Katrina fools us all

So New Orleans didn't get hit as hard as everyone thought. Alabama sure got the shaft. Hurricane's suck big time.

Now, with a shorter supply of crude oil from the Gulf of Mexico, gas prices may reach 3.00 this week in places where they're not that high yet, like here.

Glad I filled up yesterday...

Shit

(picture stolen from Yahoo! News)

New Orleans is fucked.

We're probably gonna get a big piece of it too.

That is a BIG ASS hurricane...

The end of the Big Easy?

New Orleans and other Louisiana cities are being evacuated today due to the approaching hurricane (Katrina, I believe).

One of the evacuees, my brother, is coming here tonight. I remember him telling me, back when he first moved there, that there was no reconstruction plan for New Orleans, if it were to be destroyed in a hurricane. See, New Orleans was built in this big bowl of land, six feet BELOW sea level, a hurricane will fill that bowl up--likely wiping the city out, so, supposedly, the state government of Louisiana simply has no plan of rebuilding the city if it is destroyed.

I think that says a lot about cajuns: they're dumb. At least their food kicks ass.

Making fun of "emo kids" is trendy too

It seems like, for every "emo kid" out there, there's another kid whose going to make fun of them (usually behind their back, as is custom in our modern society). People usually think these kids are just trendy, or materialistic, and they're right, but when someone makes fun of these "emo kids", they're judging them by their clothing, and isn't that just as materialistic? (this is the part where you say, "Yeah, it is.")

I hate Hot Topic and Journey's just as much as the next sane person, but making fun of people's clothes is materialistic too, so when you do so, you're not any less trendy than they are.

Smoke on that for a few minutes.

Lunatics with Guns to Hunt Mexicans in Houston

Courtesy of Real Art, from the Houston Chronicle:

Leaders of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps of Texas had earlier said volunteers observing Houston's day laborers in October would carry nothing but video cameras.But leaders now say those involved in the operations targeting local illegal immigrants will be allowed to carry arms as long as they comply with all federal and state laws.

In fact, those who have a concealed-weapons permit are being offered a discount on joining the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. An Arizona-based organization, the Minutemen started out by patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border in April to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing, but the group has announced it will conduct a variety of operations here this fall.

Just what we need, more racists. Do these Minutemen have anything better to do? Don't they realize that the term "steal our jobs" doesn't make any sense? There's only one person who can take your job away, and thats your boss. They should be pissed at people who employ illegal immigrants, not the immigrants. They wouldn't be here if they couldn't get jobs in the first place, and they wouldn't get jobs in the first place if the government would punish employers for doing so.

This Maddox article would be good for those bastard Minutemen to read.

Correction: The Drafted gets Track of the Day, August 24th

Yesterday I posted that The Drafted's song "Don't Get Me Wrong" would be track of the day today on garageband.com's punk page. Well I re-read my email and realized that its not going to be Track of the Day until next week, on Wednesday.

Well its still freakin' cool, I'll post a reminder on Tuesday on all of my sites.

THE DRAFTED OWNS YOU STUPID PUNX!!!

Gaza pullout

I heard about this for the very first time today from Channel 1.

Sad that so many Israelies are getting kicked out of their homes, but at least Palestine is getting what it wants for a change. And each family that moves out on time gets like two hundred to three hundred-thousand dollars, so its not like super evil or anything.

The conflict between Isreal and Palestine is a prime example that government and religion should definately be separate. Its something that would be good for the Religious Right, and all Americans, to realize. If we could realize that, we'd realize that its a bad idea to pick sides in the conflict (i.e. Isreal), and that it plays a huge part in Middle Eastern hatred of the West.

new developments on The Choice

Today, my band director, Mr. Moore, followed up on what he was telling me yesterday. He said that getting a performance degree in music can be worthwhile if you get a Masters or Doctorate. He said if you get a Masters in music with a performance degree, universities will higher you to teach private lessons and direct their ensambles. In other words, work would consist of playing your instrument while you teach--something I could deal with.

Hey, it'd only be four additional semesters of college, and since its easier to get hired with a Masters it'd pay for itself eventually (right?). Not only did he tell me that this was possible, but he gave me examples of people who are living like this. Brian Kalke is sort of a well-known trombone player in Houston, he does well, AND (Mr. Moore says) he has a ton of free time! "Free time" would translate to: work on becoming a professional performer.

Everything seems to be falling in place very quickly.

Hopeful Beginnings

Today was the first day of school. My last first day of public school. I knew I was only going to have five classes but I had no idea how awesome that was actually going to be. I'm off 6th and 7th period. 6th period is Music Theory, so I can sit in for a lesson and get refreshed on stuff I already learned last year. Once homework starts, I'm mostly going to use my off time to get it out of the way so I have time to practice my various region music at home.

