22. Tings Nov 22

(5:09 pm Nov 22, 2005)

Serious low voltage blues today. Serious. No really, I'm serious, really serious.

The UPS is fully run down. A voltage dip and BAM! Sol went off. I am now having to try and work on Ports instead.

Rope.

Rope. Line. Lasso. Tensile but don't look for compressive. Twenty feet. Heavyweight string. That's funny. Sorry, no canned laughter for that though. Cordage. Line. Chain. Bigger than one inch. Frozen rope. Riata. Lariat. Rawhide. Grass. Leather. Nylon. Forty five inches. Sinew. Skipping.

So. This may be tough. Cut off from my trusty Sol. Trying to write on Ports. same basic setup, but the keyboard is spongy. The mouse is too small. The screen is smaller. The keyboard has to sit on the desk at the wrong height.

I am afraid to tell you t hat I was wrong. A new day has come but I can't honestly say (or write:)

***** Block Successfully Removed *****

in all capitals and so I am afraid that perhaps you should not read what is to come until you find that phrase, in that form.

I think my brain not only has a block, but it has been tied with rope. Strong rope.

I like rope. I like lines. That big rope is really something special. You know, the kind you see in use when the big ships dock. The kind you can find washed up on the shore.

Oh, the things you find washed up on the shore. The romance of the things you find washed up on the shore.

(5:40 pm Nov 22, 2005)

I especially like the glass balls. Oh, and the messages in the bottles. The messages you get in bottles. They can be real doozies. Yes, some can be very romantic, others though, no.

---

Melody was going to rehearsal tonight. Well, a bit more than rehearsal actually, it was to be a rehearsal session for sure, but also a session for the writing of new and original music.

Melody especially liked working on the creation of new songs. She really enjoyed the creative process and working with creative people.

She liked the tunesmiths and the wordmen. She liked the interaction between them. How one fed another. How one idea sparked another which then sparked yet another until the very air was alight and crackling with creative energy. Plenty energy. (You think those BEC boys need to hire some musicians to help them with their low voltage issues? Maybe they could hire the junkanoo groups to march in the power plants and boost the power in the lines. What do you think on the matter gentle reader?)

Melody hadn't told Bruno this yet, but she was not opposed to MIDI on principle. In Melody's experience, there was good MIDI and there was bad MIDI. She wondered if Bruno had just always run into bad MIDI in his travels. Or perhaps he saw some fundamental flaw in all MIDI that she was not seeing in the good MIDI. She would have to have that discussion with him at some point.

(5:56 pm Nov 22, 2005)

Plug.

Plug. Stop up. Seedling. Jack. Promo. Cigar. Well. Volcano. Twenty One. Shoe. Male. Popularize. Coin. Hot side. Lure. Side to side. Bung. End the guitar cord. Not the guitar chord mind you, just the cord. Transplant. Chew. Spark. Keep plugging away just like me my friend and you too can do it. Hydrant. He plugged him right between the eyes. Power. Plugins. Extra functionality. Extensions.

These words weave in and out in their various guises and make life interesting, don't they?

(6:06 pm Nov 22, 2005)

(6:15 pm Nov 22, 2005)

The group Melody was getting together with tonight were hoping to bring some of their new songs to The Buzz soon. They were not ready to go to the practice sessions there yet though. They were also hoping to talk to the proprietors about allowing recording of their sessions from the house board. Recording of their session both by themselves and by the audience or more precisely, by their fans, current and soon to be won. Their plan was to make their music copyleft as well. They were going to start with a CC BY-SA license and keep their eyes open in case something better came along.

If those other bands could develop such a following from allowing bootlegging, what were the possibilities for a band willing to allowing bootlegging which resulted in copyleft recordings? The potential was huge as far as they were concerned. Sure, there would be many nay sayers, but there had been many nay sayers when it came to the GPL and look where things were today. If they could do even a fraction of what some of the Free Software packages had some, they would be cruising.\

If it worked out, they wanted to call the recordings "The Buzz Sessions" and they would have to work that out with the club's owners as well. They did not expect too much problems on the naming front. After all, you could look at it as a plug for the club. Some in the group wanted "The Buzz Cut" instead, so it was still a bit up in the air in any case.

Melody was excited about the idea. She knew Bruno was into this sort of thing as well although they had not discussed this particular angle before.

(6:22 pm Nov 22, 2005)

(6:28 pm Nov 22, 2005)

It would have been nice if he could have been here tonight, but he was off promoting live music and freedom and also trying to write. The looming deadline was making him increasingly edgy. melody was not phased though, she had been around creative types all of her life and not much that they did in the throes of creation bothered her anymore. She just sort of went with the flow. Smiled and said that's nice and went on about her own things. She expected some of that fun at the session tonight even.

(6:36 pm Nov 22, 2005)

Grease.

