We went to Outdoor World to look at something. I noticed that Outdoor World is becoming less Outdoor and more Clothy. I mean sure, clothes are good when camping ‘n stuff (emphisizing ”n stuff’) but you don’t need clothes taking up 3/4 of the store. This is Outdoor World where you should be seeing sleeping bags, fishing poles, stakes, lanterns. It’s not Mervyns. They had a selection of guns which were pretty neat.
Monthly Archive for August, 2005
I left a prank call on my friend Billy. I mean it wasn’t the annoying kind of prank call, the kind where your waiting for an important call and it’s not who you think it is. We’ve prank called each other for years until last year so I’m reviving a tradition. I called him when he was playing at Phil’s Fish Market so he wouldn’t pick up the phone. Here’s what I said.
“Hello, this is Lester Blatz from the Legal Department of the First Unitarian Council of Karioke. We have been aware that you have been infringing our copyrighted acronym. We have recorded evidence of you using the copyrighted acronym in casual conversation, emotional outburts and of course, puns. Now, all of us at the First Unitarian Council of Karioke don’t want any trouble, so we’ve just decided to sue you. We sincerely hope you have all the money ’cause we’ve already replaced all our wicker seats with brand spanking new swivel chairs. You know, we’ve decided to go 21st century and bean bags attracted the mice. OK, well, please give us a call, we’re waiting for the check.”
I thought of it when I was making a butter sauce for green beans.
I was walking down to the ‘Brary to return something and I saw in front of the Civic, they were setting up HippieFest. I don’t really get what the festival’s about. Every few weeks, people come to sell tie-dye stuff and that’s it. Quite a good way to spend government money . . . but let’s keep politics out of this.
So, I went down to Rhythm (wow! I can’t believe I spelled that right!) Fusion to look for some goat skin for my banjo. It was some fine skin and for 16 bucks. This is also my first home-made banjo so since it’s kinda a test-run, I don’t need to use the best of the best. After inspecting the skins, I left. I saw an Oud on the wall. It looks like the Baliset Gurney used on Dune!
While walking down to the lumber store to look for some hooks for my banjo (to pull the skin down), I saw a Shamisen player playing Tsugaru stuff. I wanted to listen but I wanted to get to the lumber store and get back in time for Karate so I hurried down to the lumber store and thoroughly inspected the hooks. all the long hooks were too fat to be used but I found a box of skinny short hooks which I could heat and bend into a long one. After buying a set, I hurried back to the Shamisen player hoping to listen to a bit before he left. Fortunately, he was still there.
After he finished a piece, I asked what tuning he was in. I mentioned that I tuned my Shamisen to the Shakuhachi to play the San Kyoku pieces. He let me play his Shamisen and woo! What a trip! He had a real nice pick. The edges were rounded so he could do tremelo stuff. My pick has sharp edges which make it hard to do that. He teaches Shamisen nearby so I might get a lesson.
Rrrggghhhh. . .. . . . .. .. Two days ago, my teacher showed us a Karate flyer to try to get in more students. I said that it was was good but I noticed that the description seemed more like a muscle building workout than learning Karate. You know, just a friendly suggestion. Well, Luke comes up later and says that I was criticizing him and that if I wanted to get my point across, I should be more supportive and not blunt ‘n all (he didn’t quite say that but he said I was criticizing and that I didn’t do something “right”). Basically, I should be more friendly or lie.
Well, yesterday, I was designing the headstock for my Minstrel banjo and Luke came up and said, “eww, that’s ugly.” Than he got out some paper and designed it himself, told me what it should be like (apperantly it should look like a Gibson bluegrass banjo head) and then said that it’s my banjo and I should do what I want and left. Well, pot’s called the kettle black! Not only that, you (universal ‘you.’ Like saying ‘one’) can’t just say what you think of it, say what you would do and just leave. That’s like breaking somebody’s knees (or in this case, spirit/creativity/whatever-you-want-to-call-it) and leaving. Boy, that just burns me up. You’d think he’d know better considering that he read How To Win Friends and Influence People a few times.