Today during 6th period I mostly hung out with Mr. Moore, and of course I wanted to talk about college. I talked about this yesterday, and said that I didn't want a music degree in education because I wanted "to PLAY dammit!". After getting the Performance Degree Speech* again from Mr. Moore, I realized some new facts. With an education degree, you don't necessarily have to be a band director, you could just be an elementary school music teacher. Of course I would probably end up teaching the kids music theory anyway, but this really made me rethink my view on which degree I want.

If I got a small teaching job, I could still have time to play my horn (or guitar) and "get that big gig", as Mr. Moore put it.

Mr. Moore explained to me that you can work towards a music education degree and still get the education that you get when you work towards a performance degree. He said all you have to do is sign up for more ensambles than are required of you and you basically do the same stuff that the performance degree people do. So you get as good as someone with a performance degree, but you have a better chance of getting a job. The only downside is, that job is teaching kids.

BUT like I said, and what Mr. Moore said, you can just get a little rinky-dink teaching job and still have time to play. Elementary school music teachers have a lot more spare time than other teachers--they don't have to grade papers! Mr. Moore also said something about how some junior highs are so small that they only have band like once or twice a week. Thats a crapload of spare time to do all kinds of stuff with your music.

Planning my musical future just got a lot less vague.

*The Performance Degree Speech:
"I could take a simple piece of toilet paper and write '(so and so) has a Performance Degree' on it, and you could get just as many jobs with that as you could with a real performance degree."
-Zeb Moore

Choosing my instrument

Well, tommorrow's the first day of Senior Year. Its time to start looking at colleges.

There's is no other choice but for me to be a music student. Music is all that I know, its all that I am. But when you get to college you've got to choose your main instrument, and I have two of those right now. I am an acceptional euphonium and guitar player. Two very different instruments that play very different styles of music. Basically, the choice is between concert band music and Jazz.

BUT before I get into that, there's a few more choices to consider. There's more than one type of music degree. There's Performance, there's Education, there's Compsition, there's Music Theory, stuff like that. With a music degree in Education, I'd obviously get a job as a band director, but I wanna PLAY dammit! I really want a Performance degree in music. One of my band directors (Mr. Moore), naturally, has already told me that a degree in performance is useless and that a degree in music education is the way to go. But I'm a better player right now than he was when he was in high school, I think I have a better chance at becoming some kind of professional musician. I know, "professional musician" is pretty much an oxymoron, but its what I want.

So, the question is, do I want to be a professional euphonium player or a professional guitarist? You could also say, do I want to play Susa marches for a living or improvise for a living. If I could play jazz guitar for a living, I'd be in heaven. But thats not an easy thing to do at ALL. In some cities, there are professional concert bands (not to be confused with the much more well-known symphonies, which don't have euphoniums). You join, you rehearse every day, you play concerts, you get a paycheck. If I had a performance degree as a euphonium player, I could find a job in a professional concert band, getting paid to play.

I've looked at the audition information for the Moores School of Music at U of H. I could probably try out in two months and be accepted. I really really don't feel like going to Lee College for two years. My trumpeter friend Joe has already told me to skip Lee College, that I'd be wasting my time. I agree with him. I may be a good enough musician for UT also, but my academics may not be up to par for them. I'm about 90% sure that I could get into U of H, and I know my parents would be okay with me going there because thats where my sister went (she also had jobs, but still). U of H has a great music program. I'd ideally try to go to Citrus College or Cal Arts or something like that but we're just not that rich.

I've basically got until at least February to decide, the U of H audition for Fall 2007 is on March 3rd. My future! Is in my hands!!!

A Tale of Today

After a bright, cloudless marching practice in the Sterling parking lot, everyone was ready to get home. I had already stalled my passengers (Savannah, Jessica, and Dylan), about ten minutes while I was at our field officer meeting, but the next stall would take the cake.

As I turned onto North Main Street from tiny Craig Street, my Ford Explorer became much more quiet and much harder to steer. Surely there was more gas in the tank than that! Obviously not. I managed to coast onto the ramp of a driveway almost directly accross from Craig Street. A little more than a quarter of the back of the car was hanging out into traffic, the rest was up on the mouth of this driveway. The residents of this house were absent and remained absent throughout the ordeal.

My friend Courtney pulled up beside us to see if she could lend some help. I told her it ran out of gas, she asked if I had a cell phone, and I did, so she drove off. I used the phone in question to contact the nearest parental figure of mine, my mom. She said to just walk down to a gas station and see if I could buy a container of gas to bring back to the car, so Dylan and I set off.