Grease. Lightning. Lubricate. Oil. Fatty. machinery. Plug. Shear thinning. Viscosity. Get the pan ready. Soap thick. Rancid. Quiet. Friction. Sebaceous glands. The wheels of commerce. The palms. Slick. Slippery. Rack.

(6:43 pm Nov 22, 2005)

---

Sometimes, palms had to be greased. It was seldom a pleasant thing. However, some tended to look on the bright side. The fact that palms need to be greased gave and advantage to those willing to provide the lubrication compared to those uppity set that refused to do any greasing. This, to their minds could be a good thing. The silver lining as it were. And if managed right, the windfall could far exceed the cost of the lubricant. there was always the danger that the greasee would catch on though and start looking for a fuller greasing. Or even worse, a proportional greasing. Those set were generally considered to be getting to slick for their own good and measures would often be taken. Parts needing and accustomed to grease tended to suffer greatly when the lubricant was withheld. There could be overheating and even permanent damage. Sometime even, the part would have to be replaced. Once the facts of life were explained to the parts though, they generally settled down and were happy with minor applications of grease from then on. All in all, a decent system for all t he players. Like I said, a silver lining.

Then we have the greasy pole, the greased pig, and greased wrestling. No, not Greek wrestling, greased wrestling. Exactly like mud wrestling, but different.

(6:52 pm Nov 22, 2005)

Bruno was sitting in front of a part that wanted greasing at this very moment.

You may wonder how I know this when he has not officially come back to work yet. Fair thought. I have sent Nano after him as a spy and am getting reports back via encoded family band radios. Quite ingenious actually, if I do say so myself.

I hated to break up Nano and Drake like that, but they kept fooling around so much that we were getting nowhere with them. If I can keep my threads together for the rest of the night, Drake should pop up somewhere unexpectedly. At least in a place where I least expect him to.

Man, these low voltage blues are still hitting hard. My AC, it won't kick in and it's getting hot in here.

I need to go open up a window or something. (Wink, wink.)

OK, so the window is open and the ceiling fan is on. What? You though I meant something else?

I got da low voltage blues.
Hey BEC, ya messin wit me.
Give me da power!
Give me da power!

Yes, gentle reader, the block is still here. I am doing my best and struggling mightily but it remains still. I know I talked last night about performing radical block removal surgery on myself, but truth be told, and as I hinted at or outright mentioned last night, it scares me greatly. I am not sure I want to go messing about in my head with sharp objects in hand.

(7:07 pm Nov 22, 2005)

Albert.

Albert. Von Boatschnegle. Albert. The Lithuanian Barber. Uncle Albert. The venerable soldier crab. Exactly like the Venerable Bebe, but different. Although, they were both apparently interested in the histories of their people. I am not sure anyone besides myself and my devoted readers are interested in the Pre-Northumbrian coracle building economy though. (See Bahamascare Flight 1066.)

Alberts are fairly prominent in history. I am not sure if the Bebe wrot of any though. I will take a short break to see if Project Gutenberg has any help for me on that question.

brb

That's Be Right Back for those old fogies reading this in the dead tree edition. I hope no one prints the dead animal edition.

They seem to have:

Bede, Cuthbert, [pseud.], 1827-1889

Venables, Edmund, 1819-1895

I don't see anything under T for the, is it only Batelco that plays that game?

A search of the site for bede only brings up the bede already found. So, how to check. I will ahve to leave that up to you gentle reader, as I have my quotas to complete and you acn read faster than I can write I am sure.

(7:22 pm Nov 22, 2005)

(7:33 pm Nov 22, 2005)

Will I ever achieve a state of flow again during this month? A state where the words come rushing out of my fingertips onto my lcd screen? (With suitable funkyness in between naturally.)

OK, so Uncle Albert was getting wound up by the lack of progress in locating the caveman and the wayward soldier. Big Sal could hear it in his voice. Big Sal was worried. He had never seen Uncle Albert in this state before.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

"That, Big Sal, is a quote that has particular relevance to our problems right now. Never mind how, you just have to trust me on this one. Do you trust me?"

"Uncle, you know I trust you, but if we don't find those two soon, we are going to self destruct. All of out operations are shut down or on hold while we are searching. We are bleeding money. The outflows are huge and the inflows have dried up completely. Somehow, word has gotten around town that we are distracted right now and people have cut off their automatic transactions. We can't afford the time to go around and persuade them of the error of their ways right now and so others are becoming bold as well. The trouble is spreading."

"Sal, give me one more night, if we don't have any results, take your soldiers off the hunt and put them back to work, Just leave me with a skeleton crew and Bing and Boom to continue working for me on the search. I will go over the old tales one more time tonight to see if I can find something I might have missed."

"OK, Uncle, one more night, just one more night. That's all I can spare. We face total collapse if I try to push it further."

(7:48 pm Nov 22, 2005)