Originally I set out to make this blog simply reflect my practice schedule and progression using The Stick, but I’ve digressed quite a bit. That probably won’t stop, but I should have noted earlier this week that I played a solo Stick arrangement of the Sting tune “Fields of Gold” for a friend’s wedding this past Saturday. It actually went very well, after a very short (but ultimately amicable) encounter with the Park Police who were stationed at the Jefferson Memorial in D.C. where the wedding happened. I played well, no glaring errors or fumbly fingers, but when I got done my hands started shaking like I’d never seen before. It was definitely nervous energy and not anything physical, which is good. The weird thing is, I’ve been on stage hundreds of times in front of complete strangers, family, friends, what have you — and never have I had this problem! Perhaps it was the stress of playing Stick by itself for the first time instead of in a band context.

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p>In any case the bride was very happy with the results, I got paid, and they went off to Tahiti while I went home and out to dinner with my wife, daughter, father, and his “significant other.” Only one thing to say about that, and that’s seafood is good. Ah, the hard life of a musician.

People who are arrogant really piss me off. Far better to underplay your talents and please people, than to puff yourself up and utterly fail to deliver. We have an office fathead who actually talks down to people with twice his knowledge and experience, and he can’t figure out why (a) no one likes him, and (b) he keeps getting shuttled further away from where he can do any real work (or damage). I suppose it’s not hard to guess that I was a recent target of the scorn of this person, although it was much to the surprise and chagrin of my coworkers. So I’ve been working on my “don’t sweat the small stuff” skills, which is very difficult for a type A personality like me. Breathe in, breathe out….

The incredibly talented Aimee Mann has a new album coming out tomorrow, entitled Lost in Space. Her last album, Bachelor No. 2, was critically acclaimed as one of the best albums of 2000, despite being a completely independent release, distributed by Mann’s own label, SuperEgo Records.

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p>The official site has the full album on streaming media at least until tomorrow, and you should take a listen. After the album comes out this feature may go away. I didn’t think anything would top Bachelor, but Aimee has outdone herself yet again. Like all great songwriters, she just keeps improving and topping herself. A wise and generous person will pick up an extra copy for a friend.

So I go to Best Buy, where I got an excellent deal on the new Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown collector’s edition DVD’s. $15.99 each, with a free copy of the (non-special edition) From Dusk Till Dawn DVD, which will be on eBay shortly (link to follow). So, the deal is, you get $5 back by mail if you already own the old Pulp Fiction DVD and you’re upgrading — which I am. You also get $5 back instantly (supposedly) if you’re buying both those movies together; it’s part of the promo package. But riddle me this, Batman: why does Best Buy not take it off at the register? Because they’re hoping you do exactly what I did: you fail to read the rebate fine print (and trust me, it’s quite small) and think it’s part of the mail-in deal. So you walk out and only find out later, after you’ve thrown out the receipt or what have you, that you were entitled to another $5 off, which the kind folks at Best Buy skunked you out of.

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p>Fortunately I had two things in my favor: (1) I read the fine print shortly after arriving home, and (2) I have a lovely wife who has time during the day while performing her other domestic engineering duties to address this situation. So we got our $5 back, but just let me advise you not to miss it like I did. Before you leave, make sure you use the coupon on the Jackie Brown DVD to get your instant rebate!

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p>This deal does wind up pretty sweetly: Let’s say I sell both my old Pulp Fiction DVD and the extra From Dusk Till Dawn DVD (I have the collector’s edition already) on eBay, each for $7. That’s $14 coming back. Plus I get $5 back in the mail for the upgrade option. That’s $19 total. I paid about $27 at the register once you factor in the instant $5 rebate (thanks be to wifey). So in the end I pay about $8 for two brand-new 2-disc DVD collector’s editions. Now of course in the long-term you have to add in the $20 I spent on the original Pulp Fiction DVD, which still comes out to $28 total or $14/set, which is still a pretty good value. Search out the deals!

I just bought a couple tins of Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty and words fail me in describing how truly awesome ’tis. The very fundament of free enterprises quivers at the mention of Crazy Aaron’s name! Tarry not, mortal — order many pounds today! (I chose the Lustrous Bronze and the Scarab, by the way, and my wife loves it too.)

Somewhere out there is a guy who was a student in one of my lectures at the recent GMU RCFG symposium. You were looking for a tarball of my gdd source code. Drop me a line if you read this, I would love you to take a look at it and even contribute if you have some time. Open source rules!

Sonic Foundry now has ACID Pro 4.0 out. Includes VSTi support and some other real goodies. I love SF software for Windows platforms. You’re best off using Windows XP, but 2000 will do also. (Anything less is trash… I call them “Wintendo.”)

So it’s been quite a while since I posted, but I’ve been very busy lately. I just finished teaching at George Mason University at a symposium this week and I’m pretty beat, so I’m just doing a little web surfing and decided to post a quick update here. The classes I taught went (I thought) very well and the students seemed to like them. My good buddy Thomas Rude really helped make them as successful as they were, so thanks, Thomas, if you’re reading!

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p>In other news, I am back to some more rigorous Stick practice as I try and get everything ready for my performance at a friend’s wedding next weekend. She’s getting married up at one of the historic monuments in Washington D.C., and I’m looking forward to playing there. I am going to try to do some recording this weekend as well just to get back into the musical state of mind. I was supposed to be meeting up with some old compatriots to start up a new project, but one had to cancel due to another commitment, so we will try again later. More news on that when it happens….

Visit SET Enterprises and check out their really cool games. I just bought SET, Xactika, and Five Crowns. Eleya and I played all of them this weekend and had a lot of fun.