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May 2024

What a Difference Thirty Years Makes

When I went to college, I used to carry a lot of stuff with me.  I took the bus…  and I would lug around a large filing box on wheels full of sheet music, a backpack that had all of my books and stuff in it, another box that had floppies and stuff…  I carried around a lot of stuff. This was thirty years ago. I realized today that probably the only thing I’d need to carry was a tablet, maybe a laptop if I needed to do something particularly intensive,… Read More »What a Difference Thirty Years Makes

Why I Don’t Like Stellar Blade

So, if you’ve been living under a rock, you might have heard of a game called “Stellar Blade”.  As near as I can tell, it’s a game that has very little of interest to it that isn’t a female body in various states of undress or skimpy dress. That’s…  why I don’t like it. Cutting right to the chase, aren’t I? Okay, let me be clear.  It’s not out of any sense of morality.  The character, Eve, is beautiful, well drawn, well rendered, has lots of outfits apparently that show… Read More »Why I Don’t Like Stellar Blade

I Refuse to Let it End like This

Or… “How ‘Bocchi the Rock’ changed my life”. There’s a meme going around the net, or at least there had been a while ago when this anime first came out, that said “She’s just like me fr fr”. (fr is “for real”.) Gotoh Hitori (Bocchi) is not just like me.  Fr or in any other way. But there are similarities. I’ve had anxiety and some social anxiety all my life, and sometimes it’s been debilitating.  Not to the same degree as Bocchi (I’ve been able to integrate pretty well into society,… Read More »I Refuse to Let it End like This

Eufo ga suki da mon

Or… “How Sound! Euphonium changed my life”. I was looking back on some old posts on this blog yesterday, and I encountered one with a comment thread (something that never happens anymore, I wonder why… and I don’t at the same time).  In that thread, the commenter (someone named iSmarty) made some mostly accurate commentary about my personality, and not all of it was flattering. (It was delivered in a respectful tone, so I engaged and did not block or anything.  If you engage with me that way, I’m very… Read More »Eufo ga suki da mon

Fact Don’t Care About Your Feelings – But People Should.

I’ve never liked Ben Shapiro. It’s not because he’s of a particular ethnic persuasion.  I honestly don’t care about that, at all.  I don’t think badly of people for that, but I don’t think highly of them either.  It’s just a fact of birth. It’s not because he’s smart.  I mean, I’m probably just as smart (a lot more damaged in some ways, perhaps) but I tend to respect people more when they’re intelligent than when they’re stupid, or virulently stupid.  So I actually respect that, a little. It’s because… Read More »Fact Don’t Care About Your Feelings – But People Should.

Artists Don’t Think

How’s that for a clickbaity headline?  Well, it’s a general statement, but I think it’s defensible, and I’m going to try to do so, here. I related the story here, a couple of times, how my highly educated, doctorate degree, former piano teacher in college couldn’t understand how the escapement mechanism of a piano utterly precludes the idea that you can wiggle a piano key and get vibrato out of a piano.  It just doesn’t happen (well, there are digital pianos now with special keyboards that make it possible… thirty years… Read More »Artists Don’t Think

Making Sense of the Past

I took my first piano lesson in twenty years.  In that lesson, I relayed to her a story I might have mentioned here.  How there was a masterclass in my college thirty years ago, I went up on stage, and played just a few bars of a Mozart sonata.  She stopped me, said “you have no idea what the music’s about”, and sent me off the stage. Now…  at the time, I thought she was right.  To a degree, I still do.  It took me twenty years or so to… Read More »Making Sense of the Past

Gaijin Buying Kotatsu

I don’t know if this makes me an appreciator of Japanese culture, a weeb, or just someone who wastes money.  Maybe any combination of the above, or all three. But I bought a kotatsu. (It’s a little messy, I just put it together. I’ll post another pic when it’s fully integrated into my house.  All those little styrofoam fragments are always annoying.) The shipper sent it in two packages. This is the first, which is just the table.  The second will contain the quilt and, I assume, the heater.  The… Read More »Gaijin Buying Kotatsu

Why degrees don’t matter.

When I was a college student, I was a piano performance major, and one of my classes was piano, of course.  I was studying under a guy with a doctorate who styled himself a “doctor”, who had graduated from Juilliard, and was somewhat celebrated in his field.  Of course, he was a professor at a crappy college in a crappy town in the midwest, but still.  The guy was highly educated and considered one of the better pianist out there – I suppose, anyway. I remember the day when I… Read More »Why degrees don’t matter.

Transcending Failure

I have failed at almost everything in my life.  Even the things I’ve succeeded at, I mostly consider a failure. When I was a child, growing up in a cult, I was a very driven, and extremely intelligent, person.  Even at seven or eight years old I had it in mind that I wanted to start a company and be very successful.  Of course I failed at that, and I lost site of that particular dream, but what I never lost sight of was the drive.  Over my life, my dreams… Read More »Transcending Failure