| Fall has fallen |
[22 May 2012|01:00pm] |
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Crisp fall AM == nice ride. Prolly about 50f/10c on the ride in this AM, but clear and sunny. Nice and bracing day for a ride. Makes wearing all the leather a good thing. On a hot summer day it's rather stifling in all the gear.
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| Prosopagnosia, I haz itz |
[19 May 2012|10:56am] |
This.
Along with a few other symptoms of Aspergers and High Functioning Autism, I definitely have this. Particularly with folks I don't see regularly; I need some sort of contextual cue to figure it out. Point being, if you run into me somewhere random (like, anywhere other than where we may normally cross paths-and even where we do cross paths if we haven't for a long time), I may seem like a complete stuck up dick. I'm not. I'm just totally unable to figure out why you look slightly familiar for some nagging reason. And because I don't quite have the ability to properly place it, I'm probably hoping you'll come over and give me some sort of clue-if you don't, I'll just figure I've got you mistaken with somebody else (who I also can't quite place)...
It's rather a pain in the ass, really.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia
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| Why live music won't die |
[18 May 2012|04:48pm] |
Props to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) danjite for the link.
Good writeup. Opera context, and how the live performance has that magik that recordings do not. Some damned good work by Gilmore in her met debut as well. This illustrates well the pure showboat skill styling (also popular with Yngwie, Paganini, etc). The other side of that coin was brilliantly mined by The Grateful Dead; individual musicianship was sometimes a bit ho-hum, but the collaborative creative on-the-spot output would often take an average song and turn it into a spectacular live moment. That's partly why so many (including yours truly) devoted years to touring, just to catch those moments.
ihnatko.com/2012/03/02/rachele-gilmores-100-mph-fastball/
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| Good and bad news all in one shot |
[16 May 2012|04:27pm] |
The good news: Hunter made the Onslow Jr Physics team, and will go to Hobart AU to partake in the competition.
The bad news: Now we gotta come up with a wad of cash to get him there...
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| Science! |
[13 May 2012|06:09pm] |
Junior Physics Project: without external apparatus, find the most efficient way to drain fluid from a bottle
After research and discussion, the researcher concluded the primary bottleneck(sic) to efficiency is pressure equalization between the vessel and ambient. Therefore, in consultation with the researchers Grandfather, it was determined best performance could be achieved in a vacuum. Due to the unfortunate lack of naturally occurring vacuums, the next best solution was found to be creation of a vortex.
Experiments were carried out using previously loved bottles of Stella Artois, Monteith's Summer Ale, and Waiwera water, 300ml, 330ml and 1.5l respectively.
Initial averages of results indicate the creation of a vortex resulted in a performance improvement of approximately 50-60%.
At the conclusion of the tests, the assistant carried out a further test, consuming the contents of a 330ml bottle of Monteith's Summer Ale. The results were approximately 50% less efficient than pouring the fluid down the drain, but observations indicate considerably more pleasurable for the assistant. Insufficient experiments were performed to ascertain whether the researcher's chanting of "Ziggy socky ziggy socky hoi hoi hoi" during the experiment helped or hindered the assistants performance. Further experimentation is clearly required to clarify this important scientific principle.
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[13 May 2012|03:35pm] |
At 4:50 in this clip-Fouts says he can only imagine getting hammered by Seau, wiseass in the crowd yells "ask Elway", and the place erupts. Brilliant.
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| Seau memorial |
[12 May 2012|03:54pm] |
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Excellent moment from the Seau memorial... Dan Fouts (who retired 3 yrs before Seau joined the team) talked about how he could only imagine how it felt as a QB getting plowed over by Seau and then laying there on the turf watching Seau's victory dance. John Elway attended the memorial (class act for a donkey, by the way); somebody in the stands hollered out "Ask Elway!". Nice. Speaking of class: LT was excellent, and so was Spanos announcing the official retirement of #55.
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| The '92 LA riots, 20 years on |
[07 May 2012|01:21pm] |
20 years ago, I watched with horror the live cover on local news while Reginald Denny got the living crap beaten out of him-like many I thought he was a dead man; an extreme case of wrong place at the wrong time, poor bastard. I was living with my grandparents and attending El Camino College (polytech, for the kiwis). While I thought it plausible that the rioters might raid Palos Verdes, I did figure that our place was hard enough to find (even when you're invited and trying to get there with specific instructions) that we wouldn't get hit. But this photo from our living room shows the view. We looked out over the entire LA basin. With a good pair of binoculars you could make out a lot of detail over there while the city burned. Just across the street from El Camino, the shoe shop got looted. It was a bit close for comfort.
I'm not so sure we've made much progress. If anything it seems the social conditions have gotten worse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Los_Angeles_riots
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| On Bataan... |
[05 May 2012|01:30pm] |
When I first brought Death March Of Bataan to the boys in the band, they promptly dubbed me Professor Ed and started cracking jokes about tests on Friday...
It's a fair cop, guv. So, linked below is a pretty good docu vid about Bataan. Coincidentally the actual march was almost exactly 70 years ago, but that's just fortuitous timing. I've thought it would make a great subject for a metal song since about 2007 or so. The Pacific theater didn't get the attention that the European one did during the war, and it was considerably more brutal in many aspects. And good ol' New Zealand played a big part; the 1st Marine Division staged from Queen Elizabeth Park (trivia: also used in Return Of The King for some closeup shots of the Battle of Pelennor Fields) which is just 10ks up the road from my house in the suburbs of Wellington. They launched directly from here to Guadalcanal, then continued on to Peleliu, and Okinawa. They would have been invading the mainland were it not for Hiroshima and Nagasaki bringing about the surrender.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQWdETwFACs
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| Fear and loathing in WLG |
[03 May 2012|07:36pm] |
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I got stuck behind a motorcade between Customhouse Quay and Oriental Pde this morning on the way to work. Being on the Harley I snaked my way up to the front of the queue (replete with the tail end charlie cop sticking his hand out the window to wave me down, heh). Noted the cade-ed ride had a US flag. Musta been the ambassador heading to WLG to pick up Napolitano. Can't say that the idea of the Dept of Homeland Sec visiting NZ exactly fills me with happiness. Something tells me this can only mean more protection from teh evil terroristz that are file sharing. After all, how many real threats to the US come out of little old NZ... Dotcom and Megaupload hardly count. http://newzealand.usembassy.gov/napolitano.html
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| RIP mate |
[28 Apr 2012|10:16am] |
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/hutt-valley/6805202/Biker-killed-after-hitting-barrier-named
One of the comments describes the accident, sounds as if he lost control and sideswiped the cheesegrater (hate, hate, hate), and the grater caught the bike flipping it into the air. From his description it sounds like the actual cause of death was head injury into one of the supporting posts. Strange to see photos of the bike. That afternoon a few weeks back he and I swapped rides for a bit, rather a contrast between my very rough and ready Ironhead and his smooth as slik Evo. I suppose odds are pretty good that I was the last person other than him to ride his bike before the accident.
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