Once You Have Learned to Play Music

I found this great rock version of Bach's Minuet in G Major on youtube.

There is a peerless sense of wonder at exploring and instrument, even after years of working your fingers delicately across its notes. The endless expression that it is capable of ought to inspire anyone with absolute wonder. So much so that I cannot imagine anyone losing that sense of amazement even after a lifetime. It's the way I believe people ought to feel about language, and probably would if it didn't spill meaninglessly out of their mouths every single day without an appreciation of exactly what it is capable of.

Archimedes' lever was language, and music is only an entirely new list of words. No greater tool has ever been used on the earth than language, and all other accomplishments were only achieved through its use.

Every single note is important, and beautiful.

Some Things Need to be Censored

I'm typing this up while I have a very tiny dog sleeping on my lap. It's extremely cozy.

Last weekend I went up to Dallas to visit my grandparents, and while I was there I saw my aunt Karen, and my uncle Greg, his wife, and my sister Teruwah. It was a really good weekend, and it was all too short before heading back home. While we were stopped in a small town and I decided to try a small bbq restaurant that I'd never tried before, Dickey's. I really want to ultimately try all the bbq that I can't get in Houston on my road trips between Dallas and San Antonio. Just so happens, though, that when we got back and went for dinner at Outback Steakhouse, the old restaurant that's been closed nextdoor to them for a long while is being turned into a... Dickey's. I thought that was amusing.

So, I beat Torchlight last night, and I've been putting in the hours to really make mincemeat out of all of Dungeon Defenders with my friend Jason. Other than that, I've really been excitedly playing Gemini Rue, which is an incredibly excellent point and click adventure game that even has mid 90's grade graphics.

If you have not seen this last thing... it is a must.



And The Moon And The Stars And The World.

The Dark Knight Rises Review

The Dark Knight Rises is an easy movie to recommend. Christopher Nolan has created another must see for anyone who has watched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and so there just isn't really much to say that will help anyone decide whether they're going to see the movie or not. The cinematography is good, the characters are good, all the actors are good, the action is well paced and explosive, the toys are cool, the ideas are even good, and the movie as a whole is pretty good, even though after all of this is where it starts to fall apart a bit. This movie with a very difficult to shorten name is probably around as good as Batman Begins, maybe a little worse, maybe a little better depending on your tastes and which problems bug you more.

I really want to emphasize how much I like this movie early on, because it's where I come down finally and officially. It's a good movie, and I enjoyed it on a number of levels, and I really want that to stick when I say what I have to about this movie. The basic setup for this movie without giving away anything that isn't in the trailer or the first five minutes is that Batman has well and truly retired from crime fighting. His crime fighting actions seemed to be unnecessary after legislation was passed in the name of Harvey Dent, based on the lie that he died a sane and not criminally insane shining example of all the great qualities the city needs, legislation that allowed Gotham to lock away the entirety of its mob problem into Blackgate Prison. Selena Kyle(who is never once called cat woman, which was kinda cool) is running around the city as a bit of a wildcard, and Bane arrives with some dark motives.

The opening starts off with some great ideas. The entire peace of Gotham based on vigilantism and lies being a reckless and fragile peace, and there is a lot of promise there. Unfortunately, this and a lot of other great ideas that develop in the movie tend to fail to come to a really well executed fruition. Maybe about five of eight great ideas are solidly delivered. A lot of the problems are built into the execution, and I honestly don't know what happened, but some of the execution just felt lazy. The opening of the movie is just a one two punch of characters looking at each other and asking overly verbose questions that spell out the important events from previous movies. It's not like this sin has never been committed by a good movie before, and it certainly doesn't drag this movie down much. The reason I mention it is because it's just a good example of the way the movie tends to slip up when it does.

There are some passing ideas about class warfare and some picket sign statements about the excesses of the wealthy in there for motivation, but they're never really given the touch of importance that makes them significant to the movie. The pacing is off a bit, and in one or two places that I simply can't talk about it, they did some things that were supposed to be a nod to fans of the comics, but they even managed to make that feel heavy handed and wrong.

All that said, while it's a bit of a mess, it only feels that way in that the ideas that didn't work or come together well were so good that you can see how great this movie would have been if they had. It's like it was one off of being a cut above even The Dark Knight. None of the problems are glaring though, and the Dark Knight Rises is still very easy to recommend to anyone as an enjoyable movie overall.

I'm Like Beef Jerkey Coated in Chocolate

I didn't sleep on tuesday night. Partly because I didn't have to. I had wednesday off and I knew I could stay up as late as I wanted and sleep as late as I wanted. I didn't sleep at all last night, though. And I had work at 7 this morning. It's raining outside, and I'm surrounded by this constant cascade on the roof and door and walls and window. It's beautiful in so many ways. I don't think not having to work is why I didn't sleep on tuesday. I think it's the same reason I didn't sleep last night.

I guess I lost another friend. Mostly I was wondering if there was anything I could have done differently, or should have done differently. I started thinking about all the times I've lost people I was close to before. When you see one friendship go down in flames you start to think of all the ones that have. This wasn't the biggest one, in fact, it was relatively minor. But it got me thinking.



So I ended up laying in bed with my eyes closed and just trying to will myself to sleep, and to dream. Not just any dream, though. I wanted to dream of flying. It's some of the happiest dreaming I've ever had. I remember throwing myself at the ground and missing. It was exactly like Douglas Adams described it in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. You throw yourself to the ground and you just lazily lift up. You can't steer, just.. drift.. fast or slow or up or down. I wanted that.

You can't ever go home again. That's not always a negative truth. For me, once I start caring for someone I can't ever stop, I think, and that's a good feeling, because caring is passionate and beautiful. I move on, and I get distanced, but I don't stop caring. You can't ever just be strangers with someone ever again. You know who they are in their head and when you know that, you only need five minutes and it's like they were never gone. You can't ever undo that kind of friendship, even if something comes between you so big and so disruptive that they can't ever be around you ever again.

Anywho. Maybe I'm going to try and get some rest at work.. maybe do some sleeping to the sound of rain falling. Good night, all.