The nearest gas station was probably less than a quarter mile down the street, but instead of going to that one, we went the other way to a station that was a little more than a quarter mile down the street. The reasoning behind this is unknown even to us. As we waited for the cashier to finish helping a customer, I called Savannah's cell phone to make sure everything was still okay, and it was. The customer left as I hung up the phone and I told the cashier that I had run out of gas and asked if I could buy a tank. He said they were out and suggested that I buy a gallon of water. We headed to the back and found the water, there were no visible prices so we had to guess which one was the cheapest (I picked the brand I'd never heard of). Then we started looking for a bottle that we could fashion into a funnel. We foolishly gave that up (partly because we had nothing to cut a plastic bottle with, partly because I felt like I was in some sort of hurry, which was actually the opposite of the case) and decided to just buy the jug so we could empty it and fill it with gas.

As I walked back to the counter I noticed a few familiar-looking red containers on the bottom shelf of the very isle that we had walked down to get to the water jug. Our situation had just become 100% more ideal. Obviously the cashier was mistaken about being out of gas tanks, we were very fortunate to have spotted them. We put back the water and got a gas tank, two whole gallons. The tag on the tank said "5.99". "Okay", I thought, "how much is gas?". I looked out at the sign to see that regular unleaded costed $2.32 (this turned out to be a low price by comparisson). In my pocket I had a whopping eleven dollars, just enough to make our survival operation work.

I tried to calculate how much two gallons would cost ($4.64), but my brain was in a minor state of panic and Dylan added "don't forget about tax" (which was wrong), and at the time I didn't think I had as much money as I actually did after I bought the tank (like I said, state of panic, plus I just can't do math in my head anyway) SO: I filled the tank with $4.01 of gas.

So after we went back in and paid for the gas, we set off for the uneccesarry quarter mile trip back to the car. Alas, suddenly our situation became about 200% more ideal, as our friend Katy drove by and offered to drive us back to the Explorer. The drive back was a pretty fun little snipet of jamming to some Beatie Boys.

Fun little tid-bit for everyone's future knowledge: pouring a two gallon tank of gas into your car takes a LOT longer than you might expect.

So now with the tank being about 1.8 gallons more full, we were ready to take our chances out on the road back to Highlands, 6 or 7 miles at the most. I had to drop off Jessica and Dylan on the way. Dropping Dylan off was fun, I coasted by his driveway and he jumped out the door with his stuff so I didn't have to stop and burn more precious gas fumes.

Long story short, Savannah and I got home, I got summore money, drove back into town to Gerlands (Food Town), and filled up the rest of the tank. The end...(?)

CBGB's: Saved for Now

I've just heard that a judge ruled that CBGB's (the club where Ramones started out) cannot be evicted just yet because it wasn't their fault that they didn't know that they owed their landlord money.

However, the lease expires on the 31st and the renewal is "up in the air".

My brother's been there before, I hope it stays open for many years to come, its a freaking landmark, how could they just shut the place down? It should be protected by the city or something! The Ramones really were that important.

In the Public InterestStatement by Ralph Nader on Peter Jennings

No one was able to negotiate so skillfully the shoals of the 30 minute television evening news format than the consummate newsman, Peter Jennings.

Constrained, as all network anchors are, by minutes taken for advertisements, minutes taken for formulaic segments and the pressures of immediate ratings, Mr. Jennings managed to put more meaning and context into less time than any of his peers. His abiding sense of history contributed to his self-control during times of tragedy or triumph. He was indeed the captain of his ship for many millions of daily viewers. His sense of fairness prompted him to make personal calls to complainants.

Peter Jennings had this sense of restless excellence which will be one of the many legacies he leaves for his admirers both in his native land of Canada and in his adopted land of America.

I can't say that I have an opinion or thought about Peter Jenngings or his work so there's Ralph's.

A debate with a PETA member

The following is part of a debate I had with a friend on AIM. The identity of my friend is disclosed:

me: animals aren't any more alive than plants. so why not eat both?
(peta member): plants dont feel.. plants arent tortured. people were meant to eat plants.. not animals.
me: then why don't we have all flat teeth like cows?
(peta member): adam.. lol i dont know the answer to that. we evolved that way because of what we eat.. i dont know?
me: yes, but if we weren't meant to eat meat then we wouldn't have the desire to eat meat, like a cow or a deer [doesn't]
(peta member): i learned the facts about how the cow or deer are killed and i have absolutely no desire whatsoever to eat it.. its all perseptual.. the commericals on tv are meant to provoke you into eating a hardy burger because strong men and pretty people eat it.
me: meat tastes good to some people, they've eaten it since they were children and they like it, everyone knows an animal has to die to be eaten, it just doesn't bother some people...
(peta member): ok.. well it bothers me, so thats why im vegetarian.. if it doesnt bother you.. go on and eat the meat, its not my body you're hurting.
me: hurting?
(peta member): yeah. you dont know that burgers are bad for you? unhealthy?
me: meat isn't just burgers. meat is not bad for you
(peta member): ok, any meat for that matter, any meat is bad for you, it adds pounds and leads to heart disease.
me: eating too much of anything can be bad for you, just because meat is fattening doesn't mean eating it hurts your body

Am I missing something?