically. All that noodling? Yeah, it’s cool for a sound check or the last two minutes after a show as people are packing up their stuff, but unless you’re playing on a stool in a coffee house, it’s usually more than you need.

Norm knows his stuff, though, about having an entire song be just the bass. His solo version of “Angels we have Heard on High” is amazing. He also played a song similar to one on the Pondering the Sushi album. Norm was able to able to break it down to, “This is what the guitar would be strumming, this part’s for the horn section, and if I played bass, this would be the part…” Keep in mind he played all of the parts on his bass, mixing hits with pops and slaps and general flurries of fingers. (And yet he was able to show the difference between a constant stream of steady slap bass 16th notes and the annoying 12 year-old at Guitar Center.)

Best part? Very laid-back. Very Flagstaff. I would totally be his friend. He opened his clinic with a humble prayer and ended by praying for the hurt and for all of the different ministries represented at the clinic. Very cool stuff.

And who doesn’t dig a bassist who is into katakana T-shirts?

We’ll have to hear from Jeremy and see if he got his photo.

After being mindblown sitting down with Lincoln Brewster

Hold on…because of the VP debate, is the Office not on this week?
(If you thought I was frustrated with politics already…)

Eagle Eye = Enemy of the State + I, Robot
Want to watch Eagle Eye at home?
Switch the two DVDs every ten minutes and every so often look at a screenshot from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I liked the movie. It was fun, even if it did borrow heavily from my favorite stories.

Now, the Heroes stream of consciousness (like Mohinder, except with less pheremones):

Rafiki’s rock paintings about Parkman are awesome.

Yes, villains! That fire guy has some of the coolest fire effects I’ve seen on a super. And the Haitian is in Germany, I guess. Villainy 101. They totally killed off Magneto too quickly, though.

“I was being awesome.” Boo to the bad sound effects in the Buster Keaton movie theater.

So sad, painting over Parkman’s happy family. And white eyes! Detective Sylar and his coffee. Decaf.

Nikki in the casket? Ah. Clones. i knew it!

“And then I’m gonna kill him.” Woot. Since we hated /got bored with Sylar, it’s intriguing how they’re re-inventing him.

Mike – with bringing down the Star Destroyer in Force Unleashed – it’s just a cutscene in the Wii version. I’ll bring the game over next time before you buy it. I enjoy the game.

Resistance 2 is the up and coming sequel to the blockbuster hit Resistance: Fall of Man. The story follows the psychotic and heroic Nathan Hale as he fights off the Chimera… and in co-op mode he gets the help of his no-name friend, who he doesn’t even know his own name he’s so random. There are no co-op games out for the consoles, which is really strange, and there are absolutely no co-op games out for the FPS genre, which is ridiculous. One of the many reasons for why Resistance as a franchise is the best of the console FPS genre is because of the offline co-op mode, and the co-op mode is taken seriously. With these co-op games, the story that you play through is the same as the single player storyline, but sometimes it is actually purposely made with variation and is amped up in difficulty.

Take a hike Grand Master Chief or whatever your name is with your wannabe Quake guy helmet.
Here’s a picture of what Halo wishes it could be:

I think that Cloverfield would have to take a timeout if faced with this:

On a side note…Per Booyor’s advice I got Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and as of today beat the game. It is very impressive, but is too short, as well as too limited as far as multi-player goes, a long with the potential it could have had had lucas arts used some common sense.
It’s all coming in November.

With both of these, a caution: It’s open to the Internet. The Internet is open to morons. Just, you know, in case you had any doubts.

If you’re like me and bored/frustrated about traditional news broadcasters, check out what Twitter and currentTV.com are doing with the debates:

Wired has a new Twitter widget, as well:

The next Hack the Debate occurs during the VP debate on Oct. 2 at current.com/debate

Sorry about that. But I consider it a good cause. I know, two politics posts in a row is tough, so if you need a breather, I’ll let you know that the Evil League of Evil is now accepting applications. Go think about that for a few minutes, and then come back.

Are you back now? Okay, good. A little cut-and-paste from the folks at Pandora:

Listeners we need your help… NOW!

Founder, Pandora

So take a couple minutes out of your day, send an e-mail to your Representative, and pass on the word to other folk.

Also: Woot! implies that all Firefly fans should buy their current product. Well, it’s obviously crazy, wild stories. But maybe…

Debates are so clumsy. If it’s not Libcoln-Douglas, I don’t want it. Okay, so if Tina Turner ran one in the Thunderdome with a Trial by Arms, I might be annoyed but, really, am I not entertained? Chi-town versus Vietnam. But really…we don’t need another hero. Should we have an alternative? Not as clumsy or random as a debate; an elegant campaign for a more civilized age.

Something that we can all get behind: anagrams. (Not to be confused with palindromes/Palin Drones.)

Who should we as a collection of nerds vote for? Let’s look at the names:

McCain/Palin

1. La Man Picnic

– Serving up La Food

2. Mac Can Nil Pi

– It could be that McCain’s not good at Math, but I’m guessing it’s Apple becoming bigger than pi itself…Mmmm…Apple Pi…

3. Am Clinic Nap

– Is that a comment about his age?

4. Calm In Panic

– Either he’s got strong military training or refer back to his clinic nap

Obama/Biden

1. Babied Moan

– To be fair, a knock on his age, as well.

2. Babe Domain

– Insert your own Clinton/JFK/FDR/Buchanan joke here.

3. Me Bob Naiad

– Me Jill Centaur. Want dance?

4. A Daemon Bib

– For Chef Ramsay’s show, right?

5. A Badmen Bio

– All of the playground politics of Hussein/Osama references finally catch up.

6. Amoeba Bind

– Possible healthcare reform. Also could be a promise of death by interstellar goo.

Okay, so this election is still crazy. But political commentators, know this: I reject your reality and substitute my own.

On the topic of nerds aging: Do you remember PC games where you had to flip to parts of the manual for different words? I think Mechwarrior had a crazy wheel like Penny Arcade mentions.

Slap Michael Scott because of the tickets. Yay, also, for not dragging out what could have been sitcom cliche at the rest stop. Much cheering in multiple households.

Check out the football recruiting.

Imagine my surprise when I browsed upcoming releases for my library.

Considering that invertebrates are in a state of open revolt and it has and always will be our firm policy to smash any invertebrate insurgents, this one got off easy.

We had hoped that perhaps the mantis would be lured by a garden. (For some reason it reminds me of Dustin Hoffman.)

The mantis must have spent significant time in Flagstaff to realize not to trust a home-grown herb garden sitting in a windowsill. (Have you seen what those “Elfin knight herbs” could mean in that song?)

My daughter was the keen observer to notice the self-righteous intruder today. (With my artsy wife catching the photos.) I should mention that something crawled on my toes while I slept last night.

While I was safe in my library, my wife and oldest approached the abomination with terms of its surrender. Certain conditions were met: the mantis was taken outside on a piece of cardboard and we would not terminate its existence, as per my wishes in accordance with the Demosthenes Treaty (it was fortunate that I’ve read more Orson Scott Card and not as much Robert Heinlein.)

My oldest had to go get her “watermelon hat” in order to protect herself. When they were carrying it outside, my daughter apprehensively told my wife, “It’s staring at me, Mom.”

Big day for all, including a second lost tooth (through age and not mantis-related causes):

And my wife and I watched Chuck Season 2, Chuck versus the First Date. “Sleeper has awakened” reference. Yay. (And Slade, you’ll appreciate that as Chuck alarm clock turns to from 6:59am to 7:00am, the radio starts playing “Power of Love”